ultimate_ed

I see Harmony and Ovation both show "April 2026" while Liberty just says 2026. Does anybody see the hole in the Liberty booking window to have a better idea of when in 2026 Liberty gets amped? We're doing an eclipse cruise on it in August 2026 and was curious if the amplification would happen before or after.

The plot thickens...

This is where we need that meme from The Office of "they're the same picture" It's not just "Galveston Parking" it's The Port of Galveston Parking.

https://www.chron.com/gulf-coast/article/galveston-port-biggest-cruise-ships-19424517.php Galveston is always getting the hand me downs from Royal, but in this case, I'd be Ok with Icon coming. I don't see any chance we'd get one of the new Icon class ships debuting in Galveston unless Carnival starts making a serious dent in the market with Jubilee.

https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/travel/a-cheapskates-cruise-on-icon-of-the-seas-a4c92fb4?st=0uii0wetbjogukd&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Perspective on a cruise on Icon of the Seas without buying the extras/upsells.

I had posted this in the News section so you may want to look at the comments there as well. (I always struggle a bit with deciding whether a topic should go in the "News" section or this "Discussion" section, but anyway). As a follow up - one thing that stood out to me was that this cruiser hadn't received a room assignment before arriving at the pier. Since it was a first cruise for them, they didn't find it odd. I'm curious how common that is for a GTY booking to not know your room number until you arrive at the port? It seem like other discussions I've read with GTY bookings it's common to get the room number at least a few weeks ahead of the sailing.

I've never actually booked a GTY room as I've always wanted to specify groups of rooms close together. I've considered it for future cruises where it would just be my wife and I with one cabin, but this does give me pause. It also means that I'm never going to skip the travel insurance, especially when there's air travel involved.

https://www.reddit.com/r/royalcaribbean/comments/185ni0s/overbooking_on_the_day/ Saw this one this morning and found it pretty shocking that this guy is finding out when he arrived at the port that RCCL didn't have a room for him. From what I've gathered in the comments, this was a first time cruiser with a GTY booking. It's not clear, but it appears that there may have been a dozen others who were also denied boarding due to overbooking the ship the as well. That's some disappointing inventory management to be sure.

Yes, but even if Carnival as a cruise company goes into bankruptcy, all their ships will still exist and will be available for passengers. The shareholders would get wiped out, but the debt holders would own the ships and the Carnival name to keep on sailing. Much like what GM went through back in the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

On the one hand, I suppose it's good that other people are buying all the crap. The alternative would be none of that and just paying higher cruise fares. I can easily walk past all of those while I'm on board. If someone else wants to subsidize my cruise by purchasing overprices watches, bracelets, and artwork, who am I to complain?

I don't disagree, and ultimately this is the price they all paid for being non-US companies - they weren't eligible for any kind of COVID bailouts/support from the US government the way the airlines and other businesses were. Of course, they probably wouldn't be able to exist at all if they had to comply with US shipping and labor laws, so there's that. I'm still betting one of the big three is going to go through a bankruptcy reorg at some point. The amount of debt (and equity dilution) that Carnival, NCL, and Royal all took on was staggering.

It's probably worse than either - one or two of your rooms get kicked, while the others don't. In your case, the last thing you want to do is put in for the offer. Each room, even if you paid for all four, is a distinct booking in RCCL's system. So, you're possible to "win" the offer for one room and get it moved to Voyager (or a later Allure sailing), while the rest of the rooms stay on Allure.

Yes, but all those shares and bonds they sold to keep the lights on with no ships sailing have to be paid for. It's pretty telling that with bookings and on board spending above pre-pandemic levels, they're still losing money.

Right? This is the thing I don't understand with folks, supposedly adults, "forgetting" stuff like this. I've got two cruises booked and I have appointments in my Google Calendar for each of them a week ahead of the final payment date to pay the bill. And both of those are booked with an agent that has my card on file to make the payment. Heck, my driver's license expires in 2028 and I've got a reminder in my calendar 3 months ahead of that to tell me to renew it. We don't actually have to remember anything anymore. But, we do have to take the initiative to use the organization tools we have available to us living in the future. Definitely an expensive lesson for the OP's friend.

That's interesting. My Symphony sailing the week before Christmas, we got the "old" style cups. Never had issues with the freestyle machines being out.