Recent RCI cruise review

We did a b2b on Enchantment of the Seas. This was our 2nd and 3rd RCI
cruise - we were excessively unimpressed with the first one which was
on Grandeur of the Seas in 2007. But last winter when we cruised on
Celebrity Mercury, we decided to give RCI another chance because we
really really really like cruising out of Baltimore in the winter and
there are only two choices - Carnival and RCI. We asked if there was
a laundry on either ship and the person booking said she thought there
was one on Enchantment and she was wrong about that.

Good things:

I like the decor of Enchantment better than Grandeur - I found
Grandeur depressing because of excessive beigeness and they used those
Commedia dell'arte type clown masks on Grandeur as wall art. The
crying one was right outside our stateroom. Enchantment uses
Mardi-Gras masks which are much more cheerful.

The captain was the same as in 2007 and he was funny and ran a good
ship

Service was much better in the dining room than it was on the first
cruise on GOTS. Could not have asked for better service. Service was
equally good in the cabin although the cabin steward appeared to be
doing 20 cabins by himself with no assistant and that made it so that
he didn't always get around to everyone right away. We had a new
towel animal every night (without many repeats), and we always had a
clean bathroom, clean towels when required and a full ice bucket.

I like the Cruise Director on the first trip but she went on vacation
at the end of the first cruise.

Embarkation was pretty good and was quick, and dis-embarkation was
good and efficient. We got into our rooms on embarkation about 1330,
and we could stay in our rooms until our dis-embarkation time (which
we were not allowed to do on GOTS). Pretty much everyone was off by
10:30.

Beds were comfortable and cabin was quiet and in a convenient place.
Did not hear anything from overhead or ourside the cabin.

I had a good time in the ports and met some nice and interesting
people (some nice, some interesting and some both) For instance, one
of our dinner table partners was a man who flew in WWII and was shot
down and was in a German prison camp for some time. He and his wife
had been married for 66 years.

The Solarium pool was QUITE warm - almost hot tub temperature and it
was nice to my arthritis to swim in it. I didn't try the hot tubs as
they are always too hot for me.

Because my health has deteriorated somewhat in the last two years and
I have back and knee problems plus reduced lung function from asthma,
I am not able to get around well anymore, and when I asked they let me
have a EOTS wheelchair which was nice.

At our table the first cruise were the dance instructors and we
watched some of their classes. Bob said at the end of the cruise that
he would try that, and he hasn't danced with me (or anyone else) since
1959 when we were married. They were very good.

All of the people at our table on the second cruise (table for 8 so
that is 3 couples) were diamond or diamond plus. They were much more
party animals than Bob and I were.

Bob was happy that he could watch Fox News instead of just CNN. I
don't want to watch the news at all so I just did something else when
the news was on like I do at home.

I found the internet speed using my computer was almost as fast as at
home - did not have any complaints about that aspect of computer use.

RCI has a very good program (the Cruise Compass) which allows you to
detach the page with the hours and times of all the events and fold it
up and put it in your pocket. I don't know why more ships don't do
this - it is so convenient.

The breads and desserts were excellent - very good bread all the time
and yummy desserts..

I'm telling all the good things first because although I really
enjoyed the cruise I did find quite a few deficiencies -- When I
filled out my comment card at the end I said I might or might not
cruise with RCI again.

I did have a good time, but there were some big and some small things
that weren't optimal. So when I report on the deficiencies, just keep
in mind - We had a good time

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:54:27 -0500, wrote:

We did a b2b on Enchantment of the Seas.

Less Good things- you can probably take a guess at what those are by
the difficulty I had finding Good Things. We both completed a review
of the cruise after each one, and someone from corporate actually
called us yesterday to see if we had anything to add. I said I did
not see how we could have anything farther to say.

I like the decor of Enchantment better than Grandeur -
The captain was the same as in 2007 and he was funny and ran a good
ship
Could not have asked for better service.

The fact that they are cutting back on the number of people makes all
the ones that they have work really hard and stretches them really
thin. There are no chocolates on the pillows anymore (not that I
really needed that), but what I think they ought to do is to eliminate
the plates under the napkins at dinner. It would eliminate a lot of
dishwashing and also labor. As it is, they set the table putting the
plates out and the napkins on top, and then when you sit down, they
take the plates away. The plates serve no useful purpose. I should
have said that to the person that phone, but I forgot.

