JeffT237

We'll see for ourselves in a couple of weeks but my feeling is although the Royal Caribbean experience may be different than pre pandemic, we will still receive excellent service and find good value in cruising and we will continue to take cruise vacations. We have sailed twice in the last year with Princess and despite all of the doom and gloom from experienced Princess cruisers we enjoyed the cruise and received great service from the crew. The threat from loyal passengers to leave Royal, stop cruising or take off the auto gratuities or not tip at all will not correct the issue of a perceived drop in service or quality. These ships are sailing at capacity, on board spending is up despite the very high prices and almost everything is sold out pre cruise. Once a day cabin service is not a deal breaker for us, I'm confident if I need something I can get it. But if for others it is then you have choices. I suspect the number of people who actually protest by leaving Royal or who stop cruising will be minimal and won't impact the industries bottom line. As others have said change is difficult for many people.

Thanks for the review, we are looking forward to our upcoming Wonder cruise in a couple of weeks. How was embarkation day at PC? I've heard some stories of really long lines, even though we have a 10:30 boarding time we're expecting that most passengers get there early.

We recently took our first Alaska cruise last May with Princess. We were primarily cruising the Caribbean cruises and almost all of them were with Royal and most of those on Oasis class ships. We like the entertainment they offered, I do tend to get bored easily, and we almost always try and cruise on newer ships for all they offer. We will continue to cruise the Caribbean on Royal ships, we sail next month on the Wonder. The exception was Alaska. We chose Princess round trip out of Seattle for Glacier Bay which Royal does not offer. The day of our visit was spectacular. I do agree with the comments that it is more about the itinerary than the ship for Alaska. Our next cruise to Alaska will not be a round trip out of Seattle, it felt like too much open ocean and not enough scenery and shorter times in port. Whatever line we chose it will be a northbound out of Vancouver through the true inside passage. We want more scenery. So you'll have to ask yourself what is most important to you, as only you know your own likes. Is it the newest ship? Entertainment? Scenery? With a Caribbean cruise you can often hit all of those on one class of ship, with Alaska there's some give and take. For instance if your'e set on the newest ship with more on board entertainment then you'll probably end up with a Seattle roundtrip cruise. If it's scenery you want you'll probably end up with a one way cruise that starts or ends in Vancouver. This was at least our experience in planning Alaska and we look forward to our next one. Best of luck!

The Key should be available in your cruise planner under the name "VIP passes", if you enjoyed it on your previous cruise and it's the right price for you go for it, it's your cruise! enjoy, we love the planning and anticipation that comes with cruising.

our upcoming cruise was 45 days before, I believe that is the standard. Your reservation in the app should show the date that check in will be open and you can secure your boarding time as well.

Having done our first Alaska cruise last May roundtrip out of Seattle, I'd look for a cruise that sails the true inside passage that departs Vancouver. Our Seattle roundtrip seemed like a lot of open ocean and not scenic sailing. It was on Princess not Royal, we did get Glacier bay and that was the highlight but our next one for sure will depart Vancouver, and possibly even a back to back and end in Vancouver.

Our first Princess cruise was on the Crown Princess in May and dined at the Crown Grill twice, we really enjoyed both meals. We did Sabatini's once and it was average in our opinion. Both had great service though. We sailed the Discovery Princess in October and again had a great meal at the Crown Grill, we did not try Sabatini's again. So obviously our vote would be for the Crown Grill.

This has been a frequently discussed topic lately, I think the consensus answer is it varies port to port and sailing to sailing. Some times it is enforced and others it’s not. We have not sailed Royal since the start up, we have sailed Princess for comparison it was enforced in San Pedro and not enforced in Seattle. We sail next month on the Wonder out of PC so we’ll see for ourselves.

I'll find out in March, we'll be on the Wonder with the Odyssey being at CoCo Cay as well. It will be our first trip to the island. With Hideaway Beach being adult only I'd imagine most of those guests would stay in that area and not use the other activities on the island like the water park or other attractions that are geared towards families with kids, pure speculation on my part.

Here is some info from a previous post that you may find helpful.

It's at the 7:00 minute mark

I saw a recent YouTube video review of the Beach Club and the reviewer said she was able to make a reservation with a maitre d on board. It was a recent video, since we have the 3 night dining package on our upcoming Wonder cruise I will inquire about reserving a lunch time for the Beach Club restaurant when making our dining reservations for the week, if they don't take them on board we'll make it as soon as we arrive as it's my understanding that they do take reservations. First time to Coco Cay for us.

