Royal Romance Feedback

Hi All,

I just booked my family/wedding cruise with Royal Caribbean for November of 2006. We have decided to get married on St. Thomas. My issue is that RCL Wedding Experience said that they would not contact me until 2 weeks prior to our departure. I am by no means a bridezilla but it does stress me that I paid them $2K for a beach wedding, marriage license, etc. to coordinate my wedding and they will not tell me what time is the ceremony or any other details until 2 weeks prior.. How do they know when to schedule your hair appointment, etc.. Does anyone have any tips on how to get information earlier then later? I also asked for pictures for Bolongo Beach and they send me the same wedding pictures that ocurred on a cloudy day.. Does anyone else have any other pictures for St. Thomas Bolongo bay that they can share? Any tips would be great!! Thanks, Ginger

Hey Ginger!

Dont stress! My sister and I are both doing our weddings through royal romance in St. Thomas. We are having our weddings on the ship - back to back ceremonies followed by a reception. There are a total of 18 people in our party (counting me, my fiance, my sister and her fiance). Our wedding is in less than 2 weeks!

We havent heard from our coordinators at all... BUT about a month ago we contacted Royal Romance (because we wanted to book our salon appointments and reception preferences plus with double-wedding we wanted to iron out how that would work). The people in the Florida RR office werent helpful at all but they did give us the phone number for their branch in St Thomas.

My sister called them and spoke with Angela. She was amazingly helpful. My sister told her what we had in mind for the day and Angela went through the standard procedure with her and then they worked out the specifics (which ceremony would go first, when the reception would be, the times of the salon appointments and when we would be going to the court to get our marriage licenses).

We STILL havent heard from the coordinators but Angela said we would meet them on the ship. In the meantime she sent us an invoice of the additional charges (for the reception and salon appointments) as well as an itinerary for the day. You can call Royal Romance to talk about the wedding options but as for the specifics, you need to speak with the royal romance people and they really dont have the details until a month or two before the cruise... just keep in mind that some things have to be booked outside 30 days prior to the sailing so call them like 2 months before you sail.

It is our impression that they have everything covered. I will be happy to do a post here after the cruise to let people know how it went. It seems like there arent many RCI Wedding Cruise reviews anywhere on the internet (that I can find at least).

I really hate to be negative here but you deserve to know what you are getting into.

If your entire group is less than 10 people, you may want to stop reading now and ignore this reply. If it's larger than that, you may want to continue reading, but I warn you, you won't be very happy.

However, don't take what I say as gospel truth. Read as many reviews on these boards as possible. I think you will find more negative ones about Royal Romance than you should be comfortable with. I know many couples have had wonderful weddings with Royal Caribbean and if you stay with them, I surely hope you are one of the happy ones when it's all said and done.

Back in Sept. 2004 we booked 38 guests on the Explorer of the Seas for April of this year. Our travel agent and the Royal Romance people told us we could not talk to them until we had a booking number. A few days after we booked, we called Royal Romance and they told us to wait until mid-2005 to book the wedding.

When we questioned this and told them we wanted to book early to guarantee choice of ceremony venue, day of the week and time of day, they told us we would not find out any of that until 30 days before the cruise and even if we were the first to book, they would not guarantee first choice on anything.

I guess that's okay if you are having a small wedding with just yourselves and 3 or 4 family or friends. But if your group is larger, there is more planning involved than two weeks would allow, in my opinion.

We then called our travel agent, cancelled the cruise, fired the travel agent and booked on the Caribbean Princess for April 29th. After more than 30 emails, numerous phone calls and a visit to the ship hosted by the Princess Wedding Department since we booked, we have had all our wishes catered to and approved, and all the details including the list of songs for the DJ, the list of must-have photos for the photographers, all the restaurant and reception reservations confirmed as of two weeks ago. Everything has been finalized 45 days before the cruise.

We are having the wedding at sea and officiated by the Captain of the ship. Princess is the only cruise line whose captains can perform weddings. On all other lines, the weddings are in port (either on the ship or ashore) and officiated by some local minister or justice of the peace.

Our only concern is that for the next 30 days, all we have to do is sit and wait. Everything has been taken care of and my daughter, my wife and I are bored stiff.

My suggestion to you is that if at all possible, change cruise lines. At this point you should get any deposits back, except if you already paid Royal Romance for the wedding. I don't know what their cancellation policy is.

I know this would be especially hard to do if you've already announced it to everyone, but not only had we announced it, everyone was already booked on the cruise. Once we explained it to everyone,however, no one had a problem with it.

You deserve to know everything about your wedding long before two weeks prior to the cruise. We certainly were not going to allow Royal Romance to tell us where, when and how we were doing my daughter's wedding. You shouldn't either.

Believe me, I hate to hurt your feelings now, but better now than in November. Best of luck to you and your future husband.

Royal Romance Sucks!

They lack and sense of customer service and always have a tone of "I really dont care what your concerns are, this is the way it is". I will never understand why a company of Royal Caribbean's calibur would let such an unprofessional and uncaring bunch of ignoramuses represent Royal Caribbean!