I like the Cruise Director on the first trip but she went on vacation
at the end of the first cruise.

The Cruise Director on the second trip was married to the Activities
Director. She did most of the work it seemed to me. Going by what
the Cruise Director and Activities Directors told us on the Celebrity
Cruise, they are responsible for the Cruise Compass layout and
printing. One day near the end of the second cruise there was a
really bad screw-up in the Cruise Compass with wrong sale dates etc.
The activities were also set up so that some of the popular ones
conflicted and you couldn't go to both. If they did this on purpose
it was nasty, and if they did it by accident it was incompetent.

Embarkation was pretty good and was quick, and dis-embarkation was
good and efficient.

The only problem I had with embarkation was that they did not have a
wheelchair until after I'd done all the check-in and was ready to get
onto the ship. In the Celebrity embarkation, they gave me a
wheelchair right away to do the embarkation in. On the NCL cruise out
of Barcelona, I got a wheelchair practically right at the curb. HAL
was more chintzy with their chairs, but I guess more people need them.

We had to get off between cruises and get back on again, and we had to
wait to get back on because the machine that does the photos on the
room cards was not working and the IT person had to fix it.

Beds were comfortable and cabin was quiet and in a convenient place.
Did not hear anything from overhead or ourside the cabin.

One of the things I did say on the review was that the cabins
themselves were the worst planned of any cruise ship I had been on.
When the beds are together as a king, it is impossible to get out of
bed and walk around the foot of it to the bathroom without crawling
over the end of the bed It is also almost impossible for the room
steward to make them up.

This is just stupidly poor planning. All they would have had to do is
to order the settees shorter and made the mirror at the desk narrower,
or some other compromise. About halfway through the cruise we
separated the beds - just like those couples on TV in the 50s. It was
this way on GOTS and it was that way on all the cabins I saw on EOTS.
Also the cabinet and storage in the bathroom was ludicrous. There was
a tiny triangular cabinet and it wasn't possible to put things like
toothbrushes into it lengthwise because it was too short. When I
stood the toothbrushes up in holders, they fell out when I opened the
cabinet. I know the floor was clean, but did not want to put a
toothbrush in my mouth after it had been on the floor. There was also
no appropriate plug for my husband's razor. He had to bring it out
and recharge it in the main cabin.

I found the internet speed using my computer was almost as fast as at
home - did not have any complaints about that aspect of computer use.

One of the cost cutting things appears to be that there is no one to
run the computer room. You have to go through the customer desk. I
had no problem logging on and picking a package of minutes.

At one point on the first cruise I was logged on to the wireless
network, but there was no internet. When I asked, I was told that
they were fixing it and it would be fixed by the next day. The next
day it still didn't work so I got off an did some stuff in the port
(Nassau). When I got back on, it still didn't work and they said the
tech person had just gotten on board and was fixing it because the
problem was bigger than they had first thought..

I did have a problem getting the minutes logged on correctly. I
bought two packages of 500 minutes (30 cents a minute) on each cruise.
I would log on and it would say you have $##.## of time left at 30
cents a minute. And then it would charge me 65 cents a minute for
each minute while counting down the minutes. This mean that I was in
effect paying 95 cents a minute. Each time I would report to the
desk, and they would take the charge off.

I asked what I should do in the future and they basically didn't have
any idea. They suggested I wasn't logging on right, so I took the
computer down and they watched me, and I was doing it right. They
said maybe I opened a second browser and I should only use one
browser. No that wasn't it. Eventually I tried logging on with
Firefox instead of IE and this worked. When I reported that to the
desk, they said that I must not do that - the internet people said
that it would not work with Firefox and must use IE.

These experiences gave me the opinion that their IT person was an
incompetent idiot.

On 2/2/2011 9:33 PM, wrote:

Embarkation was pretty good and was quick, and dis-embarkation was
good and efficient.

The only problem I had with embarkation was that they did not have a
wheelchair until after I'd done all the check-in and was ready to get
onto the ship. In the Celebrity embarkation, they gave me a
wheelchair right away to do the embarkation in. On the NCL cruise out
of Barcelona, I got a wheelchair practically right at the curb. HAL
was more chintzy with their chairs, but I guess more people need them.


