WAAAYTOOO

No one really knows what the lounge rules are going to be when US cruises resume, but based on information from other recently resumed cruises and recent history before cruising paused, the Concierge and Suites Lounges were off limits for D+. With COVID restrictions in place I would be very surprised if D+ could access the CL on OY. The GOOD news is, it sounds like there will be some beverage vouchers provided that will probably provide you better coffee than you could get in the CL ! Again, no one knows for sure quite yet but that's been the scuttlebutt.

To my knowledge, the only room service available is regular room service (food). I'm not sure you actually could order a glass of wine at 11:00 unless you are Star Class...but I could be wrong. Food ? Absolutely. For that, they use dining room personnel so they would not bother your room steward.

I only went up to the Suite deck once when we were on our B2B on Anthem....the weather was horrible. There did not appear to be any card access OR attendant. You just went up there ! Frankly, it is a huge disappointment compared to the nice suite sun decks on the O class with a separate bar, lounge and restrooms. I think (but cannot remember for sure) that one of the O class ships even has a hot tub up on their suite sun deck.

1. I agree with @12thman. I would NOT depend on RoyalUp if you really want a full suite. Those chances are extremely remote. 2. GS - I am a huge fan of Grand Suites on all of the Royal Caribbean ship classes EXCEPT for the Quantum class (of which, Anthem is one). Since you mentioned your mom uses a scooter, I would scratch this one off your list immediately. The half wall where the TV is mounted in the Q class GS makes that suite VERY cramped and I would think that she would have a big problem with a scooter. Frankly, I think you would have more room in your JS than you would in a GS on Anthem. I will never EVER pay for a GS again on a Q class ship. 3. I have never stayed (or even seen) a 2 BR GS on the Q class ship so I really have no opinion about this one. As long as the living area is not designed the same as it is in the 1 BR (with that half wall for the TV) you would probably be fine. This might actually provide you with the most comfortable situation as you would each have a regular bed. 4. While I have never stayed in an OS on a Q class ship, I feel confident that you would have plenty of room for your mom's scooter in an OS. Not only would you have plenty of room, but you would have a dining table and regular chairs in your suite so that you could enjoy a comfortable room service meal if you decided to try that. With a full suite, room service is complimentary so you could have breakfast, lunch or dinner (or all 3 !!!) delivered if you chose to do that. It's a very nice treat. Honestly, if you are going to spend additional money, I would NOT waste it on a GS on Anthem. I am fairly sure that you would have to completely remove the coffee table in the living room to be able to get to the bedroom with a scooter.

The last time I stayed at the Marriott Biscayne Bay (Miami) (I've never stayed at the Grand Marquis that I can recall) the lounge was open but it was very disappointing. Let's just say that the service and food options are far superior in any given Diamond Lounge than they were at that hotel lounge. I would certainly NOT expect it to be open on a Christmas night. Even if you call you could well get an incorrect answer. I have really just given up on Marriott properties with Concierge Lounges. It is my personal opinion that they are trying to phase out that amenity completely. They don't seem to be putting any money or effort into Concierge level service. Our last stay at the Biscayne Bay location was the final straw. While I will remain with Marriott until I lose my Titanium tier status (which I assume will be the end of this year), once I no longer have status, I will kick them to the curb. Now, if we are staying in a hotel, I will just choose a Courtyard or Fairfield Inn or some such lower brand to use up points without any expectations of special service. Frankly, I have found that the Marriott brand hotels (not the Courtyards, etc., but the BIG Marriotts) are generally old, run down and subpar. Since COVID I am just generally frustrated with hotels in general. IMO they seem to be using COVID as an excuse to provide poor service. While they no longer provide any room servicing (you have to go to the main desk to get fresh towels and/or toilet paper), they have certainly not reduced their prices ! I think they laid off their service employees and believe that they can just continue to eliminate the room (and food) servicing and that no one will realize it or complain. They are still using COVID as an excuse and we have moved on since that was necessary. Really pathetic, IMO. Sorry...that turned into more of a rant than I intended. Have a great time on your Christmas/NY cruise !!

I can guess (what happened to the Q&A)...

We will not get the nasal swab. If they won't let us do a cheek swab or a saliva test, we will not be going. I'm slightly worried about what kind of test they will administer on the ship. Same criteria as above so if they insist on doing the nasal swab, we are out. Congratulations on resisting the death jab ! LOL Glad you'll be one of "us". ?

Thanks. But we don’t know this will apply to FL departures yet, correct ? I love the idea of being able to get my own tests vs having to be tested at the port. Just trying to verify that it will be possible to do that.

That’s very interesting. Where did you see this ?

I'm sure this is their justification for doing it at this point. I don't see it ever going back....but hopefully I am wrong.

Yes, I am !!!

So agree with you about antibody and natural immunity. I think it will come about soon.

Not @JeffBbut for me, I agree that the cost of testing would not deter us. I would gladly pay for testing BUT we will not get a nose/brain swab under any conditions....so unless we are allowed to do a cheek swab or a saliva test, it will be a hard "no" for us. We do not know what the tests will be yet so we're holding short for the time being. We don't mind wearing masks and we couldn't care less about being restricted from leaving the ship in ports. We almost never get off in the Caribbean anyway. I truly do not believe that they are going to restrict non-vaxxed from any area of the ship or segregate us. I just don't see that happening. Guess we'll just have to see how it goes !

