sue999

We are booked on a Caribbean cruise in April.

 

Our itinerary tells us what time the ship docks and leave, in all the ports but are the times stated ships time or island times ?

 

We are looking at booking excursions and don't want to make any mistakes.

Any info will be much appreciated .

Many Thanks for your replies.

 

It is the Maaasdam we are booked on .

I knew I would get some answers on here .

Will give changing staterooms some thought , but .. As we are really easy going it won't be the end of the world if we cannot.

Still excited to try HAL Roll on April:)

We have booked our first cruise with HAL

 

We are not new to cruising have 15 under our belts with RCI, we felt it was time to try another cruise line .

 

We are booked to cruise to the Caribbean in April , and are impressed with the itinerary and all we have read on CC about HAL and their ships .

I know most cruise lines are similar so not too worried .

 

We are booked into Vista suite 220 , any thoughts on this room ?

 

Also I'm puzzled why we were unable to pay our gratuities up front.

Am I right in assuming that the gratuities will be added daily to our onboard account? Will this be in dollars ? And can anyone advise me of the amount .

I've read that gratuities are optional , but would not dream of opting out as the crew on any ship work hard .

I booked through a TA and been advised to ask on board about gratuities which feels a bit odd to me .

I was on Anthem on the inaugural cruise in April.

There was a meeting of friends of Bill W every day

We were 11329 on Allure in June.

Room is great for the aqua theatre views, we watched a lot of stuff from our balcony .

However, we did find the room noisy even with the balcony doors closed.

The shows and entertainment were usually over by midnight which was ok.

Also there was a late night movie most nights, I sang along to Grease whilst in my bed .

But... Not RCIs fault....some passengers insisted on shouting and singing way after that a couple of nights, a group sang pop songs after 2am

A phone call to security took care of that.

This was the second time we have stayed in a Boardwalk room, the first not too far from the second (10315) but this was 4 years ago .

The whole Boardwalk seemed to be noisier all round this time .

It could be we are getting older !

Would we stay in a boardwalk stateroom again...probably not

We did the All Access tour on the Allure when we sailed on the 7th June . We booked it on line about 3 weeks before we sailed.

 

Speaking to some passengers also on the tour , a couple said they had not seen it on any planners before getting on board.

I don't know why some passengers are able to pre book and some cannot .

I would recommend the tour as it was 3 hours long and was very interesting.

It's like another world below decks ! :)

Well my birthday arrived and my darling husband HAS booked us on the inaugural Anthem cruise on the 22nd April

 

Did I confess that I had been told in error by a phone call from RCI ....

No , I will keep that secret and maybe one day tell him but not yet.

After reading everyone's views and after a lot of thought . I couldn't spoil his suprise for me, he would have been so disappointed.

 

 

So... Off we go next week,

Anthem here we come ...:):)

Many thanks for your good wishes and suggestions.

I am going to sleep on it before making any decisions .

 

It has been helpfull reading everyone's opinions.

 

I don't need to worry over him reading cruise critic, he never does !

Also he wouldn't be suspicious at me being on cruise critic as I am a bit of an addict:):)

 

Could I lie to him, hell yes ........for the last 40 years he thinks I have had some damn good shoe bargains ! ::)

My birthday is in 4 days, I may have to wait till then.

I will promise to keep all my CC friends updated

Today I took a phone call from a representative of Royal Caribbean asking why we had not booked any dining options on our Anthem cruise in 2 weeks .

I explained that we were not booked on Anthem of the seas !

He insisted we had a reservation for the inaugural cruise out of Southampton on the 22nd April.

He advised me of our Stateroom number and the names of the passengers which appears to be me and my husband .

After pondering this all afternoon, I think I know what my birthday suprise off my husband is.

Yes we are on holiday for 2 weeks starting the 20th of April, yes he has told me he has a suprise lined up for me and to wait and see what it is.

 

Dilemma....Number 1 .. Do I tell him I now know what he has done for my birthday or. .. Do I act dumb ?

 

The poor guy at RCI did appear mortified to think he had let the cat out of the bag , he did say he would call again when my husband was home .

 

Dilemma number 2 .... How the hell am I going to hide how excited I am about Anthem ?

 

Also I am chuffed my husband does actually listen to what I say, I mentioned over a year ago how I would love to see this ship

Let me tell you our experience with RCI and a disabled stateroom.

 

We booked a cruise through a TA for Independence of the seas in 2013.

The travel agent sorted all our reservations for us, chose our stateroom etc.

We looked up our room on the deck plans as you do and it we appeared to have been booked into a disabled room.

Thankfully neither of us are disabled and we never expressed a wish for this type of room.

Here is where things got very silly.

 

We requested that we could change rooms so any disabled person would and should have better use than usthan our booked room.

Because we are from the UK, the option given, were to cancel and loose our deposit!! And rebook paying another deposit.

Passengers from the UK do not have the option to cancel or change staterooms without a financial penalty.

As loosing the deposit appeared unfair and not an option we kept the disabled room, but felt disappointed that RCI couldn't help.

 

Fast forward to embarkation day, we again offered to change staterooms if it would be helpful to another fellow passenger. We went to our staeroom , obviously larger than usual presumably to accomadate a wheelchair.

In the very next stateroom was a disabled child in a wheelchair on holiday with her parents, they were struggling to get through the door with her chair.

We offered to swap rooms , which after going to guest services they allowed us to do with no charge as we were on board.

Due to this we have met 3 wonderful people from Florida who are now great friends with us and we have met 3 times since :)

So I can sympathise with the problem you encountered..UK cruisers do appear to be at a disadvantage at times

Hi, I only drink Vimto which is like squash. I take a bottle on board with no problems on each cruise I've been on.