Did you or your TA fill out the Special Needs form and fax it to Royal
Caribbean in Miami before you sailed? When you do that, the wheel chair
is available. Many people decide at the last minute that they want a
wheel chair and the people who really *need* the chair can't get one.
That is why they have to verify that you have asked for the chair in the
proper manner.

We had to get off between cruises and get back on again, and we had to
wait to get back on because the machine that does the photos on the
room cards was not working and the IT person had to fix it.

Beds were comfortable and cabin was quiet and in a convenient place.
Did not hear anything from overhead or ourside the cabin.

One of the things I did say on the review was that the cabins
themselves were the worst planned of any cruise ship I had been on.
When the beds are together as a king, it is impossible to get out of
bed and walk around the foot of it to the bathroom without crawling
over the end of the bed It is also almost impossible for the room
steward to make them up.


I have sailed on 3 different classes of Royal Ships and have never found
this situation, even sailing in an ocean view. I do know that the
inside cabins are quite small, but the entire ship is not like that.
This is just stupidly poor planning. All they would have had to do is
to order the settees shorter and made the mirror at the desk narrower,
or some other compromise. About halfway through the cruise we
separated the beds - just like those couples on TV in the 50s. It was
this way on GOTS and it was that way on all the cabins I saw on EOTS.
Also the cabinet and storage in the bathroom was ludicrous. There was
a tiny triangular cabinet and it wasn't possible to put things like
toothbrushes into it lengthwise because it was too short. When I
stood the toothbrushes up in holders, they fell out when I opened the
cabinet. I know the floor was clean, but did not want to put a
toothbrush in my mouth after it had been on the floor. There was also
no appropriate plug for my husband's razor. He had to bring it out
and recharge it in the main cabin.

Those of us who cruise frequently bring an over the door shoe holder
that we hang on the inside of the bathroom door to hold all of our
stuff. You can leave your tooth brushes in one of the glasses, too.
That's what we do.


I only use Firefox as a browser. I have used it on several RCI ships on
my own computers. No one ever told me to use IE.


--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

In article m,
Janet Wilder wrote:


I only use Firefox as a browser. I have used it on several RCI ships on
my own computers. No one ever told me to use IE.

I was told a couple of times about 4 years ago that my Mac wouldn't
work. No way, Jose. Of course it did.

--
"Even I realized that money was to politicians what the ecalyptus tree is to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."
---PJ O'Rourke

On 2/3/2011 3:00 PM, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In aweb.com,
Janet wrote:


I only use Firefox as a browser. I have used it on several RCI ships on
my own computers. No one ever told me to use IE.

I was told a couple of times about 4 years ago that my Mac wouldn't
work. No way, Jose. Of course it did.


I think they have people who are IT-clueless working on the ships. I can
even get into Usenet on a ship!

Once, when I was using the ships machine, the internet was running so
slow that I could not make any progress. At the same time the minute
clock for usage was running on real time. I went to the guest relations
desk to ask them to please reset the usage back by 15 minutes and they
said they'll just give me an extra hour's credit. Nice!

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

On Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:20:02 -0600, Janet Wilder
wrote:

On 2/2/2011 9:33 PM, wrote:

Embarkation was pretty good and was quick, and dis-embarkation was
good and efficient.

The only problem I had with embarkation was that they did not have a
wheelchair until after I'd done all the check-in and was ready to get
onto the ship. In the Celebrity embarkation, they gave me a
wheelchair right away to do the embarkation in. On the NCL cruise out
of Barcelona, I got a wheelchair practically right at the curb. HAL
was more chintzy with their chairs, but I guess more people need them.

Did you or your TA fill out the Special Needs form and fax it to Royal
Caribbean in Miami before you sailed? When you do that, the wheel chair
is available. Many people decide at the last minute that they want a
wheel chair and the people who really *need* the chair can't get one.
That is why they have to verify that you have asked for the chair in the
proper manner.

I don't know what my TA did about that. I never asked for them and
was always surprised when I got them. I do ask the airlines when I
fly but I'm not flying in to Baltimore. I was just surprised that
Celebrity was so different from RCI when we were at the exact same
terminal and pier. Everything was the same - just that RCI didn't
have a chair until after I had already stood in line to register, and
Celebrity did.

