HeWhoWaits

We're well past the 20 day point for our cruise planner refund notices with no $$ in sight. There is a great deal of inconsistency with the process. And the May 6 email indicating that our cruise price refunds should be expected by the end of last week? Smoke and mirrors - haven't received anything. Again - inconsistency.

I'll be more than okay with having my plateful of food served to me as soon as the WJ opens in the morning, especially if I have a young grandchild with me. Not easy carrying a toddler and juggling a plate to feed myself and the young 'un.

Sadly, my favorite after-dinner drink on the cruises no longer exists in its purest form. Loved the daily special layered drinks in the special shooter glasses you could keep. We have quite the collection of those glasses and have parties for our friends where we serve different layered drinks we've tried over the years.

Regardless of what you decide wrt booking flights, you need to get the hotel reservation made now. November in South Florida fills up fast.

Problem is - Grandeur is going away. Price drop almost certainly won't happen.

Lift & Shift came too late for us. Would have been great as the identical cruise next year is 75% higher price. Even with 125% FCC there's a significant extra cost for the same trip.

Those suites require more than 4 people and can't be booked online anyway. The price per person might be accurate for full capacity of the cabin, as third guest and beyond all pay a significantly reduced fare compared to the first two.

And when you get 125% FCC on the rebooked price for the cruise being cancelled, you'll have enough to really go big!

FIFY

I've see the same issue on other boards. The originals are on a forum site that requires you to be a member to view. That is causing the pictures to fail on here.

Smaller dollar figure refunds = processed almost immediately. Anecdotally, most expensive refunds = delayed. Heck, even the two cancellations requested for our group on the same cruise (submitted about 3 minutes apart) were processed in the system as cancellations over a week apart (the less expensive one first). No $$$ have made it back yet. Will be interesting to see how many days that takes from each being cancelled in the system.

The original published "promise" for the first cancellations was "within 30 days" (NOT 30 business days) - approximately 4 weeks. The new pronouncement is 45 BUSINESS days - approximately 9 weeks. The time to get your refund has more than doubled from what was originally announced. The first information we received in the second wave also stated "within 30 days of cancellation" but is now changed as well. No wonder so many are up in arms about the process.

Any speculation on which poster is Ms. Freed? Could be a fun exercise.

Unless the required check-in at the muster station is monitored by a crew member, what's to stop somebody from checking in their entire party. Goes counter to the thought that everyone needs to know where to go. Less of an issue with younger children as they will (theoretically) always be with either adults from their group or at Adventure Ocean and be escorted.

Also interesting that the child price is higher for the Spanish version than for the English, even without lunch. As for me - I would purchase the Spanish and plan to understand ~2/3 of the narration. And then I would watch more Univision to refresh my listening skills in hopes of getting it closer to 75%.

Depends - do you touch the restroom door with any part of your body that MIGHT come in contact with your hands after washing but before you get to the buffet?

That would not be considered chronic asthma. It is allergy-induced asthma. No issue. My asthma, however qualifies as chronic because I HAVE asthma all the time, regardless of the fact that it is well-controlled by my current medications and exercise. @SpeedNoodles is cleared to cruise, @HeWhoWaits may have to figure out how to minimize the chances of being "discovered."

Well, we DO tease our northern neighbors a bit, but they deserve it. Eh?

I am not aware of any law regarding the rapidity of issuing a refund. As for banks, once the refund is submitted to the bank by a company the bank has three (3) business days (from COB on the day of the refund) to make funds available if the amount is less than $1000*. The time is extended to seven (7) business days for larger amounts (meaning 9 calendar days because there is guaranteed to be a weekend in there). If a refund is issued after 5:00 p.m. local time for the financial institution, it is the beginning of the NEXT business day so there can be four to ten (4-10) full weekdays before the money must be available to you. *This was the amount that was in effect when my wife retired from banking. It may be higher now.

We had two separate bookings on the same cruise that was cancelled. We executed the required request to cancel rather than take the FCC for both within a few minutes of each other. One (the one involving less $$$ that Royal has to return) was cancelled in the system and we have received the Cruise Planner cancellation email. The other (more $$$) booking still exists with no Cruise Planner cancellation email.