9 things that surprise people on Royal Caribbean

taking your first Royal coing cruise is bound to have a number of new experiences for you including some things you probably didn't expect over the years I've run into a lot of first-time Cruisers people that go on their first Royal caring cruise and then come back with feedback about the things that really stood out to them today I wanted to share with you the nine things that tend to really surprise people on Royal [Music] Caribbean number one something are cheaper if you book it before the cruise you know roll cre sends out a lot of marketing emails to people before their Cruise in fact these days it seems like there's like an email every day about a new Option you can purchase whether it's a drink package or a Shore Excursion or a Wi-Fi package spot you get it you get a lot of emails about that and if you're like me and you get other emails from other companies all of those marketing emails tend to blend into each other and also you tend to ignore them more anything it's like noise right anyway when it comes to Royal crian though yeah there is obviously a huge marketing aspect to it but pre purchasing can actually save you a lot of money on a cruise Royal caran wants people to spend a lot more money before the cruise essentially the more money spent before the cruise ends up spending more money overall there's like a whole math to it on real side but there is an enticement to actually incentivize guests to book before the cruise things like drink packages and shore excursions and Wi-Fi because they are absolutely cheaper before the cruise and once on board the ship if you wait to buy them on board the ship that's okay but you're going to pay more for them the drink package especially can cost way more if you purchase it on board than before the Cru not to mention the fact it's going to take time out of your vacation to purchase these things and the savings pre- Cruise are actually substantial more importantly some things can actually sell out before the cruise like shore excursions so pre- purchasing not only can save you money but also can ensure you actually get the exact thing that you want so while all those emails and reminders that you should prepurchase these items seem like noise but they're actually pretty important in the grand scheme of making sure that you pre-book as much as you can before the cruise another thing that surprises people on Ro is you can actually pre-book some of the shows if you're on an icon class an oasis class or a Quantum class ship you can pre-book shows on your ship before the sailing now pre-booking has no additional cost to it but it ensures that you're absolutely going to have a chance to see the show in question about 30 days before your cruise you should have the option to pre-book shows for those again classes of ships we're talking about on the cruise planner website or the Royal Caribbean app essentially all you have to do is go in there grab some seats and you're good to go you don't select actual chairs themselves more just admission into the show the good news is again there's no cost to this and it assures you that you're going to get into that particular Showtime however if you're late to this or you simply didn't see this ahead of time and there's no other tickets available not to worry there are still options to get admission once on board the ship look for a box office option once you get on board your real Cru ship to see about reservations for those shows but if all else fails you don't get anything and you say well I really want to see these shows on board you can still see them all you have to do is get in the standby line once on board the ship and about 30 minutes before the showtime get to the theater and there'll be a standby line there and again if you're there about 30 minutes ahead of time I think you'll have a pretty good chance of getting to that show but if you're watching this video now do yourself a favor and pre-book the entertainment because again there's no cost to pre-book and there's no penalty in case you don't show up to the show something else that may surprise you is you are allowed to bring some drinks on board your rolling Cruise now Ro does not allow you to bring alcohol on board like beer or liquor but it does allow you to bring some drinks on board your ship and that may be a really good way to not only save money but also provide a more convenient option for you and your family let's start off with the fact that you can bring up to 12 bottles or cans whatever of non-alcoholic beverages this includes sodas and juices and bottled water all out on embarcation day that allocation is per cabin out per person and you should bring it on embarcation day in your carry-on luggage not your check luggage I need to emphasize this because if you give it to in your checked luggage Royal Carion security is going to do the X-ray machine and then realize you got some sort of a bottle in there and they can't tell if that's water or vodka so they're going to hold your bag back and it's going to result in a major delay of getting your bag delivered to your cabin so bringing in your carry-on luggage in addition to that you're also allowed to bring one bottle of wine or champagne on board your cruise ship per adult in your cabin cabin and that allows you to bring that bottle of wine or champagne to a restaurant or just enjoying your cabin if you bring it to a restaurant lounge technically speaking you're going to be assessed a opening fee for that bottle in my experience real coming like never enforces that rule but theoretically it could happen to you nonetheless bringing your own bottle of wine or champagne on board is going to save you plenty of money because of course you're going to pay retail for that back at home as opposed to of