We had to get off between cruises and get back on again, and we had to
wait to get back on because the machine that does the photos on the
room cards was not working and the IT person had to fix it.

Beds were comfortable and cabin was quiet and in a convenient place.
Did not hear anything from overhead or ourside the cabin.

One of the things I did say on the review was that the cabins
themselves were the worst planned of any cruise ship I had been on.
When the beds are together as a king, it is impossible to get out of
bed and walk around the foot of it to the bathroom without crawling
over the end of the bed It is also almost impossible for the room
steward to make them up.

I have sailed on 3 different classes of Royal Ships and have never found
this situation, even sailing in an ocean view. I do know that the
inside cabins are quite small, but the entire ship is not like that.

We had an inside cabin on both Grandeur and Enchantment - I think they
are the same class ship and it was the same on both. I looked into
other cabins - including ocean view - all the same. I talked to other
people including the other three couples at our table who were all
platinum plus and they all said - "We know that we can't have the beds
together because there's no room to walk around them, so we always
separate them." I don't know about balconies and fancy stuff like
that or bigger ships. So I would dispute your assertion that all the
cabins are not like that. They are.

This is just stupidly poor planning. All they would have had to do is
to order the settees shorter and made the mirror at the desk narrower,
or some other compromise. About halfway through the cruise we
separated the beds - just like those couples on TV in the 50s. It was
this way on GOTS and it was that way on all the cabins I saw on EOTS.
Also the cabinet and storage in the bathroom was ludicrous. There was
a tiny triangular cabinet and it wasn't possible to put things like
toothbrushes into it lengthwise because it was too short. When I
stood the toothbrushes up in holders, they fell out when I opened the
cabinet. I know the floor was clean, but did not want to put a
toothbrush in my mouth after it had been on the floor. There was also
no appropriate plug for my husband's razor. He had to bring it out
and recharge it in the main cabin.

Those of us who cruise frequently bring an over the door shoe holder
that we hang on the inside of the bathroom door to hold all of our
stuff. You can leave your tooth brushes in one of the glasses, too.
That's what we do.

I have to put my inhaler in the glass, and there isn't room for the
toothbrush. I don't have such a shoe holder and am not going to buy
one. I hang my nightgown and/or bathing suit on the inside of the
door.

Every other ship I've been on except RCI has had decent bathroom
storage without my having to bring shoebags..

I only use Firefox as a browser. I have used it on several RCI ships on
my own computers. No one ever told me to use IE.

I usually start off with IE because it seems to be what people expect.
then I usually open Firefox and do the main part of my browsing with
that. When I finally started with Firefox instead, it worked, but it
wouldn't always connect. When I told the lady at the Customer Service
Desk that Firefox worked, she was QUITE adamant that I must NOT use it
and that IT said it did NOT work. Of course I didn't pay any
attention and went on doing what worked and if FF didn't connect right
away, I just tried again until it did.

At one point, I knew that I had used all my minutes, and due to them
crediting me back for minutes that were charged double, I had some
minutes showing that I knew I was not entitled to. I asked her to
remove the minutes. She said she couldn't do that. I had to sign on
with my husband's card (I couldn't use mine as they will not sell
another package if you have minutes left) and start another account.

The other thing that I think is way sneaky and which other lines do
NOT do - if you run out of minutes in your package, they shift to the
highest rate without any notice. HAL will charge at the package rate
until you sign off. They also give extra minutes for 'power users'
who get a second package or for people who sign up the first day and
there was no suggestion that RCI had anything like that. There was a
coupon in the little booklet for 10% off computer packages. That was
the only coupon that was of any use to us.

The Platinum people at our table got about half an hour of free
minutes, so maybe the administration isn't as concerned about people
who are new to RCI.

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 17:54:27 -0500, wrote:

Given the disparaging remarks about the other aspects of the cruise by
the RCI groupies I don't have much hope for the rest of the review,
but I will press on regardless.

We did a b2b on Enchantment of the Seas. This was our 2nd and 3rd RCI
cruise -
Good things:

The port maps were not quite as bad as the previous cruise, but they
still lacked quite a bit of essential detail. The ports we visited
were

Canaveral - I did not see any excursions that I wanted to do, so we
did not get off the ship. My husband contended that we were on the
ICW and I thought that it was over on the Indian River and we were on
the Banana River so I wanted a map, but they didn't have one. I
walked off the ship and down to the entrance of the port, but there
was none there either. I understand there is a local bus which is
cheap and goes somewhere near the terminal. I would have liked to
have a map of where to get that and maybe if I had, I would have taken
it.

