Leaderboard

Hello, All! Been a while since I've been here. Several times in the past, I've done a second "mock-booking" of my existing reservation, to see if I would come up with a lower price to no avail. With the current 2021 sale going on, I was able to see that booking an available cabin RIGHT NEXT TO MINE was $79 cheaper so I decided to call RCCL. (Not a bunch, but, hey, every bit helps!) To my surprise, not only was the basic rate $79 cheaper, but, I actually qualified for an additional discount as a resident of MICHIGAN! This has NEVER happened for me. In my experience, those discounts have usually been available for those in the home port state. At the end of the call, I had a $244 discount off my cruise fare! If not for finding this blog a few years ago, I wouldn't have known that re-pricing an existing reservation was possible.

I decided to hide the posts that had the alleged dates. On the one hand, if it's inaccurate it spreads false info. If it's true, well, it says confidential and I'm not sure how I feel about posting it. I hid the posts, so they may come back, it's an ethical dilemna and I'm not sure how I feel about it quite yet. I hope you all understand. I really try not to be overly censor things at all. I hate the idea of heavy moderation, but at the end of the day, I aim to ensure we spread the correct info here.

I always guessed there was one Cats fan on the message boards, glad we finally found you ?

I always find The Onion to be very entertaining... sometimes even funny. Really, “wear a mask during sex” ... I’m more partial to the traditional brown bag. COVID-19 role playing?

That was precisely my point in reaction to your original post. They’ve normally been close to doing the right thing, how did the meeting to determine what to do with the Allure passengers go so wrong? They’re had to have been someone who spoke up and said “this is stupid and won’t work.” The customer service reps aren’t the ones who tried to downgrade @twangster, that message came from above. I refuse to blame the phone agent who was going by what they and others were told at the beginning. If their original plan was to let everyone refund or move to another ship then they would have gone with that before remapping everyone to new rooms. This blew up in their face and clearly caught them off guard.

I’d like to think this blog may help drive some decisions made by RC. You know there are RC people that read this blog. (Well if they were smart they would! ?) I mean this blog is really the heartbeat of the line. ?

I just have a hard time imagine any group of yes-people that would sit on a zoom call and say “sure boss I’m sure there won’t be any backlash if we toss people from Allure to Liberty”

Look what’s headed to Meyer.....saw this in a Facebook group.

Yes! Unless it's substantial I'm not bothering my agent. She's busy working her tail off and has received zero commission in 3 months and with all the shifting, cancellations, etc, it could be a year before steady stream of income returns. As someone else said in another thread, might be time for us to get them gifts. ?

I learned about re pricing here, it is a great thing. We have repriced cruises and items on the cruise planner. Any time we can save a money it helps with adding another cruise. Thanx Royal Caribbean blog.

Annette, Check this topic out in the "People Connect" heading: RCL Call Center - Phone Shortcut Tips.

Don't be so sure. We have our own sense of humor.?

I imagine their driving factor in any of these decisions is about preserving as much money as possible. The thing that will change that is the backlash their decisions get; the blowback factor. And, this got one so they modified their rules to accommodate these changes. In the end of the day they still need to preserve the company as well as some thread of customer satisfaction. In normal times that is hard, but under these circumstances, almost impossible. Their customer service was spotty to begin with and this situation it has shown how poor it truly is. I’m still waiting for my money back on a cancelled cruise - I think I’m in the 40 day mark now - that is a bad company practice and it leaves a terrible taste in my mouth and there are thousands of people just like me.

Sarcastic voice.......Whatever you do definitely don’t look up the guidelines Switzerland put in for the workers of the “oldest profession”

I think that’s another lesson I’ve learned through this. Use one card for Royal purchases so that it’s easier to track it down.

Avid cruisers may return, but I just don't see there being a strong demand from the general public/first time cruises. Anyone I have mentioned cruising to, be that friends, family, work colleagues, etc.. the standard response is "You're booking a cruise? You're crazy! I would never go on a cruise. Not even if you paid me to go!" As you say cruise ships were not the source, these passengers were already infected before they boarded. But even so The Ruby Princess saga was not just a few noisy anti-cruise rating-seeking media, it was front page news for weeks on every major news outlet in the country. It has definitely poisoned the masses and damaged the cruise industries reputation. I don't think people really care who is to blame, just that if you get on a ship you're going to catch a disease. The Australian government has already stated that the first international travel to reopen will be between Australia and New Zealand once the two countries reach an agreement. Followed by the South Pacific as they are keen to get travel resumed to support these small island economies. That's good news for RCI as that pretty much covers all of their itineraries. Let's say by October when the season starts there are very few cases of COVID remaining (if any) and international travel between Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific islands is open. With proper screening procedures in place I don't see why cruising couldn't resume. Now all there is to worry about is who actually wants to go cruising? And how are they are going to fill these ships? Don't forget there is also Carnival, Princess, P&O, and Celebrity offerings to contend with as well.

