We hadn't cruised for years and to celebrate my husband's retirement, chose an 8 day cruise from Singapore through Indonesia. The itinerary we chose included 3 ports, Semarang, Bali and Lombok.
Let's talk about communications from Royal Caribbean first as it set the tone for the cruise. We booked, we paid as required through our travel agent and secured the room we wanted. Approximately 6 weeks before the cruise, we received an email suggesting we book our excursions sooner rather than later to ensure we would get the ones we wanted. As part of that message, we were also encouraged to buy a variety of drink packages prior to boarding to save money. Royal Caribbean's website is in awful need of upgrading--it is far from user friendly, requiring that tedious details be re-entered over and over to get where you need to be. Excited to see what was offered for excursions, we were disappointed that absolutely no information was posted. I called our agent who contacted RC and was unable to secure any information. I tried many times on line, the message was the same: no information is available for your cruise (not for excursions nor drink packages--nothing). As we were going to Bali on our own prior to the cruise, it was important to us to know what the cruise line was offering so that we didn't duplicate locations. I finally telephoned RC, only to be told that their IT department had not yet uploaded their excursion packages and to try again in a few days. Still no luck. When I called again about 2 weeks before the cruise, I received a rude response telling me to keep trying--to which I requested an email to advise when the information was posted. Nope, ain't gonna happen. And the agent abruptly hung up on me. I didn't book a thing prior to leaving and planned our separate trip to Bali with fingers crossed.
We checked in late, just prior to sailing and the process was streamlined with no delays. Only a few of us in line and we were on board within 30 minutes.