Key West - We lived in Key West for three years in the late 60s and
have visited for several weeks at a time most years after 2000, so we
didn't really need a map here. I knew what I wanted to do and that we
would have to take a taxi, so we did that. After we got back to the
ship, we went to the Mel Fischer Museum (which we had never been to)
and Bob said it wasn't worth the money. I agree. I didn't find out
until later that the Turtle Museum (which used to be free) now has a
charge, but we will be back there at the end of February (driving) and
I will check on it then. The bad thing about being here is that they
left at 3:30 and that is way too early. The action starts a little
before sunset. I'm sure this is another example of cost cutting - the
town charges more if you are there at sunset. Boo to RCI. It wasn't
as if they need the extra time to get to the next port. Nassau is not
that far away.

Nassau - We were in Nassau on our own boat a couple of times in the
early 2000s. But without a car, there were some things we had not
seen. So we went out and got a taxi with a couple of other people and
went to all the places on my list. (Fort Charlotte, Fort Fincastle
and the Water Tower and Queen's Staircase, and Fort Montagu).

Coco Cay - It was cold and windy and we did not go ashore.

2nd Cruise
Labadee - we did get off the ship here as we have never been to Haiti.
Bob took the ship wheelchair which we saw afterward that we weren't to
do. I got a ticket on the Dragon's Tail Coaster, but they didn't want
me to take pictures. I knew that there would be changes in elevation
but the tipping of the cart activated my vertigo so it wasn't quite
the optimal experience, but that's OK. I was glad to have done it.
Bob was pushing the wheelchair fast to get across the gaps in the
sidewalk when one of the gaps trapped the front wheels and I went
flying out of the wheelchair. With one hand, I grabbed the camera so
it wouldn't hit the ground and I ended up on my hands and knees. Bob
was under the impression that I did a tuck and roll, but I didn't. I
was not hurt and it gave him an interesting story to tell.

Samana - we've been to Samana before so I signed up for the Whale
Watching which was excellent. Afterward we got on a tender and went
to shore - I wanted some more pictures of La Churcha. We engaged a
moto rickshaw and probably paid too much, but I did get the pictures I
wanted.

San Juan - I had intended to take the wheelchair so I could get up
close to the fort at El Moro, but having been told in the Cruise
Compass that we weren't to do that, I wanted to get a taxi and go up
to the cemetery near there. The taxis were quoting us insane charges
but one of the drivers finally pointed us to the free trolley/bus. It
would have been VERY helpful if the port map had that on it but it
didn't. Bob got disgusted and went back to the ship, but I took the
trolley and lo an behold it went all the way up to the fort walls. I
don't think it did that in 2006 when we were here last. Anyway, again
I got pictures and didn't have to pay anything to do it. So
satisfactory in spite of RCI

St. Thomas - We've done most of the tours here. We stayed on St. John
for about a week a couple of years ago and normally we just get a taxi
to Red Hook and go to St. John. But the price for a tour of St. John
seemed quite reasonable considering that it included two ferry rides
and a taxi, so I booked that. They had the ferry between us and the
other RCI boat that was there, and we had a nice tour of the places we
didn't get to when we were on our own in St. John without a car.

St. Maartin - I wanted to go to the French side, but Bob didn't want
to rent a car, and I didn't want to walk all the way down the pier to
the water taxi (I would have done it if I'd had the wheelchair), so we
stayed on the ship.

Tortola - I saved up my shopping for presents for people and did most
of it here. We got a taxi to the shop ($4 @) and one back to the ship
(same price)

One of the problems we had was that the Cruise Director did not ever
tell us when we could get off the ship or what deck it was on - it was
almost always on Deck 1, but still it should have been announced.

I did have a good time, but there were some big and some small things
that weren't optimal. So when I report on the deficiencies, just keep
in mind - We had a good time

On 2/3/2011 4:11 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:20:02 -0600, Janet Wilder
wrote:

On 2/2/2011 9:33 PM, wrote:

Embarkation was pretty good and was quick, and dis-embarkation was
good and efficient.

