Ralphinsc

1 hour ago, island lady said:

I am missing something here.  Was this upgrade with Royal Up?  If not, did they give you a reason to for changing your cabin and upgrading you?  

 

The magical upgrade fairy (the free one) was killed off by her $$ sister the Royal Up fairy years ago.  

The reasoning, as best I can make out from myself and others in rooms near me, is that they removed our block of rooms from inventory altogether over several cruises. I'm not sure whether that is due to staffing, being a new location for "quarantine" rooms, or some other reason. I personally thought their idea of an upgrade would be to and inside on a higher deck or to at best a virtual balcony or promenade view room. We had already turned down the Royal up process a couple of months ago. 

On 4/22/2022 at 2:13 AM, Merion_Mom said:

 

 

 

11 a.m. IS the earliest.

They did have a few 10:30's open up after check-in started. We swapped to one of those. So maybe 10:30 is the new 11:00..... lol

On 4/21/2022 at 10:28 PM, CruiseLover15 said:

I didn’t know they could flag your cruise as a back to back.  I have one in September and need to see if it is flagged.  

We had them do that when we booked it. did it over the phone to ensure it. I guess it didn't really account for much of anything in the room reassignment, but we are fine either way.

On 4/21/2022 at 9:37 PM, Sunshine3601 said:

Nice free update!   B2bs are always nice.    Did you happen to check website to see if either cabin is available for both cruises?  If not, no biggy they will help move you.

 

Have a great cruise🤩

 

I wonder why they are moving a lot of people around this week.  

We did. no dice. But either way, not a problem. Upgrade was definitely more than what we expected, so definitely dried up any tear that may have formed in my eyes. LOL

On 4/23/2022 at 5:26 PM, Capt_BJ said:

https://www.parkportcanaveral.com/   $11.75/day with ressie

 

https://parkncruiseportcanaveral.com/  11.95/day with ressie

 

both less than a 10 minute shuttle ride from the terminals (unless the draw bridge opens)

 

sidebar .....

 

the port's parking is notorious for not keeping track of 'back to back' parking charges .... dunno if they have fixed that .... nor do I know if the popular off-site places keep track ..... 

Almost willing to gamble on the back to back parking glitch. But I still think either way, it would be worth it to us to park on site. We have a 10:30 check in so I hope we can find parking in the garage. 

13 hours ago, capriccio said:

Have you looked at the official website for Port Canaveral?  https://www.portcanaveral.com/

 

The parking, directions, and rates page is https://www.portcanaveral.com/Cruise/Cruise-Parking,-Directions-Rates

Thanks! Should of thought to look there. I'm guessing from the website that it is going to work exactly like my cruise at Terminal 6 did a couple of weeks ago: taking a ticket as you enter and paying as you leave.

11 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

It does seem to vary by ship.  Giovanni's has a steak that IMO can rival the best on the ship, but unfortunately for the OP Symphony doesn't have that restaurant, with Jamie's being the Italian offering instead.  And they are 50/50 in our experience. Although I do like their Lasagna!  All subjective again, of course.

We had Jaime's for a lunch on our Symphony sailing and they just about fed us to death. 🤣 I had no real complaints; but then again, I'm a fairly easy to please person.

4 minutes ago, baelor said:

Thanks.  Everything on the menu seemed pretty mainstream to us, so I think it will be a good chance to get food presented in a new way and have a bit of a show with our meal!

If you aren't against spoilers, you can find some good youtube review on Wonderland. We liked everything there the last time we went, even the picky 14 year old.

As you may have caught on, Wonderland is about presentation and kind of caters to an adventurous palate. I wouldn't recommend it to someone who isn't into trying different things. It is a great one and done restaurant, except for dessert (lol). If you have never done it, I would definitely try it. But I wouldn't rank it above 150CP, Hooked, Jaime's, or Izumi. Chops can be hit and miss. 

Oh No! So sorry to hear this!

There were no printed fun times on our 5 day Elation cruise 4/2. Everything was on the hub app. For that matter, there were no printed dinner menus, bar menus, etc. Almost everything that would normally be printed was on the app and it was a pain to pull up; especially since the Internet was downright abysmal on the ship. 

54 minutes ago, Hutcha said:

Where are you on our June 12th cruise?

Deck 8, midship oceanview balcony. We did have an inside right by the elevator bank at the forward entrance to Central Park for both legs of the Back to Back. But apparently they took all of those rooms out of circulation for serval cruises. We were moved to a forward/midship balcony right near that same elevator bank for the 6/12 cruise and and the aforementioned aft area balcony for the 6/5 cruise. 

They ended up moving us from a 4V inside to a 1D Oceanview balcony for each leg of our B2B. Unfortunately, they are not the same room for each cruise. But they are on the same deck and are a pretty solid "free" upgrade so we will be OK with ours despite having to swap rooms out between cruises. Hate to hear your party was split, OP. I hope you guys get it resolved.

