Iluv4n6

We used Uber for our last MOC-Port Canaveral conncection (~$150 for an XL). We checked with Larry's Limos for an MCO-PC copnnection, but their pricing was easily 3X higher than Uber/Lyft. But Larry's was fantastic and reasonably-priced for FLL to Miami private transportation for a late August cruise.

How many visits to the Champagne Bar? Sad to see this wonderful bar being removed during recent ship upgrades...

Can a 4-device Voom package be easily used across reservations/between cabins? That would be cheaper than buying two, 2-device packages to cover the four adults on an upcoming family cruise. On our last cruise earlier this fall, I don't recall that we received actual codes to login with like we used to pre-CV. Rather, I think all we did was input our name, birthday and cabin number to login. If this is the case, I think if I purchased the 4-device plan under one of our family reservations, everyone else in our family would have to login as me. Maybe this isn't an issue, but I'm not sure... Any thoughts/experiences on this? Thanks!

We took this excursion on the 22AUG21 Allure sailing with a stop at St Thomas. I'd say we were at Meagan's Bay for 2 hours and at the top of the Skyride for about an hour. The excursion included the ride back to the ship. The excursion schedule intended to provided enough time for lunch at the restaurant at the top of the Skyride. While the views were terrific at the top, the restaurant was understaffed and only a handful of the customers actually got lunch. We ordered food but hadn't paid when we had to ride back down the mountain for our ride back to the ship. Some others had paid but received no food when they had to leave. I'm sure they will fix this issue moving forward. We were one of the first cruises back to the USVI and the tour operator told us they were originally planning to staff up for a November cruise restart.

We sailed on Allure for the 22AUG21 E. Caribbean itinerary. Fantastic ship! And I think the last Oasis class to still have a Champagne Bar. We will hate to see that go one day...our all-time favorite watering hole on any RC ship.

Yes -- Two big thumbs up for Sharla!

Fingers crossed we cruise safely on Aug 22. Seems like a lot could still happen in the next couple weeks. Will need to check back with HR at work about travelling out of the country. May have to (or want to) work from home for a while after the cruise...

https://stmaartenehas.com/travel-requirements/ @Jill As I re-read the current St Maartens travel requirements, I don't see a testing requirement for cruise passengers before getting off the ship. I may have looked at the testing requirements for someone flying to the island before taking a cruise. Sorry for any confusion...I'll keep focused on getting my pre-cruise test for Allure Aug 22!

@cruisinghawg Great to have some info on the likely passenger numbers for the Allure August sailings. Will be quite interesting to experience Oasis class at ~1/3 capacity for the Aug 22 sailing. @Luv2Travel Thanks for re-posting the FB announcement from the Allure cruise director confirming all the main shows are rolling out with the first August sailing. They put in a lot of work on short order to pull that off! We will be cruising with some friends who have never been on Oasis class before and we were hoping the most if not all of the big entertainment venues/shows would be open. Big thanks for the helpful responses!

Thanks -- will keep tabs on CP nonetheless. I haven't heard what reduced capacity means for the AOS Aug 22 sailing, but I can understand that lower capacity may mean that reservations aren't necessary from a practical perspective. I would be interested in hearing from others who are on early August cruises on Oasis class whether all the normal entertainment venues are open and if they noticed any changes to the show lineups due to either lower numbers of passengers or possibly a planned gradual roll-out of various shows as the ships restart. We always showed up for our reservations on Oasis class. ?

This island features some awesome beaches you really should get off the ship to visit if you've never seen them before, like Orient and Grand Case on the north/French side and Maho by the airport on the south/Dutch side, to name a couple. We are also on the Aug 22 AOS cruise and will likely run up to Orient beach with a couple who has never visited St Marten/Martin. We suspect the beach and surrounding cafes, etc., have rebounded quite a bit after the last big hurricane a few years ago (Irma). We are also looking into renting a car/van/suv with driver for our group for the day. Thinking that will work better than trying to catch a ride back from the beach. You should have no problem hiring a car/van and driver for the day from the taxi stand area instead of pre-booking this. We did this before for about $150/day, if memory serves. Just sent a note to St Marten/Martin tourism office about the typical availability of vehicles for hire near the cruise port. I also plan to check with Bernard's Tours and see what we would get for their $360/day private tour including how many people this can cover in one vehicle. Maybe we would want to split the cost with others?. Also saw that Royal just posted a couple Orient beach excursions from $64 to $99 pp. The higher priced one includes lunch and an additional 1.5 hrs at the beach (compared to 3 hr for the cheaper excursion w/ no lunch), and both appear to include lots of rum punch ?. And from what I can see on the tourism website, we will need a negative Covid test within 48 hours of arrival. So I'm thinking this requirement would match up with the mid-cruise test Royal is now requiring for 7-day E. Caribbean cruises. 18 days and counting!

As more Oasis Class ships begin sailing this month, we would love to hear about how the entertainment options are rolling out. We are booked on Allure 22AUG21 and haven't seen any entertainment options pop up in CP yet. Not surprised by this. We can appreciate that RC has lots of other bigger "fish to fry" to safely restart many ships this summer, but we have always enjoyed the range of fantastic entertainment options on Oasis class, including the aqua show, ice show, and musicals, and hope to be able to do so on our next cruise. Please pass along any news you may hear about how entertainment options may be rolling out for Oasis Class. Will also want to keep tabs with anyone blogging on Allure the first half of August. Thanks! Roger & Carol

Wow! great to see the kudos pouring in for @Sharla! She gets our vote as well. Just riding out this season's Artic blast here in the upper Midwest...nothing like taking the dog out in 30 below wind chills to motivate me into checking back in on cruise news and itineraries!

