CruisingOz

16 hours ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Did you check the app?

Thank you guys. I did not know this was a feature of the app. Took me a few minuter=s of playing around. Great feature. Royal should really do an educational feature on their app. 

Glad you enjoyed the cruise, we are so looking forward to our first Oasis class, Symphony cruise. Did you have an issues booking shows and any advice on who to see or where to go when you first board. Is it simply a process via the app? We had a bit of FCC so we splurged to a GS, so I think the concierge could book it. We board Laye January, so I think the capacity would be close to near normal by then and we want to see all the shows. Also, can you see the Aqua show more than once? 

9 hours ago, JimnKathy said:

I always like to give our attendant $20 on the first day

We like to do this as they always seem to appreciate it. For us it is an extension lead, mattress topper, and robes.

Then depending on the wife's mood, either beds together or separated. Ouch, the bride just backhanded me

We are struggling with choosing to bid for RoyalUp on our following cruises. Leaning towards no, but interested in others thoughts.

First time on Freedom, we have an Aft JS, as we like the wake view, and bought the Key, only so we can get on early. I see GS available mid/forward. We are D+, and can not seem to find any real benefit apart form the Suite Lounge should we change to a GS. I think we will stay for the view? Does Freedom offer any extra benefits for a real suite?

First time on Symphony and doing a B2B, we have a GS for both sailing and same room number so we do not need to change for the second leg. I figure we have access to all the extras but would normally not pay for a Star class suite, but the prices to bid seem reasonable. We are trying to work out if the headache of part packing to move cabins is worth the opportunity to try a Star class suite.  

I know a couple of you guys will, without any hesitation say go Star class. Am I right @SpeedNoodles Oh, these first world stresses of what to do?

5 minutes ago, Chili said:

agents are working for nothing ,you have to feel for them.

Agree. TA's are working for nothing. The industry and CLIA need to promote more the fact that TA's do not cost you more to book through them. I booked my cruise and air through an agent who charged a service fee which is not the norm, but happy to pay a small fee for their time and effort. Poor guys spend their days on hold to airlines, travel insurance and cruise companies. My TA seems to spend her week just trying to help me get all my ducks in a row to finally holiday.

When we researched it, north bound, starboard, and south bound, port. In reality, I honest do not think it matters and in the inside passage there are views and possible wildlife sightings on both sides. When doing the glaciers, the ship circles around to cater for both sides. Alaska, is amazing and most of the time will be spending on land. When on the ship, dinner, relax, socialise and sleep to get ready for an action packed day on land. If it bothers you, you can change to the same category. Enjoy  

What an over reaction to a variant health officials actually want people to catch to build herd immunity as the effects are no worse than the common flu. The Prime Minister was on local radio this afternoon saying Governments need to get out of peoples lives and we need to learn to live with Covid and borders should be opened. 

Okay, rant over, I know that Matt H. hate when the focus on the topic moves away from cruising.

Sad day for travellers. I was talking to my TA two days ago about how she was taking bookings for March on P&O and I said to her, she should simply try to extend the deposit period instead of taking money, as our worst fears are now reality.

We will not see Royal until October. If you have the means, Singapore is the go, great country and the cruises look like nice destinations.   

Update. Just checked in for our next leg, four night on the Freedom, and the check-in questions have added an extra question which was not on our first check in. The question was, "are you staying in the US for longer than eight hours" and if yes, need to provide address, city, state and zip (post) code.   

I am unsure if this question comes up for US citizens, and Twangstar may be able to answer this, but what address details should I put for a B2B or S2S as we will be in the US for longer than eight hours, but not staying in a hotel. I assumer I will need to ask the RCB community for the address details of the port / terminal for Symphony and Odyssey for our February cruises.

Also Delta Airlines emailed us today with new travel updates and like Royal needing us to download the Delta app and to fill in all the details, again. 

I wish some IT guru could create a database or even the TSA. CBP, where all our details are kept and we can allow the various entities access to our information. I would even pay a subscription. I have spent so much time online, downloading apps and typing all the same details for my wife and I. What happened to the old days of buying a paper ticket and simply flying off.    

