RCCL Luggage valet or Southwest early check in

[abpplh]

Both are $25 pp.  Don't want to pay for both so which gets you more bang for your buck?  Cruising out of Ft Lauderdale and flying out of FLL on Sunday Dec 29th

[MarlboroBell]

Well, it depends on what your priorities are. Do you want a good seat on the flight or do you want to avoid schlepping your bags to the airport? Personally, I'd rather get the good seat on the flight, so I do early-bird checkin for a cruise return. But if you have an internet package on board the ship, and the ship has real VOOM, and you're willing to stop everything and check in the exact moment (to the second) that checkin opens (assuming your last day is a sea day), then you can get a pretty good seat without early bird and spend your money on luggage valet instead.

 

Be aware, of course, that you can't do luggage valet for Southwest flights departing after 6pm. (I'm assuming that isn't a problem, but just in case...)

[Ashland]

19 minutes ago, abpplh said:

Both are $25 pp.  Don't want to pay for both so which gets you more bang for your buck?  Cruising out of Ft Lauderdale and flying out of FLL on Sunday Dec 29th

Luggage Valet is $25.00 per cabin not per person and your flights can be no earlier than 11:30am to participate.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Ashland

[Hoppy2cruise]

2 minutes ago, Ashland said:

Luggage Valet is $25.00 per cabin not per person and your flights can be no earlier than 11:30am to participate.

According to the website Luggage Valet is still charged per person unless in a Grand Suite or higher where it is a free perk.  

[Hoppy2cruise]

27 minutes ago, abpplh said:

Both are $25 pp.  Don't want to pay for both so which gets you more bang for your buck?  Cruising out of Ft Lauderdale and flying out of FLL on Sunday Dec 29th

They print your boarding pass for you when you sign up for luggage valet.  We also had Early Bird check in, but were told they did all the boarding passes at the same time so you’d likely miss the 24 hour check in window without Early Bird Check in.  You could end up with the “C stands for center seats” boarding.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Hoppy2cruise

[Clarea]

1 hour ago, abpplh said:

Both are $25 pp.  Don't want to pay for both so which gets you more bang for your buck?  Cruising out of Ft Lauderdale and flying out of FLL on Sunday Dec 29th

 

These are two different things.   Early Bird is for you boarding, Luggage Valet is for your baggage.

[Ashland]

1 hour ago, Hoppy2cruise said:

According to the website Luggage Valet is still charged per person unless in a Grand Suite or higher where it is a free perk.  

We haven't used it for many years and thought at that time (when it was first offered) we were only charged $20.00 per cabin.

[abpplh]

24 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

These are two different things.   Early Bird is for you boarding, Luggage Valet is for your baggage.

Yes - I understand they are 2 different things.  Was just wondering if one got you more bang for your buck!

 

[Hoppy2cruise]

8 minutes ago, Ashland said:

We haven't used it for many years and thought at that time (when it was first offered) we were only charged $20.00 per cabin.

Possible - the first time we used it was in 2012

[Clarea]

5 hours ago, abpplh said:

Yes - I understand they are 2 different things.  Was just wondering if one got you more bang for your buck!

 

 

I don't know how to compare "bang for the buck" on two completely different things.  

 

If you want faster boarding, get Early Bird.

 

If you don't want to carry your bags to the airport, get Luggage valet.

[blackshirt]

7 hours ago, Hoppy2cruise said:

They print your boarding pass for you when you sign up for luggage valet.  We also had Early Bird check in, but were told they did all the boarding passes at the same time so you’d likely miss the 24 hour check in window without Early Bird Check in.  You could end up with the “C stands for center seats” boarding.

You can still check in at the 24 hour point. The luggage valet will just reprint whatever category you get assigned when you check in. You don’t have to wait for the luggage valet to do the check in.

[blackshirt]

I would do the luggage valet and check in myself at the the 24 hour point. The luggage valet provides more bang per buck in my opinion.

[Grandma Dazzles]

8 hours ago, Ashland said:

Luggage Valet is $25.00 per cabin not per person and your flights can be no earlier than 11:30am to participate.

 

Luggage valet is $25 per person.  If two people in a cabin want to check both their bags they can, and thus pay only one fee.  It’s a way to get around the system.  However, you would only receive one boarding pass and one baggage tag - which isn’t that big a deal.  You can print at airport or use phone to check in for the other person.   Assuming your airline allows two bags per person. 

 

You are also charged any airline fees, unless you get free bags for any reason with the airline.   LV is a suite perk.  

