CrznTxn

Finished our Antigen test, all negative, and the test took 25 minutes for an answer. Did not have to wait around, they called us. Scheduled on their app. Will get an "official" report from the clinic later this evening. Had to find a CVS that was giving the antigen test, all do not and no Walgreens in our area were. Now we are ready to fly and sail!

The CVS antigen tests are viable. We are getting ours today for our Friday Adventure of the Seas sailing. Wait and get the documentation from them. Only takes an hour or so. Have fun on your cruise.

We lost our September 26 Liberty sailing since they are not starting until October 3. So there will not be a sailing that week other than a charter cruise that we were bumped from.

We received this email yesterday.

Have a bid waiting on Adventure this Saturday. With the new requirement announced today for ALL to have a negative test to enter The Bahamas starting Friday it will be interesting to see who drops out and opens up a suite for us.? Had to have it for getting on the ship anyway so it probably will not matter. ?

If you are flying to a country that requires vaccination then you must present documentation that you are during check-in, no asking, a requirement or you don't go. AA uses VeriFly where you upload proof of vaccination to fast track through TSA. If you do not use it then you must show proof or you don't go to that country. Royal has already determined that they will continue to visit USVI and have informed their customers that if they are not vaccinated then they will be offered a different itinerary or refund. They decided to not visit St Kitts due to the restriction that only 700 passengers may visit from any ship and they did not want to play gatekeeper and tell some passengers they cannot get off.

We have a 7 day booked in October for Grand Cayman and Jamaica but I know it will change. Figured they would tell us right before we go as everything is in flux.

The CSO is also dependent on the Public Health Emergency declaration also being in effect. Couple of weeks ago the PHE was extended so I would expect the CSO to also be extended unless they lose their appeal and it becomes only a recommendation. Even so I really do not see RCCL changing their protocols any time soon since they have invested so much into the Healthy Sail Panel and their recommendations.

This is the same protocol that is in place for the Adventure sailings coming up. We were informed of this late last week so we already scheduled our test the 3 days before.

We have Liberty scheduled for September 26 and she is in dry dock currently and not on the list of scheduled test cruises. It is a theme cruise and someone in my wife's FB group on the cruise called the theme planner and they assured her that they talked to Royal and the cruise is indeed happening. So not all the ships that are listed to sail have been scheduled yet.

If this gets us back to cruising I'm all in. Have mine scheduled for next Wednesday for the August 7th sailing of Adventure. Would rather have the peace of mind of everyone testing negative and enjoying ourselves than always wondering. Happened on the first sailing of Adventure and wondered why it wasn't instituted across the board. Understand about having to pay for it but it is a small price for a big enjoyment.

The "obstructed" Ocean View cabin. They placed us in a cabin looking out at the life boats and we awoke to several crew members outside our porthole preparing the boat for tender duty! Didn't see that coming.

Be careful of using a gift card for cruise item purchases on-line. I tried to use a gift card that I bought due to the rewards they offered to pay for some excursions on a cruise. I made the card for the amount of the excursions and was declined when I went to use it. I called Royal and when I asked why, it was explained that there is a 110% temporary hold placed on the card and if there is not enough to cover that then it gets declined. This does not occur at the grocery store but did on Royal. I booked what I could and then used the rest at the store.

At the moment they have suspended tuxedo rentals due to the Covid virus.

Even if the appeal is heard and denied I do not see Royal changing anything drastically in the near future. I believe that if the appeal is denied then it will be a tough go for the CDC on any future appeals. The only thing I think that will change some protocols is if Royal opens up more capacity on the ships and bookings do not increase to match. Then they will look to see what the current passenger experience is causing the issue and change it.

We get the "sailed on" screen. I believe we are too close to our August 7 sailing and the bid input has been closed.

Not a bad price if you do not buy it before you leave. Most times on our cruises it is $75ea.

We doubled down and scheduled one each month for the next seven months but backed off and scheduled one every other month after. They say it only takes seven days to start an addiction. (come on Adventure OTS)?

We find the little metal "animals" and attach magnets to their feet. Funny, they start on the door but seem make their way to the ceilings and different parts of the hallway.

They have the same sunscreen ban in Mexico and now a number of Caribbean nations so if you are sailing there you need to have the reef safe product. They will usually say oxybenzone, octinoxate, and octoerylene free. Most sunscreen producers now make these. We get them at our Walgreens and CVS stores.

Have not seen that information on the Royal website. Always had to look in my emails for the cruise receipt. If you purchase a shore excursion you can see the price you paid in the Cruise Planner under the Calendar. Scroll down to the specific date of the excursion and click on the item. It will show what you paid and you can divide that by the number of people.

Have taken those on many cruises and they are fantastic and so cheap that when they run down you can toss them. They are also great for those in the room who seem to come in very late so not to have to turn on the lights to stagger to bed.? We place them on the desk with something that blocks the light from the bed and the light is low enough to not interfere with sleep.

They will not let us check in to our 9/26 cruise on Liberty out of Galveston yet. She just went into dry dock in Cadiz yesterday so she will have to finish that and get a test sailing done, then they might open the registration. All I know is the sailing is "Sold out" whatever that means in terms of passenger numbers so I do not think they want to have the sailing not happen. Just want to check in as soon as possible to get an early time. It will be her first sailing out of dry dock so they should be letting us on early as they do not have to perform a turnaround cleaning.

We were lucky in we saw that our passports were to expire in August of 2020 so right after our January 2020 cruise we sent in the renewal. We then booked a March cruise and sweated out the wait time but received them in Mid-February. ? Of course the March cruise was scheduled to depart the week after they shut everything down so it did not matter but were glad we decided to do it early instead of wait. Now I see that our folks on the hill are complaining to the passport office about the current wait time and want them to "step it up" as people want to travel. So maybe the wait time will decrease.

I do not believe it would be prudent for RC to "open up everything" immediately on July 18th. With the appeal, if that is upheld it would take quite a bit to overturn that at a higher level. Also the "Health Emergency" declaration my expire before the appeal is even heard and if that happens the CSO is negated. All that said, it is quite a job getting crews back onboard, trained and schedules set up for cruises to restart so I believe Mr Fain's words that they would be taking it slow and easy to avoid any hiccups.