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I see the RCL stock price is down about 2% on news of your cancellations... ?

Seasons Greetings everyone, Use this thread to post all of your holiday pictures, if you have ever been on a cruise during the Christmas period. My photo was taken onboard Independence Of The Seas 2018. Chris Wong www.youtube.com/ChristopherWongVLOGS

Just stumbled across this. It looks like many prayers have been answered, and FCC's for people who cancelled under the cruise with confidence program have longer to use their FCC's!! If this is the case, I know for one, this will help me immensely. This was copied from RC directly When can I redeem my Future Cruise Credit? A If you cancelled with our Cruise with Confidence program, your Future Cruise Credits can be used toward any cruise that sets sail through April 30, 2022, and must be redeemed by December 31, 2021 or 12 months from your cancellation date – whichever is further. If Royal Caribbean cancelled your cruise as part of our COVID-19 operations suspension, you have through April 30, 2022 to redeem your Future Cruise Certificate and cruise with us again on any sailing departing on or before April 30, 2022. For all Global Suspension announcements before December 2, 2020, guests must use their 125% FCC by December 31, 2021 on any sailing departing on or before April 30, 2022.

Just got another $500 in refunds today. $14k to go...

I echo that. On Monday I was generally positive. Today (Friday), that positivity has disappeared and has been replaced with the opposite. The deal breakers, all the black Friday, extended to the weekend and then cyber Monday deals...only to outright cancel the cruises a day or two later they were advertising sales for. The continual marketing to buy-buy-buy only to announce more cancelations and say 'we don't know when' followed by more buy-buy-buy marketing...not a place I want to keep our money waiting. We'll look at coming back when there are green lights across the board.

Refunds of cruises is variable for me. In cases where I have a refundable deposit before final payment and I choose to cancel I have been getting refunds in 7 to 21 days. Refunds of cruise planner purchases are back to pre-pandemic timeframes. I had over 20 cruises booked with them going into this pandemic. There have been enough WTF moments dealing with various cancellations that it has soured my opinion of the cruise line. Around 75% of those 20 bookings cancelled gracefully. I'm down to 4 cruises booked that are non-refundable and I'm hoping they eventually cancel so I go through the refund process as painful as that may be. Where I struggle with refunds is when Royal introduces shenanigans when cruises are cancelled. I've had a couple of cruises where Royal is playing games. In separate cases they have covertly changed refundable bookings to non-refundable and you only have 24 hours to catch when they do this or they refuse to switch it back. Then the cruise is cancelled and they only allow FCC or change the options since it was not a refundable booking (which it was). For two other cases where they cancelled the cruise and we requested the refund option they ignored that and proceed differently. One was issued as FCC despite requesting a refund. Eventually this was resolved and a refund was issued 78 days later. The other is pending resolution. This time they chartered the ship for a 2022 cruise and they gave us three options. The option for price protection was to a date that had no cabin availability for what we had originally booked. How they thought this was equitable or doable remains a mystery. We chose the refund option. Following up several weeks later they claimed we were not eligible for a refund since we cancelled the cruise. They chartered the ship and they cancelled the cruise. After escalating they have stated they will refund our deposit in 45 days. Time will tell. To be completely honest I've lost faith in Royal Caribbean. I've cruised them a fair bit and up to this point they would always do the right thing when things went wrong due from everything like hurricanes or a crane fell on a ship. I get the company is struggling and navigating uncharted waters but that doesn't give them license to lie, cheat and steal. All I want is honesty and fairness even if it takes months to do the right thing, the thing they say they will do but then they proceed in a different direction making false claims and refusing refunds that are clearly due. My personal approach right now is to book nothing more with Royal until the pandemic is clearly over and everything is back to normal. Once bitten twice shy sort of thing. I like Royal in general but they've lost their way in this pandemic. Once I see them getting back to the Royal I used to know I'll come back.

Breakfast -Start with a speciality coffee and freshly squeezed orange Mid Morning - Start with the frozen cocktails Lunch - Bottled water/ Red Bull & Vodka Afternoon - Usually another speciality coffee Evening - Either bottles of beer or wine Flavoured water throughout the day

Early morning - speciality coffee, bottle of water Morning - Maybe a mimosa or bloody mary, bottle of water Lunch - Vodka soda or gin on the rocks with lime Afternoon - more clear liquor and bottles of water Later afternoon - espresso Dinner - Red wine and/or a martini After dinner - whiskey on the rocks or a bourbon manhattan and more water When I type that all out, it sounds like a lot! ?

The only indication we have of what the casino situation is likely to be is the recent shorty cruise of Quantum out of Singapore. We had a glimpse of what those new protocols might be. Apparently they are blocking off slot machines to permit social distancing and limiting the table players to 3 persons at a time. Of course, there is likely to be constant sanitizing going on. We do not play slots so I have little interest (as a player, I mean) in slot protocols but I do have an interest in table games. 3 persons per table is going to be a big bummer as many of the table games were already difficult to get onto. Of course, at the beginning, the occupancy of the cruise, overall, will be reduced so this will help somewhat, but I foresee a problem with table games access. I sure hope I am wrong.

