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New Program called "The Key"


ValerieJo
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On 2/13/2019 at 3:36 PM, Mushroomgav69 said:

Nope. I bought at $19 USD. So idiots who want to pay $31.99 per day still can. Do you want to pay $31.99 tinkr2? 

Same goes for the drinks package fluxuations. If you also want to pay $71 USD per day you can. The more brighter lot will wait and buy at $43.

 

Hmm the more bright lot... you seem like a very pleasant person to spend time with. The price on The Key for Oasis class does not seem like a price fluctuation. It seems like the new base price. I do not think it will return to  24.99, sale of19.99 again. And good luck at the 43 after the new drink package increase. The sale price will be higher. 

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On 2/13/2019 at 5:35 AM, atgood said:

 

It shouldn’t be chopped off.  How is that going to help?  It’s convenient to have all of the comments in one place and not to have to search through different threads.  Only catch up as much as you want.  

 

It would help bc they would label it part 2 as they do and it would now have the current info as opposed to all the useless opinions of people who have not bought the key bc blah blah blah.......

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2 hours ago, Orsino said:

15 feb 2019 oasis of the seas Flowrider hours 8-9am. At sea day

 

again early hours for key Flowrider with the 8 am start. General hours start at 9am. On the other side it looks like a private class with 6 people. Today there are a total of 4 key people which is all we had for the entire hour. I was a little grumpy getting up early for the 8 am start, but it is a beautiful day and key Flowrider hour was much fun. At 9 am 2 nonKey joined the boogie board side and two key left for the stand up side. So again 4 people for the first 15 minutes or so after 9 am. Then a fifth showed up and we were satisfied and left around 9:30 (not because of the number of people in line). For nonKey people 9 am would be a great time to boogie board. As we left the line remained a very short three people( two in line and one riding)

 

value on the key key is hard to quantify. I certainly had a great time, but I can’t say that the key is needed to have a great time with short waits.

 

An unanticipated side benefit of the key is the ability to switch between boogie board and stand up. I’m taking a go at standup and my husband is sticking to boogie board. During the key hour we can stick together and not have to split up. We really like that!

 

On the rockwall front, I have spent a lot of time on my balcony, which has a view of the rockwall. Sometimes there is a long line. Sometimes there is no line. Key times are deserted. So if you are flexible with your time, which you have to be to make use of the key hours, you can climb with no wait. Random hours get busy though. Value is murky here. 

 

(I hope I’m not boring you all too much. This is information I loved hearing before my cruise, so I hope it is useful to someone else)

 

 

 

 

This is so helpful to me. This isn't speculative info but real time facts that really help people to determine if a benefit is of value to them. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

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10 minutes ago, tinkr2 said:

 

It would help bc they would label it part 2 as they do and it would now have the current info as opposed to all the useless opinions of people who have not bought the key bc blah blah blah.......

I think it might be helpful to have one about experience as well. Perhaps with a copy and paste form similar to the cabin one with each 'perk' listed and people can fill it in or just put in N/A or didn't use.  Like the cabin thread--it should be 'no questions' though and that way we don't muck up all the info--or turn it into a snark-fest where people call others 'stupid, not very bright, poor at math.  None of that is useful for anyone and one person's view of 'value' is usually different than someone else's. 

 

For example:

 

Ship

Sail Date

Embarkation/boarding day

Luggage Drop off

Lunch on Embarkation Day

Show seating

Flow Rider

Rock Wall

Aqua Theater

Ice Show

Port debarkation

Last morning breakfast

Last morning debarkation

Comments on your overall experience

 

Edited by rockmom
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Lots of Key information today, including a couple of Key Fails. 

 

Flowrider was again 8am-9am. Same 4 as yesterday. I was expecting more and was pleasantly surprised. I guess the others got their fill already. At 9 am it was quite busy with about 6-8 people in line. Overall a good Flowrider day. Again being able to choose boogie board or stand up on one side was good for us as we did different choices. 

 

I noticed that the regular line moves pretty quick. They were rather strict about only giving people two tries even it they wiped out quickly.  Even with a longer line we waited about the same time as during our key time since the other key people were very proficient and took a long time during their turn. 

 

Rockclimbing has gotten more popular as the week has progressed. We decided to do key hours to have low waits. Fail. They closed the key side because they were going to have another aqua show. The show wasn’t for another two hours, but they closed it anyway. They directed us to the regular line on the other side. Quite a long line. They were running out of harnesses. 

 

Worked out okay for us because no one wanted to do the “hard” climb. So I did that and was able to skip a lot of waiting. No help from the key, in fact I would argue it was a detriment since we arranged our schedule around the key hours. Oh well. 

 

We returned to our stateroom this afternoon to find a note inviting us to a Key only section for viewing the dream works parade. I thought this was a nice boob and was ready to report the wonderful bonus here. Problem: didn’t happen. I was suspicious since there was no parade listed In the cruise compass. We passed by and sure enough, no parade. 

The upside is that saved me from watching a dreamworks parade. 

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40 minutes ago, Orsino said:

...

