twangster

I'm pretty torn what to do with my upcoming Carnival cruise. It's pretty clear to me they are not taking the virus seriously. If I get infected on Mardi Gras and have to skip my Odyssey cruise I'll be pissed.

I posted a thread on this many months ago. It's the format of the new "My Royal Cruises" web interface compared to the old Cruise Planner. I happen to have two Harmony cruises booked, one before the new GUI is implemented and one after. With no sales going on... Old Cruise Planner price for UDP today: For my 2022 Harmony cruise: Price difference is $0.10. The problem is people don't pay attention and just click, click, click. It's not bait & switch, it's not a global conspiracy. They are changing the display of pricing since it was never clear before if gratuity was included so people were confused and some thought they had to add more gratuity while in the restaurant. Now it's very clear. Will some people make a mistake when they bought it during a sale in the old interface? Probably, that's why posts were created months ago to warn people to pay attention to the details.

Cruise with Confidence eligibility for "cruises booked by" currently ends August 31. That looming date is influencing my bookings more than anything else right now. If I were to only book close in cruises then come Sept. 1 any bookings made after Aug. 31 would not be eligible for CWC. They could extend CWC eligibility dates but at some point they won't extend it anymore and that some point could be now. That along with the C&A double points eligibility ending Sept. 30. Booking close in after September and not only is CWC not applicable but you won't get double points either.

My TA can access the bookings in their system and tell me what weird, odd amounts post to my credit card are associated with each booking. I have a tab in my master spreadsheet that lists the refunds I think I am due and using the data from a TA I can make sure the weird amounts that Royal uses track and add up to what I'm expecting. Same for FCC. I note all things that FCC isn't associated with like port fees & taxes or prepaid gratuity then I can account for FCC and validate what Royal does. If you don't use a TA you can call Royal and give them a booking number. They can tell you $X was refunded on this date and $Y was posted on that date. When you have many, many bookings in play it is work to track it all but if you focus on each booking one at a time you can get there. Of the dozens and dozens of cancellations I've had all but six have refunded or FCC'd cleanly. The rest require a lot of patience working with Royal until you reach someone who isn't using a child's toy calculator and can understand that 2 + 2 does indeed equal 4, not the 2.37 that was refunded.

Ovation was scheduled to leave from Seattle for over two years now. I don't think they cancelled all cruises that were booked before the pandemic and created new cruises like they did for Serenade that was supposed to sail from Vancouver but moved to Seattle with ATRA. However I think most of us can read between the lines and know how this likely went down. The dunce force is strong with some anti-vaxxers.

Royal has been beating on travel agents to get contact information for guests so they can be contacted to inquire about vaccine status. Perhaps this TA supplied a bogus email address for them. It is all very suspicious.

They probably saw a social media post for a Florida cruise and just assumed it applied to Seattle cruises.

I'm not aware of an official policy such as after 15 minutes your spot is lost. I imagine a lot depends on how busy they are. Royal isn't in the business to upset customers so they always try to accommodate but there are limits to that. If prime time is 6pm to 7pm but there are no reservations available so you book 5pm with the intention of appearing in the middle of prime time at 6:30pm you are probably going to be disappointed. It may also depend on how many are in your group. Most table are for 2 or 4 guests. If there are 8 in your group and you are an hour late they probably won't be able to accommodate you. Two guests may have better luck in this scenario unless they are slammed that night. There is a certain point where they will not refund you for a no-show but I'm not sure it's common knowledge. If you are in Star class it won't matter. If you are Sky class you can maybe push your luck a bit with decent success. If you are not in a suite your ability to push the limits will most likely suffer.

I wonder how long they spent on an executive conference call determining to use 99.98%? Executive #1: "Let's say 99% of the crew are vaccinated" Executive #2 "That sounds terrible, we said 100% of crew would be vaccinated" Executive #3: "Then say 99.99%" Executive #4: "We can't say 99.99%, that's 10% of a person who isn't, or something like that" Executive #5: "Then use 99.95%" Senior Executive: "We'll use use 99.98%. That will confuse everyone in the media so they won't know what to report"

Carnival stated that 99.98% of the 1,400 crew are vaccinated. Seems like odd math.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/08/10/cdc-rule-prohibits-cruise-ships-based-outside-of-united-states-returning-14-days

The only downside is you have more money in play. If you are comfortable that you will be able to apply all FCC by April 2022 for cruises sailed by September 2022 and you don't mind having large sums floating out there then there is little issue. Those dates are not as far away as they used to be. Make sure you will be able to comply with the FCC dates. September 2022 is now just one year away. The other potential downside is playing the FCC roulette wheel game. You think you know how much your FCC should be but then what you get may leave you scratching your head.

