stevendom57

Travel agents have really suffered in the last year. How many people have traveled since Mar 2020? I know I have seldom left my house, much less my country. I don't expect to get much in the way of bonus OBCs from my TA for a while. Anything I do get will be a surprise and much appreciated, because I realize the sacrifice my TA made to give me that.

Is there such a thing????

Yeah, @smokeybanditand @cdixon22. I remember now. Thanks

It's been so long since I have cruised that I have forgotten the normal procedure. I know when initially boarding the ship all luggage and carry ons are x-rayed to look for booze. When boarding the ship in an intermediary port, do the RC personnel at the gangway search backpacks? Asking for a friend.

I know this is a long shot, but I will ask. Both Celebrity and RC have the CWC program, which will refund your cruise payments as FCC. If I book on Celebrity and then cancel, receiving the FCC, can I use that for a RC cruise?

The cruise industry has never done a cold start like this. Initially, they started out with one ship, added another and kept expanding. They always have just added one or two ships at a time. That is a lot different from a total shutdown and then trying to bring everything back online at once. The latter is MUCH more complicated.

I got a C&A account before my first cruise. I manually signed up and didn't rely on an automatic account being created for my first cruise.

Sweet. Now my TA in Oct 2022 gets double points.

Three. Two in the Caribbean/Gulf, One TA and looking at adding a Panama Canal cruise in 2023

How is it possible to type " a 3 hr tour" and not type it twice?

Were cruising ducks allowed to be hidden on the recent Adventure of the Seas cruises? I know it's not a big deal, just curious.

What about in a later port? Can I bring on unopened cans/bottles of soda?

I know that this currently only affects Florida, but what happens to the PVSA override if the CSO goes away? The way I understand it, if the CSO goes away then cruise ships will have to stop in a foreign port during a cruise to Alaska. Canada will not allow this until Feb.

@Galveston SteveThanks for keeping us updated. Exciting.

So ... vaccinated is still at level 4? That makes no sense.

Are they now offering an Unlimited Drug Package? ?

If I recall, the contract between RC and Galveston say that the terminal will be complete somewhere around Sept 2022 but it could be as late as mid 2023. Does RC have any history of sailing from a terminal that is mostly complete, but not fully? I am booked for Feb 2023 and I am talking a lot of my friends and relatives into joining us on the cruise. I am going to have a lot of egg on my face if the terminal completion slips and Allure OTS isn't in Galveston at that time. So, all of you great cruisers with crystal balls, what do you think?

I recommend staying in the Clear Lake, TX area. It is home of the Johnson Space Center. It is south of Houston but north of Galveston. It is a fairly short drive to the cruise port. On cruise days, many hotels in Galveston require a two day stay. None of the hotels that I have used pre-Covid in Clear Lake required a minimum stay. I also feel like I got a better hotel for a better price in Clear Lake. I splurged and stayed at the Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake. It is a short (~30 minute) drive to the cruise terminal. For parking, I had very good luck with Port Parking (https://www.portparking.com/). It is about $10 a week more than the others but your car is inside an old warehouse. It is high and dry. The time I used them, Galveston had a hard rain and possibly hail. My car was dry and undamaged. I hope this helps.

I wasn't very clear with my original question. I don't remember the specifics but I was wanting something that a cabin steward would normally provide. Maybe a corkscrew, maybe glasses for the wine bottle I carried on, maybe something else.

Cabin stewards are hard working people. I make sure that I pay my "optional" gratuity and always give another $60-$100 at the end of the cruise. There are times when I need something late at night. Maybe it's just a couple of wine glasses at 11pm. I know they have worked to clean my cabin in the morning and again in the evening. I am assuming that the steward is in bed at that time or getting a little "me time". If I call on the cabin phone to request these, they aren't going to roust my steward out of bed, are they? Surely they have on-call stewards for these types of things. In the past I have just let it go until the next day but there are times when getting a little something at night would be nice. I'm just trying to balance improving my experience with being a considerate guy. Steven

Swagger to, stagger from?? ?

YOLO!! Right, Matt?

Make your own. My main wallpaper is my wife and I standing on a glacier, from our last Alaskan cruise. Every time I take the time to close all of my various computer windows I get a warm feeling (ironic since I am standing on hundreds of feet of ice) and remember the last cruise we took. If you need specifics on how to use your own photo for wallpaper, Google is your friend.

Thanks for the info. I will brush up on my Mexican Spanish and hope for the best. I didn't learn "Mas cerveza por favor" in high school but I will add it to my vocabulary.

If I understand it properly, RoyalUp does not allow any choice of specific cabins. Are there any bad locations for suites? Ones to avoid?