cruiseguy1016

There are no more automatic upgrades. You will probably have an opportunity to bid on an upgrade.

Welcome to Cruise Critic. You sure got your money's worth on your first post.

That always used to make me laugh. I felt sorry for the staff but it amazed me how many people skipped the MDR on the last night.

We dined at JR on Liberty and they used one of our drink vouchers to pay for our milkshakes. We told them to put the voucher back on our seapass and to charge us cash for the milkshakes. We didn't want to waste vouchers on the milkshakes when they were worth a lot more to purchase an alcoholic beverage.

If you use a voucher, you get 20% of a bottle valued over $100.

We have cruised out of San Juan many times and will be doing it again in 9 days. We always arrive at the pier at 11:00, regardless of our assigned check-in time. I have been following some of the live threads in recent weeks and they are reporting that check-in is beginning around 11:00 so that would mean you could drop your luggage off at that time, maybe even sooner. The reports also say that they are not enforcing check-in times so even if you have a 2:30 time, you probably will be allowed to check in at 11:00ish.

I agree. Back in November it was $65 for our upcoming family cruise. My sister-in-law asked if she should buy it at that price. I told her I had not seen it that low in quite a while so yes, she should jump on it at that price. It hasn't been below $70 since.

When did you redeem them? The quickest I have seen the redemption show up is the next day. The longest I have had to wait is about 2 weeks. The closer to sail date, the sooner they should show up.

You each get one 24 hr. period of free internet. Those 2 sessions can be used back to back or a few days apart. What a lot of us do is; one of you log in at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon. Now you have 24 hrs. from that point on so you will have access to the internet for a good part of 2 days. Then your spouse logs in on another day using the same scenario. That way you'll have internet access for a good portion of 4 days

What time will you be picking the car up? Make sure it gets returned by that time on the last day or you'll be charged for an extra day. I always schedule pick-up for a 1/2 hr after my flight arrives and schedule the return for the same time on the last day. They don't care if you pick it up late or return it early, just don't return it late.

I'm sure someone knows but it's not me.

I'm Diamond and I leave a tip for all of my Diamond drinks. I don't know, nor do I care where that money ends up. It could stay with the server that delivered it. It could go to the bartender that poured it (sometimes they're the same person). It could go to the person that washes the glass it was poured in. It could go to the person that schedules the staff hours. Like I said, I don't know and I don't care and quite frankly it's none of my business. I leave the tip, it's not my responsibility to figure out how/if it's divided up.

Especially considering AOS does not sail from San Juan any more.

If you can afford to own a cruise ship (or 28) you can afford to pay the crew a decent wage.

Yes, there have been a few direct answers to the question. Unfortunately, some have said it can definitely be done and others have said it cannot. He has seen the answers (and all the other comments as well) so now he'll have to decide what he wants to do based on what he has read.

And someone else's children couldn't go because the parents spent so much money tipping on their cruise.

I have found that quite often, what would be considered top shelf at some of the bars where I live, those bottles come from the well on RCI ships. An example would be gin. At home what's in the well is usually the least expensive gin that they can find. On the ship, the well gin is quite often Tanqueray. While Tanqueray may not be a "TOP" shelf gin, where I live it is always at least a "call" drink and you'll pay more for it.

You're their accountant? You know how much they make?

I won't go into all the details but one of my family members wants to remove his gratuities for our upcoming family cruise. We have all prepaid our gratuities. Can prepaid gratuities be removed on the ship? Can he remove just his and leave his cabin mate's in place?

I have.

No, they will not deny boarding. Guests in the same cabin do not need to show up at the same time in order to board. If she ends up being a no show, her taxes and port fees will be re-imbursed.

There is a lot of debate on this subject in several other threads. RCI raised the daily gratuities of which the cabin stewards receive a portion and they also cut cabin service to once a day. The stewards are cleaning more cabins so the amount of time they spend cleaning is theoretically the same, but we (you, I and everyone else that pays gratuities) are paying more money and receiving less service.

I am fairly certain that yes, they hold back a percentage of spots that can be booked on board. Once on board you'll want to get to the Shore Excursions desk ASAP to book the excursion you want. If the excursion is "selling out" before boarding, it means that it's a popular excursion and the remaining spots will sell out fast on board.

You can check in at midnight for the port your ship will depart from.

I learned something new today. As I stated, every oceanview room that I've stayed in has had the bed under the window. I just assumed they had to be that way for some reason. I always thought it was a lousy layout because it was difficult to look out the window. We have "graduated" to balcony cabins so we don't stay in oceanviews much anymore. We stayed in one last year on a very port-intensive itinerary (the bed was under the window) and we decided that would be our last oceanview.