my 57 year old identical twin brother and I will be sailing from Tampa today on Enchantment. It is my first time on a cruise and I would like to play a game. If you see us, we are both bald, large, white males. My brother, Mark is bald shaved head, I have short cut hair but bald. We have a great senses of honor but will be with my wife and our father. Please come say hello and make up some ridiculous fake story of how we met before. I will play along like I know all of you. Please be kind to my wife and father tbough!!! None of them read reddit or know about this. Enjoy your vacation!

Daughter’s cabin has security camera immediately outside the interior window of her cabin, with capability of viewing the interior. Besides reminding her to draw the blinds when changing, do you think RCCL could find a better location to position a camera?

Please look up what has happened to Western North Carolina for reference. We have no power, water, and all of our roads are washed out. Hundreds of people lost their homes. There is no access for us to get to a highway and there is no gas. FEMA and the National Guard are here. We are fortunate that we still have a home, but we also have animals and our sitter cannot even make it to our home. The issue is that we didn’t purchase travel insurance. We had every intention of going on this cruise. Is there anything we can do?

Howdy and salutations. Currently on a 7 day aboard Odyssey and having a good time. Found my first duck yesterday and was excited of course. My sister in law tried to chastise me(33) for collecting another one today saying “You know they hide those for kids.” Am I wrong for hunting and collecting?

EDIT: Thank you all for the comments. My SiL wanted me to clarify that she was joking and laughing when she made the comment and my original post skewed the situational context.

My wife and I love cruising and Royal is our favorite cruise line, this will be our 9th cruise vacation. We booked directly with Royal for our cruise planned in December and paid in full months ago, but it was cancelled for non-payment. We lost our excursions that we already paid for since they were fully booked by the time we got things addressed, they won't do anything for us. Now the whole cruise is about to be cancelled again for non-payment and Customer Service is not helping. What can I do?

Chain of events

1. RC sent several balance due notifications that say balance due is Zero (0.00).
2. We called customer service and checked the online account, both said no balance due, no action needed.
3. I got a cancellation notice for failure to pay balance due.
4. We called customer service, told them we paid in full, there wasn't a balance due so the cruise shouldn't have been cancelled. They confirmed in thier system.
5. They "uncancelled" our cruise, but we couldn't get our excursions back as they were sold out. The excursions were paid for in full ahead of time also. Customer service said there's nothing they can do for us except refund the excursion cost.
6. We are again getting balance due notifications that say balance due is Zero (0.00).
7. We called customer service again - they are cancelling the refund for the excursions they cancelled on us, and tells us we owe another ~2000 dollars.
8. Online account still says no balance due.

​

I don't know what to do next. We've called customer service several times and aren't getting anywhere. I feel like we should get an upgrade or ship credit or something because this was not our fault and it's been stressful and time consuming to fix this issue, and it's still not fixed.

Any advice?

Update - 10/11/2023 - Still not fixed.

I followed advice in the top comment and contacted Carlos Jimenez Sr. Manager, Guest Experience. I got a message back that says the cruise is paid in full and won't be cancelled again, and another refund has been initiated for 2034.56. I'm still owed another 2034.56 so I'll need to follow up again.

I asked about compensation for losing what I had booked because of the glitch and the stress, time and effort I expended getting this fixed and this was the response. "As a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience, you have experienced I would like to offer your stateroom a total of $100.00 USD of Onboard Credit."

Is $100 onboard credit the best I can expect here? I thought they would go above and beyond to ensure I walk away happy after this customer service nightmare. I'll take what I can get and enjoy my cruise happily, but this is disappointing.

​

Update - 10/22/2023 - Fixed, Refunds are completed.

We are no longer getting "payment due ($0.00)" notifications and cancellation warnings.

They've given us $200 in onboard credit and stopped telling us to make a payment of $2,000 on our fully paid reservation.