Buck, is there something in the literature that leads you to believe that there will be CDC officials onboard to " inspect records the CSO requires" ? That seems a little Gestapo to me. I can't believe that they would allow the ship to completely board and THEN try and determine whether they have any violators aboard. I haven't perused the new protocols carefully so maybe there is language in there that indicates that the records would be evaluated after boarding. I understand that the FL law is complicating things but this doesn't seem like a rational approach to me. Thanks !

Not entirely accurate. Unless the entire sailing itself is closed (no categories are open for booking) a TA can still see the current price of any sold out category. What is not obvious to the TA are any potential discounts...so what the agent will see is a retail price (retail = original price without any discounts) per person...but that's really enough information to know whether the final price will truly be higher or lower than what the client paid. What a TA cannot see is whether there would be any additional savings through pricing discounts. If the current online retail price for the room is lower than the original retail price that the client paid, then there is a possibility that there could be a repricing option for the client. A lot would depend on what kind of discounts were included in the original booking. Let's say the client originally paid $500 PP retail for the room and the current online retail is $400 PP. At first glance, that would appear to be a savings for the client BUT if the client originally got a Diamond Plus balcony discount and a resident special rate and maybe a military discount but the new online retail price would not include any of those except for maybe the D+ balcony then repricing would not result in an overall reduction in fare. The agent would not know if Royal is offering any of those optional discounts unless they call Royal and ask. So there is some valuable information available to the agent online but usually not enough information to make a reprice/don't reprice decision without calling. Normally, if you reprice a booking you do not necessarily get any of the "special" discounts of the original booking. Things like balcony discounts will almost always transfer over to the repricing but things like casino discounts, special resident rates or military/first responder rates won't. Then there is the complication of computing the 60% off the second passenger (or whatever the going "sale" happens to be) but that's waaaytooo complex to try and explain even if I understood it, which I don't. So bottom line....the TA will have some information on a closed out category but most likely not enough information to reprice the booking without calling. Trust me, most often, the price of a room - sold out or otherwise - is higher, not lower. Every so often you will get a price reduction (I got one recently on my Hawaii-Vancouver transPacific) but they are fairly rare, especially if you got a really good discount on your original booking.

The only criteria that really matters is whether or not you are past final payment. In BC (Before COVID) days, once you are past final payment it is next to impossible to reprice your cruise and save money. Your price would have to drop enough to cover your cancellation penalty which never, ever happens. But since CWC, it is possible to reprice after final payment if your price drops and still save money. Other than that, there really isn't any criteria...just whether or not your category has dropped in price. As Sabrina said, you have to watch the categories adjacent to yours - both above and below - to see if they are trending up or down. If they are changing, chances are yours is, too....and even though it may be sold out, you can still get a price adjustment !

While it is not always 100% reliable, it is, in general, true that if other cabin categories on your sailing go down in price (or up in price), yours probably did, too. That is why I always track the prices for all or most of the cabin categories so that I can start to look for a price drop in my category, even if it sells out (and they usually do). Of course, that doesn't help you now....but for future reference, it never hurts to take a snip of the current prices when you book and then check the overall trend periodically. If you think there could be a price drop in your category, you can always call and ask. It never hurts. Bottom line....just b/c your cabin category is sold out does NOT mean that you cannot get a price drop, if it is applicable.

Me too but my dates are 11-14 and 11-21. Hope to see you to wish you a Happy Birthday !

I think they are just moving ships around. Things are still garbled up on my Indy-to-Odyssey switch.

According to CruisingPower, all of the Freedom early July bookings are closed. The first sailing showing availability is 23 July. Switching ships maybe ?

Welcome, Nate. Glad to have a new member on the boards !

We are somewhat ambivalent on 150 CP. Back when the restaurant began it was extraordinary. We loved the "chef's table" feel and the seasoned salts and bread were yuuuuummmy. Since they went to a static menu we are less impressed. They have discontinued the salts which was bad enough but the menu is just not appealing to me. I think I'm more of a "simple" eater and the 150 CP menu is a bit fu-fu for me. We tried the roasted tenderloin for 2 but it tasted like eye of round to me - tough and tasteless. I guess I'm just a filet girl. When we have the UDP (which is always) we will still go to 150 but it's never one of the dinner highlights....or at least, hasn't been in the recent past.

What a sweet family !

Everything down here is wonderful. I just love living in FL. The house is moving forward. The outside is mostly completed (we now have a roof with tiles !!). It's a big mystery what comes next. We have always been able to predict what their next move on the house would be, based on how they have completed houses that are a bit ahead of us in the construction process....but once the construction moves indoors, I have absolutely no idea how the process works. So we will be learning daily what they are doing (we go over every day...sometimes more than once !!). We anticipate that we will be closing and moving in probably in September. Our original completion date was projected to be Sept/Oct so they are pretty much on target, as far as we can tell. Job is great, too. I was in DC last week but that has been the only trip I have made in 6 months. Dan is still working full time and received full telework approval so things couldn't be any better with our relocation "plan". He will be able to continue to work full time right up until our cruises begin encroaching on his leave allocation. Once that happens, his options are to retire or do what I did and become a part time contractor. We will not worry about that until it happens. We still haven't gone on a cruise ! I think it will happen in July but nothing is certain. It seems things change daily and b/c we are not getting vaccinated, that complicates our situation even more than most peoples'. We will go with the flow. Whatever happens, happens.

Ok. Since I made that last post they HAVE changed the itinerary in CP. It now shows the new itin. Looks like it is officially changed. UGH. Disappointed (Curacao is my favorite Caribbean destination !) but we will probably stay on this one. If they had shortened the itin from 8 to 7 days we definitely would have cancelled but since it's still an 8 day, we will most likely stick it out.