JimnKathy

The outdoor tables at Chops are wonderful. We sailed a B2B on Symphony last September on an Unlimited Dining Package and enjoyed the outdoor seating twice...you'll love it.

We'll be on the same sailing...can hardly wait for it!

Great illustration of the guarantee that Air2Sea will get you to the ship, but there's no assurance it won't be a stressful process in doing so.

Given how unpredictable commercial air travel is these days, flying in the day of a cruise is playing with fire. At the very least I'd tell anyone to fly in no later than the night before.

We were discussing this exact issue yesterday at a family gathering...the anti-cruise industry attitude is ridiculous.

How about a Star Trek replicator to replace 21st Century room service?

Exactly. The ports aren't closing down to be azzhats to the cruise industry...heck, their local economies get hammered terribly when they can't do business. The challenge these 3rd World nations have is that their healthcare systems really struggle with all of the issues related to the pandemic. From what can be surmised in my part of the country (West Tennessee), the Omicron variant is a minor issue for the fully-jabbed citizens who are otherwise healthy. It's mostly those who already have several co-morbidities AND who aren't vaxed who are experiencing anything other than minor cold symptoms requiring hospitalization. While I could be wrong, I would be surprised if the worst of this pandemic isn't behind us by the end of January.

My holiday-food-filled belly could probably stand a bit of "withering away" for a few extra weeks...why NOT do it on a RCL cruise ship?

Can't really blame Royal for tightening mask mandates. The entire industry is financially leveraged to the hilt due to to the shutdown. Another CDC shutdown would throw the cruise lines into bankruptcy.

I agree. While many folks I know are testing positive for Omicron where I live (West Tennessee), nobody who is jabbed up is being hospitalized or dying from this variant. There are many positive signs that this virus is becoming endemic. As Matt indicated in today's blog update, the situation on sailings this past week were all very manageable.

Yet again more reason to use a good TA. My TA keeps me up to date on all this stuff without me having to lift a finger.

I second this motion! We bought these tags for our last cruise a few months ago...we'll never cruise again without them.

We sailed on a Symphony B2B and were consistently dazzled with amazing customer service from start to finish. There were many occasions where the crew was just as excited to be on the ship as we were. Our favorite thing was having the opportunity to enjoy the Coco Beach Club experience for the first time. What an incredible addition to Perfect Day at Coco Cay!

Uber or Lyft can easily handle your needs. Just request a party of 4 so a driver with a larger vehicle can handle your luggage. Easy peasy.

Fresh ice, extra hangers and wine glasses. I always like to give our attendant $20 on the first day while making these requests...their smiling reactions are awesome!

I'm always feel like I'm a 5th wheel in these things.

Allianz offers options with COVID protections. Check them out. Happy sailing!

While this entire story is certainly unique in many ways, it does highlight a benefit of using a good travel agent instead of dealing directly with Royal's call center. No doubt a good agency would have better success working out a quick financial fix with Royal on the cancellation of the original cruise.

From the perspective of me being a fellow RC Blog "friend", if it were me, I'd take the FCC and move on. Wasting time, emotional energy and $$$ on something like this is a fools errand...all you've experienced is a bit of inconvenience...nobody died or suffered permanent injury. All this will do is keep you in a state of perpetual anger and prevent you from enjoying your life while the legal process grinds away for a year or two...just ain't worth it in my humble opinion. Good luck and Godspeed to you, Rita.

We completed a Symphony B2B two months ago and really enjoyed our experiences at 150 (we had the UDP 2 weeks in a row). Food was excellent on 3 separate visits, but the service level from our waiter, Ben, was absolutely spectacular! Wonderland was interesting, but the flavor profiles of weren't up to the hype. The Mad Hatter was new to his role and didn't really add much to the atmosphere of the place. I wish Wonderland would focus a bit more on amazing flavors to appeal to us "foodies".

We did a lanyard on our last cruise and decided that's a winner going forward.

I like the crew-serve option to eliminate touching utensil handles. This combined with good handwashing protocols makes norovirus transmission a non-issue.

Considering their debt load has more than doubled during the pandemic shutdown, it's perfectly understandable they pushed back the delivery of these new ships.

You may be correct. We're usually so stuffed with all of the food that it's pretty tough to nibble on additional entrees...hard for this kid to eat more than one filet mignon at a sitting.

If you opt for the UDP, you can get multiple entrees as well.