bobroo

It would come as no surprise to me if 10 or 15 Royal ships were decommissioned by the end of the summer.

Just my opinion: if losing online contact with this company brings a big knot in your stomach; you should probably be reevaluating the value in your life you are allowing Royal to have. Jus' say'n

I suspect Vanessa's (Insiders) predicament has resonated through the corner offices in Miami. Therefore there are good reasons (and perhaps correctly) to price those newly opened big rooms sky high. There is also likely a minority saying "that's price gouging, there are marketing problems with that". So they have decided not to make a decision.

I have had thoughts about Royal having an art liquidation auction before they tow the Oasis class ships to some foreign soiled scrapyard. And the prices received being far, far less than what we have been told the art installations onboard are worth. I think Super Mario could pick up that million dollar spinning head on Harmony for just a thousand or two.

Is it not impossible to think that the cold shoulder by the CDC is due the fact that cruisers are notoriously sloppy and lazy? The demographic class of the typical cruise ship passenger is over 60 years old and has known health issues? The reason the CDC has been deliberately silent is because a cruise ship has so many factors making it a pandemic bullseye that at this point in time it's off-the-charts crazy to change behaviors and make them a safe place??? Also, you are aware of what happens if any single person; passenger or crew, enters the medical facility on floor two not feeling well with a respiratory problem? You know the chain of events, right?

Let me ask, you would have no problem with you and your family boarding Enchantment, Vision, Independence, Adventure, or Liberty this weekend from some Florida port? Let’s say sailing an exciting itinerary of Labadee, Colon, Maracaibo, and top it off with a stop in Mobile? Is it of any significance Royal has implemented zero changes In passenger health and safety over the past 3 months? Would you like your cruise to be “business as usual” of Coca Cola freestyle machines, escape rooms, rides on a North Star 300’ in the air, or zip lining, rock climbing, or maybe iFly (as long as the kids wear a helmet)? How about a 50 person hot tub in the afternoon? An inside cabin to keep cost low? You would not bat an eye to doing any of this?

Maybe a good way to avoid all the nonsense it to book last minute only. Meaning, you'l know if two weeks from now the sailing is going to happen. You'll know what the conditions are onboard. And, you'll know how much it is going to cost. I know it's not the way Royal wants us to play the game, but there are just too many variables that negatively affect passengers. Don't be a bag holder.

A couple observations. It should not go unsaid that the majority of work TAs are doing today is for free. TAs do not get paid to Lift and Shift. TAs don't get paid to fight for refunds. TAs certainly don't get paid by the hour while they are on hold. We, as advanced cruisers, should be the adult in the room. Even though it is not required, if you've used your TA to save your bacon recently I think an envelope with a thank you and a gift card to your TAs local grocery store is absolutely in order. There is no such thing as "free". Royal Caribbean frequently makes foot faults but this Allure situation is different. This is directly throwing passengers under the bus. Add in the "Oh yeah, newsflash; in case you didn't notice Allure is not being amped" The sun rises the next day. "Up, up, up, up, hang on......yeah we already contracted and may have even paid for design work, engineering, and contractors to make fancy, colorful additions so.....we are just going to implement them at a later date. But you shouldn't like Allure any less." My take is that these two events show a lack of caring and frustration at the Miami headquarters. A lack of a plan and a lack of leadership. It is of the first "pain" passengers are going to feel because of the financial situation. Your red flag meter should be going crazy. I've said long ago that hospitality has left the cruise industry. I'm fearful that going forward, a dishrag might make a better host. We should be seeing another TA video from Richard Fain soon, I am hoping for some WOW!, not what's sitting in my kitchen sink.

There's a reason only part of the screen is shown in the original image because if you saw the remainder it would totally discredit what you want this list to mean. Officers on board Royal Caribbean ships have have "leaked" exactly ZERO information over the past 20 years. Sorry guys, Royal Caribbean is in no way shape or form ready to resume business anytime soon and is no closer to sailing today than it was last March. It would come as no surprise to me if the actual source were some spreadsheet from a company that is contracted to recalibrate GPS guidance systems or something similar.

