Despite the high cost of a Royal Suite . . .

[disneywonderfun]

. . . I just noticed there is literally only one cruise left in all of 2013 where a Royal suite is available on the Fantasy. September 7, 2013 is the only cruise with availability. I am actually surprised as some of those summer weeks generated costs over 30k for a family of four when they were first available. I guess DCL knows what they are doing with pricing.

DWF

[JoiseyMom]

Originally Posted by disneywonderfun

. . . I just noticed there is literally only one cruise left in all of 2013 where a Royal suite is available on the Fantasy. September 7, 2013 is the only cruise with availability. I am actually surprised as some of those summer weeks generated costs over 30k for a family of four when they were first available. I guess DCL knows what they are doing with pricing.

DWF

They are usually booked all the time on all the ships. We lucked out on the last Canadian Cruise on The Magic, and The Roy was available and we upgraded at port. Only chance we would ever be able to do that one .

[disneywonderfun]

Originally Posted by JoiseyMom

They are usually booked all the time on all the ships. We lucked out on the last Canadian Cruise on The Magic, and The Roy was available and we upgraded at port. Only chance we would ever be able to do that one .

Although I did notice a fair amount of availability on the Dream. I guess there is something more appealing about the Fantasy in that regard (always a seven night cruise perhaps).

DWF

[princessmommyx3]

Does the DCL site show you if the Walt or Roy are still available on the Magic or Wonder? I have never seen them show up, and it seems to me that I once heard that they never show up or are available on the site. Or, are they just always booked right away?

[disneywonderfun]

Originally Posted by princessmommyx3

Does the DCL site show you if the Walt or Roy are still available on the Magic or Wonder? I have never seen them show up, and it seems to me that I once heard that they never show up or are available on the site. Or, are they just always booked right away?

I did put in a few dates and could find cruises on the Wonder and Magic that still have availability for the Royals. The Fantasy is just tough, I guess.

DWF

[cypressmom]

Originally Posted by princessmommyx3

Does the DCL site show you if the Walt or Roy are still available on the Magic or Wonder? I have never seen them show up, and it seems to me that I once heard that they never show up or are available on the site. Or, are they just always booked right away?

When we booked our cruise on the Magic, the two bedroom and royal suites were available.

[holula]

About two months ago we booked the Walt suite on the Magic for December 2013. There is definitely more availablity for the classic ships.

[luv that cruise]

I love it now that you can see suite availability online. We are in the walt in about 36 hours! Thanksgiving with the mouse on the Magic. Very excited since we live in the houston area. I have never seen galveston from the water. Will be strange to look at it from a perspective i haven't seen before. Once in a lifetime for us. we are a habitual verandah/inside across the hall room family My daughter has asked from the beginning 2000 if we could have the walt - and this time it was available. yippee!

[Golden Rose]

Originally Posted by luv that cruise

I love it now that you can see suite availability online. We are in the walt in about 36 hours! Thanksgiving with the mouse on the Magic. Very excited since we live in the houston area. I have never seen galveston from the water. Will be strange to look at it from a perspective i haven't seen before. Once in a lifetime for us. we are a habitual verandah/inside across the hall room family My daughter has asked from the beginning 2000 if we could have the walt - and this time it was available. yippee!

That's really amusing. We got off the Magic in the Walt suite today. We loved it so much we've already been discussing cancelling the RCCL cruise we have booked for next year in favor of another DCL cruise... but only if we can get another royal suite.

Just an aside, one of the perks of the royals is being able to order room service from Palo. Once my DM figured this out, she ordered at least a fresh green vegetable plate and a mushroom and polenta appetizer every night. I think we paid as much in room service tips as we did to our MDR servers. (They kept asking us if something was wrong, since we didn't come as a family to dinner every night. No, they did nothing wrong, but our family just liked the food from Palo better.)

Anyway, we found the royal suite on the Magic to be, well, magical. The service was amazing. This was our first cruise on DCL, and we did find ourselves wondering if the service was that good because it was Disney, or because we were in a royal suite. We were very impressed.

[Bear3412]

For those of you who have stayed in the Cat R or S on the Magic, is the furniture the same as shown in the photos on the DCL website? Was the furniture beaten up?

When I was researching our first DCL I read many reports from said Cats that folks were disappointed in the condition of the furniture, carpet, and tile and such. I know the Magic will be out of an extensive drydock in late Oct. But still curious about current conditions. We just got off the Fantasy and... WOW !
Should I wait to book said cats after drydock or is all well? We may want to sail sooner on the Magic than late Oct 2013.

TIA

[disneywonderfun]

Originally Posted by Golden Rose

That's really amusing. We got off the Magic in the Walt suite today. We loved it so much we've already been discussing cancelling the RCCL cruise we have booked for next year in favor of another DCL cruise... but only if we can get another royal suite.