Thanks, Twangster! I got through on the Captain's Club phone line this afternoon (844-418-6824), and Mr. Josh Gray with Celebrity (who said I should use his name on these boards) indicated the loyalty level match between CAS and Captains Club is not a one-time event. So if we cruise on Celebrity while Emerald in CAS, we will translate to Select Level on Celebrity on that cruise. But (in our case) after we do another cruise on Royal and are Diamond and then go back to Celebrity, we will translate to Elite Level for the next Celebrity cruise. My concern was possibly having to build up from the bottom rung of Select Level and could only do so when cruising on Celebrity, because no future higher loyalty level on CAS would ever translate again to Captain's Club. Perhaps this clarification will help others interpret information they find on the reciprocity between CAS and Captains Club. Of course, nothing is static in the cruise industry, so this would be worth confirming as future sail dates approach.

Thanks, JL. I am not positive if I can control of when the level match occurs. I would like to delay the level match until after I am Diamond on Royal if I can. I am concerned that if I sail my first time on Celebrity while I am at Emerald-Almost-Diamond on Royal this fall, I will map over to Captain's Club at Select Level by default because they will simply transfer my C&A info at that time whether I request it or not. I fully understand that mapping between systems is a one-time deal. But I don't know if I could take one Celebrity cruise this fall and delay loyalty level matching until a second future Celebrity cruise by which time I would be Diamond in Royal's system. If I can't delay the level match, that may affect my decision on the fall Celebrity cruise. Wouldn't be happy dropping from almost Diamond on RC to Select on Celebrity and never realistically being able to climb back up the Celebrity loyalty ladder to ever enjoy their Elite level. It would be like falling 50 rungs on an adjacent ladder if you can't climb up just one more rung on your current ladder first. Was on hold with the Captain's Club number for while to ask about whether I have any control over when I level match from Royal, but hold times are lengthy these days...

We are currently booked on a Celebrity cruise for fall 2020 and will be Emerald in C&A by that time, which would translate to the Select Level in the Captain's Club. We will be Diamond after another RC sailing in early 2021 which would translate to Elite Level in the Captain's Club with its significantly enhanced perks compared to Select Level. Could we avoid mapping over into Celebrity's system at the Select level if we do not join the Captain's Club before or during our currently booked fall 2020 Celebrity cruise, and instead join the Captains Club at a later date and after we are Diamond in C&A? I see no benefit mapping our Emerald/almost-Diamond status over to Celebrity this fall if I have an option not to. I'd rather go with no added perks in Celebrity's system for one cruise than miss out on potentially multiple cruises at the Elite level. Any experience with this? Thanks!

Hi Fellow Cruisers -- We will fly into Baltimore the day before cruising on Grandeur in May and wanted check with you all on any hotel recommendations. Probably any place in the Camden Yards area would work well. Looks like we will be catching Grandeur during her last full year sailing out of Baltimore and before she is replaced by Empress in spring 2021. Thanks for any suggestions!

Thanks! Makes sense from what I can see on the website.

AshleyDillo -- Appreciate you filling in some blanks for me on group meet-ups on the islands! Madero Beach Club and Bonaire Blond Brewery are definitely on the list. Glad to be trying some craft brews after the tastings on Curacao!

Freedom 12/29/19 Group Cruise! Symphony 2/8/20 Grandeur 5/1/20 Rhapsody 1/23/21 Harmony 11/21/21 Group Cruise!

Hi -- Wife and I are excited to visit the ABC islands next week as part of the Freedom group cruise. Based on the helpful info on these boards, we're planning: Curacao - RC Fascinating Curacao excursion - hope we can get up on 1/1 for the 11:15 AM curacao tasting tour, LOL. Hit Mambo beach area and group event. Aruba - Head up to the Eagle beach area--no formal excursion. Group event in the evening. Bonaire - RC Mangrove and Beach excursion - looking forward to seeing lots of exotic (for us) sea birds and especially flamingos. Besides the ABCs: St Martin - Taxi up to the French side and probably hang out at Grand Case beach. Will also want to see how Orient Beach area might be recovering some. We've visited this great island a couple times previously and will see about heading up to the French side along the east shore instead of the longer loop through Maho Beach/airport area. Also looking forward to meeting other bloggers!

Thanks Twangster! Did not see this in the fine print. But we also have a JS booked in late spring so we will have the points covered to translate to Celebrity's loyalty program for fall 2020. Was thinking of potentially rejiggering our late spring cruise if we were successful with a RoyalUp on an earlier cruise and got double points sooner. Based on various feedback on the program, it seems that weak bids, like ours, have a low probability of being successful. Interesting that my TA didn't indicate this limitation to RoyalUp...I had mentioned RU as a means of doubling up on points with an upgrade...or I just missed the info.

I would figure Lyft also works in San Juan airport now, but would be curious if ridesharing is currently limited to just Uber. Prefer Lyft since it was the one I started using...

And book early! I was a little slow on the trigger for booking one of the recommended hotels for our Symphony cruise in Feb--but we did squeeze into the Hilton Downtown booking in early Dec. Options already seemed to be getting thin 2 mos out or prices really moving up for remaining rooms.

We have a couple bids placed for two upcoming cruises to upgrade from balcony to JS, in part to move up the RC loyalty ladder before a Celebrity cruise in fall 2020. We didn't bid much above the "weak" bid range on the Royal-Up-O-Meter, so I would be surprised if either bid is successful. Though we would be in a different location, I would figure any JS location wouldn't be too bad...