Remind me the duration of this cruise? I never did see a Palo brunch pop up (and my wallet breathed a great sigh of relief) but we had just one sea day on a 4 day sailing. You’ll probably have better luck on a port day (because people want to go into the port, obviously). All this said though, this shouldn’t make or break your experience. Palo is a small space, and with a couple thousand guests it’s not going to be an option for a large percentage.
[/quote]
Palo brunch is available only on sea days. They seem to hold back reservations for on-board booking. I was able to get a brunch reservation when someone in my FB released hers (we coordinated), but I wanted a different day. Once on the ship I asked whee the dining team was meeting and was able to quickly and easily change it. They gave me lots of choices, so obviously there were plenty of reservations available. I’m told, but don’t have any experience with, that execursions are similar. Check with the port adventures desk on in the app once on board.
It is a 4 night cruise with only one port day in Bermuda. So there are two sea days. Which obviously raises my hopes a little bit of getting a brunch. Honestly if I eat lunch in the MDR without my children that will be a treat in and of itself for free. So I am honestly not stressed out or worried.
I am more sad about the Pirate makeover but I can bring some facepaints myself as well and I’m sure my kids will be equally happy.
I’m not at all concerned about excursions because I think that $29 for my 4 year old to ride a bus is highway robbery. He’s big enough to ride in a cab and my parents are very experienced with getting around the island. We may even rent some Twizy’s instead. I’m confident that we can manage our time so the ship does not depart without us. But I feel quite a bit for less savvy travelers or those with babies who really want the bus.
So sorry your first time booking was unsuccessful.
I do think you’ve got the right attitude here though. The best advice I had about a first cruise was to honestly not book anything because there will be so much new on the ship to do that’s included. The only thing I regret not booking was floats for Castaway Cay, and even then, one of the families that we were with rented their own & ended up letting my kids use theirs for half the day while they were biking & snorkeling. And if they hadn’t, then we would’ve been able to still rent them at Castaway Cay ourselves. So no harm, no foul.
I can see your point. I do think that they somewhat bank on that the majority of first time cruisers will not be on the game/planning and do prefer to wow the loyalty crowd with those reservations. That said, it does seem like they hold back a good amount of availability so if you go to where the dining team is the first day right as you embark, you should be able to get any dining requests sorted, including a confirmed Palo brunch (or at the very least wait-listed).
On our upcoming 4 night in September, Palo brunch is being offered on the 1 sea day as well as our Nassau port day. I too thought they didn’t have brunch on port days so I only checked for our sea day & didn’t get it. Then I booked Royal Court tea and then I started poking around at what else & then saw that they were doing Palo brunch on our Nassau day too (but by now it was 10-15 min into the booking opening), so I didn’t get one either. Someone in our FB group confirmed they were able to snag one for a party of 2 on their Nassau day (at the silver date). And the group as a whole discussed that a party of 2 is the hardest to get for Palo since most groups have just the party of 2. And they won’t book parties of 2 at bigger tables (this is my guess as to what contributes to availability on embarkation day- that they are then willing to put butts in seats now that they don’t have an actual party of 4 or 6 to fill the table).
As for the pirate makeovers, definitely check on embarkation day there as well if that’s something you still want to do. We decided against it after initially booking one for my DD3. But it was one I booked just by checking over & over with less than 60 days to go so it can be found if you stalk for them/check posts in your FB group to coordinate drops and as a last chance check on embarkation day.
Guilty. I have 4 Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and 6 Royal Court Tea spots booked for our 1 sea day. At most we’ll use 3 BBB and 4 Royal Tea and I’m still slightly on the fence about doing any of it on a 4 night and that’s our one sea day to enjoy the ship fully. We may yet get off at Nassau since it’s our first time there but who knows, we might decide it’s too hot to enjoy walking around an island in the Caribbean and stay on the ship (all I want to do is eat conch fritters and maybe, maybe check out the Pirate Museum for the kids).
My booking day is this Saturday for our 3-night October sailing on the Magic out of San Diego. Is this when we choose our embarkation time?
The only thing I want is spa stuff – Rainforest room, couples massage. Do they let you book that at this time, too?
I don’t want to do upcharge dining on this cruise. Trying to spend as little extra as possible and really make use of the included activities. We’re not even planning to get off the ship in Ensenada.
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.
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.)
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.