That what I saw too. Good to see.

I noticed this week that another sister brand to HAL wasn't offering plane excursions in Ketchikan. Terrible way to restart tourism in the region. Will have to wait to see what was involved with this crash.

Ships are going to have cases. Nothing new. Not newsworthy.

This is called Interporting and it's very common in the Med. You'll hardly notice.

Looks like Izumi Sushi and Hibachi is a vax area on Freedom at the moment. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/are-there-any-experiences-that-are-closed

Not going to lie... disappointed in how Royal moved my Radiance cruise to Serenade. I had 9256 on Radiance, the corner aft through the Panama Canal. Royal moved me to 9234 on the side of the ship which is a connecting balcony cabin on Serenade. WTF? They aren't even moving people to the same cabin on Serenade. Serenade was not going through the canal on this date. They swapped in her in for Radiance so no one should have had an existing booking on Serenade. I cancelled for a refund.

Mardi Gras. But it's not a boat ?

Probably the wording of the act that is allowing these voyages. The act doesn't change how federal agencies view these sailings, it doesn't change the law or make these voyages domestic, the act basically instructs federal agencies to set aside any fines or penalties for violating the laws that are involved. These voyages are "breaking the law" but there will be no enforcement of these laws in 2021. CBP still has to do its job. It's a subtle difference for us cruisers.

Currently in the Northeast? None. Coming soon? Summed up in this post: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2021/08/03/royal-caribbean-announces-restart-plans-remaining-ships-the-fleet New ships joining the restart soon:

I've cruised Alaska a few times now. For years I always thought "bikinis look better than parkas" so I kept putting off an Alaskan cruise. Then I finally did one. Wow! I was hooked. Every visit is different. Every cruise has been great. I cruise differently when going to Alaska. The ship activities and entertainment become secondary, I'm there for Alaska and I soak up every minute outside watching it all whenever possible. I've even skipped all shows, 70's parties and such just so I soak in as much scenery as I can. I don't buy the drink package so I am sharp, up early to catch the sunrise then up late to watch the sunset in the inside passage. If you are going to Dawes glacier move around the ship. Go down to a lower deck and watch ice flows passing by then try the helipad then try a higher deck then lunch outdoors at the aft of the Windjammer to watch it all sail by. So beautiful and seeing the ship in close proximity to the high mountain walls is magical. Enjoy your cruise!

FWIW I am boarding a cruise tomorrow and had a PCR test done on Tuesday of this week at a Walgreens near me. Cost was $0. Test sample was taken ~4pm Tuesday and my results were received by email at 1am this morning, on a Thursday. Results: Negative. I scheduled the Walgreens test on Monday and chose the next day to fall within the "3 day" window for my cruise. My only checkbox when signing up for the test was "International Travel". This particular location does not offer rapid testing. A PCR test was my only choice. The test was done in my car at a drive thru window. They explained the steps to me, passed the kit through the drive thru slot to me, I did the tickle swab up my nose (15 seconds each side) and followed the instructions to seal it and pass it back while being supervised by them the whole time. I have found that CVS allows you to schedule tests 13 days in advance. I have another cruise in just over two weeks and I have already scheduled a CVS test to fall within the 3 day window pre-cruise. I love the cruise industry and while I wasn't required to test for this weekends cruise I feel a lot better knowing I am not an asymptomatic carrier potentially bringing something to the terminal where I know I will be tested again based on that cruise line's policies. I have no plans between testing and cruising so my opportunity to become infected between test and cruise is reduced. I don't even need to go grocery shopping in between. This was a practice run for my Odyssey cruise in September and I am much more comfortable with the whole testing process and timeframe in preparation for my Odyssey cruise. So now not only am I vaccinated but I have also tested negative and I am ready to cruise safely!

According to a post related to another cruise line that just completed her first cruise there was CBP present upon returning. It stirred a lot of debate about passports and such given this unique all American itinerary.