In fairness to Royal I don't know that any other cruise line is any better right now. They all seem to be having money problems and can't pay out refunds that are due. That's inevitable with no revenue for a year. I'm hesitant to give money to any vacation company that requires 100% payment 3 months in advance right now. The risk-reward isn't there. If the cruise lines fail I don't want to be the one out of pocket for thousands of dollars. Hotels you can pay when you get there. I can deal with that in 2021 once travel becomes a reality.

Cruise refunds from cancelled cruises recently seem to be coming back very quickly.

Yes, we do this every time. I get the Deluxe and Hubby gets the Refreshment. But you have to call them. You cannot do this online. Or if you have kids with you, then you can separate you and your husband and book connecting cabins like @ericfromripp suggested. One with each kid, and then he doesn't have to purchase any package at all if he doesn't want to.

I have a feeling other things may impact that one. Hence, Plan B.

The family likes the Norway option so Anthem to Norway it is in 2022! ? Thanks again for the input.

If you booked directly with Royal Caribbean it never hurts to call them and ask about the dates for your FCC and what you options are. You don't have decide anything on the first phone call, just ask questions and then you'll know your options.

Great analogy! On a separate note, I am running out to purchase Swiss cheese as I suddenly have a craving.

Last batch of photos from disembarkation: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/12/03/first-royal-caribbean-ship-sail-9-months-successfully-completes-first-cruise

I wonder if they'll move to digital credit and touchscreen betting instead of chips. I've seen that at Casino Windsor and it works well, but it definitely feels different when you don't have those chips to play with.

I hope they end up doing what Vegas did.. Just got back from there and they put plexiglass up and made it so that 5 can sit at a table. It feels like your sitting in a bank vault lol doing a transaction of some sort but it does make it easier to get a spot. They also strongly enforce masks and no smoking both things which I welcome as I Hate smoking anyway. In the summer in Vegas it was a nightmare finding a table but this time for Thanksgiving it was much easier. So maybe Royal can do it like Vegas... Also it makes me want to only go on large ships.. can you imagine the casino with small ships.. Not fun lol

If they do what they did here locally, every other slot machine will be turned off with chairs only in front of active machines to keep the social distancing. Wipes are abundant and more attendants to sanitize the machines more often.

That's should not have impact on 2021 Fjords cruise ? different ports

A woman gets on the bus with her baby. The driver says, "Wow, this is the ugliest kid I've ever seen!" The woman walks to the back of the bus and sits down in a rage. She says to the man next to her, "The driver just insulted me!" The man says: “Go there and scold him. Come on, I'll hold your monkey. "

Theoretically. Part of the money from our cancelled May cruise is still outstanding, despite multiple calls to get it corrected. Refund request was made April 12. We are just a week away from it being 8 months when the promised timing was originally 30 days (since extended to 45 days). BTW - that 30-45 days is not calendar days - it's business days, so 6-9 weeks is the theoretical timing not 4-6 weeks.

The 180 days rule will be gone once the vaccine program will start. Masks and social distancing will stay with us for a while until the time that finding someone that is positive after a cruise will not consider as the end of the world and a full stop for the industry again.

I agree they are being given a whole lot more hoops and conditions to deal with. Some of it is due to the outbreaks that have happened but when I was on Liberty of the Seas in October 2019 I didn't see that as being a problem. Staff standing at the entrance to the area's with hand sanitizer and multiple sanitizer stations around the entrance of eating area's. And from what I have seen about their recent run in Singapore they are doing things pretty well. I am not a fan of the "contact tracing" since the bubble size is unknown and honestly if you play 7 degrees of separation on a ship with the people onboard as well as the crew you will probably be within range of most everyone at some point. Anyway I am currently in the process of trying to get my credit applied to a sailing in October 2021. Got a quote already which is REALLY good. Sadly they can't expedite issuing the credit but I do have the amount they are going to issue which is going to cover a large portion of the switch from the 5 to 7 night run on a larger ship and was able to make it so the travel agent can handle anything that is happening. Going to figure a few things out from there but hopefully they can do a little bit of magic on their end and have me setup soon.

I didn't say there wasn't an underlying reason, but the only thing restricting the cruise lines from sailing is the CDC ... people dieing of COVID in and of itself does not compel cruise lines to not sail, my guess is if the CDC wasn't restricting them they would already have resumed sailing with many of the protocols in place that are being talked about. See - Disney World, Malls, Stores, Restaurants, Bars all of which have adopted protocols and reopened for business because they were allowed to.

I love how all the crew members wear a badge, which has a picture of themselves smiling on it! This way, we can still greet you guys whilst wearing a mask.

We get your point but who is going to be cruising from these other countries. How can international travel involving the USA even be considered when there is no clear control of COVID. Over 200k cases again today, there is no chance of cruising until these numbers drop significantly. Freedom of movement unfortunately is this viruses biggest ally.

Think of each separate preventative measure as a slice of Swiss cheese. It has holes in it. But when you stack each separate slice together, the holes get covered. The more slices, the less holes and more protection.

