akcruz

We had the corner aft cabin on Vision and absolutely loved the view and the balcony. We usually do spend quite a bit of time on our balcony and having this one was wonderful. Personally I prefer watching the wake to the side view.

For us the walk didn't seem that far and as others have mentioned it was great to work off those extra treats. We did feel a little bit of vibration but nothing annoying at all.

Oh, and regarding the superstructure blocking the view, this is not on all ship classes, and not even every cabin on those classes.

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It is called PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY! You are the parent - 24/7. I don't care if you are 'on vacation' you are still responsible for your child. I cannot believe the lawyer suggested that it was understandable that the parents were in vacation mode, and let their guard down. Seriously? If anything, my maternal instinct increases when away from home - not relaxes!

 

Just how many lifeguards does this woman expect the cruise ship to employ? Because here is an amazing fact - kids can wander in, and drown in the adult pool too. How about the hot tubs? On ships the size of Oasis there are numerous hot tubs. Are we going to have a lifeguard posted at each and every water source 24 hours a day? Or are you going to drain all the pools of water each night?

 

This lawsuit is crazy - simply a way for the parent to relieve some of the guilt she feels for her poor parenting choices. Blame the cruise line, and then I won't feel so bad since it wasn't 'really' my fault. The real victim here is her child who is the one who is suffering the consequences of her carelessness.

Agree. When I saw the comment in the article about relaxing since the parents are on vacation, my first thought was no way, I was much more vigilant with my kids when some place we were not familiar with. Not an excuse at all, and definitely the victim here is the child who will most likely suffer as a result of this incident for the rest of his life.

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I have left the luggage tag to the porters for the past 12-15 cruises. It takes on average an indiscernible amount of time. They do it as they take your luggage. It adds no time to your drop off.

 

Going to Staples on vacation.... Just crazy.

What does it matter how the OP wants to spend their time? I am sure there are things you do on your vacation others would think are crazy and a waste of time.

We all gave them various suggestions now for them to decide what works best for them. Personally I would rather take care of the tags before getting to the port, have done it there in the past and not my preference, but I do understand that may not be everyone's preference.

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Not to pile on as I am sure you are already feeling bad enough but you were given 2 options that you declined. You chose not to take either so now you are owed nothing. Very expensive lessons learned.

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Yet another head scratching waste of time on vacation....

So taking 2 minutes to ask for copies vs having to wait in line for a porter to make them up for you is a waste of time? We found we were one tag short on a recent cruise. Had plenty of holders just not enough of the actual tag. Was a good use of my time, to me, to get a copy at the hotel front desk while coming back from breakfast.

To the OP, no need to worry you can get copies if you like of have the porters fill them out for you. Enjoy your cruise.

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How can anyone be skipping a tip that is already included in the daily auto gratuity?

Room service is not included in the daily auto gratuity. It is expected that if you use room service, which many do not, you tip at that time.

Another situation where you can likely thank your fellow passengers. My guess is they are finding people ordering after 10 and either not responding when it gets to their cabin or skipping a tip altogether. Whether that is due to falling asleep, having imbibed too much or something else who knows. Remember however, the 3.95 does include the tip so depending on what you are ordering it may not be too bad.

Either way not a good thing.

DH and I have sailed for the last 25+ years and were thrilled when MTD came about. For the most part, traditional dining for us was a bust. Many evenings of awkward conversations or complete silence between tablemates. With MTD, we can be by ourself but usually close enough to other tables for two to carry on conversations if we so choose. We also eat early enough to catch the shows. There have been a couple of times where we were waitlisted and didn't clear so back to tables with awkward conversations [emoji15]

Agree, we switched to MTD after a few awkward tablemates, or complete no shows. We got tired of sitting at a large table basically on our own. We have asked to be seated with others in MTD but have never had the opportunity to. We find with the tables as close as they are with 2 we can talk to others if both tables are amenable. If we have a larger group we stick more to our own table. We can also get in and out of the dining room much quicker than traditional leaving us with more time for other activities. We do most of our conversations with others at the various venues.

It is possible that it is already booked because I made reservations for my July 28 sailing. Good luck!

Yep, we have made our reservations for August so they may be full for pre booking. Head there right after boarding to see what they may have open for onboard booking.

We had a balcony cabin that had a sofa bed and pullman. There aren't many. Either check the deck plans or give them a call and see what is available in the category you are looking at.

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Woo hoo!! So glad it all worked out for you. Enjoy that balcony and don't worry about all the naysayers here.

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If you don't get the cabin you originally booked, keep that JS...much nicer space!

Have you ever stayed in one of the corner afts on Vision? I have and would give up a larger cabin for that larger balcony. I was out there so much more than in my cabin.

To the OP, fight it and please do let us know how it turns out. Have been hearing stories like this far too often lately.

The most important event is the meet and greet on the first night. That is when everyone gets to meet each other and start to form relationships (not literally :eek:) with each other.

Does anyone have a child, or themselves have gone, to one of these young adult meet & greets? My daughter tried about 6 years ago and it was not organized at all. They held it in one of the lounges where other things were going on. She couldn't figure out which group it was, if any. Gave up and ended up just hanging out with us. She never tried again after that on other cruises so wondering if they have made it more formal.

Bob has answered your question on the balcony dividers. For the drinks package sharing is very much frowned upon. There have been many reports of packages being taken away (without refunds) for those found sharing. Be prepared to be hung out to dry by simply posting that question here. It is truly up to you and your beliefs as to whether up attempt it or not.

