Kelaine

Translation:
Hello
We will be 2 days stopover in St Petersburg with Brilliance of the seas beginning of June. My agency phoned me this morning asking me if I had asked for my visa to enter Russia. On the forums, some say that if you take the excursions with the cruise line we do not need a visa. Can you tell me your experience. 
Thanks in advance.
Françoise 
Second message
Thank you for this clarification, no problem for translation.
This is what I had read during my research on the Internet but my travel agency told me that it was absolutely necessary to have a visa.
Your opinion comforts me in my positions.
Kind regards.

Last week we were on Rhapsody, and on the very last day I mentioned to my wife that I'd like to go to Cuba.  She grabbed me by the ear and two minutes later we were at the NextCruise desk booking a 5 day on Majesty in July while the kids are at camp!
I tend to hyper-analyze and mentally debate every single purchase I make, so this was definitely a YOLO impulse moment. 
Ours is a 11am overnight to 5:30am stop, so I'm hoping not to get into too much trouble at 3am in Havana.... ;)

Ok, so I just got off allure on March 31 and was not happy the Chicago forecast predicted snow this week.  That might have had something to do with it!  Or....I was feeling guilty that my daughter was graduating from university of Illinois and I didn’t go to mom’s weekend!  Or....I was still not 100 days til we head to Barcelona and board our first European cruise!   Or it might have been the excitement of finally making platinum but I totally flipped and decided to give my daughter the choice of a trip for her graduation.  And she picked a cruise!  And in searching I realized that the 4 day cruise to Havana and key west was pretty much the same as the 5 day to Cozumel.  Within 24 hours of coming up with this crazy idea, we booked it with my husband’s blessing...which was nice because he will be teaching summer school to pay for the other summer cruise.  So in 66 days, my 22 year old, my 16 year old and I will be boarding majesty!  With this cruise I will have been on 5 different classes and to 11 different ports.  I never thought when I booked my first cruise in 2015 that I would take more cruises in 4 years than trips to Disney!   My obsessions still war (someday Disney cruise) but I have to say that 4 cruises in a 13 month period will make all those long hours of babysitting worth it!  And I must say, this blog might encourage my yolo book it tendencies a bit too much.  I will need lots of advice on where to go in key west and Havana!   Jane

I'll definitely keep you posted! My daughter is 13, so technically she is an "adult". I wish they would have let me purchase two at the time, I practically begged them to take my money ?

You never know.  People cancel cruises all the time, even on short notice.  Stuff happens.  With 3,000 or more guests on board it happens quite often.  
If a last minute cancellation occurs Royal Up can suddenly come to life and award an upgrade.

I'm 4 days to sail and just got an acceptance! Yay- upgrade to Owner's Suite. I'm so happy we'll have extra room. (4 people in any cabin always feels like a lot)

Texts will still come through - but in most cases they're not terrifically expensive to receive (depends on the carrier obviously).  Random fact - texts/SMS messages actually ride on the packets of info that your phone and the tower use to check in on each other.  That is to say, the idea that carriers ever got away charging for texts is nuts, as it requires no overhead on their part.  The text info is smaller than the packets going back and forth - much like sticking a coin in an envelope - the stamp doesn't get more expensive as whatever you can fit in travels.  Nerd-rambling complete. :-)

... but you know RC is smart enough to price the packages so we will decide to go to next higher package... ?
In my case, at this time, the refreshment package is $20 a day... the DBP is $46 (and likely will drop again before sail date)... So just 2 alcoholic drinks a day would justify a jump to the DBP IF you are on the fence between these two packages.
However, in the past, my wife and I used to only purchase the soda package ($10) and buy the drinks and specialty coffees a la carte (not huge drinkers normally)... in that scenario the DBP is definitely not worth the jump. This upcoming cruise we've purchased the DBP partially due to the folks we're travelling with (and a full day in Labadee)! 
I also like the freedom the drink package gives us in that I can try new drinks without worrying that I will not like them and feel that I've wasted my money.

