Zambia-Zaire

That's very interesting....NCL is one of the smallest of the Major Cruise Line Corps; so, in many ways, they were probably the most likely to be the 1st, to leverage some of their holdings. I remember reading sometime ago, around 5 or 6 yrs ago, why NCL pull back on continue developing of the Epic class of ship...they were not happy with that class. I suspect the Epic was their largest holding, that they could leverage, that they was more than willing, to gamble & possible loose.
I would have been completely surprise if Royal had take such a move...even with one of their most least profitable or older holding, outside of Empress, Majesty, & Enchantment, or some combination there of. Royal, Imho, no doubt, is in the best position to weather this storm...which in some ways is still surprising, they would expand/increase their loans by another $550Mil. Those guys are very business savvy & have a pretty sound assessment, of their strength and position in the market. This move maybe more about staying ahead of the curve, moving forward(futures market), than something more presently dire. 

I like the RCCL business model, and do invest for long term, I'm not a trader. The balance sheet is strong, and yes I believe in the investment, don't do it for the measly OBC. I appreciate your input though, but JP Morgan analyst today Joseph Greff stated he believes RCCL was best positioned to weather this storm, thus best positioned to out perform coming out on the other side. I'm going with my gut here as even he says they don't see liquidity being a major risk. He rates the stock as overweight with a price target of $155.00 , this on Market watch today. 
Simply put I believe in the product and can't sail enough! Have a great one!

Exactly....that's the biggest concern out of them all, with the group I'm cruising with.

I like & appreciate your assessment...I try to attain as much factional & real number/ratio as possible myself. I have stated a little time ago, in one if these thread, the reason why I'm torn between the official report from many of these media outlets(whom just regurgitate what other outlet spit out) versus leak information that is unverified or not being reported. So yes, I do appreciate your assessment.
 
With that said...and I state again...until we get real/true numbers from China...I suspect things are much worse. There is a reason, imho, why China sought the need close down 60+ million people, so quickly, 3 major cities & adjacent areas, as those quarantine areas steady has been increasing...given the known viral research/medical/military facilities in that area....and now we have Northern Italy doing the same. We don't know the real numbers of infection to fatality ratio in China, other than what state media release to the world. I have qualms with accuracy & forthcoming with China on such things.
 
This virus is very contagious...that doesn't mean it very dangerous/deadly...just that it easily spread. This is where we need to take some responsibility & caution ourselves, on individual basis. Some number of people are infected, whom don't know they are carriers, propagating the rate of infections, because of lack of understanding how reduce one's risk or being very apathetic. That is my level of concern...nothing to do with the media...I see what what happening & quite capable of assessing steps I need to take, in safeguarding myself & family/friends. I have two cruises coming up, on each side of Royal new "cruise with confidence" cancellation policy.
 
As the official numbers stand to, minus real numbers from China...no, it does not look as deadly as the media makes it out to be. I'm personally don't like the real possibility of being stuck quarantine on a ship...that is an unnecessary inconvenience that I don't have to place myself into...a terrible situation to be in, when one could just wait it out, let things subside, & resume from there. So yes, I am closely monitoring both the airline & cruise industry & reported case in those areas. Not as concern about an outbreak at some office/business that I don't frequent, so nursing home, I dont visit, or hotel or city I'm not going to presently. I can't say that about air travel & cruising; because, those area will directly affect me, if a situation arises when I am abroad somewhere.
 

I like & appreciate your assessment...I try to attain as much factional & real number/ratio as possible myself. I have stated a little time ago, in one if these thread, the reason why I'm torn between the official report from many of these media outlets(whom just regurgitate what other outlet spit out) versus leak information that is unverified or not being reported. So yes, I do appreciate your assessment.
 
With that said...and I state again...until we get real/true numbers from China...I suspect things are much worse. There is a reason, imho, why China sought the need close down 60+ million people, so quickly, 3 major cities & adjacent areas, as those quarantine areas steady has been increasing...given the known viral research/medical/military facilities in that area....and now we have Northern Italy doing the same. We don't know the real numbers of infection to fatality ratio in China, other than what state media release to the world. I have qualms with accuracy & forthcoming with China on such things.
 
This virus is very contagious...that doesn't mean it very dangerous/deadly...just that it easily spread. This is where we need to take some responsibility & caution ourselves, on individual basis. Some number of people are infected, whom don't know they are carriers, propagating the rate of infections, because of lack of understanding how reduce one's risk or being very apathetic. That is my level of concern...nothing to do with the media...I see what what happening & quite capable of assessing steps I need to take, in safeguarding myself & family/friends. I have two cruises coming up, on each side of Royal new "cruise with confidence" cancellation policy.
 