My wife & I are Emerald but traveling with a group of 4 couples who are not C & A members. My question is can they board with us if our reservations are linked as traveling together?

If you have one or two others with you that are not C&A members they will usually let them board with you, however with a group that large chances are slim. I would stay with them. Honestly there usually is not that much of a difference in the lines anyway.

Thanks for the info! Our next cruise (Ovation 14th + 17th April) will be our first since reaching Platinum status, and I was rather looking forward to having bathrobes.

 

Will we have to contact Royal Caribbean in advance to request, or once on the ship, do you think?

You would request them from your stateroom attendant and if available they will provided to you. It may take a few hours but we have never been denied when we asked.

Then I must be misunderstanding the website. It says any drinks consumed will be "charged" for. It doesn't say "deducted and the balance returns as OBC". So....to ME it is very misleading. You are probably correct, but they really should clarify .....very confusing.

How about this. The OP starts out with a $0 balance on their onboard account. On day 2 they decide I don't want the package so the $500 is credited to that account, and then the $100 in drinks is charged to that onboard account. This leaves an onboard credit of $400 total. Pretty simple to me, or am I missing something here?

Hhmm, I recently made our dynamic dining reservations for our August sailing on Anthem. Took time to figure out our schedule, will be disappointed if they go back to normal MTD on us 😕

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There's a lot of mention of "nickel and diming" on this thread. My opinion... I prefer to think of it as making things optional so everyone doesn't have to pay for them if they don't want. For example, we don't typically want a lot of photos so we don't purchase them. We play bingo some games and not others. We don't always eat the fancy steak, but don't mind paying extra if we want to so long as it keeps the overall price down.

 

I think it is try that they are making more things optional, perhaps as a way of keeping the overall costs down. Some things have also gone away altogether like the midnight buffets because they were just really expensive wastes of food.

 

I happy that they make extras available if people want to pay extra. We pick and choose which things we care about while on the cruise and know that we don't have to pay extra for anything we don't want or need.

 

A good example. They could charge everyone $500 per cruise more and have drinks be all inclusive, but we don't drink enough to make that worthwhile so we're glad they offer drink packages for those who want to drink that much and allow us to just buy our drinks when we want them. The same is true for sodas and other things we don't care about.

 

I think they should sell seats around the pool. Maybe that would slow down those who want to reserve them :)

 

Tom

Agreed. We are paying about the same for cruises as we did 10 or so years ago. Something has to change. I too would prefer to keep the base cost down and let me pick and choose (not nickel and dime) me what amenities I want to include to keep them there.

To the OP, thank you for your review. Sorry it had to be taken over. Some people just don't learn even when they are smacked in the face many times. Don't let her tirades get to you. If we all ignore them she will go away.

We are sailing Anthem in August and very much looking forward to it, of course doing my research so I know which amenities I plan on using.

Not always true. I've been on two international cruises, the Baltic and Australia/New Zealand. Passports were not collected by Royal on either cruise.

Agree. I had heard it all depends on the ports you are visiting. When we had a stop in Turkey, they collected passports upon boarding. They were returned the day after our stop in Turkey, however we still had additional port stops to make. I believe it has something to do with ports requiring visas but not sure. Since you are on the ship they are waived but they still want to see the passports.

Also this applies to US citizens. Other rules apply to other nationalities.

I believe you missed the point. The example in question related to when both signed up for the cruise and at the 11th hour one had to back out. I was trying to understand why one would go when the other couldn't.

 

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While I have never had this situation at the 11th hour, we have been given opportunities to travel where one of us was unable to go for one reason or another and the one who was available went. If I paid for my trip and DH couldn't go last minute I wouldn't hesitate to go and would expect he would go in the same situation. Been married almost 30 years now and value each other for who we each are.

Several years ago my daughter and boyfriend missed the ship by minutes. The port agent allowed them to use the phone to call me. They only had their seapass card, little money, and bathing suits one them. I had to arrange a hotel for the to stay at. The hotel was kind enough to give them t-shirts and toothbrushes. They took my credit card over the phone and took good care of them. Royal went into their safe and got their passports and ID, faxed it to the hotel. I had to pay to fly them to the next port where they rejoined the ship. I had to pay for EVERYTHING. Stupid kids! A very expensive lesson to learn. Don't miss your ship!!!

Sorry you had to go through that but bet the kids learned a lesson from it.

I do have a question however. Many state hat Royal will go to your cabin to get ID from the safe and leave it with the port agent. I have always wondered if this was true or not. Sounds like from your post they did not. Did they and the kids didn't know or was their ID still in their cabin after the ship sailed?

I hope never to need to know the answer myself but would like to clear thus us from first hand experience. Thanks.

I just checked my invoice, we booked during the same promotion, and only see the OBC, not the free internet. I believe it only applied to specific ships, one of with was Anthem.

If you find out anything please come back and let us know. Assume it is one of those "hidden" items you need to trust is there :eek:

We were about 50 / 50 on getting the beds as pre-requested. We decided to just wait until we board and if a change is needed request then. Our request is always filled at the night time turn down if needed.

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Yes, and one or two posters also post nothing but welcome to cc along with the thanks for sharing, to up their count.

Dinner ding, it's all about the post count. At least that's my thought on it.

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