dodgestang

This aint gonna happen. And it isn't because of 'science' it because of liability and too much government control. We are all going to have to get used to the idea of no vaccine? no cruise for you.....no air travel for you.....liberties be darned. It also doesn't hurt that the vaccine is 'free' (in US anyway)...which means the US tax payer is paying for all the shots.....I wouldn't be surprised if that means each shot costs $500 per person......which means there is a lot of money to be made so lobbying will be heavy to make sure it is 'required' that everyone get it.

Depends.....if there are any sailing this summer....then yes. I am.

I said I wasn't going to do it....but I did it anyway. I just made full payment on the July 30th cruise on Oasis out of North Jersey. - Will it be cancelled? Odds are still high, but I see people are starting to warm up to the idea of cruising maybe starting in June/July - Will it be 'modified' from a 9 night to a 7 night? Maybe. Won't bother me. If it sails, we will be on it. I've actually been waiting for 2 months now trying to add a 5th to the reservation because my son's friend if going to travel with us....if we go - I'm so looking forward to it....I even booked all the first day at sea spa stuff I always spoil the wife with. Only thing I couldn't do, was royal gifts aren't working so I could schedule some flowers to the room. The dice have been rolled....will it come up 7s or snake eyes. ?

Technically speaking as well....when you take a loft suite on deck 8.....you sleep on deck 9 ? My kids who were sleeping on the lower level didn't complain about noise...but I never did ask them either.....I'm a bad parent ?

I've stayed in the owner's loft and the royal (both on deck 8 book ending the central grand lofts.....I never noticed noise from the club below us.

The only time 'suite pecking' order comes into play is on show seat preferences....and in those case...for instance if you say "I want to see this show, on this night, in these seats"....the Genie will rather diplomatically say "this other night might be better"......this is one of the reasons the first thing you get is a calendar when you get on board. They look at all your planned excursions and tried to schedule things for you 'around' other Genies and other star guests so that they minimize overlap (allowing them to focus on you at the time) and to not have competition. The one and only time suite pecking order REALLY shows itself is when it comes down to Labadee and cabana choice......at least that's what it seemed like....I was in Royal...so I got the cabana I wanted....no questions asked.

Red bull and Vodkas.......keep this room stocked at all times ? Traveling Star is so nice......you may have trouble sailing on ships that don't offer it.

Just thought I would share......we all know by now Canada has essentially shut down cruising again for 2021. So....I'm tired of floating interest free loans to all these companies and officially moving into "I want my money back" stance. Air Canada...booked Sept 2019 airfare for August 2020, paid them $8k for tickets....cruise was cancelled, they gave me voucher, I said okay. I lifted/shifted August 2020 cruise to August 2021 so wasn't a big deal. Applied the voucher to new airfare in Sept 2020 for trip in August 2021, paid $900 difference since I changed airports. So called today.....would just like to cancel and get a refund. Sorry sir, these tickets were bought with Vouchers, can't get a refund. But you can go to our website and fill out our contact us form and explain why we should give you a refund and maybe you'll get one, good luck (that is word for word what the CS operator said to me). And yes....I feel like an idiot...I filled out the form and will wait for the "sorry, no refunds" email. In parallel I call up credit card since I have travel insurance....or at least I used to. Luck for me......I bought tickets Sept 3, 2019 and they stopped having travel insurance on Sept 20, 2019. So I opened a claim for the first (largest amount). But looks like I may be out $900 at this point. So now here it is Friday night, I should be good mood and I am fuming mad at Air Canada and now mad at Citi because both my wife and I can't recall ever being told our travel insurance part of the card (one of the reasons we use this specific card) went away. Ah well.....sorry for the vent....the cracks in society are not only showing, they are turning into fissures. Now I suppose I can't request a refund from RCL until the officially cancel....which they won't do for months at this point.

If you do chef's table, even in star, they will make you pay for the wine (but not for the chef's table) so its like $20 to do chef's table

