venicia

I have no idea what the cost of the beverage package may be for you, but we are sailing Majesty to Key West and Cuba in October and we paid $50.00 p/day for the package. I can only recommend you continue to watch your sailing and when a discount is offered book it. We have always booked it in advance and it has been less costly than buying it on the ship.

Thank you both for your speedy replies, will check around some more or just park at the port

We have not cruised out of Tampa for many, many years. What are your recommendations for parking?

We always use Park & Cruise for Port Canaveral, but in researching parking for Tampa it appears there are more negative comments about the off sites than positive comments.

Thank you in advance for any recommendations

thank you for all your replies!

I was a bit shocked when I received the email. I am most fortunate that I have always had great luck with the persons I speak to when calling in for my bookings. I do not book on line since I always have a few things I prefer to speak to a representative about.

JB

I received an email from an individual that indicated he is my "Certified Vacation Planner" at Royal Caribbean. The email does appear to have been sent through Royal Caribbean. A long time ago I was a part time travel agent and made arrangements for clients by calling the specific company. Since this is something I used to do, I still call the company to book my travel.

Has anyone else received this type of email?

Is Royal hiring outside agents to handle some of the calls coming into their representatives?

thanks

Will be back on Oasis in April for my 5th cruise on this ship. Always have a cabin on deck 8, it is a fantastic crossover by walking through Central Park.

In the morning you can walk over to Park Cafe for your coffee, DL is on deck 11 so you need to go down one deck if you are on 12. You can go down to the promenade deck where coffee is always available.

The paperwork for Cuba is available on the Royal Caribbean site. We are going in October on Majesty out of Tampa. If you would like to see the documents required when boarding the ship, go to any of the sailings to Cuba and there is a large banner there that will take you areas to print out the required forms as well as a section of commonly asked questions.

The first area needs to be printed out (2 copies are necessary) one is for the cruise line the other is yours to maintain. OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control, US Dept of Treasury) requires you to maintain the document for 5 years. Do most persons do this, I have no idea.

There are 4 sections on the form and you check the one that applies to your travel.

By the way (CACR) Cuban Assets Control Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 515 is administered by OFAC. The guest Certification must be complete before boarding the vessel. If you are on a Royal Cruise ship to Cuba, I highly suggest you print out the form and do have it with you in order to board.

There is a $75.00 p/person visa required if you are going to get off the ship at Cuba, this is handled on the ship.

You do NOT have to get off the ship if you do not want to.

You MAY use approved 3rd party tour companies.

After retiring from law enforcement I took a position in banking and was the Risk Management Officer as well as the BSA Officer (Bank Secrecy Act). I dealt with the Patriot Act, BSA and OFAC.

I hope this helps and no we have not been to Cuba but since I dealt with some of these restrictions, I just thought I would jump in here. I hope this helps.

JB

First cruise from Tampa is May 9th.

thank you!!!!

Just curious, but when are they moving Majesty to Tampa?

We have a cruise booked on Majesty for October 6, 2018 out of Tampa

thanks

will NEVER book non-refundable again. We have never cancelled a cruise in over 40 cruises, but it has now happened. We had to cancel a grand suite on Symphony and knew upfront we would lose $100.00. Or rather, that was what I was told when we booked. It is $100.00 per person, ok, it is what it is. I was told within 3 weeks we would receive a certificate for the other $300.00 of our $500.00 deposit. Three weeks later I contacted Royal and was told it could be 3 to 5 weeks. I just called again today and now I was told the certificate was issued on January 30. I told them I never received a copy and was told I would not be getting one.

What I was told is when we want to book our next cruise use the confirmation number for Symphony and the certificate is in the notes. There will be $150.00 for DH and $150.00 for me. WAIT A MINUTE, what if DH does not want to go???? It was my credit card that was used to book the cruise. NOPE, he gets $150.00 credit and so do I. I do a lot of cruises with the ladies as DH is a once a year cruiser, so even though my credit card was charged $500.00 I cannot use the $300.00 to use as a deposit on a cruise.

Be very careful if you book with non-refundable, as I mentioned this is the first cruise we have ever had to cancel.

