Jill

7 hours ago, Jkaczano said:

Issued on a Friday night, it’s not even on my news feed.  Ironically, Carnival only serving bacon every other day amid shortage is.  Probably stocks down for a day or 2, then ignored

 

Holy crap there’s a bacon shortage?

The only thing that matters is that you show proof at the port. This letter simply says, “Thanks for sharing your status.” 
 

I wouldn’t be concerned. Some people have gotten this email multiple times even though they’ve answered. 

14 hours ago, Bruce said:

What if you have had covids ? You dont need to have the shots. Most doctors tell you not to get them.

 

I know 2 people (yes not a lot) that had Covid last year and got re-infected with Delta just recently. It can happen. 

16 hours ago, dswallow said:

It would appear there are just 5 of 69 sailings departing before November 1 and not back in port before September 3 from Florida ports that don't visit a port in The Bahamas between September 3 and November 1.

Odyssey, 10/23/2021, from Ft. Lauderdale, 8 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise | Royal Caribbean Cruises
Serenade, 10/25/2021, from Tampa, 5 Night Western Caribbean Cruise | Royal Caribbean Cruises
Serenade, 10/30/2021, from Tampa, 5 Night Western Caribbean Cruise | Royal Caribbean Cruises
Symphony, 10/30/2021, from Miami, 7 Night Eastern Caribbean & Perfect Day | Royal Caribbean Cruises
Odyssey, 10/31/2021, from Ft. Lauderdale, 6 Night Western Caribbean Cruise | Royal Caribbean Cruises

There are 9 more sailings from Florida ports that aren't affected by this protocol change because they end before September 3.

That Symphony on 10/30 goes to CocoCay and st thomas

Definitely will be interesting. Since the St Thomas requirement, my October Symphony has so many cabins available. Before the St Thomas thing, there were only about 30 cabins total available. Last night I took a look around and there were 80 OV balcony just in mid and forward. Didn’t even look at aft. 
 

My Facebook group for that sailing had many posting they had cancelled including a group of 22 and several UK passengers solely due to under 18 can’t be vaccinated. 
 

I noticed prices for Allure and Symphony sailings that have St Thomas for October and November are rock bottom. Mine went down $544 with the last sale. I saw some balconies going for $998 per person for oasis class! 
 

I know Royal says as much as 7-10% are unvaccinated but dang that put a dent in my Symphony sailings. Doesn’t seem that number would affect them. Will be interesting to watch. 
 

I gotta vote for the southbound/northbound route. Yes, smaller older ships but if you think this will be your one and only trip to Alaska, go big or go home and that includes doing a land tour to Denali. 
 

The only reason I’d consider the RT on a quantum class is that the teens would probably enjoy the ship more than a vision class. However, this is a port intensive trip and in my opinion the ship is more so the means to get me to each port. 
 

The smaller ships can also get into places the bigger ones can’t. 
 

Plus…….you can take the glass top train from anchorage to Seward and that’s a must do! 

54 minutes ago, TeresaMc said:

We are on the 4 night Freedom on Sept 20

She is 28,half my age but we have become pretty good friends, she has low self esteem and I have been trying to be friend/mom and build her confidence up. Matter of fact I am helping her (just coaching) get her own dog grooming business going so this may be her last relaxation period before the long hours that go with starting a business.

Freedom is a great first ship! Recently Amp’d too! It’ll be great! 

She will certainly be wowed, especially if you end up docking next to a Carnival ship!  

Which ship are you on and what’s the itinerary? 
 

We are traveling with our good friends in October on Symphony. She has cruised a few times, her husband only once on the Carnival “Rust Bucket” out of Jacksonville, which is known well as just a gross experience. 
 

He thought it was fun so I thought it’d be even MORE fun to get them on the biggest and best: Symphony. 
 

We’ve been cancelled 3 times since May 2020 for this cruise and I’m still soooo excited to show him the “right” way to cruise! 
 

Have fun and don’t stress over it. Get some drinks in her and you’ll have a blast! 

I bought 4 pair of travel pants and 3 travel skirts/skort.  Marshall’s and TJMaxx have lots of them in their active wear section. They fold up into about an 8” stack. 
 

We have a 12 night on Odyssey out of Rome next October (was supposed to be this October but it was cancelled), so I completely get the whole packing thing! 
 

You can also use those ziplock bags that you suck the air out of to compress everything. We’re definitely using those for our Alaska cruise since that requires bulky/heavy clothing. 
 

The pants are similar to these. I have differing lengths on mine. 

He’ll be on my Symphony in October. I’ll chat him up

10 minutes ago, wozswoman said:

Okay so the party is also in your room! LOL Can you pay for another cruise with it?

No I believe it is use it or lose it. Whatever we have left over we’ll just cash out in the casino. 

1 hour ago, twangster said:

I haven't always found the casitas to be great sun shades.  I suppose at 12 noon when the ship is crossing the equator it might work out but a lot of the time the angle of the sun means the casita isn't fully shaded.   Sometimes the loungers next to the casita benefit from the shade they provide.