However, from what I have read on these boards, the St. Thomas office/branch is THE BEST when it comes to professionalism, communication and coordination. Everyon who gets marired on St. Thomas has nothing but positive things to say about the WHOLE experience - from booking and making plans thru the actual ceremony and reception.

Perhaps soneone on this board can give you an email or a phone number of this branch so you can contact them directly and start discussing your wedding day.

Possibly, if you ask nicely, you can get someone from Royal Romance in florida to give you the email or number.

I feel like you should stick with your plans to get married in St. Thomas. Try hard to avoid RR in Florida and always try and deal with the St. Thomas branch.

Good Luck and Happy Sailing!

I agree with the above posters; you are in a better position with the St Thomas people than the Florida office, but as a general observation (and personal experience that led me to coordinate my own wedding off the ship in Key West) RR is not a full service coordinator; they do very standard stuff and consider anything more demanding than that, bridezillaville. You may be fine, but you have to let it go until a few weeks before and just wait and hope for the best. That plan works for some, but it didn't for me.

I can give you the number for the st thomas office. I think they're having problems with their email so a phone call is probably the best course of action.

Again, I'd advise you to call about 2 months from when you sail. Thats about when we got in touch with the St. Thomas office because the FL office was (as everyone has mentioned) pretty unhelpful.

Our stuff was finalized at around 45 days prior to sailing. You have up until 30 days prior to sailing to book enhancements so you need to call and set that up before then. You're better off just contacting the St. Thomas people directly I think. It gives you an excuse to touch base with them, ask questions and make requests.

Hi!

My wedding is in May. I have over 50 guest sailing and 20 non sailing that will be attending the wedding. Robert at Royal Romance has been GREAT. Don't get me wrong, I'm far from a 'couture' bride... but I am very, very concerned about how everything will look and run. I went ahead and had all of my flowers, runner, welcome signs, decorations... everything that I can control I have had made... if you select to have a cruise wedding you have to let it go. You go into it knowing you are in control of NOTHING... if you can deal with that you will be fine! Think of it this way... if you are in a hot pink casino... your photographer doesn't speak English, the dj has not listened to you and is playing the electric slide... it will be okay. you will be sailing with your friends and family for several days... you will get fabulous photos over that time and memories for a life time... make your wedding a 3 day event... not just an hour.

Good Luck!

SimpleBride

Ginger,

We were married in St Thomas at Bolongo Bay February 28th. We went through RR and everything turned out better than we both could have expected. We were both a little nervous about not talking with people at RR until right before our wedding, but EVERYTHING was wonderful. There are always going to be situations/problems with any business out there, and unfortunately those who have problems with a company are more likely to speak of them than those who have everything go off without a hitch.

Here are some pictures of our Bolongo Bay wedding.

http://www.zupansic.shutterfly.com/action/

Let me know if you have any other questions and Congrats!

Jeff

Jeff, your pics are absolutely gorgeous!!!!

Yeah it is stressful not to be able to know what everything is going to be like, but for me it is going to be a week long celebration. So if the reception isn't as I pictured, no big deal, I will still have an incredible time! It is kind of nice not having to plan everything though. A cruise wedding has its pluses and minuses... I hope everyone's wedding goes well!

I was married through Royal Romance on Voyager of the Seas in January. I had a WONDERFUL experience and no problems. In fact, we were even given lots of perks we did not expect like champaign several times, chocolate covered strawberries, and other stuff brought to our cabin every day. After reading all of the comments on this board, I became very anxious and worried. We ended up with over 60 guests and it all went wonderfully. The only snag we ran into, was with photography, which is contracted out by both Royal Romance and RCCL. We were miss lead in the cost, but in reality, it is expensive to get a photographer and we walked away with a CD of over 200 digital images and 11 prints for $400. The 11 prints were included in our Royal Romance package. We actually ordered copies of our digital prints through an online dealer and they look better than the ones printed on the ship.

I think the problem some people are finding with Royal Romance, is they expect a wedding planner. For the cost of the service, you are not going to get a wedding planner, rather, you get a coordinator. Problems happen with all weddings. I may have been different in that I decided I was having a cruise wedding to be more laid back and to let things fall into place. This was an unusual disposition for me, as I am usually very obsessive, but in the end, I decided that if I wanted every little detail to go my way, I would have had a wedding here at home where I could practice and obsess over the details. After all, I got married on a cruise so it would be easier and I wouldn't turn into a bridezilla!!

In regards to location of your wedding, RR was up front with me that we would not know until closer to the ceremony, but they did let us pick our top choices 3 from the list they use and we got one of them. Again, this isn't something I was terribly worried about.

Anyway, this is just my two cents. I do, however, think if you go into this experience expecting a grand, expensive, personally planned wedding, you will be disappointed. That isn't really the point of any destination wedding.

Winter - I'm really happy for you, that you had a great experience with RR, but that doesn't mean those who posted didn't.

