Just Booked Empress of the Seas 8/15-8/20

[robinb]

I just booked our first RCCL cruise today! We are sailing on the Empress of the Seas. It's a pretty small ship but that's OK with us. We'll be visiting Grand Cayman and Key West, both ports are first times for us. Any advise on the ports would be great!

Yes, the Empress did have a rocky start last month but I've read that a lot of the problems have been ironed out.

 

[robinb]

Well, I'm kicking myself right now.

I booked my cruise through Ebates -> Expedia to get an extra 10% off my cruise per cabin. On Friday morning, less than 24 hours later, the cruise price was reduced. I called Expedia to see what could be done and my TA worked with RCL to get an OBC for most of the difference. Yay! What I MISSED was Expedia's "Best Price" guarantee on the cruise that fit ALL of the criteria and my Expedia TA didn't bother to tell me. I could have received all the the difference in a refund from Expedia plus 2 $50 coupons to use on future hotel stays. Oh well.

On a similar vein, EBates has only credited me 10% of $394 per cabin for my cruise while it really cost $538 in pretax dollars. I contacted them once already and all they did was say "You were credited." Yes, the WRONG amount LOL!