For our upcoming March Wonder cruise the current prices for the Beach Club is at $283.99, over water cabana's are $2999 and Thrill Island Cabana's are $999. All are sold out, who knows what "sale" price they were purchased at but to answer your question many people will pay these amounts.

I just checked in for our March cruise on the Wonder out of PC. I got on right when the times became available and got the 10:30 arrival time and in a couple of places it says to honor your arrival time or arrival outside your time slot will delay your boarding. I'm sure a lot of this is asked of arriving passengers because it makes it easier for shore staff to manage the 6000+ arriving passengers shortly after disembarking the previous cruise. I would also guess if it's not as big of a crowd at any given time they allow later times to board to make the process as efficient as possible. Should we consider their operation or is it all about us? By that logic should we "chair hog"? Maybe you do. The pool staff often doesn't enforce that rule so it must be OK and really only the busy bodies on CC care. How many times when boarding a plane does a passenger come on with an extra carry-on or personal item that is supposed to be under their seat but they take extra space in the overheads and your stuck checking your bag. Rules for that that often go unenforced. I think Royal makes the mistake in thinking passengers will do what is asked of them.

The is it "worth it" part of your question is going to garner a lot of opinion, everyone's value in any vacation related purchase is going to be different. For our upcoming March cruise on the Wonder it was routinely priced at $269pp I was shocked and just kept an eye on it. It did lower to $149pp on Black Friday and we did purchase it even though I felt it was overpriced, was hoping for $99pp but it never got that low. The main reason we wanted it was that the Odyssey will be in port that day as well. Not everyone on the 2 ships will visit the island but we felt the beach club would be less crowded, it has been sold out for our cruise since Black Friday. We also have some friends who are taking this cruise now and they wanted to do it so we made the purchase. It is also our anniversary that day. So it is worth it? To us for those reasons it is, but we did probably overpay which really in the grand scheme of our vacation is not that big of a deal, we tend to overspend on a lot of our vacation purchases. I will say just about every option to purchase for this cruise has really been more expensive than the past but so is everything.

Royal no longer offers the luggage valet program for FLL cruises, I agree it was a nice feature and we used it when it was available. I believe the only US port that has the service now is Seattle, we used it in May and it was great.

For traditional dining the early seating is at 5:30 and the late seating is at 8:00 on the Wonder of the Seas.

Same with ours for our upcoming March cruise on the Wonder, last night we had that screen you described and we could not book either on the app or the planner, this morning they had the shows and times available to reserve, I was able to book everything I wanted to.

We'll be on the Wonder next month and we're looking forward to it. Glad to hear your'e enjoying your cruise and thanks for the update!

Our first cruise with Princess was May 2022, when we booked the Princess Plus was its original price of $40pp. Our last several cruises were all on Royal Caribbean and we have never even considered buying a drink package due to the cost vs how much we consume. When I found out the $40pp was for drinks, tips and WiFI I thought it was a typo or a mistake. Unbelievable value at that price for us, we purchased it again for our October Discovery cruise at $50pp, and would still purchase it at the current $60pp price point. As a comparison for our upcoming March cruise with Royal Caribbean the cost of the drink package, WiFi and gratuities comes out to $116.50pp or $1631 for both my wife and I. We never purchase the drink package with Royal, we'll continue to purchase the WiFi separately, pre-pay gratuities and pay for drinks individually.

We took a taxi and did it on our own without any issues. We went a few years ago after one of the hurricanes so there was a lot of traffic due to construction getting back to the ship so plan accordingly. We hung out at the Sunset Bar and Grill and would move to the beach when the planes came in. They have the flight schedule posted at the bar. I also looked online a few days before and confirmed a big plane was due to arrive. We had fun and most people move down to the beach when the planes come in. IMG_1763.mov

Thanks for posting and I'm glad you're enjoying your cruise! We will be on the Wonder in March and we're looking forward to it, it's nice hearing a firsthand positive experience, enjoy!

@CruisnDeb Yes that was the drop off for our cruise. I believe it took about 15-20 minutes one way once the tender boat departed the ship/harbor.

We were on the Discovery in October and the tenders dropped us off in the harbor just west of Stearns Wharf. There were vendors and transportation waiting just outside the drop off point. It was a short walk to the pier and State Street.

This is a link to a cruise compass from November 20th 2022 for the Wonder on the Eastern itinerary. Keep in mind showtimes can change but I'm using this as a reference for our upcoming Wonder cruise until the showtimes become available on the cruise planner/app, hopefully next week. If someone has more recent showtimes and could post them I'd appreciate it as well, thanks! https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compasses/wonder-of-the-seas/sun-11202022-0000