Richmond

This is a very interesting read.  We booked on Beyond last night for March and the app says "Celebrity Select Dining Early 6:00PM" - please refer to the dining reservation card found in your stateroom for location and time. 

Just received word from Celebrity that both my brother and his wife were killed in the accident.

 

 

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So incredibly sorry for you and your family.

Just checked in at Port Everglades for the Allure and were told we are going to Nassau tomorrow. We have day passes for the British Colonial Hilton. I will try to report back here after our visit and will send a few photos if I can.

 

Thanks,

Mark

 

 

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Thanks so much for the update!

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I have noticed on their website that sometimes they require a 2 night stay and sometimes they don't, and I mean for the same date. I check my date periodically and noticed it. Keep checking.

 

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I kept trying daily and put an alert on a website for availability - i got an email that it was available and I still didn't believe it, but was able to book it this morning. Awesome! Thanks again for the encouragement that I wasn't wasting my time.

Not sure where you are seeing that they require a two night stay. I just booked the Sheraton Old San Juan directly through their website, for just one night.

Have tried every possible booking site and have called the hotel directly and no way to book one night for April 1. :( Will unfortunately have to stay further away.

This place looks great. Thanks to you all!

Oh yes, you can use for gratuities. It's just that the OP in this thread said that they already had paid their gratuities so they didn't get mentioned again in this thread.

WHEW - thanks so much for the quick reply!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New to Celebrity. In the 123 Deal in January, we opted for OBC instead of gratuities as it was higher, with the intent of using it for gratuities as we have done many times on other lines. No one has mentioned this - is this an acceptable use of OBC with Celebrity?

Nice review! We on the cruise with you and agree with your comments. We are not walkers anymore so the Promenade Deck thing did not affect us. Also, we were on deck 15 and there were stairs going to 16 so for us it was convenient. The shows, Colors of the World and Extravaganza were brilliant, but as you said, short. The entire cast was magnificent. Our big complaint was the Internet Room. It was too small and on the busiest day, Saturday, the only printer was down all day. Waiting lines were out the door. I asked why they could not route the printer to another printer on board. He said they couldn't do it. That said, Royal is a beautiful ship. Weigh all the reviews you read and then book her. We had 99% positive experiences. We still prefer the Crown, Sapphire, Emerald etc but we are happy we experienced Royal Princess.

Thanks - definitely agree on the internet room and the staff member I dealt with there wasn't great. We also had a wireless package and my husband was never able to access on his (original model) iPad.

Other than the first sea day when the system was significantly overloaded, I had no issues other than normal slowness at sea with my iPhone5. I also didn't try to print boarding passes as I was checking luggage anyway...

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Speaking of which, we did "walk off c" and waited in a VERY long cab line, and the four of us were sitting at the gate in FLL at 7:50AM for our 9:53AM flight. I know people don't like to hear that, but it certainly can be done.

According to the princess website the price is $10 per period, am or pm.

Was the price of $40 per day for a single lounger or a double lounger?

$40 per day per lounger; $20 per half-day per lounger. We had two loungers both times we went. Tuesday full day at $80, Friday half-day (8:30-1) at $40. This pricing is Royal-specific, apparently and "at passenger request".....

Read what Carolyn R wrote, as she is correct. And to expand of her comment it will not wrap around, just join the already existing areas.

Thanks - I replied before I saw that additional info. The existing areas are small and this won't really change much for me, though it very well may for others.

jdavid:

Lack of promenade would not be a deal breaker for us. Actually if it is for walking the top deck has a great walk area and a better view.

We did not find the walking area usable. We are in our 40s & in decent shape and found it difficult to keep upright in the high wind on the track.

Folks, don't forget that Princess is going to retrofit the Royal with a full Promenade deck during its first dry dock. Also, the Regal will have a full Promenade, central staircase and an aft pool...

This is fantastic news; Thanks, I hadn't seen this!

thanks for your review.

What cabin were you in ? We booked an emerald deck cabin for the regal maiden and the light would bother me , also.

e724

If one has a balcony cabin, what is the advantage of the Sanctuary. Is it at the front of the ship on the Royal? I would think it would be very windy while at sea.

Yes, the Sanctuary is at the front of the ship. One day it was windy/loud though not in my chair and it didn't affect me; the other day it was silent without wind. I can not fathom a way that two people would sit all day on a Princess regular balcony. You don't have full length chairs, for one, and while two people can sit there comfortably, reclining/relaxing are not really possible.

And yes, as others have mentioned, when I am on vacation, I love quiet time to read a book and relax. The rest of the time I am on the ship with 3000+ passengers there is plenty of activity.

Most of the patters are pre-set from week to week on the same route, the just swap out some activities and ads, weather etc. The notes for the UST were probably just on the standard layout they use for those days...

I thought that too, Loonbeam, except on the Tour we went to the Printshop and the manager showed us a Patter he was working on which had all kinds of highlights and changes from the crew. He said they are never exactly the same, and they are sent to the department managers every day multiple times and are changed and corrected.

There was a "waitlist" and then there were others who didn't even make the waitlist. I would be surprised if this was specific to just our week.

Not a long review but a few random thoughts, and of course, just my opinions and impressions........

The ship is indeed beautiful.

The staff we encountered were the best we have encountered in several cruises. Everyone had great, helpful attitudes.

As mentioned many times before by others, the lack of center staircases is definitely an issue. On the positive side, I well-exceeded 10,000 steps every day.

The lack of a Promenade is a significant issue for me, and one that would make me not want to sail this class again....I can not explain how much I missed being outside. I felt very much like the ship was confining me and wanting me inside.

