15 things you wont regret buying on a Royal Caribbean cruise!

there's so many upgrades and so many ways you can spend money on a royalty increase but which ones won't you regret later on i've got my list up next [Music] hey everyone it's matt from royal caringblog.com and i want to know what's something that you've paid extra for on your royal caribbean cruise that you thought was totally worth it was it a splurge an upgrade was it something you purchased and brought home and experienced something in between boy there are a lot of choices of ways to spend your money on a royal caribbean cruise and you know while royal caribbean does certainly include a fair amount of things to do and things to eat and things to see with your cruise fair the reality is there's a lot more opportunity to spend extra money on certain activities and offerings that are not included with your cruise and today i wanted to talk about 15 things that i don't think you're going to regret buying if you purchase them on your royal caribbean cruise and listen vacations aren't cheap and every dollar counts and every dollar that you save today is money that you could be spending on another vacation later on and i get that so i wanted to think about what are some things that i have spent extra money on that i did not look back on and say gee you know what that might have been fun or not fun but i wish i had my money back on that these are things that i can say safely are worth the cost and i'm going to break them down here in today's video starting with number one and that is a specially restaurant dining package i love the specialty restaurants on royal creek but they ain't cheap if you look at the cover charges for restaurants like chops grill zumi hibachi 150 central park james italian you know you're probably spending easily 40 to 50 per person to dine at these restaurants and that's a lot of money to be spending on a restaurant for only a couple hours it's not like it's a shore excursion in which you're spending half the day there it's just a lot of money but i do believe the specialty restaurants packages that roll cream sells is absolutely worth purchasing because of the fact that it brings down the cost of these restaurants to a much more manageable number when you buy a three night package a five night package or the unlimited dining package you will absolutely positively save money on specialty restaurants in fact i often tell folks if you're looking to eat at more than two specially restaurants on your royal green cruise well especially package is probably going to make a lot of financial sense for you because it just includes a lot at a great price and if you can time it during one of the royal caribbean cruise planner sales to get a great price on one of these dining packages it becomes almost a no-brainer at that point and at the end of the day it's really nice being able to visit some of these amazing specialty restaurants which have got a lot of focus by royal caribbean because a lot of people do enjoy having other choices with their dining on board a cruise ship and i think that if you're looking to dine at a couple different amazing restaurants i think especially dining packages absolutely worthwhile the worst thing i can say about them is that there's a lot of food if you're doing the unlimited dining package over the course of a seven night cruise you're gonna be eating a lot you're gonna often be i think coming to the conclusion of you know it's included with what i paid for and i appreciate that but i wouldn't mind skipping this particular meal right now because we've just been eating a lot that's not a bad thing this basically means you're getting a ton of value out of your dining package so number one especially dining packages start off our list number two is upgrading to a balcony cabin you know there's always a great debate going on between whether or not you should go for an inside room and save some money or upgrade to a balcony cabin and i often feel like most folks who say you know what we're going to upgrade to the balcony whether that's a balcony or even a junior suite even though it's called a suite it's really just an extra large balcony if you go up to those kinds of cabins i feel like most people at the end of the cruise don't come back and say you know what i wish i didn't spend that money it wasn't worth it i think inevitably people love the fact you get not only a private balcony but a lot more living space balcony cabins are and for most itineraries truly the way to experience a cruise having your private balcony with the open water around you the ocean air coming into your cabin and just having the ability to easily get out and see what's happening around you especially when your ship is in port or coming into port or leaving port i gotta say is so worthwhile and that extra living space you get for having a larger cabin truly makes it worthwhile of course the cost to move up to a balcony cabin from an inside room will depend on a variety of scenarios and everybody's cabin upgrade prices gonna be different i'm just saying people that do pull the trigger on upgrading almost always come back and say you know what it was totally worthwhile and if we're talking about cabin upgrades i'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the royal up program because i'm sure there's a lot of people in chat who are going to be writing in the comments below hey matt what about royal up which is the opportunity to systematically bid on a stateroom upgrade is royal up worth it and today's video is about things you won't regret buying with royal up it's not always clear if there's actually an upgrade opportunity royal caribbean uses rail up as a way to basically say if there was an opportunity would you be interested in booking it but number one that assumes there is a cabin upgrade opportunity number two it's still a blind bidding program so you have no idea what somebody else bid for a balcony room certainly rollerblading gives you an idea of what to bid but that's just that it's a baseline and people go all over the place with it so i think when we're talking about upgrading to a balcony room i think the surefire way the way to avoid regret is simply tell your travel agent hey i like to move up and pay a little bit more for my room what's the price going to be there's nothing wrong with royal up per se i just think a lot of folks end up feeling frustrated at the end because it's not quite clear why they didn't get the cabin upgrade or even worse they get frustrated because they got their hopes up that they were going to get that cabin upgrade and