We would also love to hear as we a due to board January 9th. The airfare from Miami was expensive but we were lucky and locked in a rate with Air2Sea, so glad we did as they are so expensive now and we would not have booked the cruise with current airfare prices. 

The Barbados protocols are simplified now. As we are coming out of Australia, we are fully vaccinated, so only researched vaccinated protocols. The for all passengers flying in must have had a RT-PCR test within 72 hours prior and may be selected upon arrival for a rapid antigen test.  Also this 72 hour window will allow you to board the ship. This is an extra day to US based cruises. We are flying in five days earlier, just in case and so we have booked a local test rapid antigen test, $44 USD pp, a couple days prior to boarding. All passengers will be tested at the port by Royal, complimentary, prior to boarding. The Barbados government has an optional app to upload all your test results and details, which you can start 72 hours prior ro entry.   

Hello Chris, I was hoping to meet you but you may be gone when we board the Odyseey 12th Feb, sad. Question, we are Prime but coming from Australia with no opportunity to sail, we need to make up to receive the same perk for next year. We like to play three card poker. Any secret tips, it is okay to say, nobody is reading this, shh

Take care and enjoying insights from a crew perspective. 

We had similiar on our app for the Grandeur until they upgrade IT on the ship to work with the app and they finalised this a couple days before the 45 days and I think it was day 47 when our app changed to show the check in date 

Something new. My TA received an "urgent" email from Royal where we needed to fill out an APIS (Advance Passenger Information S?) form for Royal confirming all the details are correct as per the passport,but also required all the details of where we are staying in the US pre and post cruise. Also, no surprise, the Royal web link provided is not currently working, so we had to email and call Royal Sydney office. 

Details from the form:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REQUIRING YOUR URGENT ATTENION
IF YOU ARE FLYING TO DESTINATIONS OUTSIDE OF AUSTRALIA

AND NEW ZEALAND

Legislation is now in force in the United States, certain countries within the EU including the United Kingdom and
elsewhere which now creates as a mandatory prerequisite for travel the submission of certain details of every passenger
seeking to enter those countries via sea and/or air.
Be advised that based on your travel destination, we are now required to provide certain information relating to you and
your party either directly to those authorities where you are on a cruise only holiday and, if there is an air element, via
the airline we have arranged your travel with.
Attached is a form which records the information we have already obtained from you at the time of booking and also
specifies the additional information we now are required to disclose. Please therefore review the accuracy of the details
we already hold about you and/or your party and further provide the additional information we require within 7 days.
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT YOU CHECK THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION WE ALREADY HOLD ABOUT
YOU AND YOUR PARTY AND PROVIDE THE ADDITIONAL INFORMATION WE REQUIRE WITHIN 7 DAYS OF
THE DATE OF THIS CORRESPONDENCE OTHERWISE YOU RISK BEING REFUSED TRAVEL.

Also nobody from Royal can answer us whether we need the APIS form for the other sailing in the US? Work in progress 

Other issues I have had to deal with.

We used Royal Air2Sea for our flight from Barbados to Miami and despite being paid in full, we have not been issued an E-ticket, but finally managed to get the American Airlines reference number. So we logged onto AA and noticed our 2.35pm flight is now 4.15pm, my wife name was spelt wrong, we had no seat allocated and only a handful of seats left which we need to pay extra for. Had my TA call Royal, they fixed the name, but seats too bad, so sad and they told my TA she is wrong, we are on the 2.35pm flight. I called AA in the US, 30min wait, which is four hours less than the average Qantas wait times, and there is no 2.35pm flight. So TA back onto Royal, and upon checking we were correct and AA did not tell Air2Sea of any changes. Red flags waving and re-checked my Travel Insurance.

We also had transfer via Royal but now the flight is pushed back, we opted to do a shore excursion and airport drop off which was only about $20 more PP. I am a little concerned as shore excursion is from 11am, for 3 hours, so airport at roughly 2.30 for an 4.15pm flight. This is at Barbados airport. It is an Air2Sea and Royal shore excursion but should we be be worried and just leave the ship via cab on own own? I do not fancy sitting around a little airport.

