Family of four-two cabins

[Slam308]

Our friends have a balcony cabin and a promenade cabin across the hall. He and his son are listed in the balcony, she and her daughter are listed in the promenade room. How does RC work the Sea Pass cards? There must be some way for the wife and the son to get into the different cabins. Do they get separate cards for keys? Which cards do they use for purchases?

This is their first cruise, we finally convinced them to go with us! However, we don't have any experience with this issue. Any ideas or hints?

[zdmmom]

Hello Slam308,

We get 2 cabins on our cruises, with a family of 5, not much of a choice, Your friends can ask for a duplicate key card for the other cabins, it will say "duplicate" on the card so they can tell them apart. Also they won't be able to charge anything on the duplicate sea pass cards. We do that for our kids so that they can get into our cabin, viceversa.

Have a great cruise!

ZDMMOM

[Slam308]

Zdmmom,

Thanks for the info. When and where should they get the key cards? Can they take care of all that at check in, or do they have to go to the purser's desk later on?

Slam

[MariNY]

Last April our family of five were on the Voyager with the same set-up. We had a balcony and a promenade room. My daughter, my one son and I were listed in the balcony room and my husband and other son were listed in the promenade room. As soon as we arrived to see our rooms, our room steward was there. In fact it wound up being two different stewards. They had us go down to the front desk and they gave us extra room keys. My husband got an extra room key for the balcony which we shared, so he now had a key for both rooms. I asked for an extra room key to the promenade/kids room so I could get into their room. Then we were also able to make sure the kids all had keys to their room. Everything worked out just fine. While I was at the front desk getting the keys I had read that it's a good idea to put limits on the purchasing of the kids card. It's a good thing I did that because my son did lose his key and we were able to replace it right away. The only other thing for the kids cards is to have the sticker put on if you purchase the soda card for $42 I believe. We did this for our kids and it worked out fine.

 

Since we had two different room stewards, we gave an extra tip to the promenade room steward since she had to now clean and set-up for three in the two person room. She was very accomodating. My daughter used the promenade room couch as her bed. She is small so it worked out just fine and she could also look into the promenade any time to see what was going on.

 

The promenade room was great for the kids. The one difference between the promenade room and our balcony room is that you never knew what time of day it was in the promenade room because with the curtains drawn it was really dark, when we had the beautiful sun shining into our balcony room. I'm an early riser so the balcony was great. My husband likes to sleep a bit later so I would sit on the balcony and just read or relax. What a great trip! On some mornings though we did have to wake up the teenagers from their dark room which was to their liking.

 

As an aside, last April when we were on the cruise we played bingo and won $250 and then learned about the Win A Cruise Bingo and we won that too! So my daughter and I are going on the Navigator next month to enjoy the Western Caribbean. By the way, we upgraded to a balcony room because we enjoyed it so much last year. It's exciting pulling into new ports and seeing the beautiful Caribbean islands.

 

Good luck to you and your friends. Everything should work out fine with the room set-up. RCCL was very easy to work with on this. Also, I was a little apprehensive about the rooms across the hall for safety reasons, but once there I felt very comfortable with the set-up.

 

 

Our friends have a balcony cabin and a promenade cabin across the hall. He and his son are listed in the balcony, she and her daughter are listed in the promenade room. How does RC work the Sea Pass cards? There must be some way for the wife and the son to get into the different cabins. Do they get separate cards for keys? Which cards do they use for purchases?

This is their first cruise, we finally convinced them to go with us! However, we don't have any experience with this issue. Any ideas or hints?

[zdmmom]

Hi Slam308,

Sorry I didn't mention that before, they can take care of it at the Purser's/Reception desk once onboard.

ZDMMOM

[Slam308]

Thank you both for all the information.

I was hoping they could handle everything at check in, but so be it. At least we know what to do now. Any other hints you may have would be appreciated!

[Guest cruzr44]

For the future.... next time they cruise let them know RC will allow you to book the kids in one cabin and the parents in the other. As long as a family is traveling together it is not a problem. It even states in the brochure "a parent must accompany guests under the age of 18 and must be booked in the same OR adjacent stateroom". That way you don't have to worry about getting the keys switched.:D

[Clarkk W Griswald]

For the future.... next time they cruise let them know RC will allow you to book the kids in one cabin and the parents in the other. As long as a family is traveling together it is not a problem. It even states in the brochure "a parent must accompany guests under the age of 18 and must be booked in the same OR adjacent stateroom". That way you don't have to worry about getting the keys switched.:D

 

Yes, you can book that way. However, in our case, we wanted to use coupons for 2 balcony rooms ($125.00 off each). But we had to reserve a crown and anchor member in each room in order to use both coupons. Since the kids are minors, they aren't eligible for crown and anchor until they turn 18, even though they've cruised before. But we've been told we can change this around at the pier, prior to boarding. Anyone experience this before?

