AshleyDillo

They can't go to New England without visiting Canada which is closed until July 1st, so you have more of a chance of going to Bermuda at this point!

We have a donut shop here that makes donuts like this..more of a brioche donut than a typical yeast or cake donut.

I interpret that as you were in the 75% cancellation penalty phase and normal circumstances you would have been expected to give up that 75% The end of the email says : I would expect that total figure of $1858.00 will be refunded to you. It may come in two pieces if they refund the port expenses portion separately.

The issue is that whenever the idea of repealing the PVSA comes up we are thinking about it from the limited scope of cruiselines. PVSA affects any vessels that operate in US waters. Repealing it entirely I don't see would ever happen. It's a very pro-USA economy act that covers fishing vessels, ferries, casino boats, etc as well as cruiseships. Rewriting it to provide an exclusion for cruiselines is a possibility, but I don't know that the cruiselines ever thought it was worth it to fight that fight. I could see perhaps an Executive Order at the Federal level that would halt the Customs Border Patrol from fining the cruiseships for not visiting their foreign ports due to the COVID-19 situation.

I've recommended the Fairfield Inn & Suites Melbourne Viera Town Center before. It's not on the beach, same as Titusville, but it's roughly the same distance, just south of the port instead of north. @raahc can vouch it's a nice hotel/value! It's about a 30 minute drive to the port but it's a brand new hotel and tends to be cheaper than some of the Cocoa Beach offerings. Then you can rent from one of the rental car companies from the airport and drop it off the day of the cruise at the rental car agency. Enterprise is actually located at the port and is probably the closest rental agency, but most of them are really close.

Unfortunately Royal has taken a hard stance that if you canceled before the cruiseline did, then you don't qualify for the payment refund option. I'm not sure the other cruiselines are handling that part any better.

I'm a big believer that this greatly exacerbates the stock market decline in the hard hit sectors. Investors often do this when they see something they know will impact a certain segment of the market. Here it's a lot of travel companies that are taking a bit hit. This increases the trading volume (flow) of a company and other investors that are paying attention to those trends will also jump in and sell. It lessens the demand for the stock even more and lowers the price.

Interesting! I have never expanded this Credits & eCertificates section before. Still from the Note: it appears that it's manually added later.

Pretty sure from what I've seen and heard from the others who have used FCC and from travel agents..but I have been wrong before. My FCC simply states it can only be redeemable on cruisefare. I would assume that there are separate accounting buckets for the cruisefare and port fees, taxes, prepaid gratuities, and travel protection. The FCC gets applied as payment towards the cruisefare up to the total amount of the cruisefare and then the remaining deposit can be used to cover those other cash-only pieces. Again, don't know 100% for sure and nothing on my FCC mentions any effects on a deposit.

Freedom made it into Miami this morning,

I see that you applied the deposit, but the deposit is a credit towards total amount of funds owed, but it doesn't reduce the cruisefare when calculating how much FCC can be used. The cruisefare is still the cruisefare regardless of how much the deposit is. A deposit can be used to cover the port fees and taxes or prepaid gratuities while the FCC can't, so Royal will shift the deposit over to cover those costs to allow the FCC to be applied to the actual cruisefare. When issuing the FCC, they issue it based on the cruisefare. It doesn't matter if someone had a $100 deposit or a $1000 deposit on their cruise.

They changed the Cruise with Confidence policy shortly after they announced it to where you could either get the 100% FCC or take the 50% penalty and get the rest refunded in cash like before the Cruise with Confidence policy existed. Prior to the change they stated you would be an FCC equal to the penalty amount if you canceled, thus a 50% refund and a 50% FCC.

If you cancel, you won't get the 125% FCC. You have to wait for Royal to cancel you, otherwise you only get 100% FCC. And yes you can apply the FCC to your Odyssey sailing that you already have booked. If the FCC is greater than the cruisefare any excess FCC gets reissued AFTER you take that May 2021 sailing as another FCC to be towards another cruise. They do not give the surplus as OBC.

You are correct in that the FCC can only be applied to the cruisefare. The issue here is that a reservation HAS to exist in order to apply the FCC, thus why you can't just start with an FCC to create the new booking. A cash deposit has to be put forth to create the reservation to apply the FCC to. The allowable amount of FCC to apply towards the cruise can not exceed the cruisefare. It doesn't in this example, so they will allow the full FCC to be applied. That will mean the $200 deposit causes an overpayment towards the cruisefare after the FCC is applied ($466 - $200dep - $400FCC = -$134) . Since there are still port taxes to be paid they will get paid by the deposit overpayment ($134) first before any refund would be issued. With only a $200 deposit, it doesn't cover the full port fees and taxes so there will need to be more money paid ($148.92 - $134 = $14.92). We are told over and over that the FCC can't be used for the deposit, and that's just because you can't create the reservation without a deposit and you can't apply the FCC without a reservation. Unsurprisingly Royal's systems make it really difficult and folks get caught off guard being told they have to lay out more money to create the new booking even though they have the FCC. You can pay off a cruise completely and then apply the FCC to it and you can get a refund of what you've paid towards the cruisefare portion. Otherwise there would be no way for someone to use the FCC on a cruise less than 90 days out (after final payment).

Obviously put it through a refurbishment and rename it (ala Carnival Triumph) so folks forget it's the plague ship? ?

They do have suites on Carnival ships too ?

Yes..once you sail on the first cruise the remaining FCC will get reissued for you to use to book the next one!

The best place to get information is going to be from official cruiseline announcements -- straight from the horse's mouth. Even that translated story above may not have the full picture and scope of the situation as they don't know what Royal has in the works to find alternate solutions. You really won't know for sure until Royal announces it.

I'm not sure about the math as it's too early and I don't know what the required deposit is, but yes you are thinking about it the right way.

You may want to ask about the transferring of insurance to another booked cruise. Technically you did use the cruise insurance since the insurance policy is effective from the day you take out the policy if it has cancellation coverage. There should be at least a pro rata return of premium option that could be applied to another cruise. I know with my independent trip insurance I can make changes to the policy and move it to different dates in the event I switch cruises or overall travel plans.

They have used cruiseships as hotels for large events (Super Bowl) and emergency housing after hurricanes in the past. Could definitely be a thought if things get out of control with the hospital systems.

I thought the doctor note thing was devised by the CLIA to appease the government so they could continue to operate. I can see it going away eventually as the situation improves and life goes back to normal, but it may linger a bit even after cruising resumes to, again, appease the government so they can start back up again.

I would hold off on canceling the cruise until April 13. It doesn't matter if you wait as you'll get the same FCC as you would today. But you may luck into Royal canceling before you hit the 48-hour mark and get the higher FCC offer.

Do you have the FCC already issued? I'm not sure where you're getting the 6 months from. Only thing I could see is if you used an FCC to book this one that just got canceled.