AshleyDillo

On my Odyssey sailing for January 2021 I have the My Time Dining showing under the Dining tab in the Cruise Planner. When I click on My Time Dining it takes me to where I can add it to my cart and schedule the times.

Would you still go if the cruise was going to sail at this point? If so, I don't see any reason not to make the final payment if you can financially afford it. If Royal cancels you will have the option to get everything you paid back 100% in cash. If you've already decided you are going to do the other vacation no matter what, you probably want to go ahead and cancel under the Cruise With Confidence policy and you'll get the deposit back as Future Cruise Credits.

Well at least the CDC has no say in restricting air travel. I'd be more comfortable on a direct flight to a country that required a negative test to enter the country than I would on a domestic flight in the US. But alas, I am sure when the CDC comes to reviewing the cruise line plans to get up and going, they're going to make sure that the itinerary doesn't include any of the countries on their risky list. If you look at that listing of the level one and level two countries, that doesn't leave many places in the Caribbean that are currently low-risk to visit.

I would make sure you read through all 11 pages of @Galveston Steve's All Things Galveston post as it may have some suggestions about staying in Houston vs. Galveston. It seems to be a similar situation to the Orlando vs. Port Canaveral. I've never sailed out of Galveston but I know certain busy times of the year some hotels will require a multiple-night stay so that's something to consider.

There's a 6 nighter that does that the week before Christmas 2022.

Those 7 nights are meh..same old routine and more $$$. That sailing Los Angeles to Tampa through the Panama Canal though....hmmmmm.

I believe the policy changed in October 2020 to allow this: https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/10/30/royal-caribbean-makes-using-future-cruise-credits-easier-rule-change

It may not be a policy change and it's just their IT copying that portion of the check-in via the app from the Singapore sailings that are currently running. They require a passport for those sailings. When they even hinted at a national policy change for requiring passports years ago there was an uproar and push back. I thought I remembered that CBP was going to change the rules on a phased-in basis as part of a 9/11 security initiative that would start requiring passports for land/sea travel between the US, Canada, and Mexico. Somehow they relaxed the requirement for closed-loop cruises to not require the passport or even an enhanced driver's license which is the minimum requirement to get back into the US by land.

The UDP will include meals at any of the restaurants on board any time they are open. So if there is a specialty restaurant open on embarkation day, you should be able to use your UDP. I've only sailed Anthem in that class and I don't think any of the sit-down specialties were open on boarding day for my sailing but the Johnny Rockets quick serve style was. On the Oasis class ships there tends to be at least one sit-down full scale restaurant open but the more casual ones were open as well (Playmakers, Portside BBQ). Odyssey should have Playmakers onboard and they are usually open the first day, so that would be a good place to take advantage of the UDP. I've been able to take food to go with the UDP. Izumi Sushi is usually pretty good about allowing it, as did Playmakers and they actually had disposable takeout containers. On my Oasis sailing I was even able to get Chops to go, but I did make a reservation ahead of time and showed up and asked if I could get it to go when I got there. Chops wasn't equipped for to-go orders with takeout boxes, so it was my food on a plate with a room service lid over it. Experience can differ ship by ship, but I've found if you ask nicely usually they will accommodate you where they can. I wouldn't expect them to do a 4-person full 3-course meal to go order from some place like Chops, but asking for a single entree, dessert, or appetizer usually won't put them out too much. It will help to make sure you have a reservation if you want to try to do a to-go from one of the sit down places. I was able to use the app and make several solo reservations at different restaurants without issue outside of the busy dining times.

Some of the venues have rotating performers that aren't specific to the ship like the comedy club and Music Hall and headline in the theater. They fly the talent to the ships and if you cruise enough you will start to recognize names. The constants are CATS in the main theater, Aqua 80s in the aquatheater, and One Sky in the main theater. I took a photo of the entertainment schedule and posted it in my Live Blog of the first post-AMP sailing over Thanksgiving 2019. Insert shameless plug below...

If you are talking about a Denali one that's part of a land tour, I would choose that one just because I would likely do a land tour less often. It would be cheaper to take another Alaska cruise in the future, so I could save the Mendenhall one for a later trip. My father did the one out of Talkeetna and loved it.

Make sure you link your reservations in your Cruise Planner. That will hopefully carry over to the app once you are onboard. If it doesn't, you may have to link it there. You should be able to use the app to make the dining reservations once you are onboard the ship's wifi connection. But the best thing is to do as @twangster suggested and go make your reservations when you first get on board. You can use the lap later to reschedule and move around reservations and also make new ones.

There's always a danger of hurricane problems when sailing that time of the year. They won't sail into a hurricane or tropical storm, but there is always the possibility that a storm could have an impact. Just something to keep in mind. Invest in some travel insurance and try to make refundable travel arrangements to give yourself as much flexibility as you can afford.

I did a web search and found the names Kenny James and Joey Van mentioned as entertainers on that particular cruise. Don't know exactly what kind of a performer either gave but maybe that can point you in the right direction.