You buy it for the duration and by the night, which is what your cruise is sold as anyway.  You can purchase it on the ship after a day or two and save those days, but since you will almost certainly find it at a discount online before the cruise you will rarely save money by skipping a day or two on the ship and buying at full price (exception is if you are Diamond level and get a discount when purchasing onboard).
Don't look at it as days or anything else, just calculate your total cost for the package.  Then figure out whether you would get any other package if you don't get the Deluxe package and deduct the cost of that (example: if I don't get the Deluxe then I would get the Soda, so I would figure out how much more I'm spending and use that figure in the next part).  Then figure out if you would get enough alcoholic beverages/premium coffee/fresh squeezed OJ/bottled water, etc over your entire cruise to make that worth it.  Typically it comes out to 3-4 mixed drinks with nothing else, but beer is usually cheaper than that but then also non-alcoholic drinks do add up.  For my wife and I on any given day we would often get enough OJ, coffee, and bottled water alone to make it nearly worth it, and then enough alcoholic drinks to also make it worth it by themselves.  So for us on a 5-day cruise without the child it was no question a good purchase.
That said, on a longer cruise drink fatigue is a real consideration.  As is a port extensive itinerary (sea days and private island visits are catch-up days).  For me having our child with us would decrease the drinking a bit at least, so something to consider.  Start with the most basic math and figure out how many drinks over the entire cruise would make the package "worth it" and go from there.  The fixed cost and the ability to try new things without paying extra is also worth something to many people, so even if you don't know if you will come out ahead you might find it worthwhile in other ways.
Finally, you can get plenty of use out of the package on embarkation day and I got a coffee on debarkation day morning.  If you want to get a dozen coffees before going through customs you can, but they might wonder why you seem so nervous and pick you for enhanced screening ?

Congratulations !  The OS is incredible.  SO much space and full dining tables inside and out.  Plus - a bidet !!!  Woot !!

I'm 4 days to sail and just got an acceptance! Yay- upgrade to Owner's Suite. I'm so happy we'll have extra room. (4 people in any cabin always feels like a lot)

I'm 4 days to sail and just got an acceptance! Yay- upgrade to Owner's Suite. I'm so happy we'll have extra room. (4 people in any cabin always feels like a lot)

I'm 4 days to sail and just got an acceptance! Yay- upgrade to Owner's Suite. I'm so happy we'll have extra room. (4 people in any cabin always feels like a lot)

I'm 4 days to sail and just got an acceptance! Yay- upgrade to Owner's Suite. I'm so happy we'll have extra room. (4 people in any cabin always feels like a lot)

Honestly, between ships and categories I've seen such drastically different minimums and maximums that I can't recommend any specific bids. The best thing to do is see what it would cost you to pay outright for an upgrade, if you're cool with that then do it! Otherwise, bid an amount less than what it would cost you to upgrade that you're comfortable with and see what happens. Remember that your bid is for 2 people! If you bid $100 you'll be charged $200.
I like to bid amounts slightly above "round" numbers (110 instead of 100 for example) just because I think it improves my odds!

I have received "rejection" emails around noon the day before sailing.  

If only that was true for the Airline market, they just seem to unofficially collude on everything to make options worse for consumers at each turn. 

Looks like Mother Nature isn't done messing with me.  

It's a comfortable 72° right now with up to 4 to 8 inches of snow possible tomorrow.  

 
I'm supposed to be on a cruise right now...
 

Oasis is unfortunate and disappointing but what can you do?
Losing 52 C&A points this year is a hard pill to swallow.  
Hopefully my bad luck is over, or else those fellow guests on my next cruise have no idea what they are in for ?   

No proof required other than that check box, not yet anyways.  I'm not sure what power an insurance company has to inquire of my travel agency or carrier "Did this guest seek a refund?".  I did have to supply the phone number of my travel agency.  
When I told my travel agent I am calling because my insurance says I have to even though we both know I won't get a refund she seemed to spring into action and placed me on hold while she called Royal to have it all noted properly in the systems.  She didn't object or try to evade the request.  

