sgmn

Let your bank do the conversion. The cruise line's conversion rate is not as good as your bank.

Agree with this, but check on board that they really do bill you in local currency ($) - I find they still try and do conversion no matter if you have ticked box to let bank do it.

I'm not aware of a method to "deposit" Money to OBC or "pre-purchase" OBC, short of TA Perks, or RCI Credit Card "perks".

 

And, if you're only consuming 1 - 2 Drinks per day, I see no Reason whatsoever to lay out $50 - $60 per Day to "avoid" a Bill at the End.

 

But you're correct, if I had enough OBC, I'd certainly consider using it for Drink Pkgs, especially now, since I could apply any OBC prior to the Cruise via "Planner".

I've just bought some OBC for our next cruise - just phoned RC, gave my booking number and asked for $400 worth to be added to my account. As I'm in the UK sometimes they give me a good rate, but not this time....but I like to have my account in credit before the start of my cruise, sometimes I even get to 'cash out' at the end.

We have an ocean view guarantee on this cruise - still not been allocated a cabin and UK site shows only 6 OV left :eek:

Anyone done this wine tasting on Indi recently ? Wonder if its worth it. Are the wines decent? and do you learn anything about wines? How big are the classes? Its showing up in my planner for £13.63 which doesn't seem too bad

Thanks

Sue

There is a coffee shop in arrivals area once you have gone thru immigration and customs, also a marks and Spencer food shop if you just want to grab drinks and snacks/sandwiches.

Please explain what you mean by this.

We don't have a drink package so no sharing, but did enjoy the wine and beer package once _ kinda a middle ground price wise and not everyone like sweet fancy cocktails . So may consider a package if they brought that back at a reasonable cost

Ditto. We may be on the same cruise, Sep 2? Luckily the Deluxe Package came with the booking.

 

 

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Nope sorry to say but we are on September 30th sailing , and unlucky for us ours doesn't come with anything :(

Thanks for doing this . Did you notice how much the bottomless brunch was ?

Our cruise on independence from Southampton in September is £41.80 a day for deluxe package but nothing extra added at check out so includes grautuities .

Im afraid I dont know about the drinks card, we had the package which I booked online and actually saved a bit. Most of the shows were excellent, two ice shows were great, Grease was brilliant too. The production shows were very good. We had a Queen tribute act called The Bohemians which was very loud but very good. Darren Day was OK took a bit of time to get going but funny in the end and he can sing im. The comedian Josh Daniels at the farewell show on our last night had us all crying he was really good. Not sure if you will get the same acts. We didnt go to the Love & Marriage show but saw it on the tv and it was very funny. The Hypnotist was good but im not a big fan of that. The two street parties on the Royal Promenade were good fun mainly down to the music and the efforts of the cruise director Joff Eaton. He also did a great job with The Quest. You have to go to that just to experience it - so funny.

Could have done with one less sea day but there was always plenty to do and the weather was excellent so just soaked up the sun mostly. We played Bingo on sea days but beware it is really expensive.

Have you been to any of the ports before? We did 3 organised trips and did our own thing on the others. Anything else I can answer happy to help. Enjoy

We've done Gib and Rome but the others are new to us. Will probably also do a mix of our own thing and a couple of ships tours/transfers . Not sure what to do in Toulon though. Your entertainment sounds fab, hope we get similar standard in September. Thanks for your help

Sue

Chops and Giovanni staff do not share in the auto grats. Officially, your payment us a service charge, just like room service.

 

BTW, what 20% are you referring to?

 

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I always thought that the specialist restaurants price include gratuities - is this incorrect?

We have just done the 14 night Med cruise and had a fabulous time. I am planning to write a review very soon which may be of help. If there are any particular questions I will try and help.

Thanks Mrs roller - glad you had a good time. Do you remember if there was a drink card offered , if so at what point during the cruise and was the entertainment good. Also with five sea days was there enough to do ? A few firsts for us this time - first time ex UK, and the longest cruise so far. Thanks Sue

anyone done the 14 night med cruise this year yet and can post some info regarding shows, drink cards etc - booked for September so guess the guest shows acts would change but interested in any info - thanks Sue

Thanks for the review, we have just booked Independence for Autumn - first time starting a cruise in UK. Nice to hear some positives. We won't be getting the drink package, can you remember if the 10 drink card was sold for set price as has been on some RC cruises?

They offered it in Vision last month - believe you could stay on and use public facilities (not stateroom ) until just before final boarding. Great if you have a late flight. Wish it was offered in States when most transatlantic flights are departing late afternoon/evening

Our flight arrived around midnight/1am the day of sailing. We booked the Holiday Inn Express Dubai Airport which included free transport to the hotel and free hot breakfast. The hotel is only two star but it was modern and fine for a few hours sleep/shower and freshen up before going to the cruise terminal around 11am later that morning. The hotel was around £80. The only problem was I had booked a non smoking room but when shown into our room at 2 am in the morning it was definitely a smoking room !!. Too tried to complain - probably at that time it was all they had left. Mentioned it to the front desk on check out and they were very apologetic and provided us with a hotel car to take us to the port free of charge as an apology.

We also got our two bottles of wine at Heathrow duty free for around £8 a bottle. Also pre-booked two bottles of wine through the RC gift website - still expensive but cheaper than buying on board and nice to get it pre paid before the cruise. Only problem was on the front page of the first day cruise compass was a paragraph stating that there was a corkage charge for consuming outside staterooms. Because of this we didn't take into dinning room - not sure if this was a mistake as I always thought RC did not have corkage anymore?

Just come off vision and thought she was in fantastic shape - very clean and hardly any sign of wear and tear . Crew was fantastic , captain very visible (and great singer). Only slight criticism was difficult to get sun loungers because of chair hogs - wish there was some way for crew to monitor loungers that weren't being used. Also entertainment in theatre wasn't the best though the Motown singer was fab and Beatles tribute band also ok.

Think the guarentee rate (where they choose the room) is basic without drink package at least on the cruise I was looking at, they are considerable cheaper than all inclusive

Thanks for the review - not many from this part of the world. Interesting what you said about first time cruisers and lack of meet and mingle - don't think there is even a roll call started for our cruise on 27Feb !

Did you notice if there were any drink cards - couldn't see anything on the cruise compasses. If not think we will be going 'dry' - hurts too much to pay their prices for drinks :D

Was it easy to walk to places in Muscat - we have a dhow tour for the first day but planning on doing our own thing for the second day.

Thanks again - Sue

Are you on vision now - how is the old girl doing ?

Thanks Little Britain - that's what I was hoping for, just a short taxi ride from our hotel. Our docs aren't ready yet so can't check on my planner

Just wondered which Port they use - I thought it was Port Rashid which is fairly close to our hotel but looking on RC website under Middle East cruises it seems to imply that it is DP World Cruise Terminal which is waaaaay out

Just checked with the call centre and they are offering $100 for every £80 - so around 1.25 dollars to pound. Usually they offer a premium (maybe to encourage on board spending !) but this is the same you can get on line more or less, so..... disappointing. It was 1.40 last Summer and around 1.60 a couple of years ago. Great time for all our American friends to visit UK, not so good the other way round.

Anyone? I'd be interested too _ last time I purchase OBC was last summer. Think it was 1.40 to pound then .

Really interesting to hear about different ports. Looking forward to the rest of your review