If they’re going to extend FCC date (past April of 2022) I hope they do it soon. If my late May symphony gets cancelled, that only leaves my October Odyssey to apply my FCC to and the FCC is more than the Odyssey price. I do have a May 2022 Alaska but right now, that’s beyond the FCC sail by date.

Looks like NCL's identifying what ships it wants to start first too which gives me a bit of optimism. We have extended our voluntary temporary suspension of ALL voyages through February 2021. We previously had suspended cruises on Norwegian Star, Norwegian Spirit, and Norwegian Dawn through March 2021; and today we will be adding Norwegian Bliss, Norwegian Breakaway, Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Gem, Norwegian Getaway, Norwegian Jade, Norwegian Jewel, Norwegian Pearl, Norwegian Sky, Norwegian Sun, and Pride of America to the list of cruises suspended through March 2021. Just the Encore/Escape/Joy left for possible sailings in March.

To a put a positive spin on it, Royal has always proven to be optimistic. During hurricane season other lines cancel and Royal takes their time hoping the hurricane goes away. The same can be said for the pandemic. Other lines cancel but Royal keeps on hoping it goes away. Maybe one day this approach will prove them correct.

Voyager has a transition line between the two colors that makes it more obvious. I also think there is more saturation to the blue on her.

You're not the only one. ? They will have plan B, C, etc. They're just talking about all the options behind their closed doors and not telling us ? what they are looking at. RCI hasn't announced cancellations to the degree other cruise lines have...could be a very good reason behind that. ?

I definitely don’t get the 180 day rule. Seems like excluding people who have built up immunity is the opposite of what you would want. I mean, that is exactly what the vaccine does...builds up immunity just without you actually having it.

Did you see the official Royal Caribbean app got updated to include arrival times to the ship? It also specifies having to have a sail day wellness screening and some questions for people about to cruise. Good to see the app is getting some awesome updating and features to ready people back to the ships!

Yep, some new goodies in the app

The 26th!!!!! when i say married we are getting married in Sorrento on Day 6 and then a big party onboard and through the week!

Must be amazing to be on that cruise right now!

PSA: Don't forget to include the DATE/MONTH/YEAR of your sailing if you want it added to the master list. Also, if your cruise is already on the master list, there is no need to list all your sailings again when adding a new one. Please check prior to posting. ?

Remove Mariner of the seas May 21st. ADD Allure of the seas on May 3rd, 2021, Independence of the seas on November 19th, 2021 & Mariner of the seas on December 13th, 2021

Where's the block user button? ?

I just walk around, grab some conch, get off the beaten track a bit, have some beers at the brewery near port, and then go back onboard to enjoy a quieter ship. I don't use Nassau as a tropical beach day.

You are aware that this is “fun post” right? One of our “rules” here is to stay on topic. If you are not contributing anything relevant to the topic at hand, perhaps move onto another thread. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/boards/index.php?/topic/19393-dont-do-any-of-these-things/

lots of folks will say to skip this port but the few times I've gone I'd explored and had a great day. The first time we went to Atlantis, we got tickets direct from Atlantis' website, took a cab and beat the crowds and had a great day at the waterpark. The next time we got off and went to Junkanoo Beach, it was within walking distance and we just chilled for a couple hours and again had a great time. The first time years ago we went to the straw market and then I think Senior Frogs if memory serves (after Senior Frogs I may not remember right). The next time we go I plan to get a cab to one of the nice beaches (Doctors Beach? Cable beach? might be mixing up my islands) on our own and chill there for the day. I would also not be opposed to one of the Island Excursions- Pearl Island or Balmoral, etc off the ship. If you haven't been I'd encourage you to get off the ship and decide yourself if it's worth it. We always have a great time where ever we go!

Oh my, this could get interesting.... Thinking about our last time on Navigator First thing is morning coffee, OJ and fruit delivered to the JS. out to the balcony More coffee with second breakfast in the MDR, down to the R bar, for Bloody Mary then stroll around the walking track Back to the R bar, jack and coke takes me through to lunch Glass of wine with lunch in the MDR Back to the R Bar to let lunch settle and wash down with another Jack and Coke Mini Golf Back to the R Bar - more jack and coke Change for dinner Dinner in the MDR- 2 glasses of wine Showtime - Jack and coke Back to the R bar - Jack and coke or two or three Sleep time Just to see how the drinks package worked out, we kept a real count on Navigator. Remember there were two of us contributing here not just me Monday☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆14 × 13 = $182Tuesday☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆16 x 13 = $208Wednesday☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆20 x 13 = $260Thursday☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆8 x 13 = $104$754 Consumed $432 Drinks package $322 Balance in our favour

No drink package necessary for me. I grab red stripes from either the Suite lounge, Diamond Lounge or casino bar for 7 straight days. By day 7 I swear off alcohol until the next voyage & I replace beer with the Peloton at home.

I've posted repeatedly to not post any political views on this forum, period. This is not the place to debate who started the virus, how it spreads, which laws and local regulations should be done to control spread of the virus. In short, there is no room for any political discussion, and pointing out others political discussion is still political discussion. Please do not do it.