A step backward—-SeaPass card needed to get a pool towel

[Nemanoxer]

Don´t throw me overboard, but I appreciate this procedure.

 

In the past, pool towels often flew around all over the place with no assigned guest in sight. The let-me-call-it-abuse of pool towels is also a cost factor in cleaning, buying and, besides that, not too good from an environmental perspective.

[vtcruising]

When on a Royal cruise a few years ago, they had the towel return policy (and had a charge if not returned). It wasn't a big deal except one time when there wasn't anyone at the towel station to check towels back in. We just left our towels at the station since we were headed elsewhere and didn't want to carry them around.  I later called Guest Services and they said "no problem."  Not a big deal, but any time I have to call or visit Guest Services for something like that, I do harbor a tiny bit of resentment for having to give up a bit of my vacation time.

 

We started cruising X the following year and never looked back. I was happy to see that we were trusted to return our towels. It likely does lead to more towels laying around on loungers that appear to be taken, but I just don't want to worry about towels on vacation.   Not a deal  breaker, just a mild annoyance. 🙂

[hcat]

27 minutes ago, vtcruising said:

When on a Royal cruise a few years ago, they had the towel return policy (and had a charge if not returned). It wasn't a big deal except one time when there wasn't anyone at the towel station to check towels back in. We just left our towels at the station since we were headed elsewhere and didn't want to carry them around.  I later called Guest Services and they said "no problem."  Not a big deal, but any time I have to call or visit Guest Services for something like that, I do harbor a tiny bit of resentment for having to give up a bit of my vacation time.

 

We started cruising X the following year and never looked back. I was happy to see that we were trusted to return our towels. It likely does lead to more towels laying around on loungers that appear to be taken, but I just don't want to worry about towels on vacation.   Not a deal  breaker, just a mild annoyance. 🙂

Return them by the last night of the cruise? ...hope they don't expect us to tote them around,,( ha ha)

 

The weak link is that they often do not have staff to check them in or out..often the pool butlers are not in sight!

 

We did have an issue once  with the beach use towels  which we never received in our stateroom and were charged for..sorted it out but an inconvenience....

[cruise47]

Is this away to control guests from holding pool chairs before 6:00 AM.

We witness this on The Reflection, this man would walk down to the pool area about 5:45AM and placed two (2) pool towels on four (4)  chairs , some books on these four (4) chairs and they would not show up until after 10:00 AM and furthermore they would leave these items on those four (4) chairs the whole day. This happen every day during our Southern Carribean Cruise in April 2018.

 

This new process will also saved the pool attendant from picking up dirty pool towels and unused pool towels daily. IMHO.

Edited November 21, 2018 by cruise47

[cruisestitch]

If pool towels aren’t available that won’t stop chair hogs.  They will just use books, flip flops, whatever.

[jsea]

Deleted. Wrong thread. Apologies. 

Edited November 21, 2018 by jsea

[CanadianTourist]

1 hour ago, cruise47 said:

Is this away to control guests from holding pool chairs before 6:00 AM.

We witness this on The Reflection, this man would walk down to the pool area about 5:45AM and placed two (2) pool towels on four (4)  chairs , some books on these four (4) chairs and they would not show up until after 10:00 AM and furthermore they would leave these items on those four (4) chairs the whole day. This happen every day during our Southern Carribean Cruise in April 2018.

 

This new process will also saved the pool attendant from picking up dirty pool towels and unused pool towels daily. IMHO.

 

You could always guide some of those belongings into the ocean.....

[Celebrity Liner]

 

I don´t see a big problem in having my seapass with me to get a towel.

 

I think many passengers take souvenirs and so many towels disappear. Of course these are issues

 

 

Let us wait and see how the practice is

 

Maybe we will know the reasons for celebrity someday

[TexSea]

11 hours ago, Oville said:

I’m wondering if in this Beta mode Celebrity is building off a RCI app which of course would mention the towel checkout/in procedure.  Time will tell.

I agree with this theory too. Looking at VT's screenshot, it mentions reserving shows with the app, which (as far as I know) is not done on X. 

[hcat]

2 hours ago, Celebrity Liner said:

 

I don´t see a big problem in having my seapass with me to get a towel.

 

I think many passengers take souvenirs and so many towels disappear. Of course these are issues

 

 

Let us wait and see how the practice is

 

Maybe we will know the reasons for celebrity someday

 

Trust me...Celebrity towels are  not been worth taking home!