By the way, we had the choice of booking refundable or non-refundable, but since we have never had a problem before, we chose wrong. We book suites but have never booked more than the one we want to sail in.

2 yacht club perks you have to try.....19th deck yc buffet, every other day they have all you can eat lobster tails and they are BIG.

Vendi chocolate shop..YC gets all the gelato you want complementary

Oh my, that sounds fantastic! We are anxious to try the ship, but we still very much like Royal. I'll be on Oasis again in April with a group of ladies.

It is wonderful that there are so many choices when going on a cruise, something for everyone. For me, I just love being out on the water, it is so relaxing.

Thank you so much for that excellent info and trust me, we usually try as much as possible.

we had a Grand Suite booked non-refundable for Symphony and cancelled it. Royal keeps $200.00 of the $500.00 deposit and maybe sometime we will see the $300.00 credit to use for another booking. Yes, we cancelled since we got an amazing price on MSC Seaside. We will be in the Yacht Club and think it will be a nice refresher from Regent and Royal.

I have called twice and have been told it takes 3 weeks from the cancellation for the email with the credit to be sent. Then at the 3 week time I was told it takes between 3 and 5 weeks for the email credit to be forwarded.

Will never, never book non-refundable again, too much hassle to try and get the credit so I can apply it to another cruise.

I'd send that suggestion to community@cruisecritic.com.

will do, thanks!!

I have a question, would it be possible to have the date posted under the title of a new thread? It would be one way to know how old a thread is and the date it was begun.

Just a thought.

We booked Oasis in May 2017 for an April sail date. We added the gratuities during the booking. Our final payment was around Jan 9 and we paid the original amount for the gratuities.

I LOVE the fact you can pay them up front, the staff works incredibly hard to make it a pleasurable vacation for you and we do not ever begrudge them the tip. DH always has cash along for the staff that we interact with and at the end of our cruise, he simply hands cash to them in an inconspicuous manner. I like the "Daddy Warbucks" phrase above, that is not our way of thanking hard working staff for making our cruise enjoyable.

MTD on Oasis is on deck 3, American Icon

We take one of the very small battery operated candles. It works perfect, not too much light but enough so you can have some visibility. I think the Quantum was one of the only Royal ships that had a night light in the bathroom, but we were in a suite, so I don't know about other cabins.

This thread is a good place to start https://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1802904

absolutely, this is it! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER AGAIN and I don't care how much you pay for your cruise. There is NO excuse for the rude obnoxious demanding unmannerly actions we observed. Stay as far away from this group booking as you can and maybe they will learn some manners.......or not be allowed to ruin others vacation

We were on Oasis Jan 22 - 29 2017 and it was beyond doubt the worst cruise we have ever taken. There was a HUGE group booked that we were not aware of and if we had known in advance we would have changed to a different ship. The group was booked by a charter travel agency that begins with K. There were numerous areas blocked off only for this group, signs at the entrances for their private parties, sections in the theater reserved only for them.

Sections of the dining room reserved for them and the 2 times we went to the dining room our table was next to their area. There was no relaxing for dinner as they were loud, obnoxious and no manners at all. Speaking loudly with their mouths full, jumping from one table to another. We saw one of the elders at the table knock the plate out of the servers hand and stated something similar to that is not how you serve me. Their children were running wild, up and down the hallways at all times of the day and night.

Blaze was closed the entire week for them and one night as we were waiting for the Comedy club to open we saw and heard very loud shouting and noticed that several from the group were actually screaming at crew that was bringing in food. This escalated to chef's and ships officers arriving on the scene. It was something you would only think of seeing in a movie. I don't know the outcome as we entered the Comedy club hoping for some relaxation and fun away from this group.

One of the biggest issue's I had was the way they treated the staff, they were horrible to them, treating them as if they were servants. Time after time we observed them pushing ahead of disabled persons to get on the elevators. I could almost write a book of how bad it was and I do agree this group would bring families into the Diamond lounge. At least the Suite lounge stopped them and there was some peace in there.