The only problem I had with embarkation was that they did not have a
wheelchair until after I'd done all the check-in and was ready to get
onto the ship. In the Celebrity embarkation, they gave me a
wheelchair right away to do the embarkation in. On the NCL cruise out
of Barcelona, I got a wheelchair practically right at the curb. HAL
was more chintzy with their chairs, but I guess more people need them.

Did you or your TA fill out the Special Needs form and fax it to Royal
Caribbean in Miami before you sailed? When you do that, the wheel chair
is available. Many people decide at the last minute that they want a
wheel chair and the people who really *need* the chair can't get one.
That is why they have to verify that you have asked for the chair in the
proper manner.

I don't know what my TA did about that. I never asked for them and
was always surprised when I got them. I do ask the airlines when I
fly but I'm not flying in to Baltimore. I was just surprised that
Celebrity was so different from RCI when we were at the exact same
terminal and pier. Everything was the same - just that RCI didn't
have a chair until after I had already stood in line to register, and
Celebrity did.

If your TA can't manage things, be pro-active. I always check with the
cruise line two weeks before sailing to make sure the special needs form
was received and everything we need is in place. We have sailed from
many ports, foreign and domestic, with RCI and never had a problem
getting a wheelchair for my DH because we or our TA make the proper
arrangements before hand.

One of the things I did say on the review was that the cabins
themselves were the worst planned of any cruise ship I had been on.
When the beds are together as a king, it is impossible to get out of
bed and walk around the foot of it to the bathroom without crawling
over the end of the bed It is also almost impossible for the room
steward to make them up.

I have sailed on 3 different classes of Royal Ships and have never found
this situation, even sailing in an ocean view. I do know that the
inside cabins are quite small, but the entire ship is not like that.

We had an inside cabin on both Grandeur and Enchantment - I think they
are the same class ship and it was the same on both. I looked into
other cabins - including ocean view - all the same.

They are not.

The cabins are different sizes. Here's Enchantment. Note that the
outside cabins are 151.8 Sq ft. and the inside are 136.7 sq ft. Balcony
cabins are 191.6 sq. ft. Suites are larger. Same for Grandeur. Check
the web site:

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/ships/ship/decks/deck/home.do;jsessionid=0000U9wtO8edWk38HXSd1IRGP9u:15l bbplc5?shipCode=EN&shipProfile=1371

The difference in sq. feet means getting around the bed easier.

I'm a little claustrophobic, so I make sure I know the size of the cabin
before I book. Your TA should have known that the small, inside cabin
was not the best choice for a person with mobility issues. The TA could
have gotten you a handicap-friendly cabin for the same price. Your TA
should have taken care of the wheel chair, too. When it's the cruise
line's fault, it's their fault, but your criticism of the cabin is just
poor planning on your part. You and your TA failed to get a cabin to
suit your needs.

I talked to other
people including the other three couples at our table who were all
platinum plus and they all said - "We know that we can't have the beds
together because there's no room to walk around them, so we always
separate them." I don't know about balconies and fancy stuff like
that or bigger ships. So I would dispute your assertion that all the
cabins are not like that. They are.

There is no "Platinum Plus" status in Royal Caribbean's loyalty program.
The people with the fictional status, in an astonishing coincidence, all
seem to have booked inside cabins, because the ocean view and balcony
cabins do have more room. The cabins on the Vision class are larger
than the ones on the Voyager class (bigger ships). The size of the ship
has no bearing on the size of the cabins.

I sailed on a 14 day voyage on Rhapsody of the Seas, in the same class
as Enchantment and Grandeur, and had plenty of room for everything. The
balcony cabins on that ship had better, by far, storage than the bigger
Voyager class ships. There is nothing "fancy" about a balcony or
outside cabin when your enjoyment of the cruise requires more space.

Please don't make statements that are not true. You got the cabin and
the space you paid for.

Every other ship I've been on except RCI has had decent bathroom
storage without my having to bring shoebags..

I strongly suggest that you sail on every other ship and avoid Royal
Caribbean as it appears there is nothing RCI can do to make you happy.