I’m surprised that they didn’t mention social distancing... six feet might present a problem for some guys.

There is no overwhelming feeling that the cruise ships brought it in. However there is a negatavive perception of the cruise lines, particularly in the final weeks before cruising was suspended when the world was fully aware of the risks. Cruises were going ahead against public health advice and cruisers were not allowed to cancel without losing everything and they were being told that all ports were available even when it was clear they were not. The attitude to the virus on a whole is a lot different to the USA. Yes we have a smaller population however Sydney has a population of 5.5 million and a higher urban density than most USA cities (figures show a smaller density however 85% of the area is virtually uninhabited) NYC is the best example. High population and density and yes they suffered as expected. But they have managed to not only flatten the curve but are seeing it head down. What is the excuse for the rest of the country 3 months on? They said the warm weather would kill it off. Not happening. I cant see there being any cruising until there is some sort of improvement.

I am so over this crap

Unfortunately even when there are official releases from Royal Caribbean the agents that you speak with aren't "in the know" about them. They aren't been apprised of all the changes to Terms & Conditions in a timely fashion. There are releases that go out to the Travel Agencies that outline the specifics when they make offers. I believe in the blog post about this, it's showing the letter that was sent out to Travel Agents that have customers impacted by this change. Your TA may not have gotten this email for a myriad of reasons (most of them the fault of Royal's poor IT and communications) so they didn't know about it. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/06/12/royal-caribbean-expands-options-guests-affected-cancelled-allure-of-the-seas-sailings This wasn't originally an option, but they listened to the feedback/complaints they received and some folks have reported success in escalating to get moved to a cruise that works for them. They've posted in Facebook pages and that's trickled over into messageboard posts so if you're reading the messageboards you will see the changes happen in real time. I know @Matt tries really hard to put out accurate information through the blog and not post based on rumors without substantiation or official word from Royal Caribbean.

It's hard for me to get worked up about being around people on our next cruise when I work in a supermarket.

The other things that bothers me in this NRD conversation is why should that be a factor when Royal is cancelling the cruise? They cancelled the cruise. I didn't. I still want to sail Allure even if it isn't AMPED on that date. I'd even fly to Florida to do it. Change home ports, just let me sail. Nope. Royal won't let me. So given this is all on Royal, why should I have to book refundable? It seems the motivation and reasoning to book refundable is to protect yourself when Royal is being completely unreasonable when they decide to move me to another ship and downgrade me to a vastly inferior cabin compared to what I booked. Hmmm. I respectfully disagree that the "solution" to this issue would have been booking refundable. A reasonable company wouldn't have put me in the place they did in this scenario. A guest should be able to book a non-refundable fare and maintain an expectation of being treated fairly when the company chooses to make a drastic and unprecedented change to the booking. Allure is going somewhere on my date. They aren't scuttling the ship. Someone will sail in my cabin on that date. Why can't it be me?

I don't send an email to our TA if I see it being less than $75 (sometimes what I think I see is not correct). However, now with all the stuff they are having to untangle and fix due to RCL lack of competence, I'd make it $150 now.

Many of us who cruise go to the Caribbean. However, if the islands are closed it doesn't matter what RCCL decides to do. I decided to do some digging and it looks like many of them are trying to open things up starting on the 15th of this month. A few are waiting until July 1st. This is a good sign. Many of us are trying to stay optimistic about things, though I'm becoming more of a realist. Our ports of call being open is great! Now we need to see if they can start announcing the new policies and procedures for cruising again (whether we agree with them or not). We all have our views about them and I really hope that they can find a good medium. I'm also hoping that no more cruises are cancelled. We all need a vacation from the stress this has added to already stressful lives.

This is what's crazy to me..when they announced the latest round of cancellations we cancelled the cruise planner items before it locked the cruise planner. Got the cancellation email dated June 2. My refund showed up on June 11. My brother got his refund even faster. He used AmEx and I used Bank of America.