We have traditionally walked the Promenade early every day. The jogging/walking track is so high on the ship that the wind is unbelievable. Literally you turned a corner toward the front, and you can be lifted slightly into the air. We did two miles one morning and never tried this again.

We had a balcony and that obviously allowed us 'outside' time, though again, I miss being able to walk and look at the sea. For those for whom this is not a desire, you will find this ship is beautiful with more public spaces and lots to do.

The lack of normal Promenade creates another issue.....there are a couple small sections outside on 7 which jut out from below the staterooms on 8 and above. We were on 8, and we overlooked one of these sections. There are florescent-type long lights which are mounted on the edge of the railings in these sections of the Promenade. This means when you walk out on your balcony above at night, rather than looking out in the darkness at the sea, you are looking out at blindingly bright kitchen-type lighting below you. I really, really did NOT like that and it changed the evening balcony experience for me a lot.

The new entertainment system in the rooms is nice - several times we missed things we wanted to see like a lecture, and we were able to catch it "on demand". MUTS become available the next day "on demand".

We were upgraded to "deluxe balcony". The rooms were large, balcony size seemed no different to me than other Princess ships I have been on; more than sufficient. The bathroom was well-laid out; shower seemed biggest I recalled. Shampoo and body wash are now in dispensers. Don't understand why people complain about the toilet paper location; the best part to me was NOT having that stupid dust cover over it.

The final show Spectacular was short and well done for those types of programs. There was an illusionist on board, but that's not my thing, but people were talking highly of him. We also had a really funny comedian from Boston who was very clean and made us laugh a lot. The Princess Theatre upgrades are lovely and they usually have three shows per night instead of two.

Alfredos pasta and pizza are delicious. Alfredo himself was on board and doing a lecture or two. We went a second time on the last day and it was very crowded and slow as I think the pizza oven was struggling to keep up.

Food and service in the dining room was much improved to our trip on the Caribbean Princess last year, but then again, just about everything is! We had a really great time last week, and if you are sailing on the Royal, we hope you do too!

We did the UST and it was interesting and informative and about 3.5 hours.

It is indeed expensive at $150ea. We did receive nice aprons and robes and notepads and multiple pics. Since we went as a couple, we now have duplicates of lots of group pics of our tour group, but it is nice they do try to get shots in various parts of the ship.

We had a couple of first time cruisers with us who also signed up at the same time on the first day, but they were "not selected" and "on the waitlist". The UST is only done once at 8:30a on the last day and you are not told until the night before if you have been "randomly selected" to be in the group of 12. There were at least 5 of the participants who had previously done an UST.

It's understandable it's only done once per cruise as the heads of departments stop for 15 minutes or more to chat with you and answer questions.

With the apparent high demand, I am not sure why they advertised late in the cruise on the Patter for people to do the UST, since it was obviously already "oversold".

We were glad to have participated and got a lot out of it, but doubt we will do it again as space is so limited and would like to allow others to see the innerworkings of how it all comes together to make the cruise experience what it is!

Just back and just a couple minutes but wanted to share the following as it is radically different than on other Princess ships and what I had read posted here before we left. I did hear it changed with the new year, but who knows. At any rate....

The staff says there are 50 seats. That's probably about right. Full week reservations are only done for 10% of the seats. For those who are not good at math, that's 5, which probably is 6. I am Platinum and boarded early and literally ran up to the 17th floor as soon as I got on around 12. There were actually probably 8 people ahead of me. After we stood out in the blazing sun for about 15 minutes, we were told about the 10% and that they were taking reservations for tomorrow only. This was done throughout the cruise - you could come the morning before for the next day's reservation. I was told (not by staff but by a passenger) that the 10% end up being reserved by people from the previous week doing back to backs so there is no real opportunity for a one week passenger to reserve for the week.

Also the price jumped significantly. It is now $40 per chair for full day, $20 for half day. The manager (nice and handsome fellow) said this was from customer feedback - make it more expensive and the morning wait will be shorter.

We actually did one full day on Tuesday and 1/2 day on Thursday and it was quiet and lovely as always. I actually forgot to go up early Wed morning and went around 845 and was able to reserve the half day morning for Thursday. There were apparently several on our particular cruise who only wanted 1/2 day afternoon and would wait. Per the staff, one hour half, to reserve for the afternoon.

Hope this is helpful.

Jeanico-

What time did you end up going and how did it play out? I looked for follow up posts but didn't see any. Would appreciate any feedback you have to offer. Thanks!

Hello to my fellow cc members, and happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating tomorrow (I'm from Canada, so my 'thanks' were given last month!) :)

 

We are cruising on the Royal Princess this coming Sunday (Dec 1st), and never received an official notice by email, but read on these boards about Princess' new staggered boarding procedure at Port Everglades. Since we are on the Dolphin deck, we should be arriving for 1:30PM per those new instructions. Has this been enforced on any of the recent Royal cruises? We were planning on arriving at the terminal between 11:00AM and 11:30AM because we like to board as early as possible and have lunch on the ship to kick start our holiday, but won't do so if we are going to be forced to wait around for 2 hours until 'Dolphins' are allowed to board.

 

Any advice would be awesome! We are Gold members, so nothing fancy.

 

Best,

Nicole

We were walk offs and were off by 7:15am and flew through customs.

VERY helpful, thank you for your post!

Just got off the Royal Sunday. First walk off was scheduled for 7:15.

Much appreciated!

Thanks so much for the updates! If there's any way you can post the times they schedule for the Royal for the first walk-off as well as the first "regular" group on the Royal, and whether your schedule "stuck", that would be super helpful. Thanks, and enjoy the rest of your cruise!!!