Royal Caribbean Pool And Beach Towels

What you need to know about Royal Caribbean’s stateroom towels and beach & pool towels.

Do I Need To Pack Towels For My Cruise?

We here at Cruises with Friends hear this question on the regular. The short answer is NO. Royal Caribbean provides an unlimited number of towels for you to use on your cruise adventure, but there are a few important things to know.

How Do I Get Towels?

You’ll find two types of towels onboard; white towels and blue towels. White towels (bath, hand and face) will be provided in your stateroom lavatory and will be replenished by your cabin steward. Blue towels, which are the focus of this post, are for the pools, hot tubs, water slides, Flowriders, off-the-ship beach days and water based (or just plain sweaty) shore excursions.

You will use your SeaPass card to get towels at a Towel Station. There is a permanant Towel Station in the main pool area and another in the Solarium. On port days, there will often be towels available on whichever deck the gangway is on so you can get what you need on your way off the ship. Simply present your SeaPass card to the Towel Station Attendant. He or she will give you however many towels you request and scan your SeaPass card to record the number you have checked out.

Towel Stations tend to be staffed from morning until fairly late in the evening, but they do close down around 8 or 9 (even earlier in the Solarium), so it’s a good idea to plan ahead if you think you might need dry towels for a late night dip in one of the hot tubs.

Can I Take Towels Off The Ship?

Yes! Once you’ve checked out towels, you can use them however you like, including taking them off the ship for beach visits and excursions. On Royal Caribbean’s private islands, Labadee and Coco Cay, you don’t even need to bring towels off the ship, as there will be towel stations on the islands.

What Do I Do When I Need New Towels?

Simply return wet or soiled towels to a Towel Station and exchange them for an equal number of clean, dry towels. You won’t need your SeaPass card if you’re just exchanging, for example, 3 wet towels for 3 clean and dry towels.

This Part Is REALLY Important!

At the end of your cruise, you MUST return the towels you’ve checked out to a Towel Station and BE SURE to have the attendant scan your SeaPass card. CONFIRM with the attendant that you have returned all the towels you checked out. If you fail to do this, your onboard SeaPass account will be charged $25.00 per missing towel. Also, be sure to do this as soon as you are finished with the towels on the last night of your cruise, and before the Towel Stations close for the evening, as they WILL NOT be open on the morning of debarkation day.

$25.00? Seriously? What’s Up With That?

Once you’ve seen the Blue towels, though they get the job done, you will come to the conclusion that they cannot possibly cost $25 to replace. So why is Royal Caribbean charging that much for a missing towel? The short answer is it’s a way for the cruise line to incent people to keep track of towels. If there were no penalty, or a penalty more in line with what the towels probably cost to replace, then people might worry a lot less about accidently leaving them on shore, letting them blow off balconies (more on that below) or perhaps taking a couple home as souvenirs. If you add up how many towels might go missing from week to week, a ship might start to run a little low on towels before being able to replenish the missing ones, possibly affecting their ability to provide all the towels cruisers on subsequent sailings might need.

Additional Notes

If you’re in a balcony cabin, you may be tempted to hang wet towels out there to dry. Good thought, but it’s very possible your towels will blow away in the wind. Be sure you secure the them to a piece of furniture, such as with towel clips. If you’ve got an inside cabin you can hang them on the provided hooks in the bathroom or use magnetic hooks to hang them on the walls almost anywhere inside your cabin, since the walls are all made of metal!

Must have items you should bring on your cruise

If you’re staying in a suite (Junior Suites included) you can forget about having to check out towels. Simply show the attendant your SeaPass card (it will be a unique color) and he/she will give you the towels you need without scanning your card. If you have access to the Suite Deck, there may be towels available that you can just grab. At the end of your cruise, if you don’t have time to return them, you can just leave them on your cabin floor. Since you didn’t have to check them out, you don’t need to check them back in.

As well, if you have reached the level of Royal Caribbean’s Loyal Program, you will also be exempt from having to check towels out and in.

On occasion, despite your best efforts, and even if you’ve correctly returned all your towels, you MAY find a towel charge on your account when it is emailed to you at the conclusion of your cruise. You may not discover this until you return home. In that event, call the Post Cruise department at 800-256-6649 . We here at Cruises With Friends have had erroneous towel charges reversed, and you may be able to get them to help you as well. It’s also a good idea to look at your onboard account daily, as a trip to Guest Services while still on the ship is always the best way to resolve issues if possible.

While we won’t call this “advice”, or even recommend you do it, it IS possible to avoid having to check out towels, so you wouldn’t have to worry about returning them or being accidentally charged for them. Sometimes those that don’t have to check towels out are less concerned about keeping track of them, and may leave them lying around near a Flowrider or abandoned near a pool. We certainly wouldn’t say anything if you were to pick one up if you were sure no one was keeping track of it. We know of someone who has liberated a couple towels from the ship they started on. He takes them home, but then brings them with him on his next cruise. After all, how else will these poor towels ever have a chance to see what life is like on different ships? 😊

So there you have it. Now you know more than you ever knew you needed to know about the towels on Royal Caribbean ships! We hope you found this information helpful, and we welcome your feedback. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@cruiseswithfriends.com.

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