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Diamond Lounge Disaster - A Voyager Class Sob Story


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On 12/11/2018 at 10:34 AM, grapau27 said:

In our case we have booked a 15 night Princess cruise to Hawaii and a 7 night Europe cruise on P&O so far for next year for a number of reasons but 1 of them is RC cutting our D+ benefits.

 

Please tell us about the great loyalty benefits on Princess and P&O.

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12 minutes ago, mugtech said:

Please tell us about the great loyalty benefits on Princess and P&O.

I always say our D+ RC loyalty is best.

We are Elite loyalty on Princess so get a free one time mini bar set up but RC didn't offer a Hawaii cruise.

P&O we get 7.5% discount off every purchase plus obc and their itinerary for the dates we wanted suited our agreed work holidays.

RCCL is always my first choice if the itinerary is what we want.

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26 minutes ago, mugtech said:

I like the RC Hawaii cruises that either start or end there.  Then again we have family to stay with on Oahu.  Is the Princess a 15 day round trip from California?

Yes from San Francisco next November.

We have 2 nights in San Francisco first.

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Am on same cruise as OP.  Picture is from 1st nite right around opening time for drinks 4:30. After that initial rush it slows down and normally no more than 5 to 10 in line at most.  Much faster via line than to wait on server to take order and deliver.  Generous pours all week.  Viking Lounge used for overflow seating but allowed to bring drinks and hordorves there.  No expert here but I found nothing to complain about with the service, especially since the drinks only cost me tips

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On 12/11/2018 at 4:02 AM, waterbug123 said:

 

Because if they go elsewhere to get their free drinks, no one will know they are special. 😉

We haven't bothered with the DL in ages.  Too many other places to get a drink to worry about focusing on one particular lounge that is usually either overly crowded, devoid of atmosphere, inconveniently located or whatever.  We focus on enjoying our cruise, rather than whether the perks we have earned have changed or not.  YMMV

 

I agree.  This topic just seems redundant and illogical since you can get drinks anywhere. 

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I gave up on being Loyal to Royal some years ago.  After over 30 cruises with Royal Caribbean, having been Diamond Plus for some time we just saw the service go down and the lack of appreciation for anyone really 'Loyal".  But we still sail Royal about once a year, down from the 3-4 weeks we sailed her per year in the past.  2 years ago we booked a full suite on Princess for  a special occasion cruise for 12 nights in Northern Europe.  First cruise with Princess and we loved it!  We booked another Princess cruise last minute a year ago and I realized they had bumped us up to Ruby.  I thought cool, didn't know why just accepted it.  We booked a third cruise we just took a couple of months ago on Princess and we were offered a last minute upgrade to a full suite for a nominal price and took it. When we boarded we realized we had been bumped up all the way to Elite and they comped a bunch of stuff for us.  We received a letter with our Elite pins that said we had been "fast tracked" to the top tier on Princess.  Needless to say we are sailing Princess next month and have another booked later in the year.  We do have our one cruise on Royal Caribbean for 2019 booked.

 

Obviously the Cruise lines, like every other business, knows exactly what all of us are doing.  They saw our history with Royal and wanted us to book mostly with Princess instead.  They saw our spending habits, we always buy the drink package, we sail to Europe often, we book most excursions through the cruise line, we eat at the specialty restaurants often and we buy Art onboard and use the Casino.  Meaning....we spend $$$ once onboard.

 

As far as the topic of the Royal Caribbean Diamond/Diamond Plus lounges, we long ago saw the writing on the wall.  We buy the drink package and that's that.  If we ever want to go in the lounges we can, but we usually don't.  I do wish they would comp us for the 3 free drinks we never use because we have the package, but I can usually find it on sale for 20-25% off.  But they offer that to everyone, so no big deal.  I do appreciate the Diamond plus balcony discount of $250.  I just wish they wouldn't continue to diminish the loyalty benefits.  I used to care more about that, but I have moved on.  Still love to cruise and find it a good value overall no matter what perks one gets.

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I was on the Navigator 2 weeks ago on my first diamond cruise.  The drinks they preloaded on my card were limited.  A couple of wines, or beers.  However, in the diamond lounge itself, there was a full bar and you could get whatever you wanted.  I don't drink, but it didn't appear that people were limited.  They made me a chocolate martini!!! They just kept coming around asking if we wanted anything else.  Fortunately, it wasn't nearly that crowded.  It was most crowded at 4:30 when it began, but at 5:30, people started leaving for early seating dinner.  They did cordon off the entire Viking Crown lounge for this, so everyone got booze.

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54 minutes ago, Rogueperson said:

I was on the Navigator 2 weeks ago on my first diamond cruise.  The drinks they preloaded on my card were limited.  A couple of wines, or beers.  However, in the diamond lounge itself, there was a full bar and you could get whatever you wanted.  