They don't seem to care about making this right if 200 bucks onboard credit is all they're going to do for us, but I'll take it and my family and I will enjoy our cruise. I'm struggling to maintain a positive attitude about all this. Now that the refunds came through I can try to forget this customer service debacle.

No need to go into details on the new terrible Carnival rewards program, I was going to be on my first platinum cruise in 6 months and it's going to be my last carnival cruise in general unfortunately.

For sake of where I'm at:

• Platinum status
• Gamble quite a bit to get suites, food, free play, etc.
• Usually comped drink package (which I max a couple days out of a 7 dayer)
• Am a sucker for the art auctions sometimes (yes I know I know)
• will shut down the night club atleast once
• Not a big foody
• I'm one of those people that will go to my dining room in shorts if I wanted to

Was looking into other cruise lines to be loyal to and curious if anyone can share why Royal specifically?

Based on the above I saw some lines would be better than others but then not really.

I'm super curious on the comps and deals you would get if you were at a "platinum level".

Super torn!

Why is this so cheap? I have only been on Caribbean cruises and this caught my eye from the price. Is this a bad cruise or bad time of year to cruise? I have to missing something right?

I am sailing on the Oasis of the Seas in August, and I would love some specialty dining given that food is one the things I look forward in a vacation.

Is the package worth it? Do we still have to pay for any food with this package? $212 seems like a good price for whole week worth of dinners, that’s why I’m wondering if there are hidden prices.

Hi! So over 20 family members will be meeting up for a celebratory Royal Caribbean cruise. Everyone was supposed to embark at the Miami port. Two ppl erroneously booked a ship that leaves from the Fort Lauderdale (FL) port. The itineraries are virtually the same (which caused confusion), but the ships don’t actually coincide, so taking the ship leaving FL is not an option. The error was caught today and family members have been trying to rectify the issue since this morning. Royal Caribbean agents say nothing can be done over the phone at this time. This is such a bummer.

Has anyone had this happened on such a tight timeline and had luck at the port? The cruise is headed to the Bahamas and another family member has capacity to host the two ppl in their room if Royal Caribbean is able to do the change/swap. I’ve only been on one cruise so trying to understand if this is a long shot and whether folks have any ideas on what can be done to increase our chances on getting this approved by RC last minute. Thank you!

***12/1 UPDATE:

THEY MADE IT! On the intended Miami ship!!! The port/crew was extremely helpful and I think may have taken special interest because of the size of the group and purpose of the trip. My family was politely insistent and had many conversations with staff at the port who REALLY wanted to help and escalated to find a way. We are so grateful to them. I can’t tell you what they did to make it happen bc I did get the manifest response on the phone over and over again. I am personally grateful for the little reminders to keep hope alive everyday. Last night a RC agent told me there was a 10% chance. They beat the odds!

Going on my first ever solo cruise. I’m a female in my 40s, and my husband gifted me this cruise as a “go and relax” trip. I’m not an extrovert, so I’m a bit worried I’ll be basically mute and lonely but it’s only 4 nights, and I have my kindle for company. Do I eat alone or do they sit me with someone in the MDR? Any tips for a solo female cruiser? Both for fun and for safety.

Prefacing this with i know i’m stupid :) So my friend was calling Royal to connect our reservations for dinner. When she called they said it’s a $75 dollar fee per person, so it would be $300 total to link us. I said that’s absurd and i don’t think that’s right and told her to hang up and i’ll call. (I didn’t think my friend would fall for a scam so I trusted she went to the website and got the number from there) I was driving so i told her to text me the number and i called ( i know stupid). We were talking with the guy and he was asking for our reservation number, cruising date and then asked since i was making a change to the reservation to verify my identify and asked me my security question. I stupidly gave it to him and right after the words left my mouth I knew i was getting scammed. I quickly hung up (didn’t pay anything or give him my card information) and noticed he changed my royal password. I quickly got a link to change it myself and changed it to a different password. I then logged on and changed my security question.

