I love many things about a royal K cruise but not everything they offer is necessarily rainbows and unicorns especially when it comes to the value it provides our goal here at Royal crean blog is to share with you as much of the cruise experience as possible to give you an idea of what you should or shouldn't do most of the things Royal caran offers we love but there are a few things that I think might be a bad deal for your upcoming vacation so how can you avoid losing money on these Duds I've got a list of which extras are so not worth it up [Music] next hey everyone it's Matt from Roan blog.com even before you step foot on a cruise ship there are a smattering of purchases that you can make these extras offer experiences and upgrades that are aimed at enhancing your cruise but be warned not everything realin pitches to you is necessarily worth that cost even if it's listed as something more convenient or going to enhance your trip so how do you know you're not buying something that's going to end in regret that's why I want to share with you today since our team has tried all these things number one is the key the key is advertised as a VIP pass your Fastpass if you will to be able to experience Royal Caribbean Cruises without as much of a weight as somebody else it seems really appealing it allows you to get priority embarcation internet access a welcome aboard Meal special time to Signature activities and more on paper this all sounds great but in practice I find the key is simply not worth it because the benefits sound better than they really are many benefits can be obtained in a different way without having to spend extra for it or the benefits are simply not as lucrative as it sounds as an example let start with the early checking which is usually the biggest selling point of the key you get to board the ship first right well if you do your online check-in exactly 45 days before you Cruise you are going to get one of the first times and while the key people might beat you on board by like I don't know a minute you're going to be right behind them it's really not that important as long as you get one of those early check-in times which you can absolutely do 45 days pull up the real kby appp get your time and you're good to go how about the welcome lunch at chops Grill sounds like a great idea as well except you can also buy the chops Grill lunch on embarcation day on your own without the key heck you can buy a dining package for even more days and be able to really get much more value out of the whole thing those private times at the onboard activities sound like a great idea except they're usually at only a couple of activities not the water slides by the way usually it's things like the floor Rider or the rock climbing wall or maybe the zipline the problem with this perk is that it's usually at times that are inconvenient either it's during dinner hours like 400 or 5:00 in which by the way there aren't lines for these things anyway or they're early in the morning like 9:00 a.m. 8:00 a.m. on a c day which is probably a time that you want to I don't know sleep in it's not available for the most important things like maybe laser tag or water slides which develop really long lines and of course the key also provides reservations for shows but you can make reservations for shows on your own via the Royal carbine app of course the key does include internet access but you can purchase internet access on its own and often times at a good discount if you purchase it before the cruise there's other benefits which I think are not nearly as lucrative at all there's priority tendering which is nice but it's pretty rare these days to go on a realing cruise actually has tendering because most ships dock at a particular Pier having reserved seats for the key is also nice at certain shows on the big roing cruise ships like the icon or Oasis or Quantum class ships until you read the fine print that they want you to arrive 45 minutes early to the theater which to me kind of negates the whole point of having Reserve seting in the first place the key could be a good choice for someone who has absolutely no experience with Royal Caribbean and has no status within the company's Customer Loyalty program is going to buy the internet access no matter what and is selling on a ship with a lot of shows they want to see it certainly is the easy button but I'm telling you it's simply not worth the money follow some of the tips that we share here on our Channel and over at Roy blog.com and you can get most of the perks on your own without paying for the key itself number two on my list are purchasing any toiletries on board unfortunately from time to time you might forget something that you need to bring on board your cruise whether it's a razor or shaving cream or shampoo or or maybe Tylenol you'll be able to purchase these items on your real green cruise but it's definitely not going to come cheap it's not unheard of to pay $10 for a small bottle of Advil or $8 for a tub of toothpaste on board and these are the travel sizes by the way unfortunately shopping options are limited while you're in the middle of the ocean real KY knows that desperate passengers will pay whatever the price is listed if they find themselves in need of these items So to avoid paying high prices for basic necessities really try to remember to pack everything in the first place if you do for getet an important toiletry item see if you can find it at a pharmacy or a shop in Port before you buy it on board the bottom line is while they do stock these items they're not cheap and they're actually terrible values I mean if you know the pricing of your local pharmacy versus what's on board you're going to pay double if not triple that I mean you're basically paying like the full retail price the prices you see like on the prices right that like who pays that price it's usually on sale anyway that's going to be you so avoid that number three on the list are bus tours so there are a variety of shore excursions you can do in almost any port you visit right and there are amazing things you can do and more subtle things you can do and for a lot of people when they're new to a particular Port they want to get like a sense of it a taste of something and it seems like a great idea to take a bus tour because it provides you an easy way to see the area around you bus tours usually just end in regret because while they do provide actually access to being able to see certain things it's not the way that most people intend to see it the primary problem with a bus tours number one you're on a large bus with a lot of other people so you're going to be already moving at a slower Pace