Take note if booking a Royal Caribbean Cruise- great deal!

[Lollipop's Mom]

I was booking Oasis of the seas and got an amazing deal of $2372 Cdn for a balcony ocean view. When I called to change my Allure booking (was $3800 cdn) to the Oasis, they brought up a quote of $2973 -but once I had him put in I am from Canada, it dropped the price back down to $2372!!! They have a great Canadian discount going on most sailings- if looking online, don't skip the part where it asks you to put your province in!

 

[Tiggs14]

What date was this for? How many people? I'm not seeing any pricing like that! We're two adults and two kids.

 

[starvenger]

Nice! Haven't been on the Oasis yet but my kids loved the Allure (even if there's no Disney on board)

 

[Cfudge]

I was booking Oasis of the seas and got an amazing deal of $2372 Cdn for a balcony ocean view. When I called to change my Allure booking (was $3800 cdn) to the Oasis, they brought up a quote of $2973 -but once I had him put in I am from Canada, it dropped the price back down to $2372!!! They have a great Canadian discount going on most sailings- if looking online, don't skip the part where it asks you to put your province in!

Dates?

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Oasis Jan 2nd sailing - that is oceanview balcony for 2 adults

 

[papertraveller]

There's another tip for Canadian cruisers on RRCL: if you call to add to your onboard account, you will be charged at a 90-cent dollar. We are adding money to our account to cover the beverage package. If we waited and purchased it when on board, it would be charged to our credit card at current rates.

And let's face it, we can all take a little relief from foreign exchange woes these days!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

I just brought it up - its now $2382 for that room. The inside are only $825 per person!

 

[minnie56]

There's another tip for Canadian cruisers on RRCL: if you call to add to your onboard account, you will be charged at a 90-cent dollar. We are adding money to our account to cover the beverage package. If we waited and purchased it when on board, it would be charged to our credit card at current rates.

And let's face it, we can all take a little relief from foreign exchange woes these days!

Unfortunately, this isn't true of all sailings.
Totally depends on when cruise was booked.

 

[papertraveller]

Our cruise was booked late last year, in Canadian dollars, and today I was able to buy $500 (U.S.) of onboard credit for only $550 (Canadian).
My sister-in-law booked the same cruise two weeks ago, and was also able to get the OBC at $1.10 exchange rate today.
I have heard that it's not available on all ships, although that does sound a bit odd to me.
Nonetheless, $1.10 is far better than $1.30!

 

[minnie56]

Most Cruiselines are offering this as an incentive to Canadian cruisers to soften the blow of our sinking dollar.
One thing you need to know about Royal Caribbean is that they are always very inconsistent!

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

We ended up cancelling and taking a trip to WDW instead.
I started to add up all the nickel and diming on RC and changed my mind. Heck they even charge $20 pp to bring you your boarding passes and take your luggage on the final night. Their private island is more a 'pay us lots of money island' - $100 to zipline for 2 mins, $40 to go on a 2 min 'roller coaster', $40 to go on a 300' waterslide, $40 to play on inflatables in the water.
Plus flying into FLL was about $1500 Canadian and I haven't seen better prices- the whole thing ended up a money pit.
The fare to get on board seemed really good - but the nickel and diming is what made me decide we want to go to go to WDW again - we miss the world - and RCI just turned out not to be for us after all.

 

[minnie56]

What is $20?
To print your boarding passes?
I did a RC cruise in July and paid a few pennies to print my boarding pass and nothing for them to collect my bags?
Just wondering..

 

[Lollipop's Mom]

Yeah now its $20 to do that!

 

[minnie56]

Yeah now its $20 to do that!

I realize some internet minutes would be required to print boarding passes...typically - I don't bother and do at the a/p kiosk but I just called RCCL to be 100% sure and there is no fee to take your bags from outside your stateroom the night prior. So unless I'm misreading what you're meaning?

 

[minnie56]

Unless--you mean to check in for your flight from your stateroom??

 

[LemonNeko]

I came back from a Royal Caribbean cruise last week (Freedom of the Seas) and there wasn't a $20 charge on the final night. There was a $20 charge if you wanted them to valet take your bags right to the plane but it's only available on certain airlines. They printed our boarding passes at the port and there was no charge. We only had to pay extra if we wanted to have them mailed to us. We had pre-purchased $800 OBC for $880 CAN and only ended up using $600 so the last $200 we were able to take out at as cash the casino for a 5% fee.

 

[starvenger]

We ended up cancelling and taking a trip to WDW instead.
I started to add up all the nickel and diming on RC and changed my mind. Heck they even charge $20 pp to bring you your boarding passes and take your luggage on the final night. Their private island is more a 'pay us lots of money island' - $100 to zipline for 2 mins, $40 to go on a 2 min 'roller coaster', $40 to go on a 300' waterslide, $40 to play on inflatables in the water.
Plus flying into FLL was about $1500 Canadian and I haven't seen better prices- the whole thing ended up a money pit.
The fare to get on board seemed really good - but the nickel and diming is what made me decide we want to go to go to WDW again - we miss the world - and RCI just turned out not to be for us after all.

I'm not seeing how paying for an optional excursion is nickel and diming but your loss I suppose. Had a great time at Labadee and didn't pay a cent. Planning to do much the same at Castaway Cay next week and I'm sure the experience will be similar.

Also didn't have to pay to check in from the boat or have baggage sent to the claim area but I went on my cruises in 2013 and 2014, so in 2015, who knows?

 

[DnA2010]

I'm not seeing how paying for an optional excursion is nickel and diming but your loss I suppose. Had a great time at Labadee and didn't pay a cent. Planning to do much the same at Castaway Cay next week and I'm sure the experience will be similar.

Also didn't have to pay to check in from the boat or have baggage sent to the claim area but I went on my cruises in 2013 and 2014, so in 2015, who knows?

Agreed- don't all the cruise lines have extra-cost excursions? We've been to Labadee (LOVED it and didn't pay for anything), Coco Cay, and Castaway Cay and they are all pretty much the same concept?

We also didn't pay for boarding passes on RCL.

Kinda hard to compare a WDW vacation to a cruise really- they are very different trips