3kidsncats

We are driving that morning from an hour and a half away — we don’t plan on rushing, lol. Except embarkation morning I get a bit excited and like to move it to get onboard

I’ve never had anyone confirm what our check in time was, other than Bahamas for the post covid restart cruise, and some rude guy (he really didn’t want any questions and didn’t care if you were just confirming that your time was already allowed in — he assumed people at the back of the 500-750 person line could hear him shouting 🙄) at Cape Liberty back in January. We home port of out San Pedro, and no one there has ever asked, pre or post covid and doesn’t matter which cruise line. Which really sucks because they make you line up inside a hot tent for the security screening. I might not have minded that pre-hot flash stage of my life, but hate it now. We have the 10:30 slot for our upcoming Navigator sailing, and I am hoping to not have to stand in that tent for an hour because they don’t adhere to the time assignments. I wish people would just come when they are supposed to so the line is spread out over the morning and afternoon, as it is supposed to be.

We did the beach club 3 of 4 days we were there, so didn’t pay a lot of attention to the free stuff. The one day we didn’t do beach club, we had free passes for the water slides (they had cancelled our daybed due to closing off the area we had booked it in, so they refunded us, and gave us the passes). I do recall seeing activity areas scattered about the included sections — stuff like Volleyball, etc. And of course, there are different beach and swimming options, as well as several included food venues. I’m sure there are a lot of videos on line covering the topic if you want to look.

Reservations for WJ was a post covid thing, that even during the initial few months of return to cruising, they didn’t bother with that I ever experienced.

I’ve experienced both discreet (via crew elevator and passageways 3x) and in your face exits (1x) — definitely prefer the discreet option.

Apple wallet is used for all kinds of things. Some hotels offer “add to wallet” functionality for reservation info, online movie tickets, etc. I even have my covid vaccine data available in the wallet, although as we seem to be needing that less and less to travel that is less of a benefit. I use it, but never to pay for anything, lol

It’s not cutting if it’s a perk included with your booking. I’ve been in suites and had people direct comments towards us about cutting (even when we were just going to the suite waiting area for disembarkation). One time we got an earful on NCL when the crew member wouldn’t let people on one specific elevator that was reserved for Haven guests at embarkation. I’ve also cruised plenty without any priority perks, and have zero problem with passengers escorted by the suite concierge being taken to the front. It’s not cheap to travel in a suite, and no different at disembarkation than priority boarding for that same suite guest.

But presumably it was a manager who assigned the crew member to be there, to direct people to the end of the line. So not sure why a manager is needed to make a decision that seems to have already been made. The end of the line is that way

The person wasn’t in line, and so the line was not being held up, as far as we can tell from what the OP stated. The crew member was there to specifically prevent people from doing what this passenger was trying — line cutting. While the comment was not professional, making the person go to the back of the line was — you might make one passenger happy by allowing the cutting, but you are going to make even more unhappy by being the ones who are following the rules while others are just let in in front of them.

In this case, that crew member was providing a service, and being respectful of passengers — all of the passengers that got up early and got in line when they were supposed to in order to make their post cruise travel arrangements. For me, this is exactly the kind of business model I want to see — having a system/policy and applying it to everyone — ie, get to the back of the line. Besides, if that person truly had a flight in 30 minutes, cutting in line was not going to help them make the flight — get off the ship, go thru customs, find car/transport, drive to airport, check in, go thru security and then walk potentially a long way down the terminal in 30 minutes?? Not possible.

If I could make it happen, I would/will. Unfortunately we booked the 31st (at the final payment day) before our friends booked this one on a casino perk and we weren’t planning on the $ outlay for both. Plus have to arrange for the pets. We do a mix — we have done….8 cruises with our friends, who we met on the NCL Jewel. There were 30+ people we knew on a cruise last year (some we found out had co-incidentally booked the same sailing) but it felt like too many — got pulled in so many directions. I do very much enjoy sailing with smaller groups of friends though 🙂

Have friends on that sailing…..and soooooooooo want to go too, lol

You can be upgraded even on embarkation day, so as long as you don’t cancel your bid/s then you still have a chance. It doesn’t matter that you already have a cabin assignment

Moderating is hard work, and it’s fairly impossible to do it with out some bias. I have just noticed over the many years that I’ve been here, that some members are allowed to behave in a way that others are not — when really no one should be allowed, imo, to bully. I, sadly, lean towards dishing it back if bullied, so I try to practice self moderation. I’ve never gotten a reminder, but have definitely been in threads that got “cleaned” or locked. I’m ok with that to an extent, as long as it is applied equally.

