NEWBIE CURIOUS ABOUT ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISING

Re: NEWBIE CURIOUS ABOUT ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISING

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  princessleia22 member

  

  May 2014

  Definitely check out the wedding forums on cruisecritic.com... it is much more active for cruise brides and info specific to cruise weddings.  

  http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=31

  I'm doing my wedding on Carnival next month, so I don't have any real experience with Royal Caribbean. But, I have heard that their wedding department is not the greatest at communication.  None of the cruise lines are really. I have seen some bad reviews about dealing with RC's wedding department, but I've seen some happy brides after the weddings, so although communication sucks, it all seems to usually work out in the end.  For the most part, you will talk to them once or twice, they send you a bunch of paper work to complete, you will hear from them a couple weeks prior to wedding, then that's it. Going the cruise wedding route does require a bit of trust that it will all work out in the end and accepting that there are a lot of things out of your control and things you won't even know about until you get there. I know on Carnival, I won't even know which room/venue the wedding or reception will be in until a week or two before the wedding... and the choice isn't up to me either. You just have to go with the flow, expect that they know how to throw a decent wedding, and be willing to accept however it turns out. But, check out the other forum, you will find some RC brides, reviews, and some good advice.

   

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  soontobeambrosine member

  

  May 2014

  I'm new to The Knot and my HTB is definitely pushing the RC wedding cruise. We have family all across the US but we are trying to keep the guest list intimate. I have a friend who did a ceremony with RC and raved about it. She had 60 people cruise with her (I am expecting maybe 15 to actually stay on board) but I like the option of having the wedding before departure. My concern is that the entire affair will be very "cookie cutter". I want to be able to personalize aspects of my wedding not just have a "just add water" ceremony. We are also on a very tight budget, so the concern that some would expect us to pay for some or all of the expenses concerns us.
  
  I will look at the link Nicoann posted for sure. Any other comments, suggestions etc. would be appreciated. The comment about the RC's lack of communication is a bit unnerving as well.
  

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  princessleia22 member

  

  May 2014

  There are still a lot of items you can customize, but it will be more limited than standard wedding.  But, that doesn't mean that you can't still make it feel like you.  Like I said, I can only go off my experience with CCL.  Often they only tell you about the standard options, but there are other options if you ask.

  They did offer a couple alternate menu choices (I had to directly ask, otherwise they just show you the one standard wedding menu), so we could customize that a bit.

  They has several cake flavors (all of which have rave reviews online). The cake is easy to customize. They are willing to some level of customization with decoration on it, as long as it isn't too extreme or difficult. I'm not sure if you can get alternate colored icing, but its possible. I've seen a lot of people get decorative piping or whatever on it. It is also easy to customize with ribbon, flowers, topper, etc. to get your personality into it. Our cake will have criss-cross pattern in the icing, then ribbon around each tier and flowers on top.

  They provide fresh flower bouquet in the package. The standard is usually white roses, but they usually offer other choices for additional cost. Carnival offers some tropical flower bouquets.  Or they can do flowers in any naturally occurring color. I really wanted blue orchids for mine, so I'm bringing my own bouquets.  We will either use the provided rose bouquet for toss or just put in vase/glass in our cabin for the cruise, so we have fresh flowers in our room.

  They have several standard vows, but we are writing our own instead, to personalize it more.

  You have a lot of choices for music/entertainment. Some ships used to or maybe still do offer live music option. All offer a profession DJ.  The DJ's are pretty entertaining, since they are used to DJ'ing the whole cruise. Or you can be your own DJ, pick your own song list and just set it up to play.  CCL offered an "entertainment coordinator" who can be an emcee at the reception and announce the special dances or whatever, and will manage your playlist, if you choose to provide all of your own music.

   

  The venue/room is the one place you may not get much choice. You can state your preference, but if they have multiple weddings that day, guest list size will really determine who gets each room. For mine, the venue choices are mostly meeting/conference rooms that look pretty bland. But, I figure the ceremony is short and it really doesn't matter too much to me if the room is ugly.  People should be looking at me, not the walls anyway. And I've heard that the ships photographers are really good at knowing the best camera angles to avoid the background looking dull or like a conference room. So, as long as photos look good, I'll be happy.

   

  The biggest restriction is probably that any decorations need to be included in your carry-on. Although, since most guests will be busy with your wedding all day, you shouldn't have much trouble finding people to carry-on extra boxes for you. And for any additional decorations, you need to set up and take down yourself. But, as long as you are willing (or can assign someone to), that leaves a lot of decoration options to help customize. You could even probably do a candy bar or something like at, as long as you bring it and set up/take down.

  So, there is definitely a lot of customization options.  And if you want something that isn't initially offered, don't be afraid to ask because there may be unadvertised alternatives. But, you can't control every detail, like you may be able to do with land based wedding. I like that they provide everything in the package and I can just customize as little or as much as I want. I have some customization ideas that I want to do if I have time/motivation, but if I don't get to it it's not needed.  I know all the critical elements are covered. As long as we show up that day, there will be a great wedding and everything we need will be there.  

  And they aren't the greatest at communication, but there really isn't much need for it.  Once you give them the selections, they will make sure their end is covered. But, if you are the type that needs to micromanage, cruise wedding isn't a good choice. There will be some things you don't have control over and some things that may be unknown until last minute. You can't get on ship the day before to do a rehearsal. You meet the officiant, photographer, coordinator, etc. 2 hours before wedding. If you can just be accepting that they know what they are doing and it will turn out great, okay with not customizing every tiny detail, and able to go with the flow if things don't turn out exact as expected on day of, then it's a great option.

  Also, I know that you can tour CCL ship/wedding beforehand, if you live near port, so you can see how the process works and what the venues look like. I live too far from the port for that to have been an option for me.  But, you show up, board with a different wedding, meet the coordinator, and get to see how the process works.  I'm not sure if you need to be booked for wedding in advance to do that, but I wouldn't think so. So, you may want to check into that as an option.

   

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  Marianpingree member

  

  May 2014

  @niccoann you are very right about needing to have a lot of trust in the RC wedding planners. I can't believe that we can't make any of the major wedding related decisions until 45 days before the cruise! I do have faith that they are quite competent at what they are doing and just need to keep reminding myself of that!

   

  Happy cruising and  congratulations ladies!

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  princessleia22 member

  

  May 2014

  Marianpingree said:

  @niccoann you are very right about needing to have a lot of trust in the RC wedding planners. I can't believe that we can't make any of the major wedding related decisions until 45 days before the cruise! I do have faith that they are quite competent at what they are doing and just need to keep reminding myself of that!

   

  Happy cruising and  congratulations ladies!

  I actually chose to do the cruise wedding to avoid all the wedding planning stress. All my paperwork and selections are due next week, so we sat down over the weekend and finally planned our wedding (cake, food, vows, ceremony, music)... it took us less than an hour.  It's kind of nice not having infinite choices.  I don't care what room they put us in, that doesn't really change anything or matter much.  The little details don't matter to me much. And now that the selections are done, my wedding planning is pretty much done. Yeah, there are a few additional items that I will work on, like bouquets and welcome bags for guests, but those are all optional and all of the actual requirements are done.  Which is good because work got really busy lately, so I can concentrate on non-wedding things.
  

   

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