In my case hoping to find an alternate flight to a nearby airport and driving was not a solution right from the start.  
On this day all airlines with inbound flights to Houston appeared to divert to Austin.  Austin is roughly a 3 1/2 hour drive to Galveston in good weather.  With flooding roads (known feature of the Houston area) or simply driving in torrential rain or hail let's forget that for the moment and say you could do the drive in 3 1/2 hours.  Renting a car requires time beyond driving it.  Deplaning, walking the terminal to the car rental company, standing in line, finding your car, then the reverse in Galveston - this adds an hour.  
Working backwards from a 4pm departure you have to be checked in 90 minutes prior or 2:30pm. Take 4 1/2 hours off for the car rental and drive time.  Now you are at 10am.  That's the time you have to be pulling up to a gate at the Austin airport.  It's is a 2 hour flight from Denver to Austin with a 1 hour time change working against me.  If I could board a flight at 7am mountain time it would arrive at 10am central time.  A 7am flight boards at 6:30am, assuming there was actually a 7am flight with availability scheduled.  At 6:30am I was already on board my Houston bound flight thinking I was on time. Not to mention the topic of checked bags and wait times for receiving them.  Driving in a hailstorm is no picnic either.  
These were all the calculations that I played out as I looked to find an alternate.  
No one offers a 7am departure to Austin on Sunday.  Southwest did have a 5:45am flight to Austin.  Had I known that Houston airports were going to be the subject of a ground halt before that ground halt was ordered, I could have taken action but even then I don't know if I'd want to drive in a projected hail storm and deal with rental car damage.  That would involve a different insurance claim.  
I've used Air2Sea before and it does offer an "Assured Arrival"  guarantee like a form of insurance.   They would have have been responsible to fly me to Cozumel.   For domestic flights Air2Sea often costs more but you do get some benefits for that increased cost.  It's a good point for people to consider about Air2Sea.    I last used Air2Sea for a red eye flight to reach Empress on the day of cruise.  Knowing Air2Sea would be there in case of an airline or weather delay certainly has value.  

That's three items. Bad luck always comes in threes. By spurious logic, I declare your bad cruise luck to be officially done. ?
Seriously, though -- Sorry to hear you had to miss this cruise right after those two other cancellations. Hopefully the insurance claim will go through without any hassles or appeals needed and you can just look ahead to your next sailing.

When you choose this route the insurance company will cover flights to do so up to a finite amount.  The routing and options to reach Cozumel on 1 day notice were not inexpensive and involved a very long day of travel.  
When they cancel the flight it cancels both legs including the return.  That would mean I would also have to file a claim for the cost of a last minute flight home which is another flight at a higher cost.  I would also need a hotel, (booked at the last minute) meals and taxis in Cozumel for a night.  I would approach or exceed my coverage limit for this type of trip coverage.  
The cost of the cruise isn't reimbursed and it doesn't change in this scenario.  A $2,000 cruise for 7 nights becomes a $2,000 cruise for 5 nights.  On a nightly basis that means you are paying significantly more for the 5 night cruise. 
Airfare was refunded since they cancelled the flight.  This makes those funds available for future use.
Combine all points and assuming I am reimbursed for my cruise fare, for the same money of airfare and cruise fare I can take a future 7 night cruise and enjoy all 7 nights without paying for nights on the ship where I can't enjoy all the things offered on the ship including shows, food and Diamond happy hour drinks.

-added back- Suprising you didn't throw the dice and go the trip interruption route. Got until Tue sday to catch the ship in Cozumel or Wednesday for Grand Cayman.
Also a word or warning about the limits on the annual policy for trip cancellation. The limit is for the year of coverage. Any claims will reduce the available amount towards future claims for the year. Might want discuss with the provider if buying a new policy would effectively reset the coverage and maintain coverage for current bookings.

It's short ride on a truck up the hill, 3-4 minutes.  I wouldn't be concerned about it.  RCI employs several hundred locals.  This little corner of Haiti prospers because of Labadee.  I wouldn't visit anywhere else in the country but wouldn't anticipate any issues there.