Exactly. The blame really relies in not disseminating the information to those front-line phone reps so they can provide good customer service. They get asked questions all the time that they don't know the answers to and I'm not sure they have ever been trained on how to respond if they don't know. Sometimes they tend to offer their best guess and sometimes they will just go by what they can uncover through Royal's website, which often isn't updated to reflect the latest information in a timely fashion. Some customer reps don't even recognize Royal's separate Travel Agent website as being an official Royal Caribbean website. When @twangster was first posting his exasperation about the issue, the policy was one thing and because of the backlash they back-pedaled and are now offering what they should have in the first place. It was a pretty quick whiplash change, so it's no surprise that someone could call up now and get a misinformed rep.

Thank you both @Ampurp85 and @twangster. Everything was going great, an amped Allure out of Galveston with no flying required. What could be better. I had it booked. Now, COVID has trashed two of my vacations. Oh well, it could be worse. At least I don't have COVID. Thanks to both of you for your info. Steven

Two aspects come to mind. The first is operational in nature. Oasis class is more than just a ship, it's program and choreography. Once it's up and fully in motion it's designed to maximize revenue by repeating the same movements week after week after week. To scale operations to the number of guests while still turning the ship in this same amount of time it takes to turn a much smaller ship they can only achieve that by strictly following the same routine week after week. Smaller ships are more adaptable to variance. Operating on an 8/6 rotation or 9/5 rotation where one week it's an 8 night cruise and the following cruise is a 6 night cruise works for many ships but you don't reach maximum efficiency and it introduces operational differences that are more impactful as ships grow larger. Can Oasis class do other rotations? Sure, in theory any ship can. However they maximize revenue through streamlining and repeating the same steps over and over. So it's not that Oasis can't do them, it's that they aren't as efficient in terms of maximizing revenue and that is what Oasis class is - a giant perpetual revenue generating engine that works best when it repeats, repeats and repeats over and over again. On the recent Allure transatlantic there were signs of this in subtle ways. Coastal Kitchen became a little discombobulated on day 8 and beyond. They were a machine that ran smoothly until a wrench was thrown into the machine by having a day 8 and a day 9 and a day 10 - things they hadn't had to deal with in years. The backstage crew work in different shows. Normally they have the routine down week after week. Tuesday is this show, Wednesday is that show. Suddenly that's not the plan anymore. It seems simple enough, just add an extra show or move a show from day 6 to day 8, but it messes with momentum which reduces operational efficiency which reduces revenue. The second is all about filling the ship. It's a tall order trying to sell out any ship. As ships grow larger it's more challenging. To fill a mega ship they need to cast a wide net meaning the target market has to be as big as possible. In America it's easy enough for most working class people to secure a one week vacation. From someone in their late 20's or thirties early in their career to first responders to senior management it's generally pretty easy to secure one week off. Not everyone can push that into a second week. Some companies don't make it as easy to extend that time off into another week even if it isn't a full second week. Some people early in their career don't get that much time off and they may want to keep some time off for other things like visiting with family. They don't want to burn 100% of their annual PTO with one vacation. As you start to move past a 7 night cruise you reduce the target market of people who will consider booking that cruise. For smaller ships that isn't a big deal. For a mega ship that could be the difference between an 75% load and a 95% load. That's significant for a huge machine designed to generate maximum revenue week after week after week. To look at this in the extreme, look at cruise lines who run month long or "world cruises". They don't do those on mega ships, they do them on smaller ships where they are more likely to fill the ship given the very small target market of guests who can put life aside for 30+ days and go on a cruise that is that long. The 3/4 night cruise is well suited to a specific target market and works well in Florida. The 7 night is the quintessential American vacation that the majority in this target audience can or are willing to allocate to a single vacation. Oasis class was designed and the business plan was written around the 7 day cruise market segment. They make it work there by streamlining everything to that week after week repeating schedule. That's why they tend to keep Oasis class on 7 night itineraries. I firmly believe everyone should do Oasis class at least once. They are in a class all their own. No other cruise line offers anything like them. Even other lines that offer ships with more than 4,000 guests it's not about the capacity or how many beds are on the ship. Oasis class ships have features that no other ships from any cruise line do. I would recommend all of them including Allure. I was just on Allure's last revenue cruise before she was supposed to be AMPED and she is still in great shape. The only reason to not pick Allure would be slides. If you or your party want water slides it's the only Oasis class ship without them since the AMP was delayed. In some ways picking Allure makes a lot of sense since if you love them as much as many of us do, then you've got a reason to book Oasis, Harmony or Symphony (like any of us really need an excuse to book another cruise ? ). There are subtle differences to explore like different Broadway shows on each of them. Next, some ships have different specialty restaurants. That's getting really particular and I'd never tell someone to book a ship just because of one restaurant. Other than that they are all great ships more the same at the core than they are different.

