bchalker

Gf and I are on this sailing with you [emoji6][emoji568]

 

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What about for sea days? We have excursions planned for port days and would prefer not to do it on those days.

 

 

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Lol. That's why they offer the specials on port days[emoji4]

 

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Just hung up. No problem getting the deluxe for me as long as I got the refreshment for DW :)

Same here. [emoji106][emoji484]

 

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Copied from “First Time Cruisers” by suggestion:

 

After several weeks of researching cruise companies and ships/itineraries, we finally took the plunge and booked a 4 night cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas. This would be the first ever cruise for our family, and the process can be a bit intimidating, so it was quite a leap of faith we took. In hindsight, it appears our first mistake was booking online directly on RC’s website. However, if we had talked with a travel agent or representative before booking, we may have priced ourselves out of booking. So, at least this has forced us on the ship!

 

Here’s the issue. We thought our balcony stateroom would have a pulldown bed in addition to the main bed (two twins together) and sofa bed. We have a teenage son and daughter that don’t want to share a bed (the double sofa bed). I called RC customer service after they assigned the room and they said no rooms are available for us to switch to without upgrading for a significant price difference. Their solution, which we’re stuck with, is to have the kids each take the separated twin beds, and the couple share the double sofa bed. I’m 6’8” 300 lbs, so it’s not the most comfortable solution.

 

Anyone experience a similar issue, or have an alternate solution? We really thought RC customer service would try to keep the experience positive in hopes of acquiring a loyal repeat customer, but they simply fell flat. Their only concern after our stalemate was to try and upsell us on some excursions. Uh, no thank you.

Have the kids share or one sleep on floor. Two adults on those sofa beds isn't easy. They aren't regular size.

 

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Doesn't the title say no cabin questions????

 

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I will update you.

 

 

RCI would not talk to us about reservation because we used a TA.

 

 

 

Since we used a TA, we left a message with her.

 

She did not get back to us.

 

Calling TA back Monday.

 

 

Sea Ya

 

Exactly why I dont use a TA. First of all the TA should have found this out before you.

On Carnival you have to carry it around in a pocket or something so I bring lanyards for the kids and get them punched with a hole in the casino. What happens on RCCL?

 

And why exactly would you imagine it to be any different?:rolleyes:

I would also add Emerald coupon books - No more coupon books.

 

You must ask if you have a freebie or discount.

 

There is a list of your discounts buried among all the papers on embarkation day...But I am sure many guests miss that info...And never take advantage...More savings/cost cutting for that tricky cruise line...

 

It seems that there must be a crew committee who's job is to make everything inconvenient for the guest in order to save that tricky line cruise money.

 

oh the horror

I emailed Adam Goldstein this morning voicing my displeasure with RCL's decision to restrict booking of D1 cabins to 3 or 4 passengers.

 

First, my email:

February 14, 2014

Dear Mr. Goldstein,

 

I just wanted to take a moment on this Valentine’s day to personally thank you and Royal Caribbean for giving me so many choices when we cruise.

Your ships enticed us away from Disney, and we’ve been sailing on Royal Caribbean ever since.

Even when you started eliminating the little amenities in our stateroom, we remained loyal.

When you started to cut back on the quality of your food offerings, we remained loyal.

When the service standards in your dining rooms started to go downhill, we remained loyal.

When you chose to replace popular food venues with upcharge specialty dining, we remained loyal.

When you eliminated the pens and paper in the staterooms, we remained loyal (although we could no longer fill out tip envelopes or comment cards).

When you changed the loyalty program and added 10 additional cruise days to become Diamond, we remained loyal.

When you restricted smoking, we switched to Personal vaporizers (by the way, the term electronic cigarette is a misnomer, as there is no smoke), and we remained loyal. In fact, we saved so much money by quitting that we were able to cruise more often, and in better cabins.

When you continued to build bigger and more elaborate ships that disconnected us further and further from the seas we love, we remained loyal, because we could still book our favorite D1 balcony cabins anywhere on the ship and re-connect at our leisure.

However, when you made the decision to restrict our cabin choices to smaller, more poorly located, and more disconnected from the sea cabins by making all of our favorite cabins unavailable to us unless we crammed a third or fourth person into the room with us, you finally came up with the perfect scenario that gave us back our cruise choices.

We currently have six cruises booked on Royal Caribbean though March of 2015 (we leave on the next one in two weeks) and will become Diamond Plus before year end. Once we complete the March 2015 cruise, we can go back and renew our previous relationships with Disney, Princess, Holland American, and Norwegian that we put on hold so we could be more “Loyal to Royal”.

Thanks you again for giving us back so many reasons to broaden our cruise choices.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

And his response:

 

"Hi xxxxxxxxxx. Wherever you choose to vacation, I hope you are highly satisfied. I won't comment on the very particular manner in which you constructed your email. From my perspective, the list of improvements we have made to the product is much longer than your list and is reflected in the highest customer ratings we have generated in many, many years. But that doesn't matter if what we offer doesn't match up with your needs. I would be interested to hear your views about ours or any other cruises you take, especially since several of your comments appear to be equally applicable to the other major cruise lines.