I'm not trying to be a Royal Caribbean cheerleader here. I just find it
hard to accept the integrity of someone who is absolutely certain that
all cabins on a ship are exactly the same size, stating they "looked
into it" when the website is very clear that the cabins differ in size.
The fact that their gripe was confirmed by 3 couples with a
non-existent Crown & Anchor Society level makes the OP even less
believable.

If people come here to learn about cruising and cruise lines, wouldn't
it be better to post the truth?

--
Janet Wilder
Way-the-heck-south Texas
Spelling doesn't count. Cooking does.

In article ,
wrote:

We had an inside cabin on both Grandeur and Enchantment - I think they
are the same class ship and it was the same on both. I looked into
other cabins - including ocean view - all the same. I talked to other
people including the other three couples at our table who were all
platinum plus and they all said - "We know that we can't have the beds
together because there's no room to walk around them, so we always
separate them." I don't know about balconies and fancy stuff like
that or bigger ships. So I would dispute your assertion that all the
cabins are not like that. They are.


I don't know what you expect when you book the cheapest inside cabin on
the oldest class of ships.

You are wrong about all the cabins being the same on those ships. There
are two sizes of inside cabin, "inside cabin" and a bigger inside
cabin, the "large inside cabin". Same with the outside cabins. There
are "large outside cabins" and "superior outside cabins". And the large
outsides are larger then the "large inside" with the superior outside
being the largest. look at the deck plans and you will see the square
feet.

The other thing that I think is way sneaky and which other lines do
NOT do - if you run out of minutes in your package, they shift to the
highest rate without any notice. HAL will charge at the package rate
until you sign off. They also give extra minutes for 'power users'
who get a second package or for people who sign up the first day and
there was no suggestion that RCI had anything like that. There was a
coupon in the little booklet for 10% off computer packages. That was
the only coupon that was of any use to us.

When your discount package runs out on all the cruise lines, including
HAL, they don't disconnect you, they put you regular rate until you log
off. HAL does not keep giving you the discount rate. What might be
confusing you is that HAL's regular minute rate is lower than Royal
Caribbean's. When I was on HAL I was not sure it was worth getting a
package. They tell you that they will charge you the regular rate when
you run out of package minutes when you sign up for the package. I
distinctly remember that on Oasis last fall that they said that was
what they would do. I don't see anything sneaky about it.

--
Charles

In article ,
wrote:


Canaveral - I did not see any excursions that I wanted to do, so we
did not get off the ship. My husband contended that we were on the
ICW and I thought that it was over on the Indian River and we were on
the Banana River so I wanted a map, but they didn't have one. I
walked off the ship and down to the entrance of the port, but there
was none there either. I understand there is a local bus which is
cheap and goes somewhere near the terminal. I would have liked to
have a map of where to get that and maybe if I had, I would have taken
it.

In front of the terminal there are signs telling where to catch the
bus. Very easy. There is also a crew shuttle that they let anyone on.


2nd Cruise
Labadee - we did get off the ship here as we have never been to Haiti.
Bob took the ship wheelchair which we saw afterward that we weren't to
do.

They have wheelchairs there with the ballon wheels.

San Juan - I had intended to take the wheelchair so I could get up
close to the fort at El Moro, but having been told in the Cruise
Compass that we weren't to do that, I wanted to get a taxi and go up
to the cemetery near there. The taxis were quoting us insane charges
but one of the drivers finally pointed us to the free trolley/bus. It
would have been VERY helpful if the port map had that on it but it
didn't. Bob got disgusted and went back to the ship, but I took the
trolley and lo an behold it went all the way up to the fort walls. I
don't think it did that in 2006 when we were here last. Anyway, again
I got pictures and didn't have to pay anything to do it. So
satisfactory in spite of RCI

You mean in spite of yourself. If you need a wheelchair to do
excursions or tours you need to buy your own. Why do you think RCI
should provide one for that purpose? Their wheelchairs are to assist
people getting on or off the ship.

St. Maartin - I wanted to go to the French side, but Bob didn't want
to rent a car, and I didn't want to walk all the way down the pier to
the water taxi (I would have done it if I'd had the wheelchair), so we
stayed on the ship.

They have a golf cart that will take you to and from the end of the
pier.

One of the problems we had was that the Cruise Director did not ever
tell us when we could get off the ship or what deck it was on - it was
almost always on Deck 1, but still it should have been announced.

That information is in the daily schedule.

--
Charles