We returned to our stateroom this afternoon to find a note inviting us to a Key only section for viewing the dream works parade. I thought this was a nice boob and was ready to report the wonderful bonus here. Problem: didn’t happen. I was suspicious since there was no parade listed In the cruise compass. We passed by and sure enough, no parade. 

The upside is that saved me from watching a dreamworks parade. 

 

I'll be sure to not miss the next parade!

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Disembarkation:

 

Lots to unpack here. I will try to be clear. 

 

On day 6 we got a letter in our state room explaining disembarkation for key guests. The communication people and the implementation people don’t seem to be on the same page. Written information does not line us with the actual experience.** Specifically, the letter stated that escorted departure is not available before 8:15am. That kind of surprised me. We carried all our luggage because we had an early bus at 8:00. We went to key breakfast, and as we were leaving they told us to wait a moment for our escort. So they did offer escorted service before 8 am. Good for them to do so, but not in line with the letter we received. 

 

Escort was fine. Not sure it saved us time, but we did take a short cut through the terminal at some point avoiding “the ramp” whatever that means. 

 

We enjoyed our key experience. It does come at a premium price, but that is kind of the point. If royal was selling out all 100 key spots with current pricing, unfortunately it makes sense that they try raising the price. I think the key for us was a good value. Not a great value, but good. At the higher price point I would probably skip it, though that comes from having already experienced it. If I hadn’t done the key already I could see myself trying it at 25 dollars per person per day. 32 is probably too expensive. 

 

I also should note that on Oasis this trip there were plenty of key/suite seats at the venues we used (main theater and studio b). At the time the seat gate keeper left there were always lots of seat still open that get pounced on by other guests. We even saw some people waiting in the aisle for the seat keeper to leave. I know someone earlier had problems with not enough seats for all the key guests, but at least this week on oasis, it wasn’t a problem. In opal theater, the key and suites take up four rows at the back of the theater where the rake makes for great sight lines. Tons of seats!

studio b was I think 3 rows front and center. Also tons of seats. I think the only danger is if you show up after the seat keeper leaves. 

 

** other examples of written communication not matching the experience include a welcome letter that said reservations for shows were needed ( they were not. Any time we showed our sea pass with the key on it, they let us in no problem). 

We also got a letter inviting us to view a parade. The parade was cancelled but the communication people were not on the ball. 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Jenglish711 said:

@Orsino, thanks for your "review" of the Key! While we'll be using it on the Anthem (boarding 2/23), it's helpful to be able to read about someone else's experiences in almost real time. 

 

Ditto to Orsino. And, Jenglish711 -- we will be awaiting any Anthem-specific input after your cruise. Enjoy!

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Boarded Liberty today with The Key. Embarkation was a breeze- skipped all the lines. Went straight to Chops for a delicious lunch ablut 11:30, then up to our room, which was ready. Our flight was a nightmare, and hubby isn’t a great traveler, so it was definitely nice to skip the lines and avoid the chaos in Windjammer.

 

Hubby isn’t likely to do any of the activities, but I might. Here is our schedule.

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4 hours ago, zooma said:

 

Ditto to Orsino. And, Jenglish711 -- we will be awaiting any Anthem-specific input after your cruise. Enjoy!

 

Will do! Mine will be limited though - I'm pregnant and my husband has a bad back so we won't be doing the flowrider or rock wall, and I won't be doing iFly. The 4yo wants to try it (iFly) though, and I apparently missed the sign-up window for it, so I'm curious to see if it's included in the Anthem Key private hours. Also we may not be attending shows. If we do it will be WWRY only, most likely. But even maybe a little of what I can report will be helpful to someone! 

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1 hour ago, Jenglish711 said:

 

 The 4yo wants to try it (iFly) though, and I apparently missed the sign-up window for it, so I'm curious to see if it's included in the Anthem Key private hours. 

On my two cruises on Anthem, I was not able to sign up for iFly in advance. There are plenty of slots to sign up for once you are onboard, but I would suggest you do it quick to get the time you want. When you board there will be a place to do the sign up (for iFly, and North Star and shows too). No key back when I was on Anthem, so I don't know how that changes things for you.

 

In other news, I'm back to cold weather (which isn't as bad as I was anticipating). I'll answer any key questions to the best of my ability if anyone is interested.

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4 hours ago, Jenglish711 said:

 

 The 4yo wants to try it (iFly) though, and I apparently missed the sign-up window for it, so I'm curious to see if it's included in the Anthem Key private hours. 

 

A prior reviewer has reported private Key hours for iFly and North Star. I believe they give you your assigned time when you board.

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@Orsino and @zooma, thank you! I'm glad I didn't miss any sign ups and it's nice to see someone reported that the Key hours exist for it. I *thought* I saw that but there's so many pages in this thread that I wouldn't know where to begin and I'm too lazy to go through every page. Thank you again to both of you! 

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@Jenglish711 -- Don't want to mislead.... We were able to prebook some times for iFly and North Star for our June Anthem cruise, so they are available, at least on some sailings. (Although I was bummed they did not open up North Star availability for Day 1, while still in NY.)  You should be fine because I think you'll get an assigned time for iFly regardless, but if you don't like that time, go see if you can book your preferred time on your own once you board. 

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