Best regards,

 

Adam

 

Adam M. Goldstein

President & CEO

Royal Caribbean International

(305) 539 6082"

 

Adam is correct 100%. Good riddance OP.

I have been around for a while on these forums and cruised a few times before. I have an upcoming trip on the navigator which now has 4 specialty dining restaurants. You know what I think of this? Its utter crap.

 

Hear me out:

 

I'm not saying that the MDR will depreciate in value.

I'm not saying the food in the specialty restaurants isn't good or even "worth it."

I'm not saying that I can't afford specialty dining.

 

What I am saying is that cruises a long time ago had drinks included with the cruise and slowly that was taken away. Now the same thing is starting to happen with the food. Even Chop's grill has an extra upcharge now on top of the 35$. Understand that it is GREAT to have other options, but for those of you in full support of this just remember that options are great until they become your only choice. And people flocking to these "upcharge" restaurants is like telling the cruise lines that if they took away free food in the MDR they would benefit tremendously.

 

I'm not saying its not ok to get excited about restaurants and again I admit that some of them have great value, but what if I told you the trend is to phase out the MDR and make everything ala cart? Would you stop going to the specialty restaurants to avoid that fate?

 

Finally, it just feels wrong to leave perfectly good food at the MDR in order to go pay 35$ for slightly better quality food. I'd consider myself rich, but I'm just not hoighty toighty like that.

 

1 the food is much more than "slightly better"

2 cruises are cheaper than 20 years ago

3 nobody is forcing you the eat at any specialty rest.

When and how will we be informed about our dining room assignment?

 

when you check in

Good for Royal.

We cruised this past New Years on the Oasis. There were 10 of us, 5 of which were children ranging in age from 3 to 14. We'd been on the Allure 2 years before and have concluded it simply is the very best ship for us. Wonderful in more ways that I can even begin to describe. We are all seasoned Cruisers if that makes a difference

 

While in port at St Martin we had an absolutely horrific thing occur. The ship had docked, we were just waking up.. It was around 8am when we heard the shattering of glass break. A little at first, followed by an enormous "break". We had 4 balconies in a row and we all ran to see what the noise was all about. Imagine our shock when we looked up to the deck above us (we were deck 11)and saw an entire balcony panel was gone and in a million pieces scattered on our balconies and on the lifeboats a few decks down!!! AN ENTIRE BALCONY PANEL SPONTANEOUSLY BROKE FOR NO APPARENT REASON. Of course it was only minutes before cruise staff came to investigate and "interview" us on what we had seen. Needless to say all we wanted was an answer as to how this occurred. Of course no one knew, and staff simply brushed it off with "maybe it was the way the ship docked.." Or whatever reasoning they came up with.

 

My brother in law and I are what you would call "worriers". We are overly concerned with the safety of our children and definitely imagine worse case scenarios. What if it had been our balcony? What if our 3 and 4 year old were leaning up against it at the time it shattered? How about if my boys ages 9 and 14 were rough housing on the balcony at the time of impact? Horrifically frightening and I'd be lying if I said we have nightmares the rest of the Cruise. Less traumatizing, but equally as concerning is that the glass on our deck was never really totally cleaned up. Yes the vacuums were used a few times but many shards of glass remained. Our kids never stepped foot on the balconies again.

 

Post Cruise we completed the online survey form and in GREAT DETAIL we described the incident. It has now been almost a month and ZERO reply. Very disheartening. We are incredibly disappointed with how this has been handled. We aren't seeking compensation, we want an explanation as to how on earth this happened. I believe we deserve one.

 

Now if anyone from RCI reads this PLEASE CONTACT ME directly

 

Scary. Sad. Unacceptable.

 

 

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Oh how dare some glass break on a ship without giving YOU an explanation! Oh the horror! :rolleyes:

We have been wondering if we have misunderstood the MTD dress code as we thought it was the same as the normal traditional time dress code. We are currently on Radiance and have been a bit shocked to see t-shirts with printed slogans, camouflage shorts and baseball caps worn at the tables around us. Personally I thought nobody ever wears a baseball cap at the dinner table, but if the dress code has dropped that far I can save myself a lot of packing. Formal night has been of a pretty low standard also.

 

I am thinking of walking around and taking photos but it has been so widespread that I wanted to check with the knowledge base here on the forum before formally giving RCI feedback on this issue.

 

nope

Have never sailed on RCI. Debating whether to take a tux for the formal night or just a suit/jacket and tie. Think there will be 2 formal nights. Anyone been on a RCI week cruise to the caribbean lately, will I be one of the few with a tux. Does not matter that much either way, but if only a small amount of men wear tuxes, won't even bother.

