CrznTxn

The wife and I have some hard sided Samsonite luggage that we purchased 5 years ago that has been on over a dozen cruises, many flights and has survived the various baggage handler gorilla's and what not. I cannot say that there has been no damage as one wheel on one case was dented in slightly but it still functions. I've seen many wheel rubber covers along the loading ramps from some lesser expensive cases. I am not endorsing Samsonite but would recommend a good quality name brand luggage, especially look at the warranties. We have had several lower cost generic pieces but they did not last long. As far as hard or soft sided, it depends on what you are carrying, but remember your luggage WILL be stacked with others and I've seen them 6 or 8 pieces high in the cages they use to get them on and off the ship by forklift.

@mworkman love the post. If only they were dropping normal cruisers off. They could probably infiltrate the island better and no one would notice. ?

Received a partial refund for our March 22 cruise's taxes, port fees, gratuities and insurance on May 17th. Amount received does not add up to anything on the list but am waiting on the balance. Received Cruise Planner items refunds within two weeks for same cruise. Have two cruises in June and July that were cancelled and not sure when we will see that money refunded. For the June cruise it is the taxes, port fees, insurance and gratuities along with the Cruise Planner items purchased. The July cruise we opted to wait on any Cruise Planner purchases until we got closer. At least the credit card will have a large negative balance when we get all the refunds back. We are resigned to waiting and hoping that Royal gets to start in August so our November cruise will happen.

The wife just talk to Club Royale and they told her they would now work on moving comp casino cruises to a different date. When we found out that our July cruise was cancelled at the last announcement we immediately called and cancelled hoping to get ahead of the curve on the refunds. Silly us, if we had waited we could have moved the cruise. Now they will not reinstate it and will have to wait for any future offers and our refund on taxes and port fees (three cruises down and one left standing in November).

We are on the opposite end. We always take our passports on shore with us when in a foreign port, not the dedicated islands. There is no guarantee that the ship will pack and leave your cabin's contents at the dock if you miss the ship. That is all on you. If you are in an accident on an excursion and have to seek medical help there may not be time to go back to the ship and retrieve your documents. If you have to fly and "catch up" with the ship if you miss it you have to have the passport to fly. We keep ours in a waterproof pouch to keep them dry and we have never had a problem with them. Passport and pre-filled out insurance medical forms. But that is just us.

The only item I really see of issue in the American Queen protocol is the 24 hotel period for all guests prior to boarding. For RCCL and other cruise lines they would need a dedicated hotel for all guests prior to embarkation so they can perform their health screening (can you say rapid Covid testing for 3,000 to 5,000 folks). Not sure how this would play out in the various ports. Personally I do not know of a hotel large enough in Galveston area proper for instance that could handle that crowd for a 24 hour period. Interesting concept though. Force the guests to come a day early to process them, quarantine them and then bus them directly to the ship.

Exactly what happens when a ship cannot dock for any length of time in a port with its crew able to get off and hose it off after being at sea. Rust will find a way. Can you imagine the effort and painting time once they do get to sail?

Tried the "Lift & Shift" on a Casino Cruise for July. They would not budge and would only refund the money paid. Lost two now that way but am looking forward to more in the future. Hope your wife's recovery is swift and issue free.

Finally received the first "partial" refund of our March cruise. As others posted, the amounts which were refunded in two separate charge backs do not line up with any of the purchased items. They come close within a couple of dollars but no match (We are not eligible for FCC on any of our cruises). This cruise was booked through our TA who told us we did not have to do anything and Royal would take care of it. I called Royal May 8th because the cruise still showed up on our "Past" cruises portfolio. The agent I talked to was very nice but informed me that the cruise was not actually cancelled until May 6th, the date of the big letter/email distribution where Royal stated that if you had not cancelled your cruise they would be on that date. Now we are starting to receive the refunds. On this latest round of cancellations we had two additional cruises affected, one we booked direct and the other through our TA. We called Royal on May 20th as soon as we received the news of the delayed reopening and cancelled the cruise we booked direct. As of this morning it no longer shows in our portfolio and I suspect we will see the refunds sooner for that one than the other one. If the second booking still shows late next week I will call Royal and see if it has been cancelled. Then we can start the countdown on when can expect the refund for that one. Have no issues with Royal and the delayed refunds as they have an enormous number of refunds to process and the refund number to processors ratio is probably in the high double or even triple digits. We have another cruise booked in November and looking at booking another this fall once we see that there will actually be cruises operating (really do not want more money to be tied up until we receive some back). Looking forward to that one and will be going on many more in the future. Just will be monitoring our bookings direct from now on to make sure they are all aligned with our expectations.