Next trick is if you book American Airline flights through Qantas, either using points or pay, even though AA is part of the OneWorld alliance, AA do not recognise Qantas reference numbers. The other OneWorld airlines like Lantan, Cathy Pacific, Japan, etc all do as I have used them. It took be four phones calls to Qantas with an average waiting time of four hours to finally find an operator who could locate the AA reference number and now I can book seats, add all of our information, contact, frequent flyer numbers and where we are staying the first night.     

Now that the US COVID tests are required within 24 hours of travelling, we have been trying to locate a place to get the right tests and documentation and until the other day, all the placed were charging between $130 -$150 with a next day results. Well my wife and two of our children need tests weekly and go to a local drive through and results come back in 30min at the moment. They asked and they do the travel test, RT-PCR for only $79 pp and results are quick, in fact they have one at the airport where you can go before your flight. Done research and they are exactly what we need. The link is mainly for Sydney and Melbourne travellers. Asp my ;local one, 10 min drive is open 365 days and 5.00am - 8.00pm, perfect. I think that the others I have been recommend charge more as they require a travel agency ID number, so there might be a commission to the TA, whereas this company does not. 

Link: https://www.histopath.com.au/

ESTA and third booster shots done, now survive Christmas and New Year

Radiance is schedued for The Australian 2022 season along with Ovation and Quantum but I doubt we will see her earlier. It would be awesome to have a Royal ship based in Sydney year around like P&O and Carnival and Radiance would be perfect, my us at least, we love her. 

We have booked a shore excusion at Puerto Rico via RC, but now the port has disappeared from the cruise planner shore excursions. It still shows in the full calendar. We are concerned it is no longer going there. Booked on the Grandeur 9th Jan and it uses the older cruise planner. We thought it was weird or simply sold out, but strange.   

20 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

JS a gateway drug.  Be afraid.  Be VERY afraid

@WAAAYTOOOthey are right. We accidentally booked a JS and now the online booking system goes straight to Royal Suite Class. The mouse is possessed 

Air2Sea offer it as an option. It is extra. I would reach out to your travel agent or if booked direct, then call Air2Sea. We have the transfer booked on a couple upcoming legs

The QR code, like the Australian one is recognised by the authorities. You can actually download the App - VDS-NC which the airlines use and hover it over your QR code and it willl show you all your vaccine details. St the bottom of our paperwork reads the following;

We wait until we get on board to book spa. The prices through the cruise planner never seem quite that good and we have found the offerings and specials on the ship to be better. Depending on what you wish to do, they normally have a 10%, 20%, 30% off package for three treatments.  

We are booked on the Freedom, we are Diamond+, bought the UDP, staying in a junior suite, and we're wondering about the benefit of the Key. Being a four day cruise we both get two days of wifi and I can not seem to find any benefit of the Key as we already get lunch on embarkation day, wifi, and seating for shows. Maybe I am missing a benefit, so would love to know. 

We are from Australia and use the same QR code. When I. checkin via the app last week for a US cruise, I used my QR code vaccine certificate and it was pending waiting to be validated by Royal, which I am told is normal, and it was accepted after a couple days.

Ho[e you son heals quickly.

I had a similar issue where an elderly couple accidently knocked me off a ledge at a small waterfall and broke my nose, fingers and a hand. It was and RC excursion and they rook care of everything and did not need to make a claim on my travel insurance. 

We have had similar issues with other cruises recently. The cruise planner will update, it was will take a few days. I think for one of our it took five days to update. It is a typical Royal IT issue which may be worse with your US celebrations

I was speaking to a guy working for Qantas call v=centre who is based in South Africa. He told me that in lock down they are not allowed to buy alcohol as the Government mediated all the bottle shops to be closed. Now that in in-human. Funny story about how many people are getting sill from drinking various concoctions of home brew.

8 hours ago, ChrisK2793 said:

doing the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins

@ChrisK2793Thank you for this suggestion, appreciate it. Did not realise what this excursion was and was going to do a scuba dive at Costa Maya. As this will be our first time and possibly only time, seeing historical sites is more important, so we have booked this excursion. I think we will still do Chichen Itza as it is also unique, and the bus ride will help me sleep off my hangover, lol. Will weight up the value of such a lone travel time.

In my reading of it from an Australian perspective, it is time of the test.