berkeleykel

I think if you call Royal you can get booked on their transfer even if you didn’t book a fight with Air2Sea. But I’m not sure if it would leave early enough to even give you a chance at your flight.

I built in a few hours to spare in case we have train troubles and will keep an eye on how the trains are running throughout the day. But even if we end up needing to taxi back we would probably still break even on the RC excursion price. And if we experience a cataclysmic meltdown presumably so will the RC tour groups so boat may have to wait anyway.

Yes, the prices are over the top ridiculous though. GBP 200 for 2 adults 1 child, baby in lap for the RC excursion, versus EUR 25 for four first class return tickets on the fast train, reserved seats. We'll find our own way to the train station for that.

I did the Greek isles on Rhapsody, another Vision class ship, in a GS and liked it a lot. You really get to know the crew and fellow passengers and I loved the shows in the Centrum. That being said, if your GS is right below the pool deck like ours was, we had a lot of noise bleed through. The suite benefits are also not really that noticeable. I'd probably take JS on Odyssey just for the cheaper fare unless Athens is worth that price to you, in which case I'm sure you'll have a lovely time on Enchantment.

I met someone a few months back who had worked in health and safety at a major cruise line for many years leading up to COVID. Said they had disagreed strenuously with the line's COVID response and made their objections known. No longer employed by said cruise line...

I'm on this itinerary in a couple of weeks. I was originally going to skip Rome because I heard it was a hassle but looking at the train schedules it seems pretty easy. You have a long time in port so shouldn't be rushed.

It's not explicit but implied that the testing prior to boarding the cruise ship suffices for getting back off it. Probably done for simplicity given potential issues with submitting from the ship. The excerpt below says 72 hours before boarding a cruise ship destined for Canada; doesn't say the cruise ship needs to arrive to Canada in the 72 hour window. Doesn't make much sense to have a second prong if the first prong overruled it. Who needs to use ArriveCAN All travellers, with limited exceptions, whether entering Canada by air, land, rail or marine vessel, must use ArriveCAN unless you're exempt from this requirement due to an accessibility need. You'll need to submit your information within 72 hours: before your arrival in Canada and/or before boarding a cruise ship destined for Canada

In Kotor I took an RC excursion, Baroque Charm and the Bay of Kotor. We got some beautiful photos but it was a bit boring otherwise. I think we would just walk around Kotor on our own if we went again. In Corfu I took a private excursion to two very different beaches plus a boat ride. Loved it. Tour company was great. https://www.bluetours.gr/tours-and-activities/private-shore-excursion-corfu-beaches-paleokastritsa-glyfada In Athens I did another private tour to the Acropolis and the museum but can’t remember the tour provider. Given the length of the day it was nice to get to know the guide and driver which we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do had it been a group tour. Mykonos I did an RC excursion to Delos. I was a bit bored on this one (a trend with RC large group tours). Also couldn’t really hear the tour guide. The headsets didn’t work well, which I think is a common complaint. The good thing was we still had enough time afterwards to walk around Mykonos a bit and have a meal there. So I don’t regret Delos as a one time thing but also think you would be happy enough just walking around the port area on your own. ETA: I found my booking for the Athens tour. PK Travel - half day Athens tour with licensed tour guide. EUR 310 with pick up and drop off at the port. The car was a nice Mercedes and the tour guide and driver were great. They were a very professional team and I highly recommend. I thought the price was great for the value considering we were 3 people, probably would have spent more on a group excursion that would have been less personalized. I didn't realize Argostoli was Kefolonia. We stopped there and did a private custom itinerary because I really wanted to see Assos, which is quite a drive, as well as Melissini Lake and Myrtos beach. We booked through Kokolis Holidays for EUR 250 and they accommodated my requested stops. We did not have a tour guide, just a driver. He gave us good suggestions for where to eat and suggested places we could pull over on the drive for nice photos. The taxi was a bit older but otherwise good. We did the boat ride at the Lake, had a quick lunch in Assos, and spent about an hour swimming at Myrtos beach. I loved all 3 places, but if I did it again I would have just driven to the Myrtos viewpoint from the above rather than spending time at the beach. It made Assos rushed. Assos has a cute small beach and is a lovely little village, but only worth the long drive if you can spend several hours there. Myrtos beach is great for the unbeatable views but we preferred our beach time in Corfu at a beach club/day resort type of place where there were nice facilities and food/drink delivered to our loungers. Myrtos is more a a do it yourself type of place, though they did have lounge chairs and umbrellas to rent and I think there was a small food stand.

Same for me for my sailing out of Barcelona. When I checked in a couple of days ago the vaccine status box was there, but not gone.

If the cruise is originating from an EU port euros or dollars should both work fine. I think we did a mix of both during our cruise from Venice depending on what we had on us.

I just want to note that you do have time to obtain passports but I would get on it soon as processing times are up to 8-11 weeks at the moment and I know several people who have been on the upper end of that.

I would make up a tentative schedule and book your MTD slots as soon as the option opens in the cruise planner. That way when you show up for dinner your wait should be minimal and you’ll likely be given the same waitstaff and even same table throughout the cruise even if you don’t book at the same time each night. Then if you want to tip extra you can bring cash tips on the final night of dining for the waiter and assistant waiter who you’ll have gotten the chance to get to know throughout the cruise. You can get envelopes from guest services for the tips or your steward may leave some in your cabin.

