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RockerDom31

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Everything posted by RockerDom31

  1. So it was only a matter of time before this happened and the handling of this situation is miles different than in 2020. I hope the two boys recover quickly and that they and their families are healthy. Now I do have a cruise-related question here…do we know if this family will incur any additional costs? Or does Royal pick up the cost of treatment and travel back home? If they do, is this procedure Royal-specific? Or is it laid out in that CDC document?
  2. Just keep in mind too…it’s not just about having a Travel Agent. It’s about having a GOOD Travel Agent. A GOOD TA will work with you in good times and bad. Also, you mentioned you booked “recently”. I believe you have 60 days from booking to transfer to a TA.
  3. Just passing along a story about NextCruise to help with your decision. In August 2019, my wife and I booked an August 2020 cruise at the NextCruise desk. We paid the reduced deposit (non-refundable) of $100 pp and got $100 OBC. Thinking we were doing the right thing, we paid off the cruise before final payment date. Cruise was cancelled and we opted for the full cash refund. However, $250 pp was given back as FCC. We were expecting $100 pp since that was deposit. Apparently, according to our travel agent, if we didn’t make any payments, we would have gotten $100 pp deposit as FCC back. But since we paid for the cruise in full, the deposit refund issued was upped to $250. Therefore, we didn’t necessarily get “all” of our cash back. In the grand scheme of things, this wasn’t a big deal since we used the $500 to put a deposit on our August 2022 cruise. I’m sure somewhere along the way we signed something that laid out the refund policy for NextCruise. Just a heads up!
  4. Also, the Northstar on Anthem only goes straight up. I believe some other Northstars go out the side of the ship. I don’t know which ones do though.
  5. Ah I was two seconds too late with my post! But yes, this was what I getting at.
  6. I would love it if they did! (Full disclaimer here - I live in Jersey) As far as I can tell, there wouldn't be any legal reason why they couldn't do this. But I think all cruises out of Cape Liberty (Freedom and Oasis) this summer have been canceled. I'm purely speculating here but I would think it would have to do with travel time to and from Caribbean ports. Any cruise out of Cape Liberty requires at least 2 sea days to get to anywhere in the Caribbean or Bermuda.
  7. Yeah I am not seeing any excursions or other cruise planner purchases for San Juan either. Or Labadee. Only excursions for St. Marteen is available to book. Our cruise is more than a year away so I just figure things will start popping up when it’s closer.
  8. Also…if you prepay gratuities, it locks in that daily charge rate.
  9. Update: Daniel W from MEI took care of everything from start to finish! The whole process was done via email in one day. My wife and I are officially booked for August 5, 2022 Oasis of the Seas out of Cape Liberty. FCC from the canceled cruise was applied as the minimum deposit. Daniel was straightforward and easy to communicate with. He was very thorough and detailed. I would highly recommend him and MEI!
  10. That’s probably the safer play - I’ll just wait for MEI to reach out and I’ll work on it with them. Thanks @Matt! Helpful, as always!
  11. Hi All, My wife and I are making our plans to go on an August 2022 Caribbean cruise out of Cape Liberty on Oasis of the Seas (going to San Juan, Labadee, St. Marteen). This was to replace our August 2020 cruise that was canceled. As a result, we each received a $250 FCC. Based on my research, I am allowed to use the $500 in FCC to use as a deposit, correct? When I get to the final reservation page, it is still asking for credit card info before clicking on the finish button. I did put in both certificate numbers to meet the minimum $500 requirement. Did anyone else run into this? Did it charge your card and then apply the FCC? Or will it apply the FCC first and then not charge your card? Btw, my plan was to book the cruise and then immediately transfer to MEI. However, I just filled out the yellow MEI quote box on the home page. Maybe I should just wait for a response and work through it with an MEI agent? Thanks!
  12. I wish it was easier to do "mock bookings" online to plan out cruise costs. First, you can't get to the breakdown of the "final cost" of the cruise (including the total cost of the prepaid gratuities, fees, taxes, etc and any discounts applied) without putting in personal info. I just put in fake info just to get past this page but it's annoying nonetheless. And the annoyance continues when you try to re-price after booking since you have to go through that process all over again when there is a sale. Also, you can't get the cost of things like beverage, dining, or spa packages until you actually book and see the prices in the cruise planner. You can make guesstimates, but prices for these things vary ship-to-ship, sailing-to-sailing. I'll happily concede my points if these are no longer the case. My wife and I watch every single penny that goes into and out of our lives so we like being able to get the "big picture" cost.
  13. Haha. It’s actual a local Mom-and-Pop company in the town where I work. We actually found them at a wedding show when we were planning our honeymoon. We planned three international vacations with them and we only ever paid for the cost of the trip. Now they have “re-branded” and fees are everywhere! Oh here’s another fun fee - “reservation change fee, $50 per person, per change” and yes, that would have been charged had we “lift-and-shifted”! Amen to the advice said all over the site and forum -“Use a GOOD travel agent”! ?
  14. My interest would be on the higher side if I knew that I could book with their air2sea program. And I know that it is best to fly in the night before but if memory serves me correctly, there’s not too many Holiday Inns in Nassau for a quick 1-night stay - lots of resorts that have a minimum stay. I could be wrong so please please someone correct me if I am! Being from NJ, we have 5 airports to choose from and I’m almost certain we can get to Nassau from any of them.
  15. Yup - $150 per person - $300 total. It was not a fun transaction. And unfortunately, this clause was buried in their fine print terms and conditions. THEN, they had the audacity to try to have us come back to them “for a special rate of only a $100 per person planning fee”. They had never charged us before but I guess now they are. So good riddance to them! Out of respect to that company, I won’t mention who they are. But I will be reaching out to MEI once we can start booking again! I hear they are great :-) thanks all!