As the official numbers stand to, minus real numbers from China...no, it does not look as deadly as the media makes it out to be. I'm personally don't like the real possibility of being stuck quarantine on a ship...that is an unnecessary inconvenience that I don't have to place myself into...a terrible situation to be in, when one could just wait it out, let things subside, & resume from there. So yes, I am closely monitoring both the airline & cruise industry & reported case in those areas. Not as concern about an outbreak at some office/business that I don't frequent, so nursing home, I dont visit, or hotel or city I'm not going to presently. I can't say that about air travel & cruising; because, those area will directly affect me, if a situation arises when I am abroad somewhere.
 

One issue that seem to be occurring, is the number of people who don't know they are infected, until some number of days later...which could occur after one boards a ship or aircraft, as has been occurring, apparently, already.

Consider the source.

Passengers bare just as much responsibility, lets not forget that

Passengers bare just as much responsibility, lets not forget that

Would like to see Royal purchase & develop an area south of Tampico, Mexico as a Private Cruise Resort destination, similar to Labadee, for the Western Caribbean; and, maybe/also work with other cruise lines, in conjunction with Corpus Christi city & county council, & state of Texas, in developing a market/entertainment district that smaller cruise ships(up to Liberty Class at least, if not larger) can port to as well, creating new itineraries, in the Western Caribbean. The Eastern Caribbean is saturated & ever expanding...there is a chance to look for opportunities in the Western Caribbean.

Would like to see Royal purchase & develop an area south of Tampico, Mexico as a Private Cruise Resort destination, similar to Labadee, for the Western Caribbean; and, maybe/also work with other cruise lines, in conjunction with Corpus Christi city & county council, & state of Texas, in developing a market/entertainment district that smaller cruise ships(up to Liberty Class at least, if not larger) can port to as well, creating new itineraries, in the Western Caribbean. The Eastern Caribbean is saturated & ever expanding...there is a chance to look for opportunities in the Western Caribbean.

One issue that seem to be occurring, is the number of people who don't know they are infected, until some number of days later...which could occur after one boards a ship or aircraft, as has been occurring, apparently, already.

Not sure I follow...how am I extrapolating false information, when Dr. Tarling himself explain the reasoning behind pumping in fresh air versus just recycling air. Out of caution yes, because of their understanding of possible modes of transmitting...they didn't just reach that particular conclusion out of thin air...no pun intended. They obviously realize some of the methods employed may not have been fully adequate & made proper adjustments as the proceed along. The increase volume of fresh air ventilation is just one of those adjustment they made, that he stated they didn't employ initially; so, not sure why you feel I'm extrapolating anything from what he said.

The Ships ventilation system is a major source of concern, as one of a number, of possible mechanism of spread of the virus, on the ship, imo….it is although filtered, recycled air. The maximizing of fresh air possibly help; but, the amount of particles the filter capture is very important.
 
 

At this point, I don't think we can just dismiss the risks associated with the coronavirus and cruising.  This is not to minimize the risks involved with the flu but it has not impacted cruising like the coronavirus has.  What cruise ship has been denied disembarkation in five countries because of the flu?  What cruise ship has involved the "extraction" of citizens of Canada and the US in chartered flights because of the flu?  Has there been a cruise ship in recent history that has had a "Yokohama" situation?  For the coronavirus, the list of cruise ships being affected is growing - the Costa Smeralda, the Westerdam, the Diamond Princess, the Anthem... whether they were overkills and false alarms, who would want to be on the next ship to be added to that list?

