No more open bar in the Diamond Lounge

[RFerrington]

9 hours ago, dleahy4444 said:

Hi what ship and sailing? I’m on the Oasis on 9/19 in a suite and haven’t heard from the concierge yet . In past sailings we received an email a week or so before. Thanks

These days the email from the Concierge comes on day 5 prior to boarding.

[Tatka]

19 hours ago, sgmn said:

I was happy with the G&T served in the Diamond selection and the fizz was OK too . Would prefer sauvignon blanc and I guess I can now have one with my vouchers .

The only drinks I use to buy was Disaronna to sip watching the show, guess I can have one of those now too !

 

Ask to mix it with Kahlua and cream... you will get Toasted almond. Amazing drink

[Tatka]

I think we used to get better liquor than from the list, but we are OK with new rules. 4 and soon 5 drinks throughout the day will be nice.

[dleahy4444]

50 minutes ago, UPNYGuy said:

 

Freedom on the 9/17 Bahamas weekend sailing. We heard from them (I think) a week before. 

Thank you, I’m still waiting. Last time I was in the Oasis suites lounge it was open to Diamond and Pinnacle  but I think that may have changed post Covid. 

[dleahy4444]

52 minutes ago, RFerrington said:

These days the email from the Concierge comes on day 5 prior to boarding.

Oh good to know,  thanks! So I’ll stop checking my email obsessively. Actually I pretty much know the content of the email having received it prior to past cruises. I’m just so excited about my upcoming cruise that I just am thinking about it constantly

[UPNYGuy]

4 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

Thank you, I’m still waiting. Last time I was in the Oasis suites lounge it was open to Diamond and Pinnacle  but I think that may have changed post Covid. 

 

No problem. I checked my email and it was a week to the day. 

[John&LaLa]

43 minutes ago, Tatka said:

I think we used to get better liquor than from the list, but we are OK with new rules. 4 and soon 5 drinks throughout the day will be nice.

 

I've had better liquor in the before times using a voucher at a bar, but DL never had upgraded booze in my experience 

[John&LaLa]

6 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

Thank you, I’m still waiting. Last time I was in the Oasis suites lounge it was open to Diamond and Pinnacle  but I think that may have changed post Covid. 

 

The SL on 17 was never open to D or D+ unless they were suite guests. 

 

Post Covid, Pins are no longer allowed unless they are suite guests

[molly361]

5 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

The SL on 17 was never open to D or D+ unless they were suite guests. 

 

Post Covid, Pins are no longer allowed unless they are suite guests

Do you think it will ever  go back to the way it was?  Pinns allowed?

[bobmacliberty]

13 hours ago, vacationlover_mn said:

we love the new voucher thing!  Since we are suites only, going forward, we will be fine with vouchers and suite lounge 🙂. No more drink package

 

I think this will be our strategy as well.  We usually cruise in suites so with 4 (soon to be 5) vouchers and the SL HH, we'll pay as we go when needed.  We drink a fair amount but still don't anticipate having a higher pay as you go bill at the end of the cruise than we would have paid for the drink package.  Testing this next week in an Allure CLS.

[dleahy4444]

43 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

The SL on 17 was never open to D or D+ unless they were suite guests. 

 

Post Covid, Pins are no longer allowed unless they are suite guests

Oh sorry, I was mistaken. 

[John&LaLa]

39 minutes ago, molly361 said:

Do you think it will ever  go back to the way it was?  Pinns allowed?

 

I kinda doubt it, definitely not out of PC. 

 

Way to many of us now

[molly361]

4 minutes ago, John&LaLa said:

 

I kinda doubt it, definitely not out of PC. 

 

Way to many of us now

Where's Rory when we need him?😇

[John&LaLa]

2 minutes ago, molly361 said:

Where's Rory when we need him?😇

 

Supervising his pool construction 😉

[xxHadleyxx]

Honestly we loved teh 5 vouchers per day system last week.  It's so nice to be able to get any drink and get them whenever and whereever.

 

Personally, we feel teh loyalty program is awesome and we get lots of value out of it.  For example, we (a couple, Diamond Plus) sailed last week and here is the value of the perks we used during those 7 nights:

 

910 in drinks (10 per day, averaging 13 usd each)

24 in drinks in room when we arrived (two cokes and 4 waters)

23 bottle of wine in room on arrival

40 in free photos

25 free laundry bag

250 balcony discount on the booking

 

 

So that's nearly 1300 in value that we get as loyalty perks...I really think that is pretty darned good.  And we would have more value if we used the BOGO specialty restraurant, etc.  