I think I see the issue here, just want to confirm I am reading this all correctly..... 1. You booked a cruise in Feb 2020 for sometime in 2021 (sounds like July timeframe) with a non-refundable deposit and opted not to add in any extra cost with trip insurance 2. Planned cruise hasn't been cancelled by RCL yet because it is for sometime in 2021 (again sounds like a July cruise) 3. You lost your job, so not in position to pay final payment on March timeline a. Historically speaking, Royal has been pretty predictable in terms of they don't cancel a cruise until after the final payment has been made b. You called and cancelled the cruise prior to it being cancelled by Royal which puts YOU on the hook for the non-refundable deposit Based on my read, you are on the hook because of the contract you signed. Could Royal do things different? Sure, they could put themselves out of business letting everyone cancel all non-refundable bookings ad infinitum. I've had 3 cruises cancelled. I am lucky enough to be able to afford making the final payment and then waiting for it to be cancelling. In some cases I have opted for a full refund of what had been booked as non-refundable (like my 2020 Christmas cruise), in other cases I have opted to lift/shift like my Alaska cruise with the inlaws (moved from 2020 to 2021). I'm getting ready to have to make final payment on a July cruise as well....one that I know will change because it is a 9 night and they currently aren't going more than 7 night cruises because of CDC. If I called and cancelled today I would lose my $1000 deposit so I have to make the choice of either fronting RCL another 30k or losing my 1k. Did you ask about shifting the cruise for free to 2022 when you may have been in a better position financially to take a late Honeymoon? The only silver lining in all this is you already paid the deposit, and 'should' NOT be still carrying that cost on your CC...so it is a sunk cost. If you opt to cancel and lose, you technically are no worse off than you were prior to cancelling. Most people don't think like that, but then again, not everyone buy trip insurance either.

Our kids are a little older (9 and 12 on last sailing)....and they eat everything....but it isn't fair to the other diners to take kids to chef table...it really is an 'adult' experience. Our kids go to buffet when we do the chef's table and/or something like Johnny Rockets.....last time we were out the Genie stopped by the room with popcorn and watched a movie with them for a couple hours (without us even asking)

And update "45 days for refund"........let's start that clock ticking but not hold my breath.

Just got my cancel notice.....already on hold to get full refund process started ?

I hope it all works out well for everyone.......

Since I just paid the balance on my Holiday 2020 cruise....I'm sure it will be officially cancelled within days ?

I have repriced 2. 1 - Dec 2020 repriced just before final payment.....hundreds more. 2 - July 2021 Alaska repriced because even though I lifted/shifted (and it was paid in full) I wanted to apply my prime cert to it......would have saved me.....drum roll...............$200

Considering a few Carnival subs have announced now closed through the end of year.....the Holiday cruise season appear dead. I have final payment for Christmas on the Anthem due in like 20 days now.....so we will be making the big decision of shifting shortly.

They also added a new feature......a listing of itineraries right in the website so you don't have to call and find out the one you want isn't available ?

Well.....Casino wasn't putting out any loyalty offers....but I can tell that yesterday I got my first casino cruise offer in about 6 months.....for sailings Q2 and Q3 2021....and of course neither sailing that I am on is on the list....so back to normal ? ? ?

B o r i n g ? ? ?

Stick the roll away in the little hallway behind the stairs to the small second balcony and its almost like you have your own harry potter room ?

Final update here. I have added up all the posted and pending credits now from both the April 16 cancelled cruise and the August cancelled cruise and now it looks like I am over refunded $545.15 which means either I missed something I bought that was really large in cruise planner....or they messed something up. I wonder if they will at some point in the future reverse the credit. ? Either way.....I guess we're all good here finally.

Markets will probably tank on Monday thanks to what happen in Atlanta on Friday night.

I made the post May 14 (the day I manually cancelled all my cruise planner items for a cruise that was still schedule to sail in August) and finally saw SOME (not all) of the over 6k in cruise planner items back to my CC today.....so 30 calendar days. I made this post a month ago because it had taken 60+ days to get refunds of cruise planner items from an April cruise that had been cancelled and they closed us out of cruise planner so we couldn't manually cancel things. I have cancelled cruise planner items many times and received a refund systemically in a matter of single digit days (as recently as late February of this year). Up until this crap I had been willing to give the benefit of the doubt that the COVID 19 impacts overwhelmed them and they just weren't staff/architected for the situation they are in......but I believe now it is obvious that RCCL across all channels has turned off automated refunds and is trickling it out through a heavily control internal process. That is my opinion that I have formed based on this personal investigation/anecdotal evidence. This situation I find to be frustrating enough that I will be evaluating and possibly just cancelling 2 of my 3 planned cruises and not sailing with them anymore. This is something I will have to talk over with the wife. We turn Diamond on what ever boat we manage to get on next and really enjoy cruising, and I understand WHY they are doing this but they need to understand the consequences of their poor customer service choices and the short sighted quarterly outlook only management being employed. I have the same crap with my client....I have contracts in place, send them invoices, and they just don't pay anymore...I have to chase them on EVERY invoice....everything is 30-60 days past due before I squeeze it out of them and all I get with each "you are past due" notice I send is the same cut/paste email from accounts payable "We are closely monitor our accounts payable, we are only doing one payment run a week, all payments need to be approved by leadership"....so technically I continue to work everyday with a client who is knowingly and willfully in breach of contract. So maybe that's shame on me.

Well here we are....30 days after I manually cancelled my cruise planner items for a cruise that was ultimately cancelled....I finally just started seeing some of the refunds come through...still about 2k short.....but I'll take what I can get at this point. Hopefully the rest will show up soon enough.