HeWhoWaits

The only social media platform I use is LinkedIn for professional purposes. I am a member of these forums and two others. We have never found a duck on a cruise ship but did find a rubber narwhal on Ovation last month. It had no identification attached but the location where it was found showed that it was clearly "hidden" there to be found.

You are the first to report that you have done this successfully. Thanks for the info. Assuming you each had an appointment at the same time and were able to obtain available proctors nearly simultaneously. Very serendipitous based on reported wait times to have a proctor available, even with an appointment time. If that's the case, the total time for at home proctored and drive through testing is about the same for those convenient to a pharmacy. Guess now the only advantage to the local pharmacy is that I don't have to trust the delivery of the tests (none of USPS, UPS, or FedEx is particularly reliable around these parts).

I would rather be onboard, fully cleared, and ready to enjoy a week of cruising with that $25 available for adding to my enjoyment.

But did a second person in your home also test "at the same time" as you? Add another 20 minutes because the tests must be consecutive, not concurrent. We have done the Walgreens drive through in less than 20 minutes for two of us, including the drive time.

We had a JS GTY on Ovation in May. We did indeed get double points (actually quadruple because it was booked during the double whatever you would normally get promotion).

No excuses - just don't find ordering the tests and paying for them to be efficient. And that $25 is the better part of two drinks onboard. Would you rather pay for a test or have two extra cocktails? If your answer is different than mine, I question your sanity.

It takes less than a minute to make the online appointment and we haven't had to wait in a line. From what people report about the proctored in-home tests, there is less total time involved by using Walgreens (make the appointment, get there, test, get home) than the in-home (make the appointment for your proctored test, wait "in line" for a proctor, perform the test, wait some more). Time from test to getting the email confirming a negative result appears to be about the same.

Not if you aren't home to use them. Would have to rely on the internet on the ship being good enough to do the proctored test from the ship. And those cost extra (even if reimbursed by insurance, they cost the hassle of filing for the reimbursement and the price of postage to send it in).

The ability to test for cruising is getting tougher - Walgreens now only allows a three day window for scheduling and CVS will only give free tests if you're having symptoms or were referred by a medical professional. The three day scheduling window creates difficulty scheduling a test for the one day that exists between our July 4 Freedom and our July 9 Explorer. Previously, we could have scheduled a test for July 8 as early as July 1 but now the window to schedule doesn't open until July 5 - while we're at CocoCay. Guess I'll be using a Diamond free day of Voom just to schedule the test.

At most they will check the date. Not sure the date was checked when we sailed Ovation in May, just that the name matched and it said negative.

You can test any time after midnight TONIGHT. At 12:01 a.m. it will be Saturday which is two calendar days prior to your sail date. For our Alaska cruise in May, we did our test for 9:00 a.m. EDT on Wednesday for an 11:00 a.m. PDT boarding on Friday. That's 53 hours before boarding.

The menu in the app says it is Patron Silver tequila, triple sec, margarita mix, and watermelon syrup. Also found it at the Pool Bar on ships that haven't rebranded as The Lime & Coconut.

It was in the clarifying post by the OP. So Air2Sea is just Royal's Expedia or Travelocity.

In the context of the original example, though, Air2Sea was mentioned. The agents at Air2Sea most definitely DO access SABRE to make the reservations, unless they are booking the same way that we would if we made an online booking directly with the airline or through a website like Expedia or Travelocity. That raises the question as to whether Air2Sea is an agency or a booking site with more restrictions than a traditional TA would have.

Including a reprice even though the GTY rate is less than you paid. Once a stateroom has been assigned, your rate is no longer GTY but the rate for that stateroom. We found this out when the GTY price for our May Ovation cruise became $202 per person lower than what we paid.

Order history is an option if you click on your initials in the white circle at the top right.

Air2Sea is an entirely different organization. Those folks would indeed be TAs, albeit specializing in air arrangements.

And even then, there are no guarantees you'll get the lower price. Once final payment has been made, the repricing request has to go into some sort of approval system. We tried to get a reduction on an upcoming cruise. Made the call on June 2 and was told "it can take up to 14 days for the request to process. You will receive a new invoice when it has processed and the difference will appear on your account as OBC." As of today (19 days and counting), nothing has happened.

Better to be getting emails so you know to follow up. We only learned about a wonky charge when we called about something else, only to be told that there was a balance due on a cruise. NEVER received any communication from Royal on that one (and it happened THREE times in less than two weeks).

We went to see them more than once. Take that to mean what you will.

The week after you sailed Ovation, we had a Led Zeppelin tribute band called Led Zepagain. They played Music Hall a couple times and the main theater one evening. You missed out by one week!

My favorite ship is whatever ship I am on at the time. If not on a cruise, my favorite is the next one scheduled. My wife's favorite is Freedom.

Don't know the answer to this, but ask yourself if there is a benefit to buying the DBP (at any price) when you already have five free vouchers as Diamond+. This will vary by person, but you might do well to purchase the Refreshment Package instead and if you exceed five alcoholic selections any given day just pay for those as you go.

Those costs would likely be lumped into the category of "non-recurring items" so there won't be any breakdown required.

We've had refunds issued to a different card that was used with Royal, but never to someone NOT on our reservation. For example, we typically use one card to pay for the cruise itself and a different card for Cruise Planner purchases. We've had CP refunds issue to the cruise card instead of the "original form of payment."