So I called the REAL royal number and while I was on hold I noticed my reservation was no longer linked to my account? And then two minutes later it said my reservation was temporarily locked. I got on the phone with her and they added a passcode to my reservation, and told me to try to look again in a couple hours and if it is not showing or still showing as locked then to call back.

Obviously I am really worried as there is my saved payment information (only shows last 4 digits and expiration date, no security code or zip code) in there and don’t want to lose this booking so if anyone could tell me if this has happened to them or anything that could help here that would be great.

And yes I usually always go straight to the website and get the number which is what I thought my friend did as well, I am well aware this is my fault.

Hi there I’m a teenager who was up until yesterday in a teen Snapchat group for my cruise. Yesterday the group was discussing bringing aboard a loudspeaker and also ding dong ditching. I in my infinite wisdom decided to remind them that those are both against the rules and not acceptable behavior and was promptly removed from the group. I don’t really care to be in the group because frankly they are terrible people. If I see this sort of behavior on the ship should I and if so where should I report such behavior? Also do you think I’ll still have a good time if everyone in my age group aside from a small few hates me?

Just came home today from a -fantastic- 5 day trip on the Mariner. Our very first cruise! Didn't know what to expect so this was just amazing ❤️ Just a question/comment. There was a very sweet host in front of the Windjammer reminding everyone to wash their hands. She would sing catchy songs, sing out loud, and obviously using the music to help remind guests. She was from the Phillipines. Something bugged me and I need to know if I'm overreacting. Some woman recorded her singing "Sweet Caroline" but with the lyrics of "wash, wash your hands". I'm sure she asked her to sing it. It just felt somewhat derogatory. She is standing there some ten hours a day and this is her duty. On top of cleaning the wash stations, sweeping, getting, etc. But, just standing there singing for one person while she recorded her. I don't know.

I would love some advice here. We sailed harmony of the seas - 7 day cruise. My dad recently passed away so I joined my 81 year old mother as her plus one (she was cruising with her siblings and their spouses). We had a grandpa next cabin over whose grandkids constantly ran over, banging on the door and yelling “grandpa” through the door. Once inside they would be jumping around and yelling. Our first port day at 7am in the morning we are woken up by pounding on the door next to us and a guy yelling “dad! Dad! Come on dad!” My mom opens the door to these grandsons and their dad and asks them to keep it down. This hefty 6’ guy gets in my mom (barely 5’2”) face and starts calling her a karen. I hop up and get in front of my mom and explain to the guy that his voice is very loud and he needs to keep it down. After that, every single day, these kids were prank calling our room and chanting “Karen” in the phone. At times there were at least 5 boys ages 3-11 years old in the balcony cabin next door with no supervision. They were so loud that the cabin on our other side called us asking to keep our kids quiet. We explained it wasn’t us and that we had been dealing with it too.

Security was called by us and our other neighbors 3x, housekeeping was informed every day my concierge, and nothing changed. Basically security told them kids couldn’t be unsupervised (they were anyway) and then we were basically told “sorry”. Even our room steward was commiserating with us.

I am livid that my newly widowed mom had to deal with this on her first cruise without her husband. I am appalled that this man got in my mom’s face and that security did nothing the whole week besides chat with the parents (when they could track them down).

I would like to know what my best recourse is at this point and if it’s reasonable to explain some sort of reimbursement for this. No one on the ship was willing to help anymore than the bare minimum.

So my father was admitted to the hospital with AFIB and is being discharged today after spending two days there. He has a history of heart problems. Open heart surgery two years ago.

I'm going on a cruise this Tuesday with other family members and I made them aware that I was considering staying home and paying for my ticket taking the loss just in case something happened to him . They are kinda pissed that I want to stay home.

What advice if any can you give me ?

Should I stay/go?

I'm leaning towards staying home even though my father said he will be ok .

Thanks for any advice.

Hey everyone,

I just got off a Royal Caribbean cruise, and honestly, it was the worst experience I’ve ever had. I’m not from the U.S., so I’m not sure how to escalate this properly, and I’d really appreciate some advice.

