twangster

Apex is hanging out with her sister near CocoCay, patiently waiting for the US to restart cruising, along with a number of ships at anchor. ?: marinetraffic.com She may slide into Miami at some point to get mail and provisions. We'll have to keep an eye out for her to start moving.

I'm guessing it's stuffed into a compressed space since it's not something that most cruisers would be interested in. I'll try to remember to inquire if I ever get back on board a ship any time soon.

Let's go cruising!

No comparison. Sky Suites offer a lot more than even a GS on non-Oasis, non-Quantum. To be blunt GS on older Royal ships has never enticed me but Sky Suites on X did when I was merely gold on Royal. It's why I chose X for my first Alaska cruise. Sky Suites were less and you get more. Hmmmm. I could have climbed faster with C&A but chose X back then. No regrets.

Clearly you should do both Greece and Norway.

It wasn't Royal that misled me in March.

I don't think you'd survive well in the cabins I book. Me on the other hand, I could use more suites in my life ?

They have a pretty impressive printing press capability on board. On a couple of occasions I've missed a port or they changed timing for something like going the Panama Canal so they reprint a new cruise compasses for the day and distribute it midday. The CD usually makes an announcement to keep an eye out for it. The weather forecast is usually found on the front page and not something that can be printed a week or two before. The CD staff routinely make changes to events so they pretty much have to be printed on board.

I'm always looking for a cruise mom... adopt me! I want to do both! (I had both booked but...)

Welcome to the message boards! and enjoy your cruise!

If you don't have a problem with your money potentially being tied up in case it doesn't happen AND if you can live with the restrictions and mitigation requirements on board then the smart thing to do is book now before the rush that will occur once anything is confirmed. In the past a Christmas cruise would have seen parades and Santa events. Those probably won't happen. In the past a NYE cruise would have seen a huge party on the promenade counting down to midnight. That probably won't happen. If you are willing to accept a very different holiday experience from past years on board and those changes won't ruin your cruise then you have the opportunity for a great vacation getaway.

You are preaching to the choir here. I'm not convinced the CDC will adopt this line of thinking with respect to cruise ships. Having been overruled they have a chip on their shoulder and potentially a new administration coming in that they can bully to get their way in 2021.

Which ship, what kind of cabins, what ports of call? Both should be of interest to teenagers who are new to theses regions but.... only you know your kids and if these destinations will appeal to them or for what reasons. I have a twenty something that still considers Alaska "meh" because it isn't a sun tanning destination with beaches. One day she will regret choosing not to sail there at no cost to her. Will your kids seriously lose interest or be disappointed if you made a choice and announced your decision to them? I think it's great you are considering them but unless they are paying towards the bill I'd do what you and hubster desire and then find a way to present in a way that they will be interested. "Stubborn Canadian Scorpio/#teamCK/#teamDeck17" - I think you have room for one or two more labels in there...

Thinking for a moment it could be the time of day is an issue due to staffing commitments for regular duties. An evening event likely coincides with peak demand for crew regular duties. Bars are all open, dinner is in full swing, it's diamond happy hour, etc. A mid-afternoon reception doesn't compete with the peak of the duty day for crew. When I asked the Hotel Director on Empress about the lack of a diamond evening event on that ship one issue was taking crew away from regular duties. It takes a minimum of 3 crew to execute happy hour. On a small ship with a small crew she didn't have the resources without impacting service elsewhere on the ship.

Let's see if @mpoole3 can swing by. He has recent experience. Congratulations!

Toilet paper didn't fly off the shelves until the first week of March. Pretty hard to claim any company should have known better in February when many countries in the world didn't even begin to react or pretend to know until March. Heck if I knew now what was held from me by our government then I never would have boarded a cruise ship on March 2 heading to Spain especially given that Spain became a hotspot only after the cruise departed. Should I sue? Hindsight is always 20-20. If I knew then what I know now.... I would have made a lot of money in the market and wouldn't think about suing for my massive gains only if I had known.

It's a free market. Lobby the right way and things happen. Welcome to American Komrade. Been like this for a while.

I haven't seen either side state a position on the cruise industry, left or right. Beyond cruise forums which are skewed because of the pro-cruise nature of participants on cruise forums, the left or right haven't seen to even notice the last meeting that was postponed or this meeting that occurred. Once or if the administration announces a position on the cruise industry then the left media may pounce and then declare their opposition but generally speaking the cruise ban hasn't gotten legs in the mainstream media left or right by any significant measure.

Thinking out loud for a moment, the administration has placed themselves in an awkward position. If they don't embrace the cruising restart they admit the virus is dangerous and warrants caution. That flies in the face of virtually everything they are saying and doing right now. None of the cruise line safety protocols are being used in public schools so how can they say cruise ships with lots of safety protocols are too dangerous but schools, churches and businesses without the same protocols are safe?

Yeah something tells me the discussion around the typical Singapore dinner table isn't "You mean we have to wear a mask on the cruise?".