Oh, and hey ladies! Please don't read this part....guys only. Guys...you gotta know of those eight people, there is one man who gets nothing but grief every day from his wife that they bought that el cheapo inside cabin on deck 2. Ya' know she's look'in around and seeing all those empty cabins with whirlpools and special soaps and balconies with binoculars on 'em and door bells and she is making her husband pay for making such a bad decision. Poor guy.

If you are one of these eight people, what kind of tip do you leave on the dresser in your stateroom???? https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/artania-cruise-ship-docks/index.html I mean, yeah over the past 4 months you've 'prolly gotten good at guessing the price of the Peter Max and now know all dance steps to every 70's night song. Hell, they might have even taking turns dressing up as the indian. But....on the other hand the cruise line almost nearly killed you....or worse. So, what kind of tip do you leave behind???? On the other hand, how do you bring all those fancy, flashing light cups home; 'cause it's like A LOT of 'dem.

In all the recent events, I don't remember an announcement of Rhapsody being retired. https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1997/cruise-ship-2417-passengers-stock-no-s2509-3024096/ The asking price of $85M is really cheap; and I bet you could buy it for a whole lot less than that today.

Allow me to throw out this suggestion, release deployment schedules and allow bookings that are ambiguous. Let me explain: Anthem of the Seas 7 night cruise departs from Tampa June 15, 2023 Use standard pricing: Inside cabins are $175 a night, Porthole are $200 a night, Balconies are $275, etc. etc. Sell the benefits of the ship and all the activities that offers, the itinerary? That'll be announced at some point in the future. Many people would be happy to put deposits down for future sailings with unknown itineraries, particularly marquee ships like Anthem, Harmony, and Odyssey.

Wow, knock me over with a feather!!!! Guidance, leadership, taking initiative, creating an acceptable path forward, being a role model......I think American Queen and their fleet of riverboats are going to be very successful and be the first to return back to a profitable enterprise. Meanwhile, judging from Richards Fain's MSNBC interview; Royal Caribbean's plan is to just sit idle "until they tell us what we have to do". No commitment to resume cruising. Then there is the laughing at getting employees back home <shakes head, very disappointed> Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1Q of 2021.

The short answer is: That is just how short on cash Royal is and by giving obscure partial payments greatly reduces if not eliminates the legal footing a canceled passenger might bring in civil court. The long answer: All the accessible loan money probably has covenants stating that it can not be used for refunding customers. This actually makes a lot of sense, you just have to view it from the point of the bank. In commercial paper the strings attached are called covenants. Examples of covenants might be executives can not create a golden parachute for themselves with the funds, no stock buy backs, or the money can only be used for maintaining fixed assets because if this all goes down the toilet, the bank can make a legal claim against the title of those fixed assets. The bank can't make a legal claim against customers who received a refund. I'm guessing that the billions of available loans are not able to be used for this purpose. So customers desiring a refund need to be paid from cash from three main sources: cash previously on hand, cash from new cruise sales, or cash from newly sold (treasury shares) shares of stock. Common sense tells me those aren't the most robust streams of income today and with a large company like Royal there are likely a lot of other expenses and contracts contending for that pool of money. How the CFO prioritizes which squeaky wheel gets grease? This is triage. It's a day by day basis of fixing that days most urgent needs. Every workday is a nightmare and there is no end in sight. Oh, and they already spent all that cash on hand left over from last year. So there are a bunch of customers Royal rightfully owes money to. There is some cash to pay them, but not all of them in their entirety. So they drag their feet, postponing the payment of any money. The make no promises of payment but a lot of innuendo. They look for any reason to reduce those payments. And then they begin to give payments in random amounts, no certain percentage, no per diem, otherwise no recognizable methodology. Therefore it looks like a cumbersome system, Royal is just being Royal, and the IT department is now working in accounting. And customers just feel shortchanged, not out and out ripped off. And, if this were to really go down the toilet; the legal standing of a partially refunded customer is much, much weaker as to one who received nothing. And as a potential class action case of partially refunded customers, their amounts are all over the place and it's a hard to figure out because you can't just say this cruise contract was unpaid, you have to subtract a couple random amounts to come up with the unpaid balance. It's a purposeful mess. Got it?