nate91

I had the May 8th 8 day on Brilliance, Southern Caribbean, now Southern Caribbean 8 day on Independence. Only port that's the same is CocoCay.

A few randomly organized thoughts on all this: First of all, this all sounds very similar to the other cruise lines, which was expected. I also think that the urgency to get this out there FIRST THING in the morning on the day after the CDC's comment period ended seems like a good sign that at least RCG and NCL are interested in a slow start on November 1st, if things go their way. Tests: Testing before getting to the port seems far wiser than testing at the port. However, a couple things on this; say one gets tested five days before and doesn't have test results by sail date? Some places seems to give quick test results, but I have also heard of it taking a week or more. What does one do then? What about if one tests five delays before and gets a positive result 47 hours before sailing (for example). Will they still have the option for a refund, or a retest if not? I also saw a mention of false negatives, but no mention of false positives. Would a retest be possible, or should those who really want to sail get two tests *just in case*? If they do institute quick testing at the port, say 30 minute results, and one does get a positive, is there the option to retest in case of a false positive? Lots of questions there that should be addressed by Royal before sailing. Masks: I expected about what this says about masks. Regardless of personal views on masks, which vary greatly, I have always felt bad for retail employees forced to play mask police. I hope this is not the role that all cruise staff are subjected to. I'm wondering how enforcement will be handled, especially with people coming in from all different states/political views. Theaters: Will shows resume? I saw some mention of theater seating being spaced out, which makes me hopeful there will be shows, even if socially distanced! I miss live entertainment! Temperature checks: Seeing as everyone on the ship might do something entirely different every day, how would temperature checks daily be enforced? Would they go stateroom to stateroom? More likely, on entry to MDR before dinner? It should be interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm hopeful for cruises resuming soon!

I probably should have clarified further. I'm not frustrated at the cruise lines for not sailing (I'm frustrated at the CDC for that). They obviously want to start sailing and bringing in money ASAP. I'm frustrated at them for not cancelling cruises that we all know aren't going to happen (the rest of 2020). I think they know enough to know that won't happen. I get not wanting to release even more refunds, but it's beginning to tarnish my view of RCL a bit, especially as many other operators have already cancelled all of 2020.

I really hope cruising comes back soon! However, at this point, I'm beginning to get frustrated with the cruise lines, especially after RC delayed the results of the healthy sail panel. Myself and my fiancee are dealing with PTO expiring, and her boss has a two month maternity leave as well during which we can't take any vacation. We have cruises booked in both November and December with both Carnival and RC, and the not knowing is getting incredibly stressful. We'd love to do a land-based vacation, but our cruises aren't cancelled, and we have amassed so much FCC from earlier in the year that we can't afford to take the FCC (and Carnival offers nothing like it). I'm just frustrated that the cruise lines have no plan whatsoever, and especially with my admittedly unique situation, I'm essentially left twiddling my thumbs and waiting to see if I'll be able to use my vacation time in ANY way, much less a cruise (the preferred method).

I won't lie, I have booked far more cruises during the shutdown than I likely would have if the shutdown had never happened. I think there will be a huge amount of demand for vacations when cruises do restart. I'm at the point where I would go on any cruise just to be on a ship.

So I have Brilliance of the Seas booked May 8, 2021. 8 night cruise, Southern Caribbean and Perfect Day. Got a balcony, perfect cruise. Was looking at 2022 cruises (because cruising is all that keeps us sane in these crazy times, and realized that Odyssey of the Seas has an 8 night Southern Caribbean cruise on April 9, 2022 (which is far more expensive). Would it be possible to lift and shift this Brilliance cruise to Odyssey, or is that not okay, or would it not work since it's 'Southern Caribbean and Perfect Day' vs just 'Southern Caribbean?' Would we then be able to rebook Brilliance on May 8, 2021? (Obviously we'd have to use prevailing rates if we did.) Not sure if this is okay, but figured someone here would let us know. Thanks!

Oh, I'm very thankful for Matt's accurate reporting on everything. I'm sure it is correct, as it always has been in the past, however when I get on the phone with my travel agent and they call Royal and no one knows about it, my challenge is that Royal Caribbean Blog isn't actually affiliated with RC, so they often won't honor things without an official confirmation from Royal. This results in escalation to supervisors, so on and so forth. I just wish there were a faster way to get to the point, so to speak. ?