Yes, but they never charged us the additional upcharge on Symphony last February. We were prepared. They were tipped well instead.

Well here we are....30 days after I manually cancelled my cruise planner items for a cruise that was ultimately cancelled....I finally just started seeing some of the refunds come through...still about 2k short.....but I'll take what I can get at this point. Hopefully the rest will show up soon enough.

??? This unclear & make very little sense as related to my post & appear to contradict itself.... Anyway...i found that in many cases, after reading many explanation and/or occurence here, Royal customer service does not appear, at times, to be well informed of the policy, and make numerous mistakes, that are essentially brought to their attention, proven to be unclear on the policy, causing an unfortunate mishap, again, that is brought to their attention. That's not to defend Royal or convey they don't exercise shrewd business practices...it seem like many of these circumstances, the customers services rep are not well versed in the policy until someone clearly bring it to their attention & things are eventually & exhaustedly resolved. This unfortunate for twangster & others that may have faced the same situation; but, many times on this blog, twangster patiently explain to other here, the befuddlement of some of these reps. Now is a good time for Royal & frankly, all cruiselines to start refresher & updated classes on their policy & customer services.

Yes to the Bamboo room and no to Cap'n Jack's...as far as I know

It doesn't even have to be a cabin anywhere near yours ... just the same category. Sometimes it will show that a room in that category isn't available but you still may be able to re-price. Like you say, every bit helps. I just re-priced a cruise 2 days in a row. The first day was a $75 cruise fare reduction. The second day I noticed another $75 discount for something else. I felt ashamed for calling two days in a row but it was a different person each time so it didn't seem to matter. I don't get many "Iowa" discounts but I watch those "military" discounts very closely.

That's awesome news!

Definitely try if you can, especially now with lots of people carrying new balances having Even a little bit of leverage with a card company may get bonus points or the fee waived.

I usually go with whatever card I’m close to hitting thresholds on for the year (normally southwest in the back half to get to companion pass) or whatever Card I’m working on a spend bonus on. no, they won’t charge you for the credit balance, but if it’s close to annual fee time you could just leave it, but as it sounds like a card you don’t use often you may want to call and see if there’s any incentive to keep it.

I'm swapping out my Allure 2022 sailing for Symphony, Jan 29, 2022 (Somehow got it priced $900 less for than Allure!)

Ok good because now I can just say it was a bad dream! I didn’t really see it! ?

And Cats every day and twice on Sunday over Mamma Mia (ugh!)

On a positive note, there is opportunity for Royal to do things much better. Here's hoping they learned something through the Allure situation they can apply to other situations as they navigate through the pandemic.

Interesting that you would bring this up. I just renewed my annual travel insurance policy this morning (Allianz) and we asked about COVID-19 coverage. We were advised that any health expenses, related to CV, including hospitalization and repatriation, would be covered. Only trip cancellation or interruption due to CV are not covered. So I guess the answer is to make sure you have good travel insurance.

As someone who normally spends half the year in them I am always well aware of how hotels are “cleaned” and have learned to suspend my normal beliefs in order to stay sane.

@Aslan It is all optics, those of us who cruise RCCI know its clean and responsible. However other lines are not so fastidious, CCL had hand washing as a suggestion and I rarely saw people cleaning the ship like RCCI workers. So when things hit the fan on Princess, it looks bad for all cruise lines. Plus there is a lot of possible transmissions involved with cruising because of ports. None of the lines can afford any more bad optics, so even the idea of a case of COVID would shut them down.

I bet lots of people wish they didn’t have to remove all those sailings ?

From Matt's article: Prior to Allure's winter 2021-2022 season, Allure of the Seas will start out in Miami, then transition to Port Canaveral and then remain there until she moves to Port Everglades.

You could work with a travel agent and get around the web site issues.

Agreed on all your points. What I find confusing is some ports are open to travel, but other restrictions prohibit cruise ships.

So refreshing to read a balanced article reporting on a safe return to cruising rather than jumping on the sensationalist "cruising is doomed" bandwagon ?