Again in January, I bought The Key on my Royal Caribbean cruise to find out if this cruise add-on is price the additional price. On the time of my first evaluate on The Key, I made up my mind that the advantages had been not definitely worth the worth.
9 months later, it was time to provide The Key one other strive.
On my latest 6-night cruise on Attract of the Seas, I bought The Key to see if my expertise can be completely different from my first cruise with The Key on Concord of the Seas.
I sailed on Concord of the Seas when cruises had been crusing with restricted capability, and this meant a number of the advantages (precedence entry to the terminal, non-public time at onboard actions, and so forth.) weren’t as vital.
Now that I’ve disembarked Attract of the Seas, let’s dive in and see whether or not I assumed The Key was price the associated fee this time round—and if you should buy The Key in your upcoming Royal Caribbean cruise.
The Key advantages on Attract of the Seas
Advantages of The Key are topic to vary by ship and crusing. These are the advantages I acquired on Attract of the Seas:
- Early entry on the terminal
- Drop off your carry-on baggage within the Important Eating Room on embarkation day; carry-on baggage might be hand delivered to your stateroom
- Unique lunch within the Important Eating Room that includes the Chops Grille menu
- Non-public time at onboard actions like mountain climbing, FlowRider, and so forth.
- Precedence departure from ship-to-shore at tender ports
- Seats within the unique VIP seating part at reveals within the Important Theater, AquaTheater, and Studio B
- VOOM Surf & Stream bundle for one machine
- Non-public à la carte breakfast and selection departure on disembarkation day
Associated: Royal Caribbean’s The Key evaluate
Price of The Key
I bought The Key for $24.99 per individual, per day previous to my cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Cruise Planner web site. I used to be crusing solo in my stateroom, so I solely needed to buy The Key for one visitor, bringing the overall price to $149.94 on my 6-night cruise.
When selecting whether or not to buy The Key or not, it’s vital to try present pricing for VOOM Surf & Stream web packages. As a result of The Key contains an web bundle for one machine, it’s useful to calculate the value distinction between the 2 pre-cruise add-ons.
On the time I bought The Key, the VOOM Surf & Stream web bundle was supplied for $19.99 per day. For less than $5 extra per day, I discovered The Key to be a terrific deal.
This was the bottom worth distinction I had ever seen between The Key and a daily VOOM Surf & Stream web bundle.
Embarkation day advantages with The Key
A lot of the finest advantages of The Key are discovered on embarkation day.
Verify-in time was slated to start at 11:00 AM for The Key visitors, however I used to be in a position to enter the terminal round 10:30 AM. The Key embarkation space was blended with suite visitors, and it supplied a shorter line than the common check-in space.
That being stated, my authentic check-in time slot outdoors of The Key was 10:30 AM. I most likely may have been one of many first in line on the common check-in space and had a equally fast embarkation course of.
As soon as within the terminal, we had been in a position to sit in an unique space only for The Key visitors. After ~quarter-hour or so of ready, it was time to board Attract of the Seas.
Chops Grille lunch
Certainly one of my favourite advantages of The Key’s the non-public embarkation day lunch within the Important Eating Room that includes the Chops Grille menu.
Whereas the menu supplied at embarkation day lunch isn’t the complete Chops Grille menu, it options most of the hottest dishes on the restaurant. Menus can change by ship and crusing.
This lunch ended up being one in every of my favourite meals I had all week on Attract of the Seas. I had by no means seen a blackened salmon supplied at Chops Grille earlier than, and it was past scrumptious.
As well as, I’m fairly certain it’s unattainable to not get pleasure from a chocolate lava cake, and I absolutely savored each chew of my plate of gooey, chocolatey-goodness for dessert.
One of the best advantage of embarkation day lunch, in my view, isn’t the meals, however the potential to flee the chaos discovered at different eating venues onboard. The Windjammer, Park Cafe, and different embarkation day lunch spots can get crowded, so eating at a non-public lunch is a soothing approach to begin any cruise trip.
Baggage supply
One other unbelievable advantage of The Key’s that carry-on baggage is hand delivered to your stateroom.
I journey solely with a carry-on suitcase and I normally give my suitcase to the porters upon arrival on the terminal, hoping to see it within the hallway outdoors my room by ~5 PM.
What I recognize with The Key’s that I can convey my carry-on baggage to the Important Eating Room and know it should arrive promptly inside my cabin. In my expertise, I’ve acquired my carry-on baggage a number of hours earlier with The Key than with out.
The Key advantages all through the cruise
Outdoors of embarkation day, there are different methods to get pleasure from advantages of The Key all through your crusing.
The profit I used most all through the cruise was web entry. That is the profit that makes The Key most price the associated fee, particularly when the value distinction between web packages and The Key’s small.
One other profit I used a number of occasions throughout my cruise was reserved seating within the Important Theater, AquaTheater, and Studio B. Attract of the Seas has spectacular leisure choices, and it was good to know I had entry to a number of the finest seating in every venue.
The ultimate profit I loved with The Key was an unique, à la carte breakfast on disembarkation day. The ultimate morning of the cruise may be extraordinarily hectic, so it was good to get pleasure from a sit-down meal within the Important Eating Room away from the hustle and bustle discovered elsewhere onboard.
Advantages of The Key that I didn’t use
One profit I didn’t benefit from was choose non-public occasions at onboard actions just like the FlowRider, mountain climbing wall, and so forth. This profit can be good for these seeking to strive a number of onboard actions, although, as I seen lengthy strains for these actions throughout non-Key occasions.
One other profit I didn’t use was the precedence tendering entry for these with The Key, as we didn’t cease at any tender ports on the itinerary.
Was The Key price it on my latest cruise?
After every week onboard Attract of the Seas, I made up my mind that sure, The Key was price the additional price.
My primary purpose for figuring out that The Key was price it was largely as a result of The Key was solely $5 extra per day than the VOOM Surf & Stream web bundle. As I’d be buying an web bundle anyway, The Key was solely $30 additional.
Precedence entry to the terminal, unique seating at leisure, and personal meals on embarkation and disembarkation day had been nicely price $30.
Would The Key have been price the associated fee if it was $15-20 additional per day than the web bundle? It’s unlikely.
After I bought The Key on my Concord of the Seas cruise again in January, for instance, the web was supplied for $19 per day and The Key for $39 per day. For $20 additional per day, The Key was completely not price the associated fee to me.
Moreover, I had my very own cabin on this cruise. If you are going to buy The Key, everybody in your stateroom older than 6 should buy it as nicely. This will simply get costly, particularly if the value distinction between The Key and an web bundle is important.
Would I buy The Key once more? I’d, however provided that I discovered one other deal like I discovered on my Attract of the Seas cruise. Whereas I wouldn’t shell out $200 additional for The Key over an web bundle, I’d positively think about it for $30-50 additional.