I can't believe @CGTLH didn't manage to take one. All of his photos from our cruise are located here: 2017-08 Anthem There's one shot of the living room where you can see the balcony out the doors, but there isn't a full balcony shot from outside. Maybe he can dig some up from the shots that didn't make the website. I'm pretty sure someone was always in the way when he tried to. My father enjoyed falling asleep out there with a bottle of wine. PS: It isn't a covered balcony, so wear sunscreen if you plan to do that even on a NE/Canada itinerary! ?

All the reports that I read before the shutdown is that that the floating cabanas get assigned in the order that they are reserved and there wasn't a way to specify a cabana location. Whether a Genie could override the assignment or not is something that has been widely reported, mostly because the floating cabanas were so new and there hasn't been many experiences to go on by before the shutdown. You definitely need to reserve the cabana in the Cruise Planner before the cruise. Remember you can cancel and rebook if the price drops lower, so if you are planning on getting one, might as well lock in your reservation.

If you are talking comparing GS perks on Voyager to Sky perks on Oasis Class I think the biggest difference is that there is no Coastal Kitchen and you don't get free Zoom on Voyager.

Regardless of if you organize a crawl, if you end up wanting to show your cabin to a group you can have the Genie help arrange snacks. When we showed our GLS during a cabin crawl we had asked for the Genie to coordinate ordering some finger foods. We were told that it would be difficult to arrange specialty restaurant snacks (this was on Anthem) so we picked things off of the room service menu. We also on our end did a walk-up to-go order at Izumi shortly before the crawl to have some more appetizers. We had our fridge fully stocked with a variety of beer and sodas and offered them to the guest. Other times that I have participated in room crawls with Star Class cabins they have gone so far as to pay for champagne servers and had a large spread of food to offer.

Actually the one-way cruises don't need another stop added as the PVSA is only pertaining to round-trip USA trips. The Vancouver <> Seattle route isn't going to happen until Canada allows foreign passenger ship travel again. If Canada opens up again, then the RT Seattle <> Seattle trips can go on as usual since they would be able to make their PVSA compliant calls in Victoria, BC.

Good point. Aruba wouldn't accept the antigen tests for incoming folks, but they offered the tests in Aruba for those leaving back to countries that accepted the antigen test.

No one knows yet and the situation is changing constantly. The current policy to board the cruise ship is a test taken between 48 and 72 hours prior to boarding. You also need to look into if Italy would have any testing requirements to enter the country. Right now they aren't accepting tourism travel from the US at all.

We actually were looking to this just last week while we were in Aruba. In order to get to the island with the flamingos you have to take a private boat over from the Renaissance resort as the island is owned by them. The Renaissance is easily walkable from the cruiseport if you wanted to do this. You can get a day pass which will allow you to visit the island and I think it runs $125 per person. Alternatively you can get a room and will have the same access as a resort guest does, but that's only going to be a benefit if you can land a room that costs less than your day passes would cost together. The thing to keep in mind that they only sell a certain number of day passes and they won't sell them once the hotel hits a certain capacity. They don't sell the passes far in advance, so it's something you would need to look at closer to your cruise if you want this to be an option. The site for the passes is: https://renaissancearuba.idaypass.com/ We had four people and we decided it wasn't worth the visit for us since we were in Aruba for an entire week and there were plenty of other beaches to visit for free. It would have been a fun experience, but the price didn't make sense for the type of trip we were on. You get lunch and a drink with the day pass according to the site. I don't know what the refund policy would be if your cruise port was missed or the date got changed, though so it might be something you would want to chance as a walk-up last minute.

I assume that's what they are doing with the airlines that have international flights to the US then. Of course the airlines have none of the same hoops to jump through to be allowed to fly. I just figured if there was a government mandate of such a serious nature that the government would take more responsibility of enforcing it.

I'm also curious about whether the responsibility will fall back onto the cruiselines to enforce any CDC required mandates. Who oversees that they would do this correctly? Having just flown back into the US from Aruba, it was actually the airlines that were responsible for checking our required negative test proof for entry into the US. This happened at the airline check-in desk at the airport despite Aruba having the US customs facility onsite. That was the only place we had to show our negative test results. We didn't have to show them when we went through the US customs pre-clearance at the Aruba airport. There wasn't another check when we landed in Ft. Lauderdale either.

The difference for me is if the cruise lines are going to be treating the entire cruise ship as an enclosed space, including open decks. I don't mind wearing a mask to go inside public places but when the open decks will be treated the same as the interior of the ship, that's when the value of the vacation diminishes for me. I view visiting theme parks currently the same way. I appreciate that the choice is there and that no one is forcing me to spend my vacation dollars on something I don't feel is worth the value paid. This is another factor that I will take into consideration before making a choice. I completely understand why the cruiselines and ports would restrict cruise passengers to ship-sponsored excursions only. I think it's the best way they can think of to effectively maintain the bubble of the cruise ship as much they can. Part of the reasons I've enjoyed cruising in the past is to have the freedom to do as I pleased in the ports. I don't choose to vacation at all inclusive resorts because I don't really want to be in a bubble and I want to make up my own excursion and trips. I chose cruising over land vacations because it offered me the freedom and the convenience of being my transportation and accommodations while I got to visit other places.