sk8erguy1978

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

And NCL "free" drink package does not even include bottled water.  Also premium liquors are priced above the limit on the package.  When I compare like cruises same type cabin same weeks, I almost always find RCCL cheaper even including a drink package and internet purchase to make them comparable 

Very true. It's sad that in these situations everyone gets worked up about refunds and ruined vacations. During the next few hours peoples lives are going to change forever. There will be massive destruction & probably loss of human lives. They will be in my thoughts as I selfishly enjoy my safe Labor Day weekend in New York.

I'm not even a religious person.... but....  At this point, i really dont care so much about what happens regarding my cruise... I just heard on tv, that when this made landfall in the Bahamas an hour or so ago, it did so , officially in a tie with the one that hit the Fl Keys in the 1930's, as THE worst / most powerful hurricane to make landfall there..  in recorded history ... ?    Now is the time to seriously pray for the folks who live on those tiny islands

I would go and take whatever they offer you and then plan the next cruise.  My theory is something is better than nothing.

Thank you.  I plan on still going. I just hope we have a good time.

A problem I can certainly solve! ?

Not to hijack your thread, Traveler but I have a disembarkation tale to pass on.
As most of you may recall, it was 1 year ago that LIB in Galveston lost our luggage at the terminal.  Since that time we no longer leave our bags outside the night before disembarkation; instead, we choose to keep our bags and walk them off when we disembark. Ok.  Nothing unusual about that BUT our car wasn’t coming to pick us up until 9:00 and the last thing we wanted was to leave the ship with the early birds and then be stuck out in the hot Texas sun for an hour or more.
I asked the Suites Concierge if she could help us but her time for walking off luggage was too early and walk-off scenario for later departures included stairs which was a no-go for us with all that luggage.  So, we were left to our own devices.  We decided to leave our suite at 7:30 and wait at Boleros on deck 4 until 8:30.  It was perfect. We found chairs next to power outlets and our hour passed quickly BUT we could see the departure line getting longer and longer and longer and longer.  We were suddenly not too happy with our plan.  They had security posted strategically to keep the line jumpers away.  
If things had been left to me, we would have just made the long and sad trek to the back of the line but Dan is smarter than me.  He went up to one of the security guys, told him we were in a suite (our luggage tags confirmed that as well),  and to my utter astonishment, he took us some circuitous route through closed doors, past barriers, past long lines of people all the way through to a special exit kiosk.  Even our Concierge never took us that far !  As a matter of fact, last year when we disembarked, our “expedited disembarkation” was a ticket to the back of that very long line.  We remarked at the time, “I could have done this myself.  What did I need the Concierge for ?”  I’m sure this saved us at least 40 minutes !  So the moral of this story is....don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.  Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t. Luckily for us, this time, we did.

Also, put on a happy face. No matter how much it hurts.

Be like Super Mario and never worry about disembarkation! 

Hello Everyone,
Just wanted to share something I learned last week regarding getting my American Express Platinum benefits added to two of my upcoming cruises.  After debating the merit of the annual $550 fee, I decided to get the card earlier this month to take advantage of the airline benefits and now monthly Uber credit. After trying to find out whether or not my regular travel agent could add the benefits since Amex only advertises they work by booking through Amex Travel, I just asked my travel agent to try and see what happened.  I had previously booked a cruise on a Memorial Day sale for Oasis of the Seas sailing next February so my travel agent was able to refund my $500 deposit from my previous CC and then charge it to my Amex Platinum without changing my previous booking rate.  I had no idea you could retroactively change the deposit like that!  My travel agent then also used the benefit to apply to a cruise I was booking then for a Navigator of the Seas sailing in November 2018.
Couple things I learned:
OBC in the amount of $100 - $300 Shipboard Credit per stateroom for sailings 5 nights or longer (depending on category booked):  $100 for inside/oceanview, $200 for balcony, $300 for suites plus a complimentary bottle of wine or champagne no matter which cabin category. Your travel agent should have the ability to log into an Amex system to get a tracking number to apply the obc to your cruise, and can even be done retroactively to a cruise deposit previously booked provided you are not past final payment date. Amex benefit is not combinable with many promotions. For my Oasis sailing I lost a $50 obc from Royal Caribbean (but kept the other stuff from my travel agency), but I got the $200 obc for the balcony cabin (boardwalk category) instead for a net $150 gain. Amex benefit is not combinable with C&A balcony discount so I lost my $100 balcony discount on the Navigator sailing, but again gained $200 obc for a net $100 gain. I was able to see the Amex $200 obc immediately in my cruise planner for my Oasis February sailing.  Do the math to see whether the benefits lost are less than the Amex obc. Hope this helps shed some light on how the American Express Platinum benefits might be able to work for you since there's really not a huge amount of information on other forums.
Daniel
 

I left a middle manager speechless when I argued that they could skip doing one commercial of theirs to help fix their "IT" glitches ;>)

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If you click on Past Cruises tab, your past cruises will populate. Then when you click on current/booked cruises, your upcoming cruises will populate. However, YMMV. The cruise planner is VERY glitchy this evening.

This is why I advocate never to use a debit card and always a credit or charge card. Why put needed cash at risk. Banks claim they will not hold funds but I don't believe them. 

This is why I advocate never to use a debit card and always a credit or charge card. Why put needed cash at risk. Banks claim they will not hold funds but I don't believe them. 

Hopefully you have a good credit card that will be in your corner.  They will likely require Royal Caribbean to provide proof of the charges and they can cross check it against your final itemized statement you should have received from RC on your last night.
I dealt with a credit card issue (stolen and several false charges) in July when we visited New York City and Capital One could not have been better at taking care of it.  Today's credit card companies are very vigilant about fraud.

NCL's posted drink package pricing is a bit of a sham, as it's so obviously intended to get people to be happy with the Free At Sea promos they regularly offer and... entice... them into making that one of the chosen perks. People feel like they're saving a bunch of money, but of course they're really paying for the package through the cruise fare, albeit at a rate that's likely a bit lower than what's posted.
The kick in the teeth, though, is that even when you choose the perk, you're still charged the daily gratuity for the package, at the listed package price, on top of the cruise fare; which means an extra $20-ish per day as soon as you've clicked the "YOLO Book It!!!" button.

Just a bit of advice on FCC. Don't have it applied when booking a new cruise. It becomes a PIA.  Instead of your invoice showing the original price and then the FCC remove, they apply the FCC at the beginning. It makes comparing prices later looking for a price drop a pain.. and if you do rebook due to a price drop, you have to remove the FCC, rebook and then re-apply the FCC..
My advice..  book normally and then apply the FCC as part of final payment.
 

100%. I've heard too many stories of them being overly generous with refunds. I suspect this is just a stressful time for all. Once the storm settles (pun?) everything will work out in the end. I feel terrible people are going through this, I know I'd be stressed out too.