Since this was your first experience with the D drinks you may not know this is not the norm - both in the DL and at the bars (with the Seapass drinks), generally the same drinks can be had with a little variation.  The DL bartender might be a bit more lenient but usually is generally working from the same ingredients listed on the official D drink list.

Edited by Biker19
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1 hour ago, Rogueperson said:

I was on the Navigator 2 weeks ago on my first diamond cruise.  The drinks they preloaded on my card were limited.  A couple of wines, or beers.  However, in the diamond lounge itself, there was a full bar and you could get whatever you wanted.  I don't drink, but it didn't appear that people were limited.  They made me a chocolate martini!!! They just kept coming around asking if we wanted anything else.  Fortunately, it wasn't nearly that crowded.  It was most crowded at 4:30 when it began, but at 5:30, people started leaving for early seating dinner.  They did cordon off the entire Viking Crown lounge for this, so everyone got booze.

 

There is always a menu available on the bar of what drinks are available during C&A cocktail hour and believe me it is not just a couple of wines and beers. 

If you saw guests getting “ whatever you wanted “ in the Diamond lounge they were being served by crew bending the rules and hoping for bigger tips by doing so. It really ticks me off when people order drinks not on the menu which take longer to make causing a delay for those who just want a spirit with mixer or a glass of wine but then again that is me .

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34 minutes ago, heatherb1958 said:

 It really ticks me off when people order drinks not on the menu which take longer to make causing a delay for those who just want a spirit with mixer or a glass of wine but then again that is me .

Let's see, you get ticked off because someone else gets a drink that they will enjoy. Someone else gets annoyed because the door to the outside seating area opens and closes.

 

With all of these annoyed people in the lounge I think I will continue avoiding the area during happy hour.

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2 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Let's see, you get ticked off because someone else gets a drink that they will enjoy. Someone else gets annoyed because the door to the outside seating area opens and closes. Someone else doesn't like the disturbance in the lounge's "microenvironment" when the door opens.

 

With all of these annoyed people in the lounge I think I will continue avoiding the area during happy hour.

 

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11 minutes ago, Ocean Boy said:

Let's see, you get ticked off because someone else gets a drink that they will enjoy. Someone else gets annoyed because the door to the outside seating area opens and closes.

 

With all of these annoyed people in the lounge I think I will continue avoiding the area during happy hour.

You won't have to...These ticked off people will start avoiding the lounge instead....More seating for those of us that aren't so picky and or needy. 

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We got off the Adventure on 11/4/18, and as someone posted above, the picture the OP shows of the line for drinks in the DL is when they first start serving.  It was crowded in there every night, and the line was long until about 5-ish.  

 

The Viking Crown was the overflow lounge, unofficially. We sat in there every night.  We had a very nice happy hour every evening.

 

I agree with whomever said that RCCL has the best loyalty program.  I only know of Celebrity and Azamara that include appetizers every night with drinks for free.  A cruise on another line every so often refreshes our memory that we LOVE the RCCL perks.

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On 12/14/2018 at 6:34 PM, heatherb1958 said:

 

There is always a menu available on the bar of what drinks are available during C&A cocktail hour and believe me it is not just a couple of wines and beers. 

If you saw guests getting “ whatever you wanted “ in the Diamond lounge they were being served by crew bending the rules and hoping for bigger tips by doing so. It really ticks me off when people order drinks not on the menu which take longer to make causing a delay for those who just want a spirit with mixer or a glass of wine but then again that is me .

Since this was my first diamond cruise, I didn't know what to expect.  At the pub, I asked what I could get and they gave me the menu, that had a couple of wines and beers on that menu that was for the diamond happy hour.  Merlot was NOT available for example.

 

However, I asked the same question in the diamond lounge and the guy said, whatever you want, we'll make it for you.  I got a chocolate martini, because someone else did.  It was damn good.  

Edited by Rogueperson
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6 minutes ago, Rogueperson said:

  At the pub, I asked what I could get and they gave me the menu, that had a couple of wines and beers on that menu that was for the diamond happy hour. 

That same menu listed all of the spirits available with which you can get any drink which can be made with those ingredients. What you can actually get, as you experienced, can vary wildly.

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Just now, Biker19 said:

That same menu listed all of the spirits available with which you can get any drink which can be made with those ingredients. What you can actually get, as you experienced, can vary wildly.

I don't even remember seeing the spirits list.  I'm sure it was there, i just don't remember it.  It was just one small card with wine and beer and ONE cider (Of course, I got the cider, because that's why i know).  But then again, I don't drink much, so the fact that I even ordered the chocolate martini was amazing.  Even free, I find order alcoholic drinks to be a little odd for me.

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