Lost two cruises in this latest round, June and July. Sad because the June was our anniversary cruise and the wife is bummed out about it. Now she is trying to shift the July cruise to September/October on a CoCo Cay cruise but she is not sure if they will move it as the JS cabins show sold out for those sailings. Oh well, we now have more refunds coming as I did not want to take the 125% OBC for our cruise planner purchases.

Using the App to check-in depends on which ship you are on and which port. Most are not available. Website work for me and has bigger font?!

Alexa, dispense me 16 ounces of Rum and Coke! Never mind make that just Rum.? Will work for water out of the faucet in my home according to the commercials, why not there?

I still have a mid-June cruise and July cruise booked. I'll hold out to the bitter end and hope I can get out of Dodge for a break. I can't take much more of these 14 hour work days at home because they know I am stuck here. At least we have been informed that our local Casino will open on June 1st. Laying out by the pool there is not like in the middle of the Caribbean but is better than the pool at the house.

With all the media raving about staying at home, a lot of folks are quaking in their house slippers and afraid to go out into the world. Wonder what the world would be like if our forefathers had that attitude? There would be no USA, no internet and no life. I am cautious but will not let fear cause me to not enjoy the life I have been given. At my age I want all the enjoyment in life I can get. And that includes cruising!

I know they have indicated cruises starting June 12 out of Texas and Florida (we are booked for June 14 out of Galveston). Not sure about sailings out of New Orleans.

Called Royal yesterday directly after TA said she could not help. The person informed me my March 22 cruise that was still showing in my Past Cruises was cancelled in the books May 6. Not sure now when we will receive our Port Fees, Taxes, Gratuities and Insurance back. Did not receive a letter or email as other folks have. Guess the 45 day refund countdown starts for me 3 days ago. Disappointing since we received our Shore Excursion refunds within 2 weeks of the cancelled cruise. Especially disappointing since we have booked a replacement cruise in July. Was going to use the previous monies to pay the CC charges for that cruise. Maybe we will get the refund before we depart on that one.

No Casino offers after they posted the Summer and Fall specials. All of them have disappeared except the annual cruise.

We received no email and still waiting patiently for our taxes, port fees, gratuities and insurance from our cancelled March 22nd cruise. Looking forward to our June 14th cruise?.

It is a shrewd business move on Royal's part. If they can keep your current money AND have a cruise on the books, they can show the lenders they have booked orders. This can possibly get more capital and a lower rate if they have to dip into the well for more sustaining money.

Home page of the blog.

Understand your pain, have the same issue on several cruises. Not sure if the Royal IT group could keep up with that :). Fortunately for us the refunds came quickly to cover the new purchases. However, we still have a July cruise planned that we have not booked excursions until closer due to slow refunds of earlier cruise fare that has not come back.

Congrats!! Have fun on your cruise.

We have sailed with NCL from 2015 thru June of last year out of FL, CA and TX (until they left). We never had a problem with them and always like the ships. There are differences just like every other cruise line. NCL was more of the "open" concept of dining and entertainment which some either love or hate. To us it is no big deal as we do not have to have waiters and formality on our vacations. Would be sorry to see them declare bankruptcy as this may affect their ability to attract some quantity of future clients and could rub off on the the other cruise lines. We moved to Royal from the other cruise lines as the ships and personnel made us feel at home and more relaxed on our trips. Can only hope this (bankruptcy) will not be contagious throughout the cruise industry.

Ours only shows the annual cruise. All others have expired and gone away.

You are definitely the winner. Bon appetit!?️