[luv2cruise03]

I just recently booked our upcoming Mariner cruise. My husband and I in a balcony cabin and my 15 year old daughter and her friend in an interior cabin accross they hall. I even asked the rep. if i needed to be listed in their cabin, and she said no, that as long as we were in the same general area they could be listed alone.

[Inshape]

All of our other cruises we also had to play that name game thing, with hubby with our son and daughters with me when booking 2 cabins. This time, the TA actually told us there is no need to as long as they are next to you or across the hall from you and you link the reservations to one another. So no duplicate cards this year--will make more sense for sure!

[ebedore]

We use two cabins too. I've always just put up with having seperate keys never even thinking of the possibility to get duplicates! duh.

 

On another note even though we always travel in two cabins, RCI only sends my wife and I one C&A book and one coupon and they said theyw ill not allow the same ocupon to be used on two cabins. EVEN THOUGH WE BOOK THAT WAY and always have. How'd you do it?

[Slam308]

I'll have to check with my TA on how she booked the rooms. Their son is 18, so I was hoping they'd put the kids in the cabin together. Hopefully we can address this issue at the pier as mentioned.

We have one more week til final payment. Anyone know if our TA can switch names now and save us the hassle?

[SuzieTrue]

Hubby and I EACH have a C&A membership #. We only get one newsletter but both names and #'s are on the coupons. Our TA got us the discount on our adjoining rooms but we had to be listed separately, one per room. More money to spend on excursions!:rolleyes:

[Tanker]

We are taking our grown DS and his family with us on our next cruise which we booked on the Jewel. In order for us to get the credits and the discounts, we also had to have one of us listed in each room. We were told by the Loyalty Ambassador that if we changed it, we would lose the credits, so we'll do the key switch too!

[NboroGirl]

Geepers, when I booked our 2 adjacent cabins for our Feb. cruise last month, my TA told us that we had to have an adult listed in each cabin. I'm not sure why, but I was thinking because, since we got 2 rooms, we have 2 separate reservations that are linked together. So we have DH and DS1 in one cabin, and me and DS2 in the adjacent cabin (not adjoining). We plan to switch around once on board. Should I call RC directly and see if I can get it switched now, instead of waiting until our cruise?:confused:

[Lauriebugg]

Sure call Royal Caribbean ahead of time or have your travel agent do so.

[cen822]

my dh and I are booked in a balcony and our 19 yr. old ds, 18 yr old dd and 12 yr old ds are in interior room directly across the hall from us.......no problems booking this with TA.

[sweety2788]

For the future.... next time they cruise let them know RC will allow you to book the kids in one cabin and the parents in the other. As long as a family is traveling together it is not a problem. It even states in the brochure "a parent must accompany guests under the age of 18 and must be booked in the same OR adjacent stateroom". That way you don't have to worry about getting the keys switched.:D

 

I dont know where you got your information, so for all i know the rule might have changed since 2 years ago, but when my family and I sailed on Explorer in 2004 there had to be someone 21 or older in the same or adjacent stateroom. My sister was 20 and I was 16, but we still had to book it as my sister and father in one room and my mother and I in another. We just got copies of the keys so it was fine, but even though she was over 18, we couldnt book just the 2 of us in one room. Just mentioning this...

[taminark]

My friend and I just booked on voyager today for March. I have 2 boys age 13 and 9 and she has 2 boys 11 and 13. We got a junior suite for us on deck 9 and across the hall we gogt a quad room for the 4 boys. We booked thru rccc and had no problem doing this . the 2 moms names are on the suite and the 4 boys names are on the quad.

[ebedore]

I remember talking to Royal Caribbean directly about the coupons issue. Yes we get one coupon but it has both names on it and both numbers. I tried to book one cabin in one name and the other cabin in the other name (which is EXACTLY how we booked the original cruise to join C&A) but they would not allow it. I finally had them send me another book (which they reluctantly did) ...no coupons came in it. Finally I had them switch my address to my office address but I never got a C&A magazine there. Seemed hopeless and since the regular cruise fare on Royal Caribbean is significantly higher than a couple other popular lines and they will not give me the discount that I honestly felt I should get, I booked Norwegian in 2003, Carnival in 2004 and Norwegian once again in 2005.

 

I have not been on Royal Caribbean since 2001. I would LOVE to go again next cruise in 2006 if they'll have me. I also have been considering my first Princess cruise.