ehw51

To be clear, there's been no hint or talk by anyone in RC of a vaccine being needed, so it's purely speculation right now if it would become a policy later.

The 180 days rule will be gone once the vaccine program will start. Masks and social distancing will stay with us for a while until the time that finding someone that is positive after a cruise will not consider as the end of the world and  a full stop for the industry again.

Great analogy! On a separate note, I am running out to purchase Swiss cheese as I suddenly have a craving. 

Bingo. You nailed it

I think this is because all her remaining itineraries are 8+ days

My wife and I had hoped to take one final cruise on Grandeur in February but I guess we will probably not get that chance.
All of Maryland says good bye to Grandeur. ?
And Hello to Enchantment!!! ? 

Just got another $500 in refunds today.  $14k to go...

I echo that.
On Monday I was generally positive. Today (Friday), that positivity has disappeared and has been replaced with the opposite.
The deal breakers, all the black Friday, extended to the weekend and then cyber Monday deals...only to outright cancel the cruises a day or two later they were advertising sales for. The continual marketing to buy-buy-buy only to announce more cancelations and say 'we don't know when' followed by more buy-buy-buy marketing...not a place I want to keep our money waiting.
We'll look at coming back when there are green lights across the board.

Exactly the problem we encountered with one of two staterooms from May. At least you had your money in 78 days - we're at 236 and counting.

I wonder if they'll move to digital credit and touchscreen betting instead of chips. I've seen that at Casino Windsor and it works well, but it definitely feels different when you don't have those chips to play with.

If they do what they did here locally, every other slot machine will be turned off with chairs only in front of active machines to keep the social distancing. Wipes are abundant and more attendants to sanitize the machines more often.

The only indication we have of what the casino situation is likely to be is the recent shorty cruise of Quantum out of Singapore.  We had a glimpse of what those new protocols might be.
Apparently they are blocking off slot machines to permit social distancing and limiting the table players to 3 persons at a time.  Of course, there is likely to be constant sanitizing going on.  
We do not play slots so I have little interest (as a player, I mean) in slot protocols but I do have an interest in table games.  3 persons per table is going to be a big bummer as many of the table games were already difficult to get onto.  Of course, at the beginning, the occupancy of the cruise, overall, will be reduced so this will help somewhat, but I foresee a problem with table games access.  I sure hope I am wrong.

Refunds of cruises is variable for me. 
In cases where I have a refundable deposit before final payment and I choose to cancel I have been getting refunds in 7 to 21 days.
Refunds of cruise planner purchases are back to pre-pandemic timeframes.
I had over 20 cruises booked with them going into this pandemic.   There have been enough WTF moments dealing with various cancellations that it has soured my opinion of the cruise line.  Around 75% of those 20 bookings cancelled gracefully.  I'm down to 4 cruises booked that are non-refundable and I'm hoping they eventually cancel so I go through the refund process as painful as that may be.   
Where I struggle with refunds is when Royal introduces shenanigans when cruises are cancelled.  I've had a couple of cruises where Royal is playing games.  In separate cases they have covertly changed refundable bookings to non-refundable and you only have 24 hours to catch when they do this or they refuse to switch it back.  Then the cruise is cancelled and they only allow FCC or change the options since it was not a refundable booking (which it was).
For two other cases where they cancelled the cruise and we requested the refund option they ignored that and proceed differently. 
One was issued as FCC despite requesting a refund.  Eventually this was resolved and a refund was issued 78 days later.
The other is pending resolution.  This time they chartered the ship for a 2022 cruise and they gave us three options.  The option for price protection was to a date that had no cabin availability for what we had originally booked.  How they thought this was equitable or doable remains a mystery.  We chose the refund option.  Following up several weeks later they claimed we were not eligible for a refund since we cancelled the cruise.  They chartered the ship and they cancelled the cruise.  After escalating they have stated they will refund our deposit in 45 days.  Time will tell.    
To be completely honest I've lost faith in Royal Caribbean.  I've cruised them a fair bit and up to this point they would always do the right thing when things went wrong due from everything like hurricanes or a crane fell on a ship. 
I get the company is struggling and navigating uncharted waters but that doesn't give them license to lie, cheat and steal.  All I want is honesty and fairness even if it takes months to do the right thing, the thing they say they will do but then they proceed in a different direction making false claims and refusing refunds that are clearly due.  
My personal approach right now is to book nothing more with Royal until the pandemic is clearly over and everything is back to normal.  Once bitten twice shy sort of thing.  
I like Royal in general but they've lost their way in this pandemic.  Once I see them getting back to the Royal I used to know I'll come back.