then it doesn't actually happen so that's kind of why for the purposes of this video i'm staring clear of rail up but that doesn't actually mean it's a bad idea just you have to go into with eyes wide open next up is a cabana and whether we're talking about renting a cabana at perfect day at coco key or lava d every time i get a cabana i never regret it i love having that extra space the shade and of course the great service you get with a cabana when you rent a cabana after perfect day cookie or lava d you're getting your own personal space for the day and the cabana attendant will come there throughout the day to help you with any needs you have in terms of food or drink so they'll bring you your food and drink at coco key at labadee it's just drinks only but having that service especially when you're traveling with kids is so worthwhile and i love the fact that it provides a shelter from the sun extra seating comfortable seating mode i add and a great location to boot you know when we look at cabana for families i think it is a slam dunk decision yeah it ain't cheap in a lot of cases the price of a canada can really run the gamut from anywhere from four or five hundred dollars even a thousand dollars or more in fact the floating cabanas at perfect day coco key and the cocoa beach club man those things go up to almost 2 000 that's a lot of money i'm not necessarily talking about the floating cabanas let's relegate this just to the traditional cabanas you could find at thrill water park chill island or the oasis lagoon and even those i think are worthwhile especially if you can split the cost with another family then you can really reap some serious value out of that and i just love having that extra service if you're gonna splurge somewhere this is a big one right here my next splurge that i think is worth buying and you won't regret it is the escape room the escape room is a really fun activity for people on a royal caribbean cruise not all ships have it but ones that do basically challenge you to solve a series of puzzles and clues within a certain amount of time in order to figure out kind of the escape sequence the solution if you will to escaping the room you have about an hour to do so it's a lot of fun and it challenges you across a variety of different thoughts whether it's math or puzzles or logic there's a lot of cool things happening and each escape room is different yes it costs money yes i think it's a lot of fun and you should definitely do me if you've done one before on another ship it's worth trying again on another ship that actually has an escape room on it so definitely worthwhile next up how about a souvenir from the ship you're sailing on you know there's nothing wrong with spending a little bit of money to have a little momentum to bring back with you from the ship you were sailing on whether it's your first cruise first time on that particular ship or you just had a really nice time having a momento is really great so whether that comes in the form of a ornament a sweater with the ship's name on it coffee cup with the ship's name on it or something else adorned with that ship i really like bringing home souvenirs that i can look at when i'm not on a cruise ship and then instantly remember a certain aspect of that cruise maybe i bought that cup right after something fun that we really did or just the fact that man i had a great time on that particular sailing those little souvenirs sometimes can cost a little bit or a lot but i love having a little souvenir from the ships you sail on it helps really i think cement the memories in your mind and more importantly i would say also provides you with a way to kind of always remember that cruise instantly by association when you look at it so i think it's definitely worthwhile something that's brand new and definitely made my list when i was thinking about the today's video that is zone zero zone zero is a new virtual reality experience available right now only on odyssey of the seas but i was blown away by it now when i did zone zero and odyssey it was complementary but real quick has now begun charging for it 18 per person and i'm here to tell you i would easily pay 18 person to do it again even though it's the exact same experience because it was so cool without ruining it essentially you put on a full virtual reality suit not just a helmet but the full suit and then you go into a room where you can literally walk around a virtual world and it's so much fun you battle pirates i walked away with it coming out of there and i had the biggest smile on my face because it was just so different from anything i've ever experienced it was the closest thing i think that i'll ever come to maybe star trek holodeck experiences because it was just that impressive so if you're going on odyssey of the seas definitely check out zone zero something else that i resisted buying but you know what i never regret doing it in the end and that is paying for the wash and fold laundry option real quick offers dry cleaning services which are not inexpensive but they also offer a wash and fold option where basically take a plastic bag stuff it full of laundry and they will wash it and fold it for you no it's not free but having clothes that are clean again that you can reuse on the cruise or just simply bring it back home so you have less laundry to do i think it is worth the cost here and i never regret the fact that i pay extra for some items to get laundered while on board my royal caribbean ship after all if you're going on a cruise during some of the warmer months of the year in which you sweat through clothes you spill something on them having the ability to get those clothes back in your rotation and not having them stained or smelly or stinky or soiled in any way is a huge get plus it helps with the packing some cruises will go on especially kind of the longer ones maybe seven nights or longer i might tell my wife you know what i'm packing for maybe four or five days and we'll do laundry on board the ship yes a little bit of money to be spent but it makes our lives easier and we're not bringing in a second piece of luggage or anything like that in order to just complicate things especially if you have to fly so i think the wash and fold laundry is definitely worthwhile to do the laundry by the way just ask your stateroom attendant for you they will provide it for you in your room and then you just fill it up a couple days later bam it's back to you and you can use it again which is really really nice a common question i get about if they're going to regret purchasing this is the behind the