steverk

It's part of the moving target that is cruising in 2021. 

When I was in Barbados, everyone, including vaccinated passengers, were under that restriction.

I'm convinced that RCI doesn't want it this way.  It's the cruise ports trying to protect their populations. Hopefully, it will ease soon.

First Royal: June 2006, Vancouver to Seward on Radiance.  Fantastic trip!

First cruise ever: May 1986, Mexican Riviera on Tropicale (Whale Tail Fleet).  It was very different then. They'd hand you a loaded shotgun to go with your margarita and tell you to shoot the clay pigeons off the fantail. 

While no surge in any disease is something to be happy about, I plan to put on a brave face and go about my normal life.  I'm retiring in about a month and I don't plan to hide out!

There are people that have a lot to gain from keeping us in our houses, scared and alone (TV news ratings for example).  However, I believe we'd all be better off to just ignore them and go forward.

Will this affect cruising?  Hard to say. The cruise lines are in a tough spot if the CDC says no, or even yes with unsatisfactory restrictions.  If Royal is sailing, I plan to be on Royal.  Diamond status awaits! 

I interpret it to mean that if you are unvaccinated, or want to get off the ship with someone who is unvaccinated, then you need a shore excursion.  If you, and everyone getting off the ship with you, are vaccinated, then you can do what you want.

This seems to jive with what Matt has shared about his experience on Adventure. 

15 hours ago, Jennifer Burke said:

All I want to know is this: Assuming the CSO is here for the long run, will RC EVER be able to allow a mask free cruise for vaccinated cruisers? Or is the issue with masks is just cruising out of Florida?

Forever is a very long time.  I'm sure that sanity will eventually come back and most people will feel embarrassed by at least some aspect of the COVID response.

What will trigger this? Who knows! Perhaps a change in the political climate. Perhaps COVID fatigue.  These pages have plenty of examples of people getting fed up with the CDC.  The longer things drag on, the worse it will get.

As this relates to cruising in the short term: I believe the Florida lawsuit is the reason the CDC has done as much as they have.  Now that they have the upper hand, I don't expect any further relaxation of the rules from the CDC.

That said, the cruise lines have found ways to make the best of this.  Either by being fully vaccinated or by doing test cruises.  Let's hope they can continue to find ways to relax the rules until true sanity recovers!

I watched Matt's "8 Not Stupidest purchases I made to bring on a cruise" and it got me thinking about what to buy at the dollar store for a cruise.

For those of you that aren't familiar, there are several chain stores in the USA where everything in the store is $1.  Most of these stores carry a lot of junk and a few worthwhile items.

So, without further ado, what things have you purchased at a dollar store that you won't cruise without?

Here are a few of mine from Dollar Tree:

Hmmm. I haven't received this for any of my cruises. I'm booked on  adventure in July and odyssey in early October. 

After due consideration, this is how I see things developing:

• RCI will announce itinerary changes for Liberty similar to those expressed by @Shari.
• Either Barbados will loosen their restrictions or RCI will cancel the Barbados cruises.  For my Dec 19 cruise, I expect this to happen by Dec 15.
• Cruise with confidence will still be in effect, so I can get a future cruise credit on either cruise.

my path forward:

1. Wait until September and see what changes.
2. If things are just as up in the air then as they are now, I'll make final payment on both cruises.
3. By mid December, I'll use cruise with confidence to cancel one of the cruises based on the following criteria
   1. If Grandeur is sailing with the current Barbados protocols, then I'll cancel grandeur and try to get as much air fare back as possible.
   2. If Grandeur is sailing with reasonable protocols, then we take Grandeur.
   3. If we don't take Grandeur, then we will take Liberty.

In reality, I'm fortunate to have problems like these.  There are so many people in the world that would kill to have the opportunity to go on a cruise...Any Cruise!

Thanks to everyone for the advice and additional perspectives.  It was very helpful!

Definitely going to wait as long as possible, but use the time to fully understand my options. 

I've got my Barbados air through air2sea. If I decided to stick with Barbados and then used cruise with confidence to cancel at the last minute,  what happens with the airfare?

I know, life's rough, but it isn't too long until final payment date on my Christmas cruise and I've got a decision to make

I've got reservations on Liberty of the Seas out of Galveston and Grandeur out of Barbados. I'm trying to decide which one is most likely to sail.

Liberty stops in Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Falmouth Jamaica.  Grand Cayman has already announced no cruises until 2022.  Jamaica is rumored to be doing the same.

On the other hand, Barbados currently requires ship based excursions only.

Anybody want to give me their read on these tea leaves?

I understand your frustration.  I called them first thing Monday morning and was on hold for 1 1/2 hours.  However, I did eventually get through and resolved my questions.

Based on past experience, this is not normal.  They've always been able to pick up in less than 15 minutes. I hope they get this under control soon.

Didn't the video show that Royal agreed to refund her money, fly her home at no cost and give her a future cruise credit?

I really don't see that there's much more Royal could have done in this situation.

Labadee still shows on my cruise planner for Oct 3 sailing.  I'm going for the ship rather than the itinerary, so I'm OK no matter what.

I went to CVS for my test for Celebrity Millennium.  Long story, but I had to get 2 tests.

First one was back in about 20 hours.  The second one took about 36.

They didn't charge me, but I'm still expecting that shoe to drop one of these days.

I've been to Cozumel about 50 billion zillion too many times!

I liked it on my first cruise but have found it less desirable each time I visit.

I've had a mixed bag on getting seat assignments.  Sometimes they ask me if I want them, and they will assign them.  Sometimes I have to log in to the airline website and select them.

On a recent flight, 3 segments were assigned and one was not.  Go figure!

I won't sail anything eith a whale tail funnel!

Any RCI ship works for me 

It was offered for free on Celebrity Millennium.  Assuming it is the same product, then I can say it worked pretty well.  It was easy and intuitive to use.  A handful of texts were slow arriving, but most were received within a minute.

12 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

First I was excited, then I read @Matt's blog post and it makes me wonder, does this apply (as before) to all new and existing bookings that sail before 12/2022?  Or to new bookings from this point onwards?

Royal Caribbean announced it has extended the Loyalty 2X Points benefit so that it applies to bookings made between now and September 30, 2021 for cruises sailing through December 31, 2022.

I'm wondering the same thing. I've got a panama canal cruise for oct 2022 and really want those points 

They did for us.  We were travelling with my 90 year old father and wanted a key to his room for obvious reasons.  He was with us when we asked and that seemed to help.

I don't remember if it has a refrigerator, but it definitely has at least one international plug

On 6/13/2021 at 7:04 PM, Baked Alaska said:

Is this something that our TAs can do, or is this strictly passenger driven?

Your travel agent can do it, but it's easier to call them yourself. 

You can also do it through the website,  but I've found better flights and prices by calling 

I'm unpacking and thought I'd share this really nice keepsake Celebrity gave us to commemorate the first cruise back.

We made it to Houston! 

I want to give a special shout out to Lisa at flights by celebrity. We were at the top of the standby list this morning.  I think she pulled some strings 

I'm taking a moment to share my (ongoing) experience with Flights by Celebrity,  which is really the same service.

On my flight home from Celebrity millennium, the flight from Miami was cancelled. American airlines hasn't been real helpful. They insisted the best we can hope for is a flight on Monday. They offered hotels,  but said there are none available. 

I  booked the flight through Flights by Celebrity. So, I called there emergency service at 1am last night.

Lisa picked up the phone and tried her best. She got us a hotel at Celebrity's expense. She also got us on the standby list for 8:30 today. Fingers crossed that we will make it