baileybrad

We were on the Odyssey of the Seas on an 8 day cruise the week of 2/25/23 - 3/5/23. We reserved a compact car from Jay's for $81.40 on our Wednesday in port there.. We had tried Royal first as we had used them before and were fine with their service. Royal only had jeeps left when I reached out to them and those were obviously were more expensive. We walked over to the rental lot and found the Jay's guys. Royal used the same lot for our past rentals. We went through the paperwork particulars with the Jay's guy who was in charge. After a brief conversation, he tried to upsell us on a jeep for $125. I told him that we were fine with what we reserved. We had no reason for a jeep as we were just going to the beach. As we moved through the conversation he said that he was out of compacts and we would be getting a jeep instead for the same price. Needless to say, we thought that was a crappy way to try and do business. The jeep was an older one but, again, we only needed reliable transportation. The A/C worked great. He just tried, unsuccessfully, to try and make and extra $45 off of us for no reason. Vehicle had about a 1/4 tank of gas in it. We were told by the big guy's #2 to bring it back with the same. We went and got gas first so we would not have to deal with it later. I did put in way too much gas, filling it to 3/4 tank and we barely moved it below that. The gas was over $7 a gallon. I should have bought half the amount of fuel that I bought. Frankly, the conversion confused me and the clerks are really no help to you. You pay before you pump. They did have full service pumps but I am not sure of the price difference. FYI.....we only saw 2 gas stations from downtown to Arashi Beach and down and back to Baby Beach. Also, the car needed to be returned by 6:00pm Aruba time keeping in mind that their time is one hour ahead of the ship's time. We got back at 5:45pm.

Great points. I remember the $18 RR on sale price. The price for that did not stay in the $20s very long. Our Diamond drinks are our salvation right now. If that goes away not sure what we would do.

People should utilize ear buds if they wish to listen to THEIR music in open air spaces.

So you have decide which entree is to be served lukewarm and which one is going to be room temperature........nice.

This is a RCCL board. Smoking is not allowed on their balconies. Smoking is only allowed in designated areas on the ship. And not all passengers comply with that because they are special.

Windjammer desserts have always been very, very average. Like a few of the cookies that they offer but that is about it.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. We were on Odyssey in January '22. We sail on her with the same stops on 2/25/23. Looking so forward to it.

We did a 3 day on the Independence in November and it was plastic bottles. In January on the Odyssey it was aluminum cans. I thought the taste was fine. But not super convenient unless you were pouring into your own container. When I used a diamond "punch" in the Music Hall one night he just gave me 2 cans and waved my sea pass away. In early June on the Harmony it was back to plastic bottles. Also, saw the posts about the "new/changed" drink cups. When we were on the Independence in November it was blue thinner plastic cups that had white swirled lines on them and came with plastic straws. They were not really insulated but seemed nicer than the orange and blue ones that have been cropping up in pictures. But the last 2 cruises in January and June were the double-walled "nicer" type cups with the Coke logo.

We have been RCCL cruisers for years and take advantage of the 4 free drinks a day on our cards. I don't drink alcohol and some times add the Royal Refreshment package, also, just for me for the coffees, lattes, etc. We just book a February '24 on the Apex and we just clicked the tips, classic drink package and free wi-fi without thinking. My question is are frozen non-alcoholic pina colada drinks included with the classic drink package? If not, can I cancel my portion of the trio (drinks/wi-fi/tips) and get a non-alcoholic type package similar to what I get occasionally on Royal?