Cruise refunds from cancelled cruises recently seem to be coming back very quickly.

If you booked directly with Royal Caribbean it never hurts to call them and ask about the dates for your FCC and what you options are.  
You don't have decide anything on the first phone call, just ask questions and then you'll know your options.  

Voyager has a transition line between the two colors that makes it more obvious.  I also think there is more saturation to the blue on her.

We get your point but who is going to be cruising from these other countries. How can international travel involving the USA even be considered when there is no clear control of COVID. Over 200k cases again today, there is no chance of cruising until these numbers drop significantly. Freedom of movement unfortunately is this viruses biggest ally.
 

Stock market doesnt pay that close attention to day to day stuff. Certainly the cancellations rarely have a direct effect on the price.

Looks like NCL's identifying what ships it wants to start first too which gives me a bit of optimism.  
We have extended our voluntary temporary suspension of ALL voyages through February 2021. We previously had suspended cruises on Norwegian Star, Norwegian Spirit, and Norwegian Dawn through March 2021; and today we will be adding Norwegian Bliss, Norwegian Breakaway, Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Gem, Norwegian Getaway, Norwegian Jade, Norwegian Jewel, Norwegian Pearl, Norwegian Sky, Norwegian Sun, and Pride of America to the list of cruises suspended through March 2021.
Just the Encore/Escape/Joy left for possible sailings in March.

To a put a positive spin on it, Royal has always proven to be optimistic. 
During hurricane season other lines cancel and Royal takes their time hoping the hurricane goes away.  The same can be said for the pandemic.  Other lines cancel but Royal keeps on hoping it goes away.  
Maybe one day this approach will prove them correct.

Keep in mind that a spring restart will be with one or two ships only, assuming those one or two ships are able to start early spring. 
If you have Navigator or Mariner booked you are on the bubble early spring.  Other ships, like the 24 of 26 other ships in Royal's fleet, 12 of 14 ships in the Celebrity fleet, 2 of 3 Azamara ships and 10 of 11 ships in the SilverSea fleet won't be sailing for sometime after that.  That's 48 ships doing laps in the ocean while less than a handful of ships across the brands do initial restart cruises for a few months.  
One way or another the CDC will not let ships sail while the numbers are elevated in the population.  
As far as plan B, as long as American numbers are up, no country will want thousands of Americans flocking to a ship homeported in their country.
The key to getting ships sailing is getting numbers down.  That is why Singapore is able to cruise right now.  If Singapore has another wave and numbers go up the cruises will stop.  
It's all about the numbers.  
 
Yes.  They don't want to issue refunds.  

You're not the only one. ?
They will have plan B, C, etc. They're just talking about all the options behind their closed doors and not telling us ? what they are looking at. RCI hasn't announced cancellations to the degree other cruise lines have...could be a very good reason behind that. ?

Did you see the official Royal Caribbean app got updated to include arrival times to the ship? It also specifies having to have a sail day wellness screening and some questions for people about to cruise. Good to see the app is getting some awesome updating and features to ready people back to the ships!

Yep, some new goodies in the app

Yeah, you're right.  If you go to "Find a Cruise" then click on "Ships", Grandeur isn't even in the list to choose from.