twangster

Not a fan either but I know some people love it so... to each their own.

Lobster night, if there is one, is one night per cruise. For most cruises it's the 2nd formal night if there are two formal nights. I guess they don't want to have lobster on the 1st formal night menu and set an expectation there will be lobster on the other formal night menu.

It's pretty obvious to me that Canada/NE is not going to happen this year but Royal hasn't made that announcement.

There are ways to save as a solo but you have to be quick to find the rare solo deal. The studio cabins are the easy answer. The list of ships with studio cabins can be found in this post: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2016/11/03/guide-royal-caribbeans-single-and-studio-staterooms Beyond studio cabins there are reduced single supplement cruises for double occupancy cabins but they can be harder to find. The best way to score a reduced single supplement fare is to book very early soon after a ship is first released for a new season, when a ship is redeployed on short notice and/or booking off peak. During peak summer season it's harder to find reduced single fares but once in a while they are available. Going back a few years when Cuba travel was banned the cruise lines suddenly had ships they had to redeploy on short notice. To fill the ships on short notice they offered zero single supplement on some sail dates. A single person paid the same per person rate compared to a double occupancy guest. When Oasis was amplified in 2019 it came back into service right around Thanksgiving. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are often slow in the cruise industry. Oasis was offered with no single supplement for solo cruisers. Many solo cruisers flocked to these sailings. Reduced single supplement fares tend to be capacity controlled. There may be a few slots available in a particular cabin type and once they are sold they are gone. When you find one you shouldn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Single fares beyond studio cabins are not all equal. Sometime reduced single supplements are available. Instead of 2x the per person rate it's 1.25x or 1.5x. Having a good travel agent is a good relationship to build. Often they'll hear whispers of a reduced single fare circulating around their coworkers and if you have that relationship established they'll let you know. More solo cruising blog posts: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/05/28/solo-cruises-royal-caribbean https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2015/02/16/what-you-need-know-about-taking-solo-royal-caribbean-cruise https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2018/01/12/top-10-tips-going-royal-caribbean-cruise-solo The bottom line though is that the cruise industry is built around the business model of double occupancy and they don't always make it easy to find the solo cruise deals. It's takes work and time constantly searching cruises to spot the rare single deal.

Now that they are out of quarantine and working with guests boarding soon they may no longer get free Voom. That wasn't normally a crew included benefit pre-pandemic.

Transfer only is typically not found in the cruise planner. The cruise planner might have an excursion with airport drop off but the cruise only transfers are like prepaid gratuity - you have to call. They are an option for a fall 2022 Harmony cruise I see. $34.95 per guest ship to MCO. Contact your travel agent or Royal if booked directly.

I was watching those webcams too. Roxy was on the bow live on TikTok. Great time to cruise with so few guests on board.

About 700 "guests" on board, no kids. Richard Fain is on board and sailing. Thought is it that Michael Bayley was on board earlier today but is not sailing.

If you don't return to the ship and have your seapass card scanned with the excursion group you'll be spending more than the rest of that day on the island. That will be the end of your cruise.

With the heater off while she is in Alberta it could take weeks for it to thaw after her vacation ends.

5pm ET TikTok crew member Roxy93188 plans to go live

Putting a CDC cap on my head for a brief moment this is the sum of all fears that the CDC has about cruise lines. That cruise lines have no intention of actually implementing the protocols that cruise lines tout as pandemic stopping. The CDC believes cruise lines will bow to guest pressure and protocols won't be enforced by crew. Now ripping the dunce cap off my head...

Here's one guess - Maybe they are rolling out "My Royal Cruises" across the fleet, or more of the fleet.

If anyone is in your booking, such as a travel agent or a Royal agent, it locks the booking. Only one person can be in making changes including you in the cruise planner. If Royal has some automated task that touches a booking that too can lock it briefly, or what is supposed to be briefly. Sounds like they had some automated task didn't exit cleanly and is holding some bookings in a locked state, or the connection between two application flows in the backend is broken causing the error.

In the current environment with the Delta variant in play, right or wrong or whatever science you choose to believe in, I don't think the CDC will make any changes. Once they announced we fell short of vaccination targets on July 4 the pressure in the political tire deflated. Then the appellate court sided with the CDC. The CDC has no reason to change it now. I think it will be several months until we see any changes if we ever do before the natural end of the CSO.

I've wondered that as well. If enough cruisers volunteer their vaccination status and if a particular cruise ends up verifiable over the 95% threshold will they make an onboard announcement? Or will they stay silent and assume since all guests were okay with it, the cruise continues with masks? From a training and enforcement perspective it may be easier to remain consistent and apply the mask rule regardless. Otherwise for crew it's ever changing. This week masks, next cruise no masks, following cruise masks. That inconsistency will create problems on board. We may never know.