So I just called my travel agent about the new change from LOS to any other ship within a month with price protection. They didn't know about it, they called RC and they didn't know about it. Why don't people at RC know about everything that this blog knows about, and what's the best way to get this cruise switched over when they don't have all the info? (This seems to happen frequently where RC reps don't know things that have been posted on Royal Caribbean Blog.)

I have stayed in an Ocean View Panoramic, but not the suite. We stayed in one of the rooms on Explorer. Explorer is an older ship, and the Panoramic rooms were built in 2016, so it felt like we were staying on a brand new ship. The windows were incredible! Absolutely loved the panoramic glass view, highly recommend the rooms on the sides of the ship so that all you see is ocean and not the bow of the ship.

I just had a sailing on Majesty cancelled (May 23rd). Can I put the FCC towards my sailing on Grandeur (August 6th), which has final payment due in a couple weeks? Or does it have to be applied to a new booking, which would be tough because I have way too many booked at the moment? If I can apply it towards previous booking, do I have to wait for the FCC to process (they said mid-May), or can I call and get the money applied immediately? Would I still get the 25% bonus? Thank you all!

To update, I called in to Costco again, and was told, again, that those rates are with a 'Friends and Family' discount which is only available for new bookings. I said that that's not mentioned on the website, they said that they will have a supervisor call me back. Some curious things about it: - I found the Friends and Family Rate flyer here: http://www.creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Loyal_To_You/13032574_Travel_Agent_Friends_Family_Rates.pdf My cruise on Grandeur of the Seas is not listed. - I was told that I can upgrade by paying the current full price. While the price I saw and wanted for a balcony was $2349, they offered me a price of $3300, $1k more. This is WAY more than even the $2817.06 that is on Royal Caribbeans own website. I'm really confused with where that higher number came from, and why they would think I would be willing to pay $1000 more than the quoted price. Any advice for when the supervisor calls me back?

That's another reason I'm confused. I have repriced through Costco before, a few times. Usually it's easy, one time I got ahold of a Costco rep that called the wrong department at Royal, and they had to connect me to another rep who called another department at Royal that handled "group rates." So I'm not sure if this is one of those situations where the people I'm talking to just don't see the rate I'm talking about since they're not the right department.

Thanks for pointing that out. I did indeed make a mistake, I meant Costco instead of RC. Fixing now.

Since I booked it through Costco I can't even talk to Royal about the reservation, I have to go through Costco.

They mentioned that I could cancel and rebook. Basically, it would be around $500 for me to upgrade to a balcony, but $700 if I cancel and rebook, so I'm not too sold on that. At this point, I feel that it's a worthwhile upgrade at the $500 but not the $700, so I'm trying to understand Costco's rules and if there's any way around this. My bad, $2300 for a balcony on Costco, $2500 for a suite. So about a $400 upgrade for balcony, $600 for suite, not counting the cancellation fees if I were to rebook.

Hi All, I'm a little stumped here. I book all my RC cruises through Costco travel, and I'm having a strange issue with them. I have Grandeur OTS 9 day booked for August 6 (before final payment, non refundable deposit). I got a great deal on an Oceanview, but now I'm seeing that both balcony guarantee AND Suite Guarantee are WAY cheaper on the Costco Travel website than they are on RC's site (for balcony guarantee, roughly $2300 vs $2900. I have called Costco Travel, who can see the price on their website, but when they call Royal, Royal says that this rate is only for first time bookings. I could find that nowhere in the fine print on Costco Travel's website, fine print reads as follows: "This category can be booked for a special rate, guaranteed to you. Please note that the category is not associated at the time of booking with a specific stateroom, deck, bedding configuration or other particular settings. The assignment of an actual cabin will be performed during your check-in. The cabin can be anywhere on the ship." Does anyone know any way around this? I have had issues before where certain Costco Travel agents would call the wrong department at Royal that couldn't get group rates. Could this be something like that, or is this worth dropping completely? If so, how do I know which rates on either site (Costco Travel or RC) are available for reprice vs. which are just for new bookings? Thank you!

Never posted here before, but I find this incredibly funny, so thought I would share. My upcoming cruise got "upgraded." :D