scenes tour so roller coming offers behind the scenes tours you can see places like the bridge or the engine room or a variety of other backstage areas like the gallery which is the kitchen where they cook all the great food on royal caribbean and people want to know is it really worthwhile or is it going to be a waste of money and i would say if the idea of seeing these kind of places kind of interests you if it sounds like ooh that would be fun then yes it is absolutely worthwhile you will not regret purchasing it certainly i would be the first to admit that a behind-the-scenes tour truly appeals mostly to somebody who has i think a interest in seeing how cruise ships are run that's not necessarily everybody but if that is you i don't think you'll regret buying the behind-the-scenes tour something else that is kind of pricey but i have never regretted buying it is a private journeys short excursion did you know that royal caribbean will actually book your own private short series if you want through private journeys that's right private journeys is a relatively new option it came out a couple of years ago but i think a lot of people are still unaware that it is an option if you want to do a private shore excursion that you customize you can do that through royal caribbean the benefit by doing so is that it's still considered a royal caribbean shore excursion so obviously all the benefits you get by booking through royal caribbean a vetted tour operator the ability to get back on the ship if your tour is late you know the ship will either wait for you or wilkin will get you back on board somehow all those benefits all the reassurances you get by booking a cruise the rural caribbean are there but you get to do what you want it's really really nice i've done it in a couple different places and i actually have plans to do it again when we go on a cruise on navigator this seas out of los angeles uh his private journeys and i think every time i've done it i have always thought you know what it was worth it to have that level of flexibility but also have that back of mind reassurance that we're going through real quick we feel good about it so you know private journeys is not a cheap option you're probably depending on the length of the tour where you're going and how many people you have on there you'll be paying significantly more than a group tour but after it's all said and done every time we've gotten back my wife and i have always thought you know what we we kind of think that was worthwhile and private journeys is something that i think is definitely worth it next on my list is travel insurance and travel insurance is one of those things that i hope you'll never ever have to use i actually hope you end up buying it every single time never using it and regretting it because you wasted the money and for services you didn't need but my goodness if you ever needed the services that travel insurance covers you will never regret buying travel insurance so like all insurance in life you are probably going to end up paying for something you will never need but if you ever do need it having insurance makes a world of difference in making your life easier and travel insurance is definitely among those items because it's just super helpful if you ever got hurt injured or anything else in between some sort of a delay or cancellation something that happens it's out of your control and it impacts your ability to enjoy or go on your cruise travel insurance is just something that just makes that so much better to handle i'll admit for years i never did travel insurance because i was like come on me travel insurance i don't need that stuff that'll never happen to me and then eventually we ran into a scenario in which we wondered you know what to do about a particular situation we were encountering and at that time i thought to myself i really wish i had travel insurance right now and ever since we've always gotten it so yes you're probably paying for travel insurance you may not actually need or use i should say but i will say you will never regret buying travel insurance if you ever encounter a scenario in which travel insurance covers one of the many aspects of coverage that are included with most plans so i would say travel assurance is well worth the investment something else i never regret buying is pre-purchasing the gratuities before my cruise now one of the things that i try to always look for are ways to prevent a large build at the end of my cruise i always hated when the cruise is over well yeah i always say when the cruise is over but i really hated when the cruise is over and then the last morning i'd get that bill on my stateroom door and have all these things on here and i'd say who's charged all these things and then i realized wait a minute it was me but there are some things that can be avoided and one of them is pre-paying gratuities i always tell my travel agent pre-pay gratuities because in my opinion it is worth it to have those costs separated out and not part of the bill at the end of the cruise if you don't pre-pay gratuities they'll automatically be assessed every day of your cruise which is fine that works totally fine for some folks especially if you have a lot of onboard credit to burn but for me i prefer to have it paid up front that way number one i don't have to worry about it number two i know the crew members are taken care of and number three i'm not going to have a giant bill so when it comes to gratuities i never regret prepaying my gratuities up front the next thing i never regret and i essentially one of my favorite tips out there is get a second room for your kids you love your children you love vacationing with your children but spending the entire cruise in the same room as your kids not a great way to do it and in a lot of cases getting a second room is one of the best tips i have for families because a lot of times families are like oh we're traveling with our two or three or more kids we're going to try to all be in one room because that's typically how you approach most things in life you go to hotel room you try to get hotel where you're all in there together but on a cruise ship it's really tight quarters and if your kids are anything like mine especially if they're a little bit younger you know they go to a different bed at a different time than you and the whole thing of you know if you've got lights on or if you're on your phone man it's just like an invitation your kids keep talking instead of going to bed right so nobody goes to bed on time getting a second room is a huge benefit because it gives you separation