If the price drops after final payment, they will not obc you for a price drop, and if you want to upgrade direct they charge more than the going rate — I recently inquired on my upcoming cruise, and the two categories I was looking at, one was selling for LESS than I had booked, they wanted $100 total for that one, and $250 total for the other (difference between what I had already paid, and the current fare for the upgraded category was $50 total). This new policy went into effect in March of this year. What it taught me, when booking RC, is I will wait until the last minute, or close to, to book anything. We are at the point of just doing budget, non-bucket list cruises so it’s not an issue to just book great deals on short notice. Re-pricing is an option I prefer to have if booking in advance, and as far as I know, the other two lines I book with still offer it. Admittedly, I haven’t double checked, but will if I’m looking to book.

I have bids in for Navigator, so feeling hopeful

Maybe the distillers need to start a “send in your empty bottle” program—we had a Bourbon deficiency on Anthem in January and it was not fun, lol

I don’t recall that, but I know CC doesn’t allow recommendations of TAs. I assume because they sell or have some connection to sales of cruises and don’t want the competition. And they don’t have pm functionality here either. It’s a great forum, but the prohibitions on some info and just general over moderation of some content, and often disregard of the bullying is not appealing, imo. And probably why a fair number of cruisers are not joining roll calls here anymore, and have moved to other platforms. There is no roll call for my upcoming cruise in a month — never seen that before.

I used to always book direct, but ended up finding an amazing TA, so pretty much book all of my cruises with her. Land based stuff I still do on my own. It’s not about perks so much (although there are some), it’s more about knowing she is there to handle any unforeseen issues like flight delays/cancellations, etc. And she is just a sweet person that I enjoy interacting with.

Agree 100%

I rarely spend more than 45 minutes at the pool, so for me it’s not an issue. If I actually get in the pool, it’s gonna be 5 minutes to cool off. Just not my thing for any length of time. But I get it that for others, it is their thing and think they should be able to use a lounger. I only have issue, personally with those that bring stuff out at dawn and show up hours later expecting a lounger waiting for them. And no, I don’t leave my phone on the chair while I’m in the pool — I have a water proof phone cover so I can take it with me — because it’s worth a 7 day cruise to replace it, lol

Love it — I always choose our cabin outside of winning bids (which we’ve done a few times), so this is very new to me. Last year was our year of living large (due to a small inheritance and the low prices when travel resumed post covid). I knew pricing was going to sky rocket at some point, so we got our vaccines and booked a bunch of travel (5 cruises last year — two weeks of which were in an OS, and 10 days in a JS on Anthem, all via Royal Up). And we did our dream trip to Europe with a blend of ultra high end elements at a fraction of the usual price and average accommodations. High end meals, and budget. Mixed it up and had the experience of a life time. We knew that this meant our travel choices in the up coming years would be budget. But we are good with that, and are within an hour of a cruise port, so we can do last minute when we want. For a 7 day cruise I am more concerned about a noisy (ie, under the casino or club) location, but for a 3 night it’s not a big deal. I can’t even get the bar code, the muster station, or anything other than the code: GTY. I guess I will just keep checking obsessively until I know.

Except it doesn’t work if your set sail pass is a blank screen 😂😩 I can’t really tell you my experience as I’m still in the middle of it. So far, it’s making me crazy as I always carefully select our cabin. But we are trying to keep our upcoming 3 night to a really strict budget for a change. Trying out the “empty nest, we can cruise when we want to, book cheap close to cruise date” concept. But so far, at just over a month out, we can’t access anything related to docs (set sail pass, tags, etc) and have no room assignment. It’s not the end of the world, we know we will have a cabin and it’s a short cruise so we can manage with whatever our assignment ends up being. But like I said, it is making me a tad nuts, lol.

I imagine personal items would go to lost and found. If you are concerned, just take some time out of the pool at intervals. Are you cruising solo? If with friends, maybe get chairs together if they are inclined to spend actual time in the chairs. If you are truly more intent on literally being in the pool for hours vs laying in the sun/shade, then maybe consider not putting your towel, etc on a sun bed as it really does prevent someone else from using it.

I still can’t access the set sail pass, docs, etc., regardless of browser or on the app. I’ve got time, but for whatever reason (vacation micromanagement??) it makes me nuts.