Just an aside, one of the perks of the royals is being able to order room service from Palo. Once my DM figured this out, she ordered at least a fresh green vegetable plate and a mushroom and polenta appetizer every night. I think we paid as much in room service tips as we did to our MDR servers. (They kept asking us if something was wrong, since we didn't come as a family to dinner every night. No, they did nothing wrong, but our family just liked the food from Palo better.)

Anyway, we found the royal suite on the Magic to be, well, magical. The service was amazing. This was our first cruise on DCL, and we did find ourselves wondering if the service was that good because it was Disney, or because we were in a royal suite. We were very impressed.

Maybe overkill, but the first time we cruised in a Royal, we either ate at Palo or had Palo delivered every night. We never set foot into a MDR during the entire cruise. Our kids still remind us that they will never let us do that again!

DWF

[Bear3412]

Originally Posted by Golden Rose

.... we did find ourselves wondering if the service was that good because it was Disney, or because we were in a royal suite.....

Odds are a little of both.

[Bonniec]

Should I wait to book said cats after drydock or is all well? We may want to sail sooner on the Magic than late Oct 2013.

The royals right after drydock are booked for the first cruise. We snagged the last one. I know the 2 day cruise to no where is booked for royals too because I considered adding it on but someone already got them.

I'll be excited to go since this is our first cruise. I cant wait to hear what they plan to do during the drydock.

[Bear3412]

Originally Posted by Bonniec

The royals right after drydock are booked for the first cruise. We snagged the last one.

Congrats. Please report back conditions onboard.
I would especially like to know if it is survivable. JK

[Golden Rose]

Originally Posted by disneywonderfun

Maybe overkill, but the first time we cruised in a Royal, we either ate at Palo or had Palo delivered every night. We never set foot into a MDR during the entire cruise. Our kids still remind us that they will never let us do that again!

DWF

Honestly, we might have done that if we'd ever been on the ship before. But I actually wanted to see the dining rooms, since I was curious about the rotational dining. Now, that said, we ate one brunch in Palo, had one brunch from Palo delivered, and had at least partial dinner or dessert from Palo 5 nights out of 7. My mother's main complaint about the MDR was the lack of good fresh veggies, so she had spinach, asparagus, and avocado delivered from Palo pretty much nightly. She tried the MDR for dinner twice, and was done with it.

Honestly, I think the ability to order room service from Palo is the reason my Mom loved the trip as much as she did, and the reason she is never going to accompany us if we aren't doing a royal suite.

Let me also add that our concierge Alice was absolutely wonderful, and handled everything from simple questions, to more complicated requests, to a lost iphone (found and returned to us!) with good humor and grace. We've sailed concierge level on RCCL multiple times, and always enjoyed it, but we thought Alice really went above and beyond for us.

For all that we loved the concierge perks on the Magic, I will say, there are 3 things RCCL does a little better that we sort of missed. The first is the concierge lounge - I know, the newer ships have it, and I believe it is on the list for the refurbs of the classic ships, isn't it? We got a lot of (admittedly machine made) coffee drinks in the RCCL lounge, and we missed that at least as much as the happy hours... which we also missed. The second is the reserved seating at shows. RCCL doesn't reserve the best seating for concierge guests, but it does reserve seating, and we used it all the time because we really don't like to camp out for seats 30+ minutes before the show, particularly not with a cranky toddler/young child. Admittedly, there was always seating when we showed up for a show this trip, but I understand that is not always the case. The third thing we missed is that on our last RCCL trip (in February, so not that long ago), one of the concierges escorted
everyone who wanted to in concierge class off the ship first so they got porters fast and didn't have to wait in long customs lines. Again, our wait getting off the Magic this morning wasn't TOO bad (particularly not compared to some we've done over the years), but it would have been nice to get priority disembarkation. In all honesty, we noticed these three things because we had them earlier in the year, but I do hope DCL keeps paying attention to what other lines are offering for their concierge guests.

I know "concierge class," and the perks that go with it, have been changing substantially over the years. There are a lot more perks on many lines for concierge guests than there used to be. And, I will say, I'm really glad to see it. We're not willing to cruise on the true luxury lines (like Crystal) because we cruise with young children. We're consistently looking for vacations that will provide a real level of comfort, a variety of entertainment, and a minimum of hassle. We were very happy with DCL. We really are just trying to figure out when we'll try to book a royal suite again. It was completely worth it to us.

Oh, and no, we didn't find the furniture seemed particularly beaten up. Yes, I will admit, there were a few spots where the finishes were less than perfect, and a few faint stains, but really, the rooms looked like the pictures. It was actually pretty funny, we have a not quite 2 year old, so the first thing I generally do in decorated spaces we'll be staying in is sweep through and remove all breakables. I tried to remove the fragile looking beautiful objects around the living room, only to discover they were all glued in their places. The only things not glued down were the books, several of which we actually enjoyed. It's a beautiful suite.