between your kids and yourself you also get an extra bathroom and a shower which if your kids are a little bit older is really important and most importantly you get to make sure that when your kids want to go to bed they can go to sleep you can go to sleep on your own schedule it works really well so getting two connecting rooms instead of one bigger room even if that means going from a suite down to two connecting inside rooms or two connecting balcony rooms is a better use of your money in my opinion because of the benefits you get by having two rooms it's one of the best things ever and a lot of times when i talk to families who try this out they'll come back to me and say you know what matt you were right two connecting rooms for families is definitely the way to go rather than one room so i never regret it even if it does cost a little bit more it's well worth the cost the next thing you're not going to regret buying is water parking admission to thrill water park at perfect day at coco key i mean at the end of the day we are talking about water slides and wave pools and they are just a lot of fun if you want thrills in your private island day on royal caribbean then check out thrill water park at perfect day at coco key thrill water park has an additional cost which means only those that purchase admission can come into the water park and admission of the water park is priced per person and includes full day admission there are enough water slides and pool activities keep you busy all day long during your visit while i've been to the water park a number of times every time i've gone there i've always walked away happy with my decision to go because it's a lot of fun you know maybe you don't need to go to the water park every single visit but i never regret purchasing admission to it because it's hard to have a bad time when you're talking about water slides and fun in the wave pool in fact the wave pool alone is worth the admission for me i love being able to go with the big waves and see how many times you can bob up and down it's a lot of fun and regardless if you got kids or not i do think admission of the water park is a great way to spend your day at perfect day coco key so i never regret purchasing that i mean truly when we're talking about a lot of the extra cost experiences at perfect day whether it is the water park the cocoa beach club the zip lines these are all really fun things to do and i have not regretted any of those purchases but when it comes to the water park i really like it each and every time we go and so when the kids want to say daddy can we please go to the water park it's not much of twisting my arm in order to agree to go because it's always a fun time at number 14 some of you may not agree with this but paying to park at the cruise terminal i have never regretted yes paying to park at the cruise terminal will cost you more than paying to park somewhere else but i'm telling you the convenience factor is so worth it number one i hate parking off-site and then having to deal with the shuttle service because you're competing with other people and more importantly the shuttle only runs periodically it's not like they're gonna take you the second you park your car and then bam my shuttle appears take you to the cruise terminal no they're gonna wait for a bunch of other people to go and then they take you there if that if nothing else perhaps it'll actually be on a timer so okay we're only going at this time this time in this time so you got to wait around waste of time ain't nobody got time for that including me but i would say even more importantly than that when the cruise is over and you're tired and you're depressed because the cruise is over the last thing i want to do is go stand in line to wait for a shuttle and then wait to drive back to the parking area to pick up my car and then be on my way i just want to be on my way and the convenience that parking at the cruise terminal provides is unparalleled worthwhile and while it will cost more i don't regret paying to park at the cruise terminal this concludes every single cruise terminal in the united states i have gone to that i've parked there my own car it has been worth it every single time and the number 15 thing i don't think you'll regret buying is a wow band on a real creamy ship not all ships have wow bands but wow bands are a really cool idea and basically they're essentially optional replacements for your c-pass card imagine a bracelet you can wear that allows you to open your stateroom door charge on board purchases or check into shows and restaurants they're made of silicone and come in a variety of colors white yellow black and blue and they're only available on a couple of the newer royal caribbean ships but not every single new royal caribbean ship they actually use radio frequency technology that can be read by royal caribbean's readers and they found a kiosk tablets mobile scanners that royal caribbean crew members operate and i gotta tell you it is worth the five bucks they charge in order to get one because i love the convenience factor if nothing else i never regret buying a wow band because it allows me to get back into my stateroom a whole lot easier as a dad i'm always carrying everybody's c-pass cards and inevitably i can never fish out the right c-pass card from my pocket when i need it but having the wow band is just so easy because all i have to do is just flick my wrist over the reader and bam in my room no fishing for cards required and in addition to that while the wild band technology never really got rolled out the way i think royalty might have intended or we would have liked to have seen i think overall it's still a benefit to have it and so for five bucks i think it's worthwhile so there you have it the 15 things i don't think you're going to regret buying on a real caribbean cruise i'd be curious what items on this list you agree with and if there's any that you think i missed share your suggestions in the comments below this video of the items that you think are worth buying and you will not regret buying on a roller bean cruise if you found this video helpful hit the like button subscribe to our channel and turn on your notifications so that way youtube lets you know when we have a brand new video to share this has been matt from royal caribbean blog.com and we'll talk again real soon

Channel: Royal Caribbean Blog

Views: 655,619

Keywords: Royal Caribbean, RCCL, Cruise, Travel, Cruise advice, Cruise tips, Cruise ship

Id: HtZc8lAL7PM

Length: 21min 40sec (1300 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 23 2021