course paying the onboard prices which of course do come with a markup just like any restaurant you might go to to the next thing that might surprise you about going on a rolline cruise is what you're not allowed to bring on board at the end of every Cruise there's usually a table somewhere in the cruise terminal where people can pick up the things that were confiscated by Roy cariban pre- Cruise it's actually a little surprising what things people think of they can bring on there and there's a whole list of things real comp does not allow you to bring in there some things are pretty obvious right you can't bring weapons you can't bring spray paint you can't bring beer you can't bring drugs on board but other things might be very surprising Chief among them are you can't bring power strips you know like a standard Power electric strip like you have a surge protector on it that's totally not allowed in fact most appliances are not allowed at all basically that constitutes a fire hazard and fire is the number one threat on any cruise ship out there it's just a very dangerous thing because they contain an environment anyway you're not allowed to bring those items on board so don't bring an iron that's not allowed don't bring a rice cooker I know but there's a lot of people that evid try to bring those things don't try to bring an electric blanket and also don't bring any handcuffs it's cool if you're into that whole thing back at home but it's a no no on a cruise ship because of course handcuffs can be used for other things that have nothing to do with what's happening in your bedroom in short check the Royal Caribbean list of prohibited items before your cruise to make sure you're not bringing anything that's going to be confiscated and could be possibly awkward later on something else that might surprise you about a royal caran Cruise if you've ever been on one before is that the dress codes aren't nearly as stringent or widely followed no matter which Cruise you sail on they're going to be certain dress codes for certain evenings of the cruise and the dress codes primarily refer to the dress codes for things like the main dining room there are no real dress codes when we're talking about just simply walking around the ship beyond the obvious things like wearing shoes and of course clothing but you'll see in the Royal Caribbean app as well as the Cruise Compass that certain nights have like formal night or white night or Caribbean night and that might make you think boy we got to make sure we have all these clothing items to make sure we can adhere to them the reality is the dress codes aren't nearly as enforced as you might think certainly if you're talking about Caribbean Knight or White Knight those are totally optional' 70s night 80s night like that's up to you if you want to do that and there are going to be some guests that go for it some people think it's a fun thing to do and it is fun but you have no obligation to follow on 70s night or Caribbean night if you don't want to wear those things as it relates to the formal dress code and those kinds of things in reality they're more guidelines or suggestions than anything else now certainly if you roll into the main dining room on formal night wearing like your bathing suit you're not going to be allowed in there I think but they're really not going to be that picky about what you're wearing in there so it don't feel like it needs to be like a senior prom experience in in order to the main dining room on formal night of course you could always go to the Wind Jammer instead or another restaurant heck especially restaurants have their own dress codes which supersede the main dining room dress code on any given night Elsewhere on the ship like when you're going to one of the lounges or bars or activities on board man the dress code does not apply at all so what this really means is dress C is can be fun I mean maybe you and your family want to take some awesome photos together and getting dressed up on formal night is a great way to do that maybe you want to go to Target and find those really wacky Caribbean in over-the-top shirts that make your family stand out because it's fun to do that's what a cruise is all about so if you want to follow them that is awesome but don't go into the cruise thinking that there's like the dress code police that are going to put you in trouble if you don't follow those things I mentioned the main dining room and that leads us to our next thing that might surprise you about a rolling cruise is when you're in the main dining room don't be afraid to order another appetizer entree or dessert when you look at the menus at most realy restaurants including the Wind Jammer main dining room and a lot of your restaurants you are absolutely allowed to order more than one appetizer entree or dessert in general I find that cruise ship dishes tend to be on the smaller side especially in the main dining room as opposed to like what you might find back on land and that allows you to enjoy and indulge a little bit more maybe you want to try something new that's new to you anyway or perhaps you see two different Entre that look really enticing can't choose between the two of them order both of them why not they're very inviting about that obviously you don't want to waste food but if you're thinking to yourself man I'd really like to to have the Caesar salad and the Carpaccio order both it is totally allowed and there's no additional cost for that something else that a lot of new Cruisers don't realize is how important it is to bring cash and also small bills on board the ship you know ran is a cashless cruise ship which means when you're going around the ship cash isn't allowed use your C pass card to purchase item that's totally makes sense the thing is there's still a role for cash