second of all in a lot of cases you're only going to be allowed to see these venues from the window of your bus now in some cases that's fine because some of these places are like oh look it's nice passing by but in a lot of cases you might actually want to I don't know stop and get out and see something and you really can't do that plus which side of the bus you're sitting on will depend on what you actually can see and in a lot of cases you may end up on the quote unquote wrong side of the bus or there's something on the other side of the bus you want to see but you're on one side bus tours are attractive because they're usually priced low and offer an easy way to see an area this is attractive to somebody who's unfamiliar with the port and might be hesitant to go on their own but the reality is a bus tour may leave you feeling constricted and not enough time to properly enjoy any One Stop moreover you may spend more time at a stop that you don't care for but the bus tour must go to anyway so an alternative is to foro organized tours and explore on your own especially when your ship is visiting a city or town if your ship docks near downtown you you can walk on your own or even use a public transportation option to easily get around another option if you're not that Keen on going out on your own is to book a smaller group tour or a private tour Royal caran sometimes offer small group tours or you can book through a thirdparty provider but Royal Caribbean bus tours are usually not priced at a great value and I just don't think they're worth it and they're usually going to result in a lot of regret let's move over to Royal Coran's brand new icon of the Seas and share with you one thing I think is totally not worth the money and that is the crab Crown's Edge marketed as a mix between an obstacle course and ropes course participants of Crown's Edge navigate a series of suspended platforms that hang off the side of the ship at the end of the course the platform below their feet drops sending guests flying on a zipline over the ocean and back to the ship sounds like a great idea sounds like a lot of fun maybe exhilarating to you not to me anyway but some people are far less scared than I am but the reality of this experience is that it is extremely short and pretty darn pricey now when icon of the Seas first came out now the price of this was $90 per person that price has come down to about $45 a person I still think that's way too much money for an experience that lasts just about 60 seconds it's certainly a thrilling experience there's no doubt about that but for such a short ride it comes with a really Hefty price Crown's Edge given that it's charging even 50 bucks or $45 is still not worth it because of how short the experience is how much time it requires for you to get ready and the lack of really being able to quote unquote enjoy it before it you know it it's already over let's also consider that for that price you can get a lot more bang for your buck as an example Escape rooms which usually cost $40 a person last an hour the Northstar observation pod which goes about for $30 for 15minute ride on Cay and free on ports is going to last a lot longer than 60 seconds even the rip cord by iFly which is the indoor skydiving simulator on the quantum Cloud ships cost $50 for a two-minute rise that's an extra ex minute of time for the same price look it's neat it's cool it's kind of a fun photo op I get all that but I just don't think it's really worth it and you won't be missing out on much by truly skipping it and number five on my list is the Coco Beach Club when the Coco Beach Club opened in 2020 it was a revelation being able to pay a little bit more to be able to go to a reserved area that was far less crowded than the rest of the island I kind of like this a lot it offers an infinity pool its own Beach area and if you'd like to you could also rent a cabana and some of the over thewater Cabanas by the way are absolutely fantastic the Amplified service dining and seating it did not disappoint and it really lived up to a lot of the hype and I think at the time it was so worth it the problem with the Coco Beach Club and the reason why I don't think it's worth the value at all is because the pricing Has Gone Bananas at this place for a day pass which used to cost I don't know like less than you know $80 a person you're not going to be spending like2 200 to $300 a person just to get into the beach club the over-the-water Cabanas can sometimes go as much as $5,000 for one Cabana I mean I love Cabanas and I love the food at the Coco Beach Club and I love that infinity pool but nothing is worth that much money for a pair of people to go into the Coco Beach Club with just a day pass and spending almost $1,000 that's a lot and the Cabanas are ridiculous I mean to spend even $3 $4,000 for Cabana I love Cabanas but that is just way too much money for what you get certainly whether you get a day pass or you rent a cabana drinks are not included by the way unless you have a drink package so it's not like you're getting that kind of value out of it and the food is really good and the lack of crowds is fantastic but demand for the Coco Beach Club has resulted in pricing really going up the initial pricing that we saw when the Coco Beach Club first opened at $40 to $80 a person those are way behind us for my upcoming icon of the Seas and Utopia the Seas cruises the per person price is $180 for the over thewater Cabana it's $3,198 and for the regular Coco Beach Club Beach cabana it's $2,958 these things are nice and I've experienced them and I enjoyed them but I experienced and enjoyed them when the pricing was about half of that and at those prices it was good but these days I just don't recommend the Coco Beach Club instead if you want a cabana experience I think the money is much better spent at Hideway Beach or even in one of the other candas located Elsewhere on the island like chill island or even through a water park so there's my list of five things that I can think off the top of my head that are not worth it to book on a real green Cruise I'm not saying if you book it it's necessarily bad but I certainly don't recommend it and you won't see me booking them unless of course the pricing of these things changes let me know in the comments below what do you think are the worst values out there on a realan cruise and which of these do you agree or disagree with let me know in the comments below while you're below our video hit the like button subscribe to our Channel and turn on notifications that way YouTube Let have a brand new video to share this has been Matt from Royal Caribbean blog.com and we'll talk again real soon
