biker1972

A number of years ago RCL added to to the fine print on OBC that it could not be combined with any other OBC offer.

Benefit is not combinable with other onboard credit offers, general loyalty offers, “dollars off/wave” promotions, savings certificates, onboard chartered sailings, certain group sailings, certain price programs or bookings made at a reduced rate or travel agent rate. Shareholders have the option to choose between the shareholder benefit or the other offer.

When this happened I sold my stock at a very nice profit and have never looked back.

The gift card gotten from CC rewards points most likely can only be used for booking a new cruise. I recently was thinking about using points from my rewards card and in studying the fine print found this to be the case.

A Google search show several rail/cruise packages being offered by tour operators and a quick look seemed to show them involving HAL and VIA Rail. Spend some time searching and you might find what you are looking for. Doubt if I should post any of my quick search results since they involve TA's.

I doubt that you will find a TA who will "guarantee" getting you any price drop. Even the guarantee from X is such that it generally won't apply and is only good for the 24 hour period immediately after booking. The next problem is that with all of the changing perks given with bookings now; it often happens that you find a lower price but with fewer perks and when you re-book the original perks are lost. Finally, there is the fine print that often appears: "new bookings only". You do need a TA who will try to get you the lowest price available, but don't be too disappointed if they are unsuccessful.

Deviation fee is a charge the the cruise line air department makes when one asks for special air routing or special dates that do not coincide with the cruise start or end dates. Normally if you use a hotel provided by the cruise line there will be no fee charged for arriving a day or two early, but the cruise line does book the hotels at a per person charge so it is important to know what the daily rate for a particular hotel is, before trusting the cruise line to provide pre-cruise housing. Not all cruise lines charge for their air services so it is important to investigate all aspects including booking hotels and air directly with the hotel or air line.

To the OP: if non stop on 9/9 is important and you arrive a day prior, just how important is the non-stop issue for your return? It appears that there is only one SJU to DFW non-stop flight and it leaves at 9:22 AM. That is a really tight window from the ship to check-in to the departure gate at SJU. As mentioned, there are far more options without the non-stop requirement.

Depending on the cruise line there may be no deviation fee when using their air booking service. My upcoming trip involves 2 cruise lines but the air booking was made through only one line. Princess north and X south with air through X. The X cruise is from Seward but my air only involves Vancouver. To X it looks like I deviate by flying into a different port city 13 days early. No deviation fee and an excellent fare with my choice of times. Yes, there are questions about the restrictions on the tickets (cruise line booking sites are very opaque) and the knowledge that the guarantees in the cruise line advertising are a lot of fluff that make using the cruise line booking service less than ideal. So do your homework.

Aft cabins are not always equal, some are far superior. M class aft cabins and their verandas give so much more than just a view of the wake. On other ships the price of aft cabins is higher only because of demand but on M class ships since the veranda is so much larger than the standard veranda, the higher price seems priceless. Not sure I would take an S class aft veranda if the price were too much more than the same cabin type on a side.

The extra width of 6144 is about 10 inches and is only noticed at the foot of the bed(s). Much easier to walk from the cabin door to that wonderful balcony. The aft C1's are deeper but being between suites makes 6144 prime real estate. We had a super steward the 2 times we cruised in this cabin.

No.

Mailing cost low. Printing costs for additional lines on a page negligible. And if you look at the brochures that Advantage and Viking send out on a very regular schedule with the details that they provide, one would think that Princess could put more details into theirs.

Millie will be going in this month for the updates including the movie setup on 12 and Murano. Don't know if bistro on 5 getting sushi change or not.

I have a cruise booked with $25 pp deposit. On the Booking Confirmation that I was sent the cancellation penalties are spelled out and once inside final payment date the penalty is $450 pp ($900 ).

Millie in for refurbishment in April.

With M class the CC cabins are larger than regular balcony cabins and the C1 cabins have the best balconies because of their extra large size. I would not sail CC for any reason other than price or being a C1 M class aft.

A new president in Argentina and a visit from the US president seems to be working in small ways.

The specials generally require a coupon and you should get 2 sets of coupons in your cabin.

Pricing is always a variable. Cruise lines want to sail at their max capacity and they have systems in place to do just that. As the inventory changes so does the price. At some point upgrade offers are made so that higher level cabins will be filled and low priced cabins will be put on sale through lead in offers. Some how that perfect state with every cabin filled or max capacity reached (not every cabin needs to be filled to be at max capacity) comes about. We just see the benefits by finding better deals :D or asking ourselves why we booked so early :(.

The balcony is to die for! And the cabin is meant for a family of 5!

Have you joined your roll call?

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2002456

A thought on modest: if I paid $1999 for a cruise and I paid $2 for a dessert that would only be .1 of a percent charge. $39 with that same cruise price would be almost 2% of the price. Dessert modest; special dinner not modest. Just remember when going on a cruise that it can be priceless and to not leave home without your credit card. :eek:

Right now you could book with low price carriers such as Spirit or SWA for a cost of about $1300 to $2000 for a family of 4. Their schedules are not going to fit with travel the day of embarkation when flying from Las Vegas so you might also have to consider an overnight.

Jet Blue has non-stop flights on a red-eye that can get you into FLL early on the 9th (06:34) for about $1300 for 4.

AA has a number of flights to MIA that will work for you. These are running a little over $1600 for 4.

You need to be making searches and getting prepared for the cost of air being close to the cost of the cruise.

There is a price guarantee but all one has to do is read the terms of the guarantee to see that there are so many loop holes so that it is only good for advertising purposes.

http://media.royalcaribbean.com/content/en_US/include/misc/web_page/air2sea-terms-conditions.htm

Looks like RCL has renamed their air reservation program and added fees but little else seems changed. Same worthless guarantee that they will get people to their cruise and same claims about working with their customers. A since they sell opaque tickets it is hard to find out what they have sold a person in order to make comparisons to lower priced tickets.

Princess has wine for sale by the bottle. I have found some of the wines that they sell in shops and elsewhere for about 65% less. ($8 bottle on the street selling for $25 on board) It is called free enterprise and a cost of doing business with Princess. Unhappy with this fact then get your own visa or don't cruise.