imola

Do they go to the Long Beach Airport? Typical cost?

Hello all. Flying into Long Beach and need recommendations for transportation to our pre-cruise hotel, the Crown Plaza. We are looking for simple (easiest) but not horribly expensive way to achieve this goal. Will be arriving on a Wednesday around 1:00 pm. Thank you in advance for any input you can provide.

Crown Plaza is fairly $$$ $ as well but with the Best Western closed I guess that is where we will stay.

I spoke with C&A desk this morning. I was told that RC does not have PVP. The rep said that the RC sales person who books a cruise for the customer is suppose to stay in contact with the customer between booking and sailing. I told him that we have been cruising for 34 years and that has never happened. He just said well it should. Just sharing information that I was told.

I am just sharing information that I was given this morning. I can handle it but thought you all might find it interesting. I just had a long conversation with a very nice rep at RC. He offered some interesting information on this topic. He told me that RC does not have PVPs. He said that if you book direct with RC the person booking your cruise is supposed to follow up with you periodically until sailing. I shared with him that in all my years of cruising (that is many) that has never happened. He told me to just call C&A for booking cruises and any issues or needs we might have. I even found an old post that I did a screen shot of PVP contact name, number and email. I sent an email 3 days ago with no response. Now about the Final Payment. I shared my concern that on the first leg of our B2B RC paperwork is showing that our final payment is due 74 days from sailing date not 90. I have been told 90 days is the new requirement. On the second leg of the cruise the RC paperwork shows that our final payment is due 11 days before the one for the first leg of the B2B and 89 days before sailing date. In both cases missing the 90 day mark. I was assured that RC does this just to stagger incoming money processing and that we would not lose our cabin for paying past the 90 day requirement. All this makes question the information so I will be paying for both cruises before the 90 day mark.

You are a wealth information. Thank you so much for your help. What can you share about travel insurance? I have looked at Insure my Trip but wow they want a lot of money.

We have not sailed that line but hope to soon. We hear consistently good things about it.

Thank you for making us laugh out loud. What a great picture to paint and so right. We are excited but feeling a little guilty because we never spend money like this on ourselves. We are D+ so we know we will get those perks and we know gratuities are higher in this suite but we tip more anyway so not a concern. The Deck Plans show a Diamond Lounge and a Concierge Lounge. What are the differences? Which one will be told to use? On our last 6 cruises the Concierge desk was in the Diamond Lounge. I am sorry for so many questions. I am a little confused as RC has screwed up our final payment dates and said they do not know how nor are they allowed to fix it. They are saying FP must be paid by 90 days out from sailing but the dates they have given us are both less than 90 days. Plus the first cruise date FP is due weeks after the second cruise further away sailing date. He said that RC changed back to 90 FP due prior to sailing a couple of months ago. Said that since things are better there was no longer a need to give passengers a longer time to decide to sail.

I get that but it was the only stateroom left that we could get for both cruises, otherwise we are typical Jr suite folks. We have done B2B and know that changing staterooms is not a difficult process DH just didn't want to do it this trip. We decided if we don't spend our money the kids will so therefore went this route.

We are on the Radiance and I don't know what class ship that is.

OK We decided to really splurge for our 40th wedding anniversary and grabbed an owners suite for our B2B in November. I thought I knew where to find stuff but not this time. Where might I find information about any additional perks for the above type stateroom? I have my D+ list so I know those. TIA

Thank you. C & A is now telling me that final payment due 90 days out. Is that new?

Thank you. We took your recommendation, called again and booked our B2B. There was only one cabin that we could get for both cruises and didn't want to lose it. Now we wait 105 days. lol

Thank you for sharing you experiences. We booked.

Thank you so much for your clear response. You are very helpful.

*Update* I called C & A, they are closed. Called main number. The lady was very nice and provided a lot of "new to me" information. She said she would send a request for a PVP for me but it would be next week sometime before I heard from anyone as they don't work weekends. Also stated they do not do "courtesy holds" for less than seven days cruises. She wanted me to book the cruise(s) highly suggesting that I booked refundable which were 1000+ more for each cruise (doing a B2B). She shared that by doing that we could do one of three things: 1) take the cruise 2) cancel and get our deposit back any time before final payment 3) move it from refundable to non refundable with the price dropping back any time before final payment. Has anyone done this before? I have never heard of this option. It got so confusing that I told her we would have to think about it. I am not sure what to do at this point.

But could they help after booking given that the work would then be done?

Going o give it a try.

OK I waved my magic wand, your confused. Clearly I am not expressing myself well with what i thought was an easy question. One that one person could answer but is not allowed to on this site. I will just move on. Thank you to all who tried.

I have heard many folks talk about having a RC Vacation Planner person who works for RC help them with their booking a cruise. We have one each with two cruise lines. I was asking about how to get one with RC. I have been doing our bookings direct for a long time after lack of responsive TA. We are D+ and know what cruise as in dates, stateroom types we want and debarkation port. I am just older an getting kinda tired of all the work that makes travel less appealing I guess.

Wow. Makes cc less helpful.

I know I can do that but often hard to get them to understand what I am after.

Can you send me a private message?

I am hoping someone can help with this. I want to book a November cruise today but looking for a little help. Thanks.

Can anyone share how to get a person who works with RC that helps with planning a cruise? We have had this type of person with other lines. Or if you have one and would share thier name and number. TIA