No, check-in is at 30 days if you are dirt level such as I am. I think that the higher statuses get an earlier bite at the apple again with that process. For that I will stay up until midnight.
I think that there seems to be less demand (or more supply?) in terms of spa stuff. None of this is sold out and I could just see multiple times for each.
I take that back a little, the less expensive couples massage is sold out on the 2nd sea day. But reservations have been open for 3 days now so maybe just make that a priority. I do not see the Rainforest Room so I’m not sure if that is reserved ahead of time.
Rainforest room you can’t book early—go to spa on embarkation day to signup for this
Thank you both! Very helpful. If I don’t get it this time, at least we will be Silver next time, which is one reason we’re doing this “test” cruise (in addition to checking for seasickness, trying out the experience at a lower price, etc.)
Rainforest room isn’t really booked for a time. It’s a pass for a day or set of days. So you’ll be fine there.
So there’s two dates. The first one will be booking activities (75 days for first timers) and the second will be online check in (30 days for first timers). The bookings are for experiences on the ship that can be booked ahead of time. Couples massage you can definitely book. Rainforest room is only available to arrange a pass once on the ship. It seems like the length of cruise passes are popular so you’ll want to head there first.
The online check-in at 30 days will be a lot of things that end with you picking your port arrival time. It is now tiered and I am hoping that meters a lot of traffic so it’s not the crapshoot it was for me at 30 days for everyone for our first cruise. Tonight is our turn for Silver on our next cruise so I’ll report back on the online check in thread if it’s any better.
Also just as FYI…I found it hard to find prices for rainforest room length of cruise pass ahead of time and suspect it varies from sailing to sailing (even with number of nights held equal). For our 7 night completely full sailing over Spring Break it was 149$. But they also charge a separate 49$ for salt scrubs and didn’t tell me this so I just thought it was 198$ for the cruise. On the last day I asked why they charged the 149 and 49 separate and they mentioned the salt scrubs which I’d never received (and didn’t want) and so they took the charge off.
So smart! I decided for our first time it was going to be Castaway Cay or bust, I also got really fixated on doing the Dream mostly because we couldn’t do a full 7 days and I wanted the Dream/Fantasy class for our first time. And then I planned it with a bunch of family (one of whom suggested we do a cruise in the first place) so we could only do school vacations (because the family member is a teacher) and so it was beaucoup $$$ all around.
I just saw this update. It probably will help your ability to book a couples appointment. Sounds like you just book a time slot and then decide your treatment at the time of the appointment. That actually makes more sense.
Unfortunately, not really. Any picture that contains someone from your room will be included but if your parents take a picture just by themselves it will not be included. An exception is made in cases that members of a nuclear family are spread across more than one room but you have to go to the
Shutters location once on the ship and explain this to get the nuclear family members in the other room included and even then, it is my understanding that they will not included alone pics of non-nuclear family members from the second room.
I don’t have any experience in sharing a package. I did read elsewhere that if one room pre-purchases the all inclusive photo package, you can go to the photography place once on board and ask to add another room to the package, which they will do at a discount, but I don’t know how reliable that is.
I am pre-purchasing the photo package for this cruise. Last cruise I didn’t pre-purchase the photo package. I bought some individual photos (15 or 20?) and I paid about the same as I would have paid if I had pre-purchased all of the photos. So this time I’m pre-purchasing and we’re going to pose for every photo op until my family gets sick of it. 
So I paid about $45 for our pictures on RCL and I was happy with that but I was thinking that I would have bought the package if I had known ahead of time. We didn’t really seek out the photographers but I would have definitely tried for more pictures. That cruise was 7 nights though and this one is only 4. But I feel like between Halloween and other character meets it will probably be worth it. I think it would be rare that my parents take pictures of just the two of them.
Is it like at WDW though where I could scan my KTW card for their pictures (say all 6 of us are somewhere and we take a few different arrangements) or are they literally looking at the pictures?
Yes, I think so, plus there are some nice backgrounds where they take family photos and I think they also take some photos when you are first seated for dinner. I like having a photo package (or memory maker in the parks) because you don’t have to try to get someone to take family photos with your phone for you.
When you are all together you scan your card or tell them your cabin number and then do all your different arrangements/combinations of people/poses…then, I’ve read somewhere that they have some kind of facial recognition software that would exclude pictures that do not include someone from your room, but I do not know if this is true. Similarly, if your parents were wandering around alone together, decided to give your room number and have their photo taken, would it be included? The inter webs say no but I don’t have personal experience with this yet. Will be able to give a more definitive answer after our sailing next month as we will be split over two rooms and I’ve only bought the photo package for my cabin (me, DD, my mother and my aunt in cabin 1 and DH,DS and my mother-in-law in cabin 2)
Thanks! Love on the ground research!
FYI I had my booking just now and I was able to get a Couples’ Massage pretty easily. There weren’t a lot of times available for the sea day but there were a few. There was also plenty of availability on the Ensenada day, which is when I booked (we don’t plan to leave the ship).
There seemed to be a fair amount of other stuff to book, though no Remy that I could see. Nothing else that we wanted anyway.
I will come back to book a Royal character meet and greet on September 19th.
Yay! I’m glad. Can’t wait to hear about your trip as I’ll be depressed from just having gotten off the ship.
I do think that is a good strategy to plan to do a lot on the port day! There are still a few things available on our port day like beverage tasting but no brunch or sports stuff. However for us the port is the sole reason we did this itinerary so we want to squeeze every minute out of Bermuda! Next time if we do a Nassau/Castaway sailing I can do it. And now I want a couples massage…
Atta girl
I feel like if I don’t get a brunch there will have to be a next time and their dumb strategy is making a little more sense…