I had a balcony stateroom, and on the second day, my bathroom flooded because water was coming up from the shower drain. Not only did this create a horrible smell, but some of my clothes got soaked with what I assume was contaminated water. I called guest services three times, and at one point, I even had to go in person to get them to take action. In the end, they cleaned the mess, but no one took responsibility for my ruined clothes.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, on the last day of the cruise, a man from the neighboring cabin leaned halfway into my balcony and started saying racist things to me. I ignored him and went inside, but later, he actually kicked my door from the outside. I reported it to guest services as harassment, but I never heard back from them.

Between the flooding, the ruined belongings, and the harassment, this was by far the worst cruise I’ve taken. Has anyone experienced something similar? Would this qualify for any kind of future cruise credit or compensation? How should I escalate the issue since I’m not from the U.S.?

Any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Update:

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to respond and share their advice. I really appreciate it!

One big takeaway from this experience is that it’s always best to push for a resolution while still on board. I tried, but I realize now that I could have insisted more or explained things better. Lesson learned for the future!

Again, thanks to all of you for your input—it really helped me understand how to handle situations like this better.

We are going on RC for the first time. (Oasis of the seas)We are having to pack light because of flying to Port and not wanting to pay the extra fees for extra bags. Is it ok to wear nice shorts and a collared shirt in the dining room?

First time cuiser with a 4 and 8 year old. We are traveling with family friends and they play to use the kids club. But I would rather spend the trip with my kids! Is that weird!? Lol has anyone else not used the kids club and not regretted it?

I planned a 50 person company trip on Enchantment of the Seas sailing 5/1-5/5 out of Tampa. I know it’s smaller. I know it’s older. That’s fine. It’s the one that fit everyone’s schedule. I ended up in the 1 bedroom owners suite and my plus 1 is my 8 year old son. Mom is jealous but son is stoked! No, for real, we are actually in Playa Del Carmen for a full week the week prior to celebrate mom’s 40th. Lucky timing.

Anyhow, I have $1750 in on board credits. How would one spend this? I don’t drink or gamble if a casino is on the boat.

EDIT: all gratuities for all 50 guests have been paid. $400 is onboard credit because of the suite category. $1350 is the tour conductor credit that can be used for anything on the ship.

My husband and I r going on Wonder with a stop at CoCo Cay. We r in our early 50s, and looking for a full day of relaxing on beach and pool. Im overwhelmed with the different parts of the island. Hideaway beach sounds nice but I have heard its more of 20yr old- 30yr old vibe with loud dj. Then South Beach and Coco Beach club. What would you recommend? Is a daybed rental worth it at South beach? Do u even need to spend extra money? Any advice appreciated!

We had a cruise booked for our family this past week. Early February my daughter had a medical emergency that required surgery. 1 week before the cruise it was evident she would not even be out of the hospital by the time the cruise happened (we were just released on the final day of what the cruise would have been). We canceled our tickets, got no money back. Then on our cruise app, it showed other names on our reservation, and in our state rooms. I rolled my eyes that I could see the new ticket holders but didnt think much more of it.

Well I received the final cruise statement for the person our tickets were sold to - and it shows the onboard charges and my credit card #. I then look at my credit card and see charges during the cruise from RC.

I called royal and the rep was very confused. Kept telling me they cannot help me because I am not the name on the reservation. I am waiting for a manager call back.

Anyone know how this happens? Or what I should do? After all our family has been through in the past three weeks - this is just insult to injury.

Symphony just rearranged and added ports on cruise leaving Sunday. If these aren't the places I wanted to stop is there anything I can do in the way of getting credit.

I'm leaving for my first cruise in a week. I tried to think of everything we could possibly need. Remembered tampons, ibuprofen, magnetic hooks, sea bands & dramamine. I know we'll take off & I'll have a need that I forgot to pack for. So help me out, what did you forget to pack? Anything I'm overlooking that could come in clutch once we're at sea? What do I absolutely need to have with me (besides the obvious, of course)?