My Review of Liberty of the Seas
Quick background info. This is my 6th or 7th Cruise, all but 1 was with Royal. The other was with Norwegian. We live in Washington state and my whole family loves cruising and usually love most things about Royal.
Gonna hit a few of the details that I think would be useful to someone traveling with kids, if ya don't mind.
Ok so we picked this cruise because we were looking to spend a little less this time around. Airfare is a large portion of our cost so flying to a closer location brought this number down on airfare. That was the reasoning, but it didn't really work out that well. There is a much longer distance to travel from the airport to the cruise port so the money we saved on airfare we spend on ground transportation.  Getting a shuttle or other ground transport was similar to the price to rent a car for a week, so we opted for the convenience of a car rental. We have a young family and we needed 2 carseats, but didn't want to carry more junk on the plane so we just bought a new booster and booster with back from walmart(4 miles from houston airport). We had to drive a few miles without the proper seats for the kids but it only cost about $52 for the 2 carseats and the car rental company would have charged about $250. All said and done it ended up being a wash, but atleast the flight was a couple hours shorter which is nice especially when traveling with small children.
The other cost we thought about was the Cruise itself, which is cheaper to sail on a little older ship to the western caribbean out of Texas. The ship looked pretty good and we were very happy with the pool, kids waterplay area & waterslides. I did not feel like it was a ship in need of an amplification on the pool deck, although i'm very interested to see it's upcoming changes. The Galveston cruise terminal on the other hand could use some upgrades(yes I know they are coming). Embarkation was really easy, but we arrived at the cruise terminal by 9:30(yea that's super early). It looked like the design of the transportation drop off and porter set up was not ideal and had we shown up during peek time I bet it would be a madhouse. Disembarkation was slow and the ground transportation a mess.
MDR service was FANTASTIC as it usually is, and the Windjammer was a chaotic disaster as usual. After the first couple days we avoided the windjammer like the plague. I think the Windjammer food is usually decent, it is just so stressful to eat there. Although this time I thought it lacked a variety of edible food. Day 2 it seemed like everything in the entire buffet was cooked in Fish oil. Wasn't impressed all around. DISCLAIMER - a lot of this feeling comes from eating there with 3 small children, it isn't nearly as bad when it's just the Wife and i. 
The main thing Liberty should get in an amplification is food venues. If you miss the dining room hours for breakfast and lunch there is only the EVIL Windjammer or Sorrento's pizza. I thought the pizza was very good, but it's basically the only thing we ate if we missed the main dining room. No I didn't forget about the Promenade Cafe, they don't have food that anyone actually eats. Just a couple of doughnuts and a salmon bagel sandwhich for breakfast.
In general the customer service was very good on the Liberty, but Adventure Ocean staff this time around wasn't very good. Usually we love Adventure Ocean, but this particular staff just didn't seem as good. The kids didn't want to spend much time there as they usually do either. That brings me to the 2nd most important thing Liberty should get in dry dock... Adventure Ocean remodel.
Ice show was good, but it fell short after seeing the FANTASTICALLY AMAZING show on Mariner last year.
Singers and Dancers were not very good on this sailing. The comedian was the worst I've ever seen.
The comedian juggler was great and we Loved the Piano Lounge Singer in the Schooner Bar.
Cruise director Cory was decent and we enjoyed to trivia and games.
Casino was a casino. I gambled for a few hours on a few nights and ended up ahead $100.   Smoke drifted quite a ways, a better ventilation(or no more smoking) could definitely be nice. Also, I'm so over smoking on the pool deck. Sorry to all you smokers out there, but they should restrict smoking to an area far away from the crowds. On sea days a lot of time the only seats open were on the smoking side.
Post cruise we had time to kill so we took the kids to Pleasure Pier for a few hours. This is a small amusement park on a pier over the ocean, It was small but it was mighty. I thought it was gonna be like a parking lot carnival with sketchy rides, but I was really impressed at the quality of the rides.They are built in quality rides, not the tractor trailer death trap style. There isn't a lot of rides but it's a great way to kill a few hours. Best part is my 8 and 12 yr olds could go on every ride and they had 6 or 7 little kiddie rides as well that my 3 year old enjoyed.
I honestly wasn't that excited about the Western Caribbean itinerary(probably because of rumors) but we ended up really enjoying all 3 ports (cozumel, grand cayman, falmouth). 
Overall we had a great time, and anytime I'm on a cruise it's better than when I'm at home working. I did feel like the Liberty had the crappy leftovers as far as shows and performers go. It was interesting to see Texas and Galveston and I'm glad we sailed from this port once. I think once is enough though, we'll keep our Caribbean sailing out of Florida from now on.
We have Oasis OTS  scheduled for next Thanksgiving(this sailing is priced very reasonably!) I would have liked to do the Group cruise on Harmony that same week, but the price was just so much higher. Hopefully the wife and I can leave the kids behind and sneak off just the 2 of us to an Alaskan cruise between now and our Oasis cruise. I hope this is useful to someone. Happy cruising!
~J~