Note to self, get loungers next to casita.  

3 hours ago, Vancity Cruiser said:

Our TA repriced our Ovation cruise for next month and now we have a whopping $888 onboard credit and we had already prepaid gratuities, purchased dining and excursions. 

I guess my wife will be spending a lot of time in the spa

This is our issue too! Never thought I’d complain about too much OBC! We already booked our drink, dining and CocoCay beach club with 125% OBC, still had $350 left over and now an additional $550

I have the same issue but my OBC is a little over $900! 
 

We applied our 125% OBC to an upcoming cruise. It was a smidge over $1k. We bought drink packages, ultimate dining and CocoCay beach club. We still had about $250 left over. Then we added our shareholder $100 benefit. Then the cruise was just repriced with the WOW sale and that added almost $550 to OBC. I don’t know what else to buy lol. I’m sure we will cash out whatever is left at the end minus the 5%, I can live without $45. 
 

I did try to talk hubby into a floating cabana but he was not onboard lol. 
 

Now I’m looking at swimming with Sea Lions in st Thomas.

Hope you find something fun to do! If the ship tour is offered, (currently not due to Covid), I’d do that in a heartbeat. 

12 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

yes, the safe is the best place!

when I had to pull out all the paperwork to fork over-in our case, passport, airline ticket, Bahamas travel visa——and  the vaccine card at the Royal check in—-it was easiest to have it clipped into the passport so no worries of it floating away when it was passed around     I have an ugly small “passport size” bag that I hang around my neck or throw into my oversized bag- The passports all slip in easily and it zips closed. I write everyone’s names in marker at the top of their paperwork for when it comes down to me handing out the paperwork , and each passport has a sticky note with the first name sticking out.  It makes it very convenient to hand it out and collect and see who missed giving the passport back to me. (And of course I double check the vaccine card is still clipped in)

I just purchased my daughter an “ugly passport bag” ….I hope she continues the tradition when she travels. 
 

 

Can you share a link to this bag? Please? 

Well my grand total is in with the WOW sale. $1,746 savings for 3 of my 4 cruises. In addition to another $700 drop from a June sale puts me at $2,446 total. Not too bad considering the era of covid. Those savings just paid our airfare to Anchorage, the only cruise with no change in price. I’m a happy cruiser! 

48 minutes ago, DublinFC said:

If we check in sooner than later do we get a better chance of an arrival time?  I want to get as early of an arrival time as possible now that it is being enforced.  

Yes check in as soon as you can. 

I just got a price drop of $544 on my October Symphony. Past FP so it’s OBC. Also got a $347 drop on March Harmony, no change on May Alaska and Sharla or someone at MEI (Sharla on vacay) will check my Odyssey Holy Land/Greece today for next October 

I’m super happy! 

We were on oasis for my kick cancer’s ass/50th birthday celebration and 1/2 the ship was chartered by LulaRoe-the ugly leggings company. 
 

This was more disturbing than crazy…..this is a MLM company that women get involved with but it appears many women made their husbands wear these obnoxious leggings all over the ship. It hurt my eyes! Men wearing women’s leggings is just wrong! 

Another Hip, Hip Hooray for @Sharla. I sent an email last night as I kept seeing all these great fare drops and wanted to get in on the action! My email simply asked Sharla that if she saw it, who should I call at MEI to check for me. If I didn’t hear back, I was just going to call the main number this morning. 
 

 I got a quick response from Sharla with awesome news! $544 lower on my Symphony (now OBC as I’m past FP), $347 lower on my March Harmony, no change in my May Alaska , and she or someone from MEI will check my Odyssey Holy Land/Greece today. 

This news actually kept me up last night as I now have over $900 in OBC on Symphony and we already purchased everything we wanted lol. I’m sure we’ll find something to spend it on or cash out in the casino. 
 

Top notch service once again even when on vacation! 

That’s awesome! Great ships and itineraries and 2 weeks Christmas/New Year’s? Definitely YOLO! I’d be giddy too! 

12 hours ago, Matt said:

I assume you saw the other GC option from PC not during hurricane season?

I did and got all excited except it comes back Christmas Day. Probably won’t work. I’ll wait for the next year. I’ll make one someday! 

My check in date was correct. I checked in roughly 7am and got the 1:00/1:30 (earliest available) check in. 

We’re not moving any. We cruise in the spring and fall, outside of cough/cold season. 
 

I just read a commentary from a doc that has a podcast about why Florida cases are so high. His thoughts are that Florida is experiencing their “winter” right now. It’s so hot that people are indoors in the AC where the air is drier which allows virus particles to circulate. Makes sense to me and I expect our cases to go low again once the weather gets cooler. We were very low up until July 4 and usually around the end of July, all of august into early September we start to see our heat indexes into the 100’s. 
 

Anyhoo, we have this October, March, May and October 2022 booked and we’re going! 
 

Dang it! I can’t leave my farm during hurricane season. I’m only 2 hours from PC too. Bummer