  16. Just to piggy-back off this topic... If we cancelled a reservation and (begrudgingly) paid the cancellation fees to my former TA, my relationship with that TA is now done, correct? I have zero obligation to return to them? Or to even talk to them ever again? Once we decide to use our FCC’s, will they get a notification that we did? I am definitely considering MEI but I don’t want to break any honor codes or anything between TAs. Thanks!
  17. My wife and I used a local TA and they were great when we planned our honeymoon a few years ago. And we didn’t have to pay them anything except for the cost of the trip. Now they are charging a “consultation fee” ($100) just to plan the trip and when we had to cancel our cruise in August 2020, we got hit with a $150 per person cancellation fee! It’s looking like it’s time to switch. Throughout this blog, people have been singing the praises of MEI travel so it’s definitely something worth looking into. Besides Royal Caribbean cruises, do they also do other types of travel? My wife and I also would like to do a Sandals vacation (for the parts of the Caribbean that RC doesn’t go to from NJ!) Thanks! -Dom
  18. Yes - I believe many people on this board make it an almost-daily practice to check Cruise Planner prices (including myself!) I'm still new to the cruising game but here's some advice I've picked up - It is almost always less expensive to book ahead on Cruise Planner than on the ship during the cruise. If you don't want to check daily, I would definitely subscribe to update emails from RC and from Royal Caribbean Blog and check the prices when a sale is posted. If you purchase something on Cruise Planner and then find it less expensive at a later date, the "return" to your credit card might take a few weeks but the purchase at the new price will be instant. So be careful with how you time the re-purchase with when your credit card bill is due. From personal experience, if our August 2020 cruise actually did take place, we would have saved a significant amount from re-pricing and we booked a year ahead of time. Lastly - Have fun perusing through the Cruise Planner! My wife and I spent several date nights with a glass of wine and a laptop planning our cruise. Good luck!
  19. Thanks to all for confirming about TA's! I appreciate your feedback! Has anyone encountered their $100 NextCruise deposit "reverted" back to $250 after customer cancellation? Thanks!
  20. Hi All, I perused through the forum and I don't know if this has been brought up before. And if it has, I apologize! But here's the story... The trip was supposed to be Aug 23 Oasis of the Seas from Cape Liberty - My wife and I decided to cancel this trip and get money back instead of FCC. First of all, I was very surprised that we actually got the refund back on the credit card after just 5 days. I've read that people are still waiting for it after weeks have gone by so we are grateful that we successfully got our Cruise Planner purchases back and MOST of the cruise fare. We booked this trip in August 2019 at the Next Cruise desk and paid a $200 nonrefundable deposit ($100 each). However, we just got news from our TA that we would be getting a refund minus $500 in FCC, not the original $200 deposit (as one would assume with Cruise with Confidence terms and conditions). She was told that we signed off on something on the ship that states that if we made payments along the way and we canceled, the FCC reverts back to the original deposit of $250 per person. And yes, we did make payments along the way. Has any one encountered this? Our TA is currently escalating this issue with RCCL to refund us the $300 and subsequently, give us a $200 FCC. Also...on a completely separate issue...we were charged by our TA a $150 per person cancellation fee (there goes the $300 ha!). Is that par for the course? Is that something MEI does as well? Just wondering if this is something to consider if we want to stay with this TA (it's a local business in our town and we try to support our local businesses as much as possible - we've been using them since our honeymoon). Thanks!!
  21. We are booked on that Aug 23 Oasis trip and like the OP, our final payment date is coming up. We are waiting until the very last possible moment (which I believe is May 25th) to make a decision in consultation with our TA. We did non-refundable with NextCruise, so our deposit was only $100 ea (x2). And, unless I missed something, RC will give the deposit back as FCC minus $100 each, which ultimately means we net out at $0. Health is our #1 consideration. But losing $200 is a tough thing to swallow for us: we are a penny-pinching-follow-the-monthly-budget type of couple! I get annoyed with myself when I forget to use a coupon at the register! Haha. So you can only imagine our hesitation in taking the FCC and then RC goes out of business and then we lost out on even more than $200.
  22. We use Travel Insured but (knock on wood) we haven't had a need to use their coverages yet. It was $124 for the two of us - trip cancelleation for any reason. The RC wasn't really appealing since I don't believe they give you cash back. Plus, if you go with a third-party, you can use the same company for other types of vacations too. You will probably get many different answers since there's not really a one-size-fits-all choice. However, I think everyone would mostly agree to make sure that the coverage you choose definitely contains a policy on emergency medical evacuation. Most of them do but just double-check. That is probably one of the single-most expensive item when dealing with a medical emergency - having to be flown on a chopper to the nearest metro hospital and/or finding a medivac flight back home. Good luck with your research!
  23. Best we can do is to try and live a healthy lifestyle - which is hard to do for some. I can't tell you the amount of times I have seen people not wash their hands after using the restroom or after sneezing or after changing the garbage or so on and so on. I had a student one time who sneezed straight up into the air and I unfortunately saw the plume of fluid just spreading everywhere. Anyway - I think there should be a healthy level of "worry" about the Coronavirus, but there's not much we can do about it except to stay accurately informed and to practice good hygiene.
  24. I apologize in advance if this is a silly question but I don't know too much about the process of publishing ports of call...but just out of curiosity...is it possible that they are reserving a spot for a 3rd or 4th ship, just in case a ship needs to redirect due to inclement weather? Therefore, if all goes well and no itineraries need to change, only 2 ships will be there. A lot of these dates look like it's in the middle of hurricane season.
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