It's hard not to look at things without some political awareness given the President is involved. Florida has been quick to embrace the approach the White House has suggested throughout parts of the pandemic response. Right or wrong isn't the point of this post. From a political perspective Florida has been a supportive ally and that may have been leveraged to make this meeting happen and that might influence where it goes from here. Embracing job creation and a return to normalcy is consistent with the administration's mantra. Trump has little to lose by embracing the decision to restart and it could sway some Florida voters his way. Opponents are so accustomed to objecting to everything he does it becomes background noise when they complain about the latest whatever. I could see Trump supporting a restart. Playing it safe and being scared of the virus just isn't his thing.

In my mind its deeper than that. Royal hasn't declared bankruptcy, the investors haven't lost their investment. Should any investor that doesn't get an immediate return file a lawsuit? What time frame is appropriate for a positive return? One week? One month? One year? It hasn't been a full year yet. If they had invested on March 25th they would have tripled their investment now. Would they still be suing in that case? How can the company whose stock an investor purchases be responsible for bad timing or bad decision making on the part of the investor?

Not everything is black or white, hard left or hard right. Plenty of us live in the middle of the political spectrum. Being centered means liking some things from one party and liking other things from the other party. Nothing everything coming from either party is 100% congruent with my thinking. Not enjoying all the theatrics of some key players doesn't equate to automatically objecting to everything they do for no reason other than they did it. I want to see cruises start up again in America. They need to save the industry and to keep all the workers in related industries with food on their family's table. If cruises restart and there are massive outbreaks that result then we can look to address that situation but we should not assume that outcome is inevitable. Florida opened a little too much this past summer and when the numbers went up they scaled back. They didn't lock down when the numbers spiked, they let off the accelerator and numbers came down. The cruise industry needs the same opportunity. With everything we have learned and what treatments work it's time to give the cruise industry an opportunity to display they can operate safely. If numbers trend up as a result then they can scale back without going full lockdown on the entire cruise industry. If Carnival has outbreaks don't lock down Royal or NCL, deal with Carnival's failures while learning from the lines that aren't having outbreaks.

The investor call in February was to review Q4 2019 performance and discuss the future outlook. It seems to me they were very clear stating they didn't know how this would play out. February 4th Earnings Call Transcript: Richard D. Fain -- Chairman and chief executive officer Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. Obviously, the biggest issue of the day is the Wuhan coronavirus. And as you all know, this virus has infected over 20,000 people in China, and they have taken unprecedented steps to contain it. They've essentially locked down the country and they're acting quickly and aggressively to combat the spread, so have other countries. Unfortunately, no one knows how this outbreak will play out, and we don't know how it will ultimately impact us. So far, we've canceled some sailings, and we've modified some itineraries that extend through March 4. These actions will cost us approximately $0.25 per share. But it seems likely that we will have to cancel more, but we don't yet know how many. We also expect that there will be an impact on future bookings in China especially in the immediate aftermath of the illness. But again we just don't know. One important bright spot is that looking beyond the current outbreak we aren't seeing a big impact on overall bookings elsewhere. But again and here I'm sounding like a broken record, we just don't know. Between February 4th and March 23rd the Dow Jones Industrial involving stocks across the spectrum saw a major crash. Somehow these litigants expected Royal stock to be maintain it's value while virtually every other stock in the world could not. Since March 23 Royal stock has trended upward. What has impacted Royal stock isn't future bookings but governments around the world closing cruise ports and establishing travel bans forcing the cruise lines to cancel cruises and experience no revenue. Future bookings isn't the problem, not being able to sail is the problem that has impacted Royal as an investment opportunity. The second part of the suit claims Royal oversold their ability to prevent spread. The next investor call was on May 20. It seems very clear to me they did oversell the task at hand or take it lightly. Instead they acknowledged they are still trying to determine how to attempt to operate given the pandemic. Richard D. Fain -- Chairman and chief executive officer Our goal is to raise our standards to entirely new levels, and we believe that the Healthy Return to Service program will help us get there. We have the time, we have the determination, and we have the expertise. It is tempting to starting talking now about all the individual components of how things will change. However, we're still defining all those enhancements, and we're still taking guidance from our expert advisors. And this process will continue in keeping with our mantra of continuous improvement. We are better prepared today than we were yesterday, and we will be better yet prepared tomorrow, but the one thing that won't change is our determination that we will not start operations until we are fully ready to do so with all the hygiene and other health protocols solidly in place. The next investor call was on August 10. Again they didn't appear to oversell the steps that would be required to deal with the virus. Richard D. Fain -- Chairman and chief executive officer Against this backdrop, we will not rush to return to service until we are confident that we have figured out the changes that we must make to offer our guests and crew strong health and safety protocols with the enjoyable experience that they rightly expect. We believe that our healthy return-to-service program will help get us there. As I mentioned before, this new program will focus on four key aspects: Upgraded screening of guests and crew prior to boarding, enhanced health processes and protocols on board, a special focus on addressing the destination we visit and lastly, procedures for addressing any reports of exceptions. We recognize that this is extremely complex. Nothing in these statements suggest it would be easy or they have it all figured out or that they will be able to 100% prevent spread.

Hopefully the fly drone has been recharged and it can land in the room somewhere to listen in.