FionaMG

It was amazing to see the pyramids, sphinx and the exhibits in the museum up close and in person but it was scary travelling in a convoy with an armed guard and the traders around the pyramids and sphinx were very, very aggressive. If you've ever walked past the market in Labadee, it's that on steroids. I think it's something that's really worth seeing and I'm glad I got the chance but I'm not in a hurry to go back.

Strange that Jenna's links didn't work for you; I was able to open them all. This one is the excursion we did:

We did a cruise on Brilliance - long, long time ago, Easter 2009 - that did the Eastern Med with a port stop in Alexandria. We did a full day excursion to the pyramids at Giza and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Camel + pyramids: The Sphinx: Crossing the Nile in the Cairo rush hour:

That would totally not be worth it to me. I have an obstructed balcony on Odyssey next month and the minimum bid for a JS is $80 pp. I passed. I'm happy with the cabin I have and would rather spend that money on something else. I did however bid slightly over the minimum $100 pp for a shot at a GS as that has a bit more value attached than simply some extra space.

You have to actually book the JS. With Royal Up, you get all the other perks but only the points corresponding to your original cabin type. Sometimes it can we worth paying the difference to upgrade. I've seen people report that the difference in price was the same, less or just a few dollars more than the minimum RU bid.

Funnily enough I have my eye on that exact same cruise and am asking myself that exact same question. We have never been ones to choose expensive real estate on a cruise ship because we are the always-out-and-about type of cruiser and usually just go for the cheapest room with a window. Depending on pricing and ship, that could mean anything from a promenade view interior to an OV balcony but never anything higher than that. However, our adult son will be joining us on this one and I'm thinking the second bathroom may clinch the deal. Even so, there's still quite a big difference in cost between the JS and the ultra-spacious ocean view so I'm really not sure what to do and that money could be put towards our pre-cruise stay in NY. Decisions, decisions...

The problem is that with all the European governments doing their own thing in their own time, the requirements are a moving target. People sailing on Voyager's repositioning cruise from Barcelona to Copenhagen on the 15th of this month only got their protocols a couple of weeks ago, for example, well inside the 30-day period. I sail on the 7th of May from Rome and only received mine 2 days ago. So, no, they haven't been meeting that 30-day deadline for other European ports. All of which means that if the cruise line comes out with protocols too far in advance, things could have changed before the sailing. And they have to abide by what the foreign governments demand of them even if that is not to cruisers' liking. For example, not so very long ago, Brits were on France's orange list and wouldn't have been able to get off the ship there. As far as I know that has now been changed, but if it hadn't, conceivably, on a ship-full of Brits on a 2-night sailing with just one port in France, where most of the passengers wouldn't have been able to get off, perhaps the itinerary would have been changed to somewhere that they could get off. Believe me, I totally understand your frustration. None of this is ideal. I'm sailing from Italy so have to get a test no more than one day before sailing, while others sailing from Spain and Denmark have a two-day window. That's really annoying as it means I can't test before leaving home so, instead, I have to source a test in a foreign country. Let's all keep our collective fingers, legs and eyes crossed that this whole sorry mess will be behind us soon and we can all go back to looking forward to our cruises without the spectre of upheaval looking over our shoulders.

I think @smokeybandit is probably correct. I'm pretty sure Visby and Riga are two of the several alternative ports that the cruise lines scrambled to secure in the wake of the St. Petersburg cancellations. A great many of Voyager's itineraries for summer 2022 included a stop in the Russian port.

Makes sense to have a separate thread since the circumstances are different. My guess is that Royal haven't finalised their protocols for this particular scenario. There's still nothing under Athens in the getting ready to sail page and the one-way in Europe protocols refer only to Spain, so presumably are currently only directed at Voyager's upcoming repo from Barcelona to Copenhagen. You should receive an email when the protocols post but you can just keep checking back on the website too. For your connection in London, the UK is currently operating on a "pre-pandemic status" which means there are no covid protocols in operation at all. Also, if your connecting flights means you will be staying airside you effectively won't even be entering the UK, so you should be good to go on that one. You don't which London airport you're arriving at but I'm guessing it's most likely to be Heathrow, which has several terminals. You can find out how to transfer between terminals (if necessary) here: https://www.heathrow.com/at-the-airport/airport-maps/travel-between-terminals I agree it's definitely a good idea to do an informal test before you leave the States.

In Italy, pharmacies do covid testing. Assuming you're staying overnight before your cruise, contact your hotel and ask them where the nearest ones are. They may even agree to make an appointment for you. Alternatively, if you're travelling to Italy the day before or day of your cruise you could do it in your home town or at the airport before departure. There's no requirement for the test to be done in Italy. It's just the time frame you need to be mindful of.

Have you scrolled through the whole list? There should be an option somewhere that says something like "Not Applicable" and this is the option you want. On most of my previous cruises, this was right at the top before the names of all the different states, but I vaguely remember that on the last two it's been included alphabetically, so it's somewhere around the middle.

Need a combined emoji here, one to sympathise with you for missing out on your bucket list cruise and one to give you the thumbs up for making the proverbial lemonade out of life's lemons! I hope you have an amazing time on Oasis!

You can go to the spa and arrange it with the reception staff. I did this once when sailing with SIL and her daughter asked me to it for her as a surprise. They gave me a card or a print-out of the booking, can't remember exactly what, and an envelope to put it in to give to SIL.

Yes, that's it exactly. It would have required structural changes to physically do away with the smaller restaurants so they just left them as they are. They've changed that now on Odyssey, which now has an open-plan MDR like most of the other ships in the fleet.

It was still a thing until just before the pandemic hit. There was definitely one on our Adventure OTS Thanksgiving cruise in 2019. I remember because it was held in Giovanni's on the night we wanted to eat there, so we had to change our plans because they blocked the whole restaurant off for it.

Royal tried to do that with the original quantum class ships but it got shot down in flames and they gave up on it. My SIL and her daughter experienced it before it disappeared and they really liked it.

I totally get this. All the hoop-jumping is precisely why we decided to stay in Europe this year and put off a much-awaited US trip until next year.

I have walked past it a couple of times on previous stays. The location is great. There were lots of people outside the fence watching guests on the flowrider!

It depends on when you need to test and where you'll be at the time. Someone coming from the UK could test before leaving home, either in their home town or at their departure airport, if they were flying the day before or day of their cruise. Any earlier than that and you'd need to source a test site at the pre-cruise location. Pretty much all airports are still doing testing so a test could be done at an arrival airport. If staying in a pre-cruise hotel, they could undoubtedly help source a test.

You're welcome. I did too. Practically every hour!

That happened to us too for our sailing on 7th May. The times became available about two days later. Just keep checking back.

For those of you who will need to locate a test site in Rome or Civitavecchia, this website shows pharmacies that currently offer testing: https://www.salutelazio.it/elenco-farmacie-che-eseguono-tamponi-antigenici-rapidi Simply zoom in and try and locate some that are close to wherever you're staying. For anyone staying at the airport (e.g. the Hilton), there is testing available at the airport, although they do give priority to departing passengers over arriving ones. https://www.adr.it/web/aeroporti-di-roma-en/test-areas-at-the-airport

Here: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/the-healthy-sail-center/getting-ready-to-cruise?dPort=italy

Android too. Do you have an upcoming cruise that's close enough for excursions to have populated in the daily planner in the app? That's how you get to it. For example, I also have a cruise booked for September and nothing has populated yet so I can't get into the excursions on that one.

Oh, yes, you're right, mine shows a number too, although in my case it's not an 800 number since I'm not in the US.