Edited August 15, 2019 by Grandma Dazzles

[drrich2]

I flew Southwest and used Luggage Valet on our Allure cruise ending Aug. 4th. I use 'early bird' to get a group A boarding assignment to make sure there are overhead bin spaces for our carryons. And decent seat selection.

 

1.) Before trip, I got the usual Southwest e-mail in advance letting me know I could check-in online in advance.

2.) Signed up for Luggage Valet 1st day it was offered, which was quite early in the cruise.

3.) Was told it'd be the last day before arrival before I got confirmation; worse, it was late into the evening. But it basically worked.

4.) Onboard, having Internet service via Royal, I did not get an advance e-mail from Southwest reminding me check in online starting 24 hours before departure of the plane, got my boarding passes from Luggage Valet, as I didn't check-in online for the return, and our boarding group was still group A (albeit farther back in group A). 

 

Just in case it helps. 

[Hoppy2cruise]

3 hours ago, blackshirt said:

You can still check in at the 24 hour point. The luggage valet will just reprint whatever category you get assigned when you check in. You don’t have to wait for the luggage valet to do the check in.

We were specifically told not to check in online, but we had Early Bird so it didn’t matter.  

[Clarea]

2 minutes ago, Hoppy2cruise said:

We were specifically told not to check in online, but we had Early Bird so it didn’t matter.  

 

I don't understand why someone would tell you that.  If someone did not have early bird, they would want to check in as early as possible.  You never know when the ship people would get around to checking in Luggage Valet guests.

[Hoppy2cruise]

Just thought I’d share the one potential drawback of LV: we had a 5:30 Southwest flight, but arrived at the airport in plenty of time to switch to the noon flight.  Since we had LV, we could not change to the earlier time and our flight ended up being delayed multiple times due to weather.  Had we not had LV, we would have been able to go on the earlier flight and arrive at home before 4 PM rather than arriving home at midnight.  

[Hoppy2cruise]

5 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

I don't understand why someone would tell you that.  If someone did not have early bird, they would want to check in as early as possible.  You never know when the ship people would get around to checking in Luggage Valet guests.

Maybe because we did have Early Bird?  I didn’t ask.

[blackshirt]

10 hours ago, Hoppy2cruise said:

We were specifically told not to check in online, but we had Early Bird so it didn’t matter.  

That makes no sense. I would not have complied and technically, you didn’t comply either since you did check in via the Early Bird.

[grandgeezer]

On 8/14/2019 at 9:31 AM, Hoppy2cruise said:

They print your boarding pass for you when you sign up for luggage valet.  We also had Early Bird check in, but were told they did all the boarding passes at the same time so you’d likely miss the 24 hour check in window without Early Bird Check in.  You could end up with the “C stands for center seats” boarding.

In less things have changed, the letter designation is for boarding order. A's board first, followed by B's, C's, etc. There are no assigned seats on Southwest so you sit wherever you want that is still available, window, aisle, center, center seats, etc.

[abpplh]

25 minutes ago, grandgeezer said:

In less things have changed, the letter designation is for boarding order. A's board first, followed by B's, C's, etc. There are no assigned seats on Southwest so you sit wherever you want that is still available, window, aisle, center, center seats, etc.

I think Hoppy2Cruise was joking....

 

I went with Early Check in!

[packedandready]

We did both.

 

[precious89904600]

We will be flying sw in Oct and got early bird both ways and plan on getting LV on Harmony so will that better my chances to board early 

[reverie4401]

Interesting topic.  We just got off the Ovation in Seattle on Friday and used Luggage Valet.  We took American Airlines to the East coast.  The whole process worked flawlessly.  The big surprise was that there was no fee.  😀  We were anticipating a modest fee for the service.  Additionally, there was no luggage valet in Seattle three years ago when we arrived on the Explorer TP.  

 

The "red eye" flight left SEATAC, so unloading our bags the night before gave us the option for sightseeing in Seattle on Friday after departing the ship. without dragging our bags.  Guest services was surprised when our departure showed the following day (17 minutes after mid-night) and but it was approved.  So, our bags left our hallway Thursday night and we retrieved them on Saturday morning.  Additionally, we did not have to check-in either on-line or at the airport.  The luggage valet did the check-in even with our flight more than 24 hours after placing our bags in the hallway.

 

I hope to see this service expanded, particularly if there is no fee.  David 

[blackshirt]

10 minutes ago, reverie4401 said:

I hope to see this service expanded, particularly if there is no fee.

If you mean expanded to other ports, not likely. The free luggage valet out of Seattle is provided by the port.