Ask me after your 8 night cruises (or my 14 and 9 night cruises). The original CSO banned the cruise lines from offering voyages longer than 7 days. They couldn't sell them or market them. Recently Royal started doing just that. There appears to be what is published on the internet for the CSO and there appears to be some communication between the cruise lines and the CDC the public isn't privy to.

Royal Caribbean in choosing to allow children to sail has placed itself in the position of requiring masks for vaccinated. That isn't a Florida issue exclusively but Florida complicates the situation for cruise lines. Here's how and why: As long as this bullet point remains in the CDC's CSO masks will be required for any sailing that doesn't meet the 95% threshold established by the CDC. Fully Vaccinated Travelers For ships with at least 95% of crew and 95% of passengers fully vaccinated, cruise ship operators, at their discretion, may advise passengers and crew that they do not have to wear a mask or maintain physical distance in any areas. Confirmation that 95% of crew and 95% of passengers are fully vaccinated must be made available to CDC upon request. Unlike some other cruise lines Royal Caribbean chose to remain family friendly including children of all ages. By accepting all children Royal placed itself in a position of requiring test cruises so they could sail with less than the percentage of vaccinated determined by the CDC to meet the 95% threshold and they placed themselves in the position of requiring masks for vaccinated. The choice to remain family friendly means that they can't offer the vaccinated a mask free cruise. In Florida Royal Caribbean won't know the ratio of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. This is thanks to Florida establishing a law that prevents them from requiring guests to establish their vaccination status. When a ship sails from Florida there may be vaccinated guests who refused to provide their vaccination status. When sailing from Florida the cruises lines are blind to the actual number of vaccinated on board. They'll never know unless 100% of all guests voluntarily choose to provide their status. Regardless of personal opinions on this law it means that Royal Caribbean won't know what the ratio is and therefore they can't offer or suggest any particular sail date will meet the 95% vaccinated rule to sail mask free for vaccinated. As a result they must inform guests that mask are required indoors even in vaccinated. This is a CDC requirement since they can't tell the CDC what the ratio of vaccinated guests will be. In Florida it's possible that a particular sail date could have 100% unvaccinated, 100% vaccinated or anything between the two extremes. No one knows. Carnival is using an exemption application or lottery system. If there are guests on a booking that are unvaccinated regardless of age that booking has to apply for an exemption. You pay for the cruise normally then a couple of days before the cruise when Carnival hopes to know how many vaccinated will be on board they can begin to select lottery winners who applied for an exemption. If you lose the lottery you don't cruise and can request a refund. This process of throttling unvaccinated allows them to maintain 95% vaccinated on every sailing. By doing so the CDC says masks for vaccinated are not required. Carnival has determined this action of denying unvaccinated from boarding doesn't violate Florida law. Carnival chose a path that allows them to offer a mask free cruise for vaccinated cruisers but at the expense of families with children who will likely be told days before the cruise they can't go. For some people Royal Caribbean chose a better solution and for some people Carnival chose a better solution. Either way the CDC forced them to make that choice.

2022 cruises are a long time away. So much will change by April. No one knows what will be required in April. By that point people will have been vaccinated with two doses of the same vaccine for more than one year. I'm not even going to suggest what that could mean because it's pointless to suggest anything.

The problem isn't your app, Royal has not made that content available yet for a particular sailing. The app is essentially a browser to content stored on Royal servers somewhere. Simply stated they haven't finished making plans for that cruise. I'm under 40 days on some and they are still working on the fun. It's not your app, it's Royal Caribbean.

For an upcoming 6 night On Odyssey the app suggests day 2 is lobster night however the menus don't seem to be fully set so I'm not banking on that. I'm thinking it was later in the cruise a couple weeks ago but I could be mistaken.

You're in good hands.

Kind of thought this would happen. Hoped it wouldn't but not surprised.

Where do you live? In North America: Prior to final payment you can have you price adjusted unless it was the taxes and port fees that dropped in price. Once final payment has been made you may be able to get a price adjustment in the form of an OBC or On Board Credit through the Best Price Guarantee program. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/best-price-guarantee-policy This program can be dependent where you live as individual countries have different consumer protection laws. Also note that depending on your category of cabin it may not have dropped in price. Sometimes they may offer a guarantee cabin within your cabin type. For example if you are booked in a 4D balcony and they begin to offer a balcony guarantee fare that may not qualify and switching categories isn't always the best choice or possible. I would also suggest you call your travel agent as the price adjustment may only be available if the cheaper rate is still present when they call Royal Caribbean. If they take several days to act on your request the price adjustment may not be available anymore.

That would be pretty impactful to the line of beach loungers view to the ocean. I could see them having an issue with that. Umbrellas between the included loungers are plentiful and free. Shade shouldn't be an issue.