to play on your cruise first of all when you get to the cruise terminal it's customary to tip the porters take your lug on board the ship for you and then of course at the end of the careers you'll be tipping those same Porters when they help you with their luggage afterwards there's also a need for cash if you're going to the casino there's also a need for cash to tip maybe a bartender an extra dollar or two if you deem so fit and then on shore excursions when you're off the ship and exploring the port there's a lot of reasons to have cash with you as well my advice is to bring a little bit of cash with you at least on board because you can still get more cash on the ship you can get it from guest services or an ATM machine or even the casino although there are fees associated with all those things regardless there really is a good use of having that and make sure you bring some small bills you know dollar bills $5 bills so that way you can easily tip people it's often customary you go to the bank you say hey I need to bring you know $500 and you take a withdrawal what are they going to give you $500 bills right you really need to have smaller bills which again you could go to the casino and break them or even get services but in general bring small bills bring a little bit of cash with you on board so you can have it for various circumstances speaking of money you might be really surprised when you go on a real I'm curious how expensive drinks really are so a drink package is an option that's out there but a lot of first-time Cruisers might say listen I don't drink that much I'm not sure I'll need a drink package I'm going to rely on the drinks that are included and maybe purchase a cocktail here or there and that by the way is totally fine but it might still surprise you how expensive drinks are on a cruise if you want to buy that Pina Cola to have for sale away have that iconic Cruise drink I'm totally with you on that just understand it's going to cost you after taxes and gratuiti like $14 That's Not Unusual that's just basically what the cost is of those drinks on board beers are like $8 and then you add gratuiti on top of that anyway it all adds up now again if you're buying two drinks a day that's totally fine because two drinks a day you're not really going to rack up that much of a bill but if you're in that four five drink range a drink package might start to make sense on there regardless of that you want to budget appropriately so understand that of course drinks on a cruise ship are not going to be dirt cheap and the last thing that might really surprise you about going on a real cruise and I think cruises in general is how short short excursions really are when you're planning your cruise you're looking at all these various ports you can go to Aruba Puerto Rico Cosmo Mexico Rome these all sound like amazing places and they are but the amount of time you actually have is not as long as it may seem first of all when you look at your schedule and list the hours that you're there in some cases like Puerto Rico you can only be there for a couple of hours it's not uncommon to arrive at like 1:00 and then have to leave it like 9: but more importantly when you're looking at the hours no matter what times they are those are the times you dock not not the times you can actually be offshore so when your cruise ship docks at a given time it takes time for the ship to actually physically dock tie up and then get cleared by local authorities usually that takes about half an hour or so maybe a little bit more so that's going to cut out time from when you can actually get off the ship and then on the flip side when it's time to get back on board the time that you see there listed for when your ship is going to be important until is actually the time that your ship is going to leave so you need to be back on board like at least half an hour before that time so again keeping in mind that you're going to be a little bit before those times you're going to have less time in Port than you might think in a lot of cases the logistics of actually getting into Port boarding a bus and all those kinds of things eat into a lot of the time that you have to spend there so when you're planning your days in Port you want to be efficient with your time and prioritize the most important things in some cases you may only have a couple of hours to really take advantage of what's there and by virtue of what a cruise really is it's designed to give you a taste of those places it's not like you're going to be there you know for 3 days unless you're doing an over night itinerary those are pretty rare with Royal Caribbean so essentially keep in mind that when you're going to a particular Port you're not there for a ton of time but enough time to probably see the major attraction or two so there you have a look at the nine things that might surprise someone who's brand new to Royal Caribbean let me know in the comments below when you took your first cruise what really stood out to you what was really like wow I didn't expect that when you went on a roll crean Cruise good or bad sometimes there's a lot of things that really do stand out that are truly positive like how many amazing things you can do on board your cruise ship how awesome the shows are and of course how much food you're probably going to end up eating let me know in the comments below what really s out to you while you're down below our video hit the like button subscribe to our Channel and turn on notifications that way YouTube let you know we a brand new video to share this has been Matt from real caribbian blog.com and we'll talk again real soon

Channel: Royal Caribbean Blog

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Length: 13min 48sec (828 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024