 

They ditched the  plush stuff awhile ago..  Loved the former AQ Class spa quality  towels , esp the nice aqua ones! They are long gone.

 

As  for chair hogs, the  pool butlers should do the job....we have had good luck finding loungers  on our last few cruises.

[Pennstateman]

16 hours ago, hcat said:

Well on Royal you have to line up to sign them out and back in..  And they do make mistakes..costly if they charge u for a used towel....

The Chance of me paying for a towel regardless of if they say I returned it or not Is less than zero.  Just sayin

[WonderMan3]

So in some of these latest photos towels are now laying on chairs all over the pool deck. I think this rumor may have been just that...

[CanadianTourist]

What a beautiful pool!  Love the "edges" of it

[cruisestitch]

Publicity photos.  They probably shouldn’t been trusted as predictive of real life.  I hope they are but only the future will tell.

[ATLgirl15]

I think the person who said the app is a beta version of a Royal Caribbean app and using their data is probably right.  I just sailed Symphony and the Edge app set up is much more similar to that than to the Equinox version. I’m inclined to believe this is just an error but will know in 2 weeks.  

[Floater4life]

Oh the inhumanity of it all.  It will be fine I'm sure.  Have a drank.

[hcat]

1 hour ago, WonderMan3 said:

So in some of these latest photos towels are now laying on chairs all over the pool deck. I think this rumor may have been just that...

 

Thank you Wonderman...great shots, new plush towels! Hooray!

Case closed...

[Pratique]

3 minutes ago, Floater4life said:

Oh the inhumanity of it all.  It will be fine I'm sure.  Have a drank.

Lol yes. I think the reason Royal requires guests to check out towels is because too many towels are taken off the ship and not returned (people don't want to lug wet towels back to the ship from the beach, or whatever other reasons). Since you can check out towels on any day and don't have to return them until the last day, then it doesn't matter whether it is a sea day or a port day. I have not seen a limit on the number of towels that can be checked out (I sometimes grab four just for myself). On some ships, the check-out requirement is waived for suite guests. In some cases Royal also tries to make it easier by putting the towel check-in/out station on the pier during port days. It's not a big deal unless an unexpected towel charge shows up at the end of the cruise.

 

The photos of the fancy towels on Edge suggest that if those are indeed the towels they will be using, then there is a greater chance people will want to keep them as souvenirs.

[hcat]

 

On Celeb the cabin attendant supplies the beach / excursion towels and gets them back from each cabin..The pool towels are only for pool use, spa towels for the spa,.

 

Two diff cruiselines....diff procedures, hopefully!

 

 

[Presto2]

The only thing that will ever annoy me re the towel policy on Celebrity is the passengers who just leave them lying about everywhere rather than just getting up and taking their unused ones to the 'towel bins'. We saw one of the staff collecting those left on sunbeds etc last year and we were having a moan about passengers who left them. The member of staff collecting them smiled to himself (didn't see I saw). I just hope that he felt that we weren't all the same !!

 

Anyway, back to Edge

 

If they bring in this policy (and it is not a rumour) we will live with it - no big deal surely.

 

 

[Presto2]

1 hour ago, Floater4life said:

Oh the inhumanity of it all.  It will be fine I'm sure.  Have a drank.

 

Made me laugh --

 

Think it should be 'drink' not 'drank' unless you have already succumbed ;-)

[vtcruising]

The pool towel statement has now disappeared from my app - crisis averted! 😉

 

 

[Oville]

9 minutes ago, vtcruising said:

The pool towel statement has now disappeared from my app - crisis averted! 😉

 

 

Thanks, not surprised.

[ipeeinthepool]

It's really not a problem on RCL.  The Suite passengers don't have to check out towels, so you can pick up a couple and exchange them for clean ones.  Then you are all set for the cruise.  Exchange them when they are dirty and you don't have to worry about RCL charging you for a pool towel.   Easy-Peasy 

[hcat]

16 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

It's really not a problem on RCL.  The Suite passengers don't have to check out towels, so you can pick up a couple and exchange them for clean ones.  Then you are all set for the cruise.  Exchange them when they are dirty and you don't have to worry about RCL charging you for a pool towel.   Easy-Peasy 

Fake!... This screen name joined 1 hr ago,,,,so no need to prolong comment about pee pee in the pool!

 

But fyi...not everyone is a suite guest,  and on X , there is a sep suite area