[2VaCruzers]

For those of you who have already sailed and used vouchers..I’ve noticed that most drinks on bar menus are now $14.  Do we just use a voucher and pay the difference?

[Biker19]

2 minutes ago, 2VaCruzers said:

Do we just use a voucher and pay the difference?

There's no difference - the voucher will cover virtually all drinks (including the $14 ones). The prices vary slightly between ships (and in some markets the grats are included).

Edited September 13, 2021 by Biker19

[beachump]

33 minutes ago, 2VaCruzers said:

For those of you who have already sailed and used vouchers..I’ve noticed that most drinks on bar menus are now $14.  Do we just use a voucher and pay the difference?

Oh, so that's the catch.

[2VaCruzers]

51 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

There's no difference - the voucher will cover virtually all drinks (including the $14 ones). The prices vary slightly between ships (and in some markets the grats are included).

Awesome, thanks!!

[tserface]

Add us to the growing list of people who love the new voucher program.  We were able to get fancy coffee in the morning from the coffee place, any drink we wanted during the day, etc.  For 4 of  7 days we didn't even use all of the drinks and ended up getting some bottled water instead (I know $13 water is kind of expensive).  It was super easy.  The bartenders always honored the vouchers in every bar (even at trivia or bingo) and in the MDR without question.  We hope they continue providing this benefit.

 

Ironically, we only went into the Diamond Club once just to look around and didn't feel a need to go back.  Since we aren't allowed to join with others at a table to meet new people (COVID protocols) we didn't have a reason to really go sit in that room.  When COVID gets more under control and we can use the venue to meet other cruise advocates again, we'll definitely go back, but we'll happily use our vouchers there as well.

 

We're really glad Royal is doing it this way instead of like Celebrity where you get unlimited drinks for only a few hours a night.  Of course, with Celebrity's push for all inclusive the benefit is kind of worthless.

[tserface]

1 hour ago, 2VaCruzers said:

For those of you who have already sailed and used vouchers..I’ve noticed that most drinks on bar menus are now $14.  Do we just use a voucher and pay the difference?

 

We just got Ovation and almost all drinks were $13 (that we wanted to try).  I'm sure there are some that were more, but there were plenty at $13.  We never had a problem in any bar getting what we wanted, including drinks of the day and we never paid any up charge.

 

We did tip a $1 or 2 for drinks since we were getting them for free, but we also did this in the Diamond Club on past cruises.

[2VaCruzers]

1 minute ago, tserface said:

 

We just got Ovation and almost all drinks were $13 (that we wanted to try).  I'm sure there are some that were more, but there were plenty at $13.  We never had a problem in any bar getting what we wanted, including drinks of the day and we never paid any up charge.

 

We did tip a $1 or 2 for drinks since we were getting them for free, but we also did this in the Diamond Club on past cruises.

I was basically going by the RCCL app for our cruise which has all the bar menus and prices on it.  Hopefully they are flexible, but if not, I don’t mind paying the difference.  

[tserface]

2 minutes ago, 2VaCruzers said:

I was basically going by the RCCL app for our cruise which has all the bar menus and prices on it.  Hopefully they are flexible, but if not, I don’t mind paying the difference.  

I think they will set the voucher value at the price of the typical drink.  There really isn't a menu of Diamond drinks like before so people need to be able to get a reasonable variety or the vouchers will just get a big fail from a lot of people.  Maybe on cruises where they are charging $14 normally they will up the value of the vouchers.

 

I guess we'll find out how it all works as time goes on, but for our cruise last week it was a breeze and we got whatever we wanted.  We did have to pick from specific wines by the glass since some can get really pricey, but there were plenty to choose from that were $13 or less.

[xxHadleyxx]

10 minutes ago, 2VaCruzers said:

I was basically going by the RCCL app for our cruise which has all the bar menus and prices on it.  Hopefully they are flexible, but if not, I don’t mind paying the difference.  

Generally, for these vouchers and for the drink package....you get 12usd on North American sailings (or maybe 13 thes days?  I haven't sailed that dude if the Atlantic in a bit) where taxes don't increase the menu price of the drinks and 14 in UK and Europe where the menu price is higher because of taxes.  We drank our way through the Rock Hall menu last week in the UK and every cocktail was covered by the voucher.

Edited September 13, 2021 by xxHadleyxx

[Biker19]

3 minutes ago, tserface said:

Maybe on cruises where they are charging $14 normally they will up the value of the vouchers.

RCI has yet to make $14 the new normal base price for drinks, but in some markets they include the grats in the listed price so in the UK you'll see $14 listed as the drink price (it's really $12+grats).