A wedding is whatever one wants it to be; I've seen grand destination weddings, and simple ones. Destination wedding does not have to equal simple, (although I preferred simple) and nor does it have to be some pre-defined thing; that's the great thing about weddings, we make them what we want, not what someone else wants.

I personally did a simple wedding, but it was my own. We wanted the sun and sand in our toes, we wanted to write our own ceremony and have a harpist play, and we wanted a cruise too. We got them all and were not forced to use RR. We also received cake, champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, fabulous pampering, because it was RCCL that catered to us, not RR.

And, when I added up the ceremony costs (for 35 guests!), it was pretty much the same price I would have paid RR, except I got it MY way and not their way. And I didn't have to obsess because I chose responsive, professional vendors.

Destination wedding does not have to equal simple

LOL...couldn't agree more....it seem the longer I spend planning the less simple my sun/surf/sand wedding is becoming!!! But luckily, I don't care and am loving all the crazy things we are doing!!! I must say that if I had stayed with the cruiseline coordinator, I would never have branched out to look at other ways to make our wedding unique. Going with a private planner has definately allowed us to get a lot more of our personalities in the wedding (at a much better cost, too :D )

I must say that I greatly disagree with Winter's comment:

I do, however, think if you go into this experience expecting a grand, expensive, personally planned wedding, you will be disappointed. That isn't really the point of any destination wedding

I am getting a grand and personally planned wedding (although, in my opinion, the cost is nothing compared to what I would've paid to have a similar bash at home). Some people do choose destination wedding for the ease, but for me, it was to be different (NO Church and Ballroom for me!!!). You can pick and choose off a menu of options if you want, but there are a plethora of options out there that don't show up on anybody's lists. To me, it was these supplementary choices that drew me to DWs!!!

Just back from my wedding aboard EOS on March 26th. Royal Romance DOES suck when it comes to customer service, I have to agree. They tell you you will definately know 2 weeks before your wedding date what time and where your wedding will take place..... The two week mark came and went for us. We found out about 9 days before the wedding.

But the wedding was beautiful, but I wasn't particular about ANY details, as long as I was able to marry my guy. Our officiant and the Royal Romance rep were both very friendly and personable. The complete opposite of everyone else we dealt with leading up to wedding day.

The only issue we had was the tuxedos. We ordered 3, one for groom, one for my father and one for the best man. Our wedding was scheduled for 1pm, tuxedos didn't arrive until 12:50. Needless to say my father and the best man were already at the chapel waiting, so their tuxedos went the entire cruise not worn. Of course, the tuxedos are rented thru yet another vendor...nothing to do with Royal Romance.

Overall I was very happy with my wedding. It just went by, WAY too fast....

enringirl- can you post some of your pics? I am getting married on the explorer of the sea may 2007.

Jeff,

Your pictures are amazing. Seems like you two had a wonderful day. Congratulations!!

Jeff your pics are beautiful!!

We were married in Barbados while sailing on the Serenade the week of 22 April. I too was going crazy that I didn't know anything until just before the cruise. (We found out our venue 4 days before sailing). However, they made every effort to listen to what we wanted and gave us the time and type of wedding.

However, please note that the venue 'chosen' had to change on the day of the wedding anyway because of weather patterns. The local RR staff was great - made calls and got us into a restaurant on the beach (Sugar Reef Bajan Beach Bistro) just in case it rained. If we had prearranged it ourselves we would have been lost without them. The guests from the ship never even knew there was a change because the RR staff made it so seemless. The officient was even 45 minutes late (because he had gone to the original location) and the staff made it seem like it was all planned with time for guests to have pictures taken on the beach, etc.

Because our wedding was at te end of the cruise there was certainly no problem at getting the hair appointment I needed (and the stylist even came in early to make sure I had plenty of time).

I requested tropicla flowers (and later learned tht my husband requested purple because it is my favorite color). So they even made sure that the floweres were personalized.

We have some pictures of the wedding at our wedding website:

http://www.lynnemurray.myevent.com/3/gallery.htm

I learned that the trick of island (and cruise) weddings is being flexible. They really did know what they were doing. I agree it would be MUCH better if they would explain all this to lessen the stress going in.

Of course every wedding is different. We only had sailing guests so found it was easier to go through RCCL as a 'group' for everything but the ceremony. We booked a 'consumption' cocktail party and got canapes for about one third the price of a RR 'wedding reception'. However, we found that the canapes were overkill because the guests had done normal lunch and we were preparing for the normal evening's dinner.

congrats Lynne - beautiful pictures!

Hi All,

Just checking in. I originally posted the original thread many months ago... Jeff your pictures are amazing..

I have read all of the good and the bad regarding RR.. I have heard from them and agree that the St. Thomas staff is great.. They have answered my questions and have already given me a time frame for the ceremony. It will be at 1:00pm. I am not sure if that is good or bad.. In addition, they made my reservations to get my hair done.

After speaking with RR, the one nice thing that they mentioned is that in case of weather issues and we cannot get to St. Thomas they will work with the other islands and transfer all of our information to the next island port that we visit.. Let's hope that does not happen. Thanks to everyone for all of the feedback - good and bad..

Ginger