 

Thanks for any input

 

go for the suit

GMA is reporting this morning that after talking to passengers on board the Explorer of the Seas the situation on board is much worse than originally reported. They also reported that they are only refunding 50% of the cruise and offering 50% credit on future cruise. IMO that is a horrible compensation. The passengers that were not ill had a totally ruined vacation. They deserve a paid vacation for their troubles! ... and the poor sick passengers surely deserve a full refund. This is a horrible situation. I have four very good friends that are on that ship. I can't wait to see them on Thursday and get the real story. I will post a full review as reported by them.

 

100% of the cruise is horrible? sheesh:rolleyes:

 

They cut the trip what 1 or 2 days short? Cause they got sick thru no fault of the cruise line.

I do have one more question...

What time do most shows start ?

 

I want to do 6:30 dinner most nights but want to make sure I can make show times.

 

I usually make my dinner reservations match one of the two dinner seatings since all shows are timed to allow both seating to participate. We eat later so last week on the Liberty I made 8:30 reservations in the specialty rest and did the shows the same time as the late seating guests. Also the specialty rest were understanding if the show ran a cpl mins late.

[quote name='Esilef']We always take out travel insurance. Have had to claim on both trips to Hawaii.

1) cruise with NCL was cancelled half way through due to bad weather. Travel insurance paid me $3000 to cover ally my costs.
2) broke & dislocated my knee in beach in Waikiki. Hospital costs in USA were $10,000usd. Travel insurance covered this.




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Well if you have medical insurance you certainly dont need travel insurance to cover medical bills in Hawaii.

[quote name='cruisenfever']From our own recent experience. Last October 3 my husband was admitted to the hospital through the ER with acute pancreatitis caused by gall stones. We were to fly to Barcelona on October 6th for a b2b on October10th. Needless to say, we did not go.

Our TA canceled the cruises and RCI reimbursed us the port charges, pre-paid gratuities and a pro-rated amount of the cruise fare depending on how we fell under the # of Days within the Cancellation Policy. These amounts were credited back to our credit card. Everything that was not reimbursed was submitted to Berkeley and within 4 weeks we received a check for the total amount excluding the cost of insurance.

We were then looking forward to our 4 cruises in December/January but unfortunately my husband was re-admitted into the hospital on November 21 because of acute necrotizing pancreatitis and on the advice of the Specialist, we had to cancel those 4 cruises. Thankfully, treatment was successful.

Again, I had all the paper work and forms, submitted to both Berkeley and Allianz (for our air) and we were again reimbursed everything within 4 weeks except the cost of the insurance. RCI reimbursed us so much and Berkeley took care of the rest.

Does it pay to take out insurance.............you betcha.[/QUOTE]

Maybe if you are unhealthy it pays. We have been on 13 cruises so far and would just be out 13 cruises of trip insurance.

[quote name='eamcclen']With the latest outbreak of the norovirus, I'm checking on prices/coverage of insurance. I'm thinking its worth it for peace of mind.


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not at all

no retractable roof on Freedom class. On Radiance class the solarium has it.

[quote name='Charmdmsure']Hmmm. My cruise planner for Liberty Of the Seas ( sailing in 21 days ) tell me I have to purchase the package by 2/6. 4 days prior to sailing.[/QUOTE]

Yes if you want to buy it ONLINE you have to do it early. Has NOTHING to do with buying it on the ship.

[quote name='Charmdmsure']Can't cancel. And you can't buy it once on board. Up to 4 days before the cruise.[/QUOTE]

You absolutely CAN buy it onboard as long as you have 4 days remaining on the cruise.:rolleyes:

I'm posting here because I figure folks here will understand without a lot of extra explanation.

 

Background...

DW & I were on Oasis last year. My parents watched our kids. We got an OTW cabana on Labadee and loved it.

 

We're taking the kids on Freedom in June this year and that's another stop in Labadee. We again got an OTW cabana (because we enjoyed it so much last year). So I'm telling my mom we got a cabana again and her response was "Isn't that expensive?" Then about 30 seconds later asked if we're taking the kids (three of them) on the Labadee zip line.

 

Let's see, it's too expensive to spend $250 on a cabana for 5 of us that we can use all day, but it would be ok to spend $95 each ($475) for something that would take an hour total. :mad: I *SO* wanted to say "when YOU'RE paying for the trip, you can determine what money gets spent on. Since WE'RE paying, WE'LL decide what's "worth it."

 

This is not a slam against the zip line or people who enjoy it. That's fine. It's just not "worth it" to me (especially with a family of 5). I'm sure others think getting a cabana isn't worth it to them. That's fine too. But don't comment on it. :mad:

 

Both are overpriced. Zip is horribly overpriced one ride and its over in 30 seconds. Not an hour. Total time for excursion is 1 hr but the ride is nothing. All cruise ship excursions are 25% - 35% more than you pay independently. Unfortunately at labadee you dont have a choice.

I totally agree. They would have to pay more than that $350 to watch. As for the pirates Parade being in the cruise compass, from the reports they Parade through the ship, so it´s good to know when and where to avoid it. Fortunately I´ve only had to see it once in the MDR. Otherwise I´m happy having missed it.

 

same here. file the barbie fashion show and pirates parade under things to avoid at all costs! lol