2 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

The stairs are crew only unless energency. They open up onto deck 7 rock wall. Then outside stairway to the BW

 

Not to say I didnt occasionally take them when we spent 12 days in the deck 8 aqua suite. Easy way to get to Johnny Rockets. Not sure I'd do it if any higher.

 

What deck are you on

We are on 8, just a couple of rooms down from that very suite. I'll take it into advisement about the relative accessibility of the stairs. Wouldn't want to be caught being naughty. Thanks!

We just got "upgraded" to a fairly close to the rear aft balcony on Harmony for our June 5th cruise and were looking at the deck plans. It seems a decent walk to the aft elevator bank but we are right near the end of the hallway near the Aqua Suite. Noticing some "blank" areas on the deck plan and wondering if there is a far aft stairwell there that comes out on the boardwalk. It seems like that may be the case looking at doors in videos and considering evacuation routes to muster stations. Just looking for confirmation. 

OK, It looks like we did get updated room assignments and two of my three fears were at least alleviated so I am going to enjoy the flow and not complain. Rooms are not the same for both cruises, that's the bad out of the way. We were able to do online check in tonight, thank goodness; even though an 11:00am check in time is not our most ideal it was the earliest available. And we did a decently nice upgrade, from a 4V interior to a 1D ocean view balcony for each cruise. That'll definitely keep me away from dialing the phone or taping myself to my preferred stateroom door. Rooms are at least on the same floor and same hallway, though one is more mid-ships and one is quite far towards the aft. 

We'll live with it, we will rebuild, I'll cry about it through tears while looking at the ocean out my unexpected balcony cabins. 

And I'll make the wife repack our luggage for the move........... 🤪🤣

We just had the same thing happen for our Harmony cruise B2B for June 5th and 12th. We had a deck eight interior by the forward elevators and the entrance to Central Park. Anxious because we really wanted to keep the same room for both cruises. 

We loved our Central Park balcony on the Symphony in 2019. Pretty nice at night.

16 minutes ago, NSnewcruiser said:

We were moved from an interior to a boardwalk balcony. It was worth it.lol

I could live with that if it turned out true. Maybe even different rooms. We turned down some pretty inexpensive RoyalUp offers to go to interior balconies because we really wanted to keep the same room. But if we have no control over it, hopefully we can at least get moved to something like that. Holding out hope.

Just had an e-mail drop in our box today advising us that the room we selected for our back to back Harmony cruises in June is no longer available and that we will be getting reassigned to an "upgraded" room. Kind of a bummer because we really did enjoy the location we had selected and we had a room that was going to be unchanged for both weeks. Not really holding out much hope of them keeping our bookings flagged as a B2B with our request for the same room. I guess my question is if anyone has had their room moved for an "upgraded" room, has it been a worthwhile move? Kind of bummed but we are holding out hope we get at least a solid category upgrade for each cruise. Not looking forward to having to possibly repack and move rooms on turnaround day. Keeping fingers crossed. I'll update as we get further info on our new room assignments. 

We have upcoming cruises in June on the Harmony of the Seas. We will be driving down and wanted to check in on parking information. Is the lot(s) at Terminal 1 pre-paid or pay upon exit? Tried the search function but is doesn't narrow this down too well. Just ensuring we will have the ins and outs with parking there for our back to back.

13 minutes ago, baelor said:

Our August sailing price went from 66 to 73.  This is our first time sailing, and one of us has gotten cold feet about the new price.  Is a drop possible/likely? 

 Not looking like it at the moment. bookings are running hot right now and they are probably not having any problem getting their add ons sold. Hoping this is not the new normal in pricing, but afraid it might be. I think Carnival and NCL's prices for drink packages are also going up. 

47 minutes ago, jlabs03 said:

Thanks for the review and the video. I had the poolside cabana booked but was on the fence because I was worried about the noise. Based on your video I switched our cabana to the ocean cabana. 

You are welcome. I wanted to make sure that I caught the music and the noise in the review, even if it didn't make for the best video. It worked fine for us, but it definitely is not everyone's cup of tea. We likewise decided against the Ocean cabanas because they are so far away from everything else and we really did not like the water quality in Amber Cove as compared to most other Caribbean ports. 

Here's a good semi-recent vlog for water island / dinghy's / snorkeling. It is still in our plans as of right now. The boat traffic seems to be funneled into the north side of the beach; at least that which would interfere with snorkeling for sea turtles.

https://youtu.be/0AJ0vkCx5ss

Ferry service from Crown Bay is fairly consistent on either the half hour or hour mark. From the drop off, Honeymoom Beach is about a quarter mile walk, or much more conveniently a tram ride from the Dinghy's beach bar bus that will drop you off at Dinghy's right on Honeymoon Beach. There are other beaches on the island, but they do not really have much service and I am unfamiliar with how to get to them. The loungers and tram to Dinghy's is free. Of course, they expect you to patronize their facility. There used to be a second place to get food and drinks on Honeymoon Beach, but I'm not sure if they are back open yet or not.