CrznTxn

Less desirable location is a relative term. As long as I am on the ship there is no undesirable location.

I think the negotiations with CDC as to how soon the crew will be @ 98% is ongoing for the cruise lines to announce firm sailing dates. The sooner the better for me. I'm not giving up hope for my July 4th cruise since the crew was in Miami yesterday getting their vaccines.That gives a three week buffer from their 2nd shot 2 week waiting period and sailing date.

Carnival is supposed to start in August with 8 ships, 5 out of Florida and 3 out of Galveston according to the news report forwarded to my wife. IMG_4285.mov

Have Liberty in July. Hoping they can work out the logistics so we can go on the 4th. Watching the live feed from one of the YouTube Vlogs showing the two Carnival ships coming in now. Even though they are not RCCL it is a great day to see cruise ship arriving for the first time in over a year in port!

Will probably do one CoCo Cay excursion for the two day visit and just use the other day for recovery. Did notice that the Cozumel excursions are very limited compared to other ships and sailings.

Booked this one in the middle of the Adventure sailings. Gave us another after our July 4th Liberty booking that probably will not happen. So looking forward to being on the ocean again!

We have one of those October 31 cruises and would hope if the magic date is November 1 that Royal would delay the cruise for one day to allow is to go and for them to gain revenue. However, I would not hold my breath.

We purchased Excursions for our cruises later this year at the end of last year and beginning of this year when the pricing was very low. In part I believe the low price was an enticement to lay down some money for RCCL to hold. Now we have booked one for August out of Nassau and am waiting for the pricing cycle to hit the lower side. Even that said, we have noticed that the bottom end cost for the excursions has crept upward which may be due to the possibility that we will get to cruise. We will see as we get closer to June and July if the pricing skyrockets up to make up for the closures thi

The latest in chair hog prevention

Prices will fluctuate each week. This week the prices are high, next week they will drop. Lately they have not dropped as low as they were at the beginning of the year which considering cost of living and COVID is to be expected. Actually had a price drop on a shore excursion today after the sale ended which I then cancelled and rebooked. The price during the "sale" was higher. To mimic the others, keep track of what you want and don't stop looking. With the future Cruise Planner Credit you can cancel and rebook almost instantly.

The wife and I have standard backpacks that we carry during embarkation. It holds all our essential items for the first day and makes it easy to carry. For shore excursions, she carries the backpack and I have a dive bag that will hold all our my snorkel equipment, towels, towels clips, etc. One essential item is a giant industrial ziplock bag that we carry in each pack that we can place her backpack and towels in for the occasional rain shower, to keep out the sand and to hold the wet towels back to the ship.

Have one booked this year over Thanksgiving and probably will have one next year. We missed the West Coast sailings and were so glad to see them return. Airfare to the West Coast is almost as inexpensive and long as us driving down to Galveston from DFW so it is a no brainer for us.

I think it comes down to age and expectations. On earlier cruises we had ships with large common areas with extravagant art and decorations that was impressive and blew everyone away. As time went on the opulent "common" areas grew smaller, the ships grew bigger and decorations were replaced with wiz-bang features to attract the younger families such as @twangster mentioned water-slides, bumper cars, etc. It comes down to which ship and what crowd they attract. The various cruise lines within RCG and other providers have specific target features that attract the crowd they are trying to please

On our May cruise cancellation we were told there was no option to receive 125% Cruise Planner Credit and the money was returned on our credit card within two weeks. We received credit on two previous cancellations but the RCCL folks said it was not an option this time. Guess since they are looking to sail within the next several months they did not want to give away more of their money. Did notice the future shore excursions have gone up in price.

Have 3 with Royal and 1 with Princess this year and 1 with Royal and 1 with Princess early next year....so far. Since we have not had a vacation or day off since this pandemic started (blame the 24/7 work at home availability syndrome) the amount of days off keep adding on. My boss will start missing me when we finally get to sail.