At the end of this cruise my DH stated he would never cruise with Royal again, but after almost a year of convincing him we had an amazing cruise this past December and booked Symphony. I highly recommend checking the site mentioned before to see what groups are booked on your cruise.

I had the onion tart on our December cruise on Oasis, it was not as good as I remember it.

One of my favorite dishes in the MDR was the spaghetti bolognese......I KNOW, but we told it was very good and I decided to try it. It was excellent, much, much better than the steak diane, that was not very good at all. Another outstanding dish was the French Onion Soup, I got it the few times we went to MDR.

Totally agree with the comments above, as soon as we board we head straight to CK and make reservations for every night that we want to dine there. Just as mentioned before, one time we thought we would just decide daily but that didn't even work out for the second night!!! Book ASAP and don't forget JS may also book this for dinner and sometimes they allow guests that are not staying in a suite. We saw that a few times, I think it may have been family, but....it does happen.

We always make reservations on line before boarding. We are able to get in the "reservations" line and be seated in no time at all. This past December, the line for no reservations must have had at least 50 to 60 persons in it quite a bit and many wait times were 45 minutes to one hour. We did notice this last cruise the dining time was very long, the wait staff was running to try and bring out the food. They need more servers, we waited 30 minutes one night for desert and then left without it, good for the waistline!! It is a very simple thing to book it on line and your guarantee of being seated quickly is fabulous.

Also, we scheduled two dinners in the Solarium Bistro and I liked them better than the main dining room. Solarium was free for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but reservations are needed for dinner. It is quite dining in a very nice atmosphere where there is a buffet with excellent food as well as a menu and an up sell menu. Very well worth trying.

My time dining allows you to pick a time that suits you ahead of time, instead of the traditional dinner times, but on the large ships you really do want to make reservations. Without a reservation, you will be seated, its just a matter of how long you may need to wait. By the way, this was Oasis.

We'll be with you on this cruise. Anxious to read your reviews!

We don't cruise until April 2019 but booked so far in advance to be able to pay it off bits at a time and set money aside for drink packages and air fare.

I asked my TA about the cyber Monday sales as there is now a 75 obc for my cabin type.

She said it had to be on new booking. Also asked if we could cancel and rebook and move our deposit to that cabin. She said she talked to them and they can't do that. They would take the new deposit and refund the other one. I can't afford to do that.

Speaking as a former travel agent, you need to escalate this up the line. What company does your agent work for? (not expecting you to list it here) If it is one of the big companies call and ask to speak to a manager. If the agent is a independent agent and works from home, they almost all are associated with a travel company. Contact the company directly and voice your concerns. Can you go to the agent's office and sit there with them while they contact Royal? As another person posted you can do a three way call with you, the agent and Royal.

As bad as this may sound we had to dismiss one of our agents because of something almost the same as your issue. She would book the travel but did not want to do any follow up. She did not want the bother of calling and doing re-booking and even worse was she did not want to re-book if the price fell because her commission on the booking would not be as much.

There are amazing travel agents and there are some you should stay away from. How do you find a good agent, usually by word of mouth from others that have booked with the company or the person.

Don't let this go, keep calling......you are the customer

We will be cruising this Sunday and DH and I had already purchased the drink package. We paid the regular price for it, no problem we are fine with that. But in April a group of ladies are cruising and my cabin mate may drink one or two alcoholic beverages in the evening. She is fine with whatever the ship offers the remainder of the day. Because she is not buying any package neither can I.

I'm not upset at Royal, they are only doing what the persons that abused this package caused. When the beverage packages first were introduced, everyone over 21 in the cabin had to purchase them. Then, Royal thinking they had very trust worthy passengers reduced it to who ever wanted to buy it. The passengers caused this to be changed back to the original way, not Royal.

Place the blame where it lies, on greedy cheap passengers. Yes, I am calling them names and as another poster said, those same people are probably the ones saving the pool chairs, saving a whole row of seats in the theater, etc.

There are amazing wonderful great people to meet on cruises and just like any where else, there are some that are only about themselves. Regardless, I will have a fantastic time on our April cruise and pay the bill at the end!!