I am allergic to certain sweetners in some soda drinks .

Last cruise was June last year on Independence from Southampton.

It was in my carry on luggage .

I knew I'd get a reply using CC .

Thanks so much :)

Guess what I'm going to do tomorrow:)

Does anyone know what date the last cruise Majesty will do before she goes to her new home.?

We have very fond memories of this ship, it was on here we took our very first cruise to see if we would like cruising.

Well 14 cruises later I think she did a good job:).

It would be so nice to go on her again to say goodbye .

I would like to suprise my husband with this.

My TA does not seem to have any information so I thought I would turn to my CC friends who have given us so much help over the years.

We booked a cruise last year whilst on Independence for Anthem this year.

We are diamond members with 14 cruises under our belts so thought we knew what we were doing. Admittedly we have had some good deals by booking on board but not with this one it seems.

We did ask if any special promotions would be forthcoming on the UK for this ship and were told no plans to do this.

Fast forward to the Monday , 3 days after we disembarked and we're home, RCI had launched a massive promotion for Anthem of The Seas in the UK .

This was to include all gratuities and a drinks package .

To say we were disappointed was an understatement , we got $50 obc

We rang RCI and were told nothing could be done, advised to cancel and rebook but being in the UK we would loose our deposit.

We have friends who are now coming on this sailing with us, which will be fantastic as they have never cruised before .

They have been given the deal as they booked after the promotion was launched, and they got a better deal than we did even after the diamond balcony discount.

Lesson learned, I doubt if we will book on board again. It's been put down to experience and life's too short to let it ruin our cruise.

No ones at fault here, the cruise agent did her job, but we do feel a bit let down after being loyal to Royal.

I have also been watching prices and really do not understand at times how "sale" prices remain the same or sometimes more !

I loved the pictures. Thankyou.

There were 1 or 2 things I was unsure about ordering on my last cruise but they look yummy , I certainly will try them on my next cruise :)

Both my husband and myself downgraded to the replenish package when we cruised on Independence out of Southampton last June .

Neither of us drink alcohol.:)

Once on board we went to guest services and they sorted it out for us.

Enjoy

[quote name='Meggysmum']I would love to see what extra protection us UK residents get for our Cruises!

I am really starting to resent the way that our prices are high anyway compared to US for the same cruise and then they bring in price slashing which they know we can't take advantage of.

As a family who travel with children in a separate cabin we have to book early to endure that we can get cabins close enough together to pass RCIs rules. Last year we tried booking later and were turned down as they hadn't got cabins within 1 door of each other.[/QUOTE]

I would also like to know what extra protection UK cruisers get, I haven't seen any yet, hopefully the person who posted and informed me of this it will enlighten us . I for one would love to know!

I have to agree on the higher prices too.

[quote name='leisuretraveler223']Did they give you that promise about no specials coming up in writing? Or did you actually take the world of the SALESPERSON who makes a living getting people to buy cruises on board? Of COURSE they're going to tell you they have the best deal. If you wait, they lose![/QUOTE]

Unfortunately I believed the Loyalty Ambassador on board the ship when she told us,didn't get it in writing .
Like I said We will put it down to experience.
At least we are lucky enough to be able to cruise :)

Sorry, what extra protections do you mean .?
:confused:

We have 2 cruises booked for 2015 .
We booked Allure for June next year for my husband myself son and girlfriend.
We are diamond members so thought we knew about booking best deals etc.
We have also booked for Anthem in April next year.
Very excited about both cruises but....

When booking these on board we where told that there would be no big promotions advertised due to the first year in Europe of both ships

Now I find that 2 weeks after I booked ,July 14th. a huge promo is ongoing for both of these ships,started 1st Aug.

RCI are now offering free gratuities, free drinks package and up to $200 on board credit.
To be fair, we did get offered free transport to Southampton until they realised we lived 250 miles away then advised us it would be £161 !

To make matters worse, this these all inclusive packages appear to be everywhere we look!

We have contacted RCI and their only suggestion was to cancel both cruises forfeiting £900 in deposits.
Apparently as we are not American we would automatically loose our deposit on cancelling or rescheduling, which again appears to be very unfair to the point of discrimination for being British.

I could understand promos if the ship was nearly to sailing time but 9 and 11 months away???

I know of 2 couples who are going on Anthem, both first time cruisers and paying less then us ,even with our diamond discount:(

I just felt I had to vent my disappointment , especially as I did ask on board.
Oh well, suppose I will put it down to experience but it has left rather a bitter after taste.

We are sailing on Independence of the seas on the 28th of this month😀

As part of our booking(we booked this cruise months ago) we were given a free soda package.

Since we booked this the new Replenish package has been introduced.

My question is..can we upgrade our free soda package for the replenish package?

I realise we may have to pay some money towards this.

Has anyone ever done this?

Thanks:)

We are sailing on Independence of the seas on the 28th of this month

As part of our booking(we booked this cruise months ago) we were given a free soda package

.Since we booked this the new Replenish package has been introduced.

My question is..can we upgrade our free soda package for the replenish package?

I realise we may have to pay some money towards this.

Has anyone ever done this?

Thanks:)

One reason the priority lines are rarely shorter is because of personnel who allow non-status family members to check-in with those who have earned the privilege of being in the priority lines.

 

Just sayin' :D

 

I think someone got out the wrong side of the bed!:eek:

All check in together, stop worrying and have a great cruise :)

You sig says you have already sailed on IotS, or did you put in the wrong year?

 

No we have been on Indy twice but we not diamond members so didn't take much notice ;);)

Many thanks for all your replies.

Thanks for your prompt replies :)