I know that a few posters just before my response were in favor of taking this ship out of NOLA.  I just returned from a sailing on her, Majesty last week, also know I personally do not prefer the big Oasis class ships.  I will give my opinions, starting with, I have sailed from NOLA 6 times now, although the other 5 were on a carnival ship. 
Lets start with a few positives, the service is definitely up to Royal standards, all staff are pleasant and willing to help.  The food was good, maybe even some of the best I have had on 20+ Royal cruises in both the MDR and Windjammer.  Decent itinerary, that included Key West and CoCo Cay (interestingly on our sailing we were the only ship there)
First at this time Majesty is moving from doing 4 or 5 day sailings to 7 day cruises and experiencing a new home port.   This presents some noticeable adjustment for the crew, that should hopefully should work itself out over time.  The terminal Royal uses does not have a very large waiting area and the traffic flow for both people and cars is not the best.  There definitely seems to be a longer time from actual docking / tied up to actual release of passengers than on any other ship I've experienced (this could be attributed to new home port) 
There is no adult only area.  The rooms no mater what category, are much smaller than normal.  There is no specialty restaurant at all, if that's your thing.  Almost all bars have daytime activities ie trivia, next cruise event, that make for very little quite space during the day.  The centrum design makes it difficult to find somewhere to sit and listen music played there. 
The big screen on deck is of very poor quality, most noticeable if watching a movie, in addition not a lot of clear views of it (this is also a problem on a lot of Royal ships, but most noticeable on this one)  the best viewing are has been taken over by the smoking sections.  By the way the smoking sections are not clearly delineated on open decks and seem to expand more so than on other ships of the fleet.
The ships movement is very much more noticeable, so much so that some long time cruisers experienced motion sickness.   The ships ability to attain a higher top cruising speed is not there due to size and age of ship (this affects the ability to make up for lost time due to either delays or rough seas). 
Finally, if your are interested in the diamond lounge, there is not one and the old use of the Viking Crown has definitely ended.  You can get specialty coffee only at the Diamond and above breakfast in the MDR in the mornings, but you must ask to be seated in the section if you qualify.
Just our/my opinions above, and although we like to sail out of NOLA, once was enough on this particular ship.  Again just our opinion the slight cost advantage does not offset the many disadvantages.

We will be on the March 15th sailing of the Oasis.  This will be my first cruise and I am so excited.  I'm curious if RC still uses plastic straws or will I need to being my own if I do not want to use a paper one.  I just dont like the paper straw feeling in my mouth.  

Without the Rum...that's exactly what it is. I make Mudslides all the time...usually put 3 shots of rum in it. Sometimes 4 shots...when I'm feeling it.
 
@MikeS...I saw a list in one of these threads sometime ago; so, I know someone has a nearly complete list. Neitherless...they're just virgin cocktails. I'm sure if you asked a bartender, they would recommend a good virgin(mocktail) cocktail that is worth getting.

I'm just basing my speculation off the app overlap for Quantum that Twangster posted about. And maybe a little wishful thinking. Five day runs out of Los Angeles to Catalina and Ensenada over Spring Break at a REALLY good price might work into my plans very well.

That last statement by Fain is telling...that may be common across the cruise industry as a whole, given financial reports of household disposable capital has been trending downward.

https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/02/14/royal-caribbean-issues-update-coronavirus-outbreak
If they are forced to remain out of Asia through April they can't have their ships empty that long.  They will move them somewhere and try to recover some money through cheap cruises and casino comps.  

I was thinking about that.  It's possible they did Quantum in her dry dock.  I doubt that but it's possible.
There are also exceptions made on some basis.  If a ship isn't permanently home ported for example.  Millennium is supposed to be coming to CA for first responder cruises.  Was they adapted to accept shore power?
 
It's an evolving situation changing by the day.   The news of the Westerdam passenger debarking with CV this weekend will cause a ripple effect and possibly more changes by the time Monday is here.  Royal has already warned the stock markets of what impact would be if they have to remain out of Asia through April so they are looking at this carefully with an understanding that it's a fluid situation.  If more Asian ports close to cruise ships that could force Royal into action.  

Just patiently (Somewhat not really patiently haha) waiting for the west coast schedule to post for bookings ...... 

https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/22213-los-angeles-plans-two-new-cruise-terminals.html
5000 passengers....obviously referring to an Oasis Class ship. Would be nice...but no other ports on the West Coast or Mexican Riviera can handle that size. So unless Royal is working with the Port as well as other ports down the line...there would be tendering galore at every destination, if something like this comes to fruition.
 
Neitherless, would be nice.....