This happened to me earlier this week. In my case I'm pretty sure the issue was that I had selected My Family Time Dining. I was booking two adjacent rooms simultaneously, one with me + DS1 and one for my husband + DS2. I kept getting this same error message so kept trying different cards. After about 20 mins of trying and failing to book, I noticed I got a confirmation that the booking had actually gone through notwithstanding the error messages. However, the booking was only for one of the rooms, so only for husband + DS2. None for me and DS1. So I went in and tried to book a separate room for me and DS1. Kept getting same error. Realized the "My Family Time Dining" option was the only difference for my booking vs my husband's booking (DS1 is too young for MFTD so hadn't been an option when booking his room), so I deselected that option. VIOLA! Instantly went through. Later I realized DH was actually booked into two rooms (a second confirmation for him trickled in for him a few minutes after the firm). This was charged as full fare (when I had been trying to book deposit only) and in a totally different room than I had been trying to book. ABSOLUTELY BONKERS AND BAFFLING. However, while I may have to wait forever for the refund to clear, they at least quickly agreed to process the refund without hassle so the guest relations experience went well.

@JustJoe I'd love to hear how your experiences ended up with your daughters in the various ports. Planning the same with my 6 year old and not quite 2 year old.

One benefit of testing that I don't see discussed much is behavior modification. Knowing you have to test negative or can't cruise can cause people to be more cautious in the weeks leading up to the cruise, thereby reducing the total number of cases on the ship, not just cases that are catchable on a test 1-3 days beforehand. There is little incentive to behavior modify if you don't face negative personal repercussions.

I couldn't quite shake my worry about toddler-friendly activities on Voyager or Anthem (and on Anthem the only cabins left were interior, and we'd be stuck there a lot with naps) so I took a different direction and booked the Western Mediterranean cruise on Wonder! Now I have the opposite problem of feeling like there is too much to do. I'd love any tips on excursions that are little kid friendly at any of the ports - Mallorca, Marseilles, La Spezia, Civitavecchia or Naples! We've been to Barcelona recently so we not planning anything specific there. We're also thinking of staying on board at one to spend some more timing relaxing on the ship.

I've read that the app doesn't work for those embarking in Rome. I think it isn't sophisticated enough to handle to fact that the Wonders med cruises have two embarkation points.

ETA: Ignoring the below I actually went with the 7 night Western Mediterranean out of Barcelona on Wonder. So excursion recommendations with young kids for those ports would be invaluable! I'm also still interested in any stories about whether fussy kids were able to stick it out with the nursery. ---- I'm considering a last minute booking for a 7 night in August, either Voyager out of Copenhagen or Anthem out of Southampton, with my husband and a 6 year old and nearly 2 year old. I'm mainly concerned about whether the trip will work for our toddler. We went on one Royal cruise previously with my oldest, but he was >3 at the time and potty-trained and it was a warm-weather cruise. -Does anyone have recent experience with dropping kids off at the nursery on Voyager? The website says the nursery on Voyager doesn't take drop offs, but I saw someone post here that the nursery was operating for drop offs on their cruise in May. -My son always warms up and enjoys himself eventually, but there is zero chance there won't be tears at nursery drop off each day, and maybe even an hour or so after drop off the first day. Anyone else have a fussy child and experience with how much patience the nurseries have before they will call us? -The weather for these cruises will likely be fairly chilly (at least for swimming purposes), and although Anthem has an indoor pool, toddlers in nappies can't use it (and I think there are no options at all for non-potty trained kids on Voyager). Do you think there will be enough to occupy the youngest? Also have you had issues with your kids seeing pools/slides but not being able to use them? I'm imagining some meltdowns (maybe some from myself too!). -Any issues pushing my son around on the ship in his stroller, particularly for things like attending game shows or trivia? I'm hoping he can sleep through some of these if he's in his stroller. Thanks!

False alarm. Looking like most sailings now have suites bookable again.

Yikes. Well you've piqued my curiosity so I went through the European sailings more thoroughly. Rhapsody is also showing no suite availability for any of its European sailings (departing from Israel, Cyprus etc). Jewel, Enchantment and Explorer all show normal availability. Odyssey doesn't have any suite availability for its October transatlantic but its other sailings are showing as normal. Suite bookings are available on one Anthem sailing, a 2 nighter where the suites are going for <$1000.

Over night all suite availability has gone away. I wonder if this is connected to the shifting of Brilliance?

Thank you very much, this answers my question. I just booked today and I don’t have any reason to change or cancel at present; I was just trying to figure out what the policy was if there is an issue down the line. With young kids, COVID, and living abroad it can be difficult to pencil in a date with conviction 15 months ahead of time. I’m still baffled that Royal Caribbean would send me an email today setting out a CWC policy that already is outdated and inapplicable to try to convince me to book a cruise (which worked! And then I realized when I got to the check out stage that said policy was inapplicable with no details of the new policy!)

I am in the UK but I booked via the US website. I was not given the option of a refundable deposit. I think maybe because I booked a suite? I guess that’s part of my question. The terms didn’t mention anything about the ability to change with a fee for bookings post May 2022. For some reason they have detailed info for bookings for prior to May 2022 and March 2022 but almost nothing for current bookings. Which isn’t super helpful given this is info that comes up when you are trying to book currently. It just says non-refundable but obviously as shown with their various policy changes over the past couple of years, non-refundable can mean various things and isn’t necessarily the same as non-changeable.

Pretty annoyed with Royal Caribbean after having been sent an email about their Cruise with Confidence policy that I think goes beyond just misleading. Email says you can cancel up to 48 hours before the cruise for FCC but when you click on the link for more info, lo and behold it is only for cruises booked by March 2022. I received this email TODAY. In July. What bullcrap are they playing. Besides the whining, to get to the real point of my post, when actually booking my cruise it was a bit unclear but seems like if I cancelled at any point I would lose the full deposit. Has anyone had experience with recent cruise booking to know what they are doing in practice? I wouldn’t expect to get my deposit back if I outright canceled but I’d like to be able to move it to a different cruise if we couldn’t make this sailing for some reason. .

STCG is taxed at ordinary income rates so the actual rate varies depending on your tax bracket.