Chadster

Yep! ? The June 4 sailing is still my first choice, but if need be, I'll enjoy a balcony in July instead!

July 15th? That’s the one that we are currently booked on.

This is the cruise I'm holding a reservation on just in case my June sailing on Adventure doesn't go forward. I really hope one way or another, I get to visit Canada!!

The only thing I MIGHT change is to be more vocal (and potentially obnoxious) when telling idiots to wash their hands before leaving the restrooms.

OK, I'm bucking the trend here. I not only am staying on my cruise, I doubled down and took advantage of the fact people are starting to cancel. Cabins are opening up with some modest price drops, so I've asked my TA to upgrade me from my current pair of interior cabins to a pair of OV cabins. I'm moving from deck 7 to deck 3, but at least now we'll all have a nice 4-foot diameter window to look out of and have some natural daylight coming in should the worst happen and we get quarantined while at sea.

I’m on a 9 night on Adventure in July and it was practically sold out for the longest time, until this week. Lots opened up this week. Really looking forward to this so hopefully this mess clears up by then.

Too early to tell. If cruises are still impacted in November I don’t want to think about where society will be.  

Day 1 photos:







                                                                                              
 

Hockey gets shutdown for 6 hours - Canada solves Coronavirus... ?

Alrighty now ..... since my March 29th Cruise on Freedom went down the toilet, I've got a few additions and one deletion...
Add Oasis - Sept. 20, 2020
Add Freedom - March 13, 2022 (The anniversary of the shutdown announcement --- and Nick Vitani's Birthday -- lol)
Delete Mariner - Sept. 21, 2020
Thanks,
Mark

Yes, including one that is paid in full.  
If the FCC is greater than the Nov. cruise they will typically re-issue the left over FCC once you complete the Nov. cruise.  That becomes FCC you can apply to another cruise.
FCC can only be applied towards base cruise fare.  It can't be used to pay for taxes, port fees or prepaid gratuity.  It can't be used as a deposit on a new cruise, it has to be applied to an existing booking even if that booking is brand new and was made just to use up the FCC.
Be aware that Odyssey is potentially in jeopardy of not completing on time if this virus becomes an extended event.  Shipyard labor could be impacted and Odyssey *might* get delayed.  Keep track of the your FCC details if you will apply it against Odyssey.  Keep detailed notes because it can become confusing when they start offering something on a cruise like Odyssey if they do end up postponing the inaugural.   

Royal did say they were protecting commissions on both the cancellation and the rebooking that an FCC is applied against. The TAs are under a lot of pressure and uncertainty, I’m glad that Royal is doing right by them.  

I second the comments regarding @michelle  I just got off the phone with her about an hour ago.... it was amazing how calm she was in this unprecedented storm.  Not only is she having to talk numerous clients off the cliff, she's also having to deal with constantly changing situations on, what would seem, an hourly basis.  And on top of it all, she also had to deal with the changes with her own plans that had her going overseas. 
So, with that being said, thank you Michelle (and this goes for all the TA's out there) ---- you all are amazing and deserve our admiration.  Thank You.

My June 2020 and August 2020 sailings have dropped in price, while the cruise planner offerings have rocketed up. I just booked a cabin for Thanksgiving on a previous sold out category on the Odyssey, the category is sold out again and these prices seem to be holding, but cruise planner offerings went up since I booked. My Allure 2021 in August remains the same price BUT Sharla at MEI was able to allocate 300.00 OBC. 
We LOVE to sail, came over as platinum from DCL and were astonished at the amazing experience on RCCL. I personally can not fathom lovers of cruising not returning.
I love holding hands with my best friend of 30 years looking out into the ocean, with the breeze and a libation in the other hand. Counting our blessings and being oh so thankful for our incredible lives.
This too shall pass, wishing everyone here positive karma, good vibes, amazing health and many happy future sailings to come.......Just please; wash your hands.

One way to know if you were paying the agent commision from the start - who charged your credit card?  
The travel agents I use now don't charge my credit card.  The line item on my credit card invoice comes from Royal Caribbean.  When I pay the deposit, it is charged by Royal Caribbean.  When final payment is made it is charged by Royal Caribbean.  The travel agency simply passes my card number to Royal who charges my card.
When you are working with a travel agency that is using some tricks to offer lower rates some of the charges may come from that travel agency.  If any portion of the total cost of all charges appears to come from someone other than Royal Caribbean you are probably dealing with one of those agencies.   They use group rates or other wholesale commission reduced rates from Royal and then they themselves charge you some portion which is effectively their commision and profit.  I avoid these types of travel agencies.
Here is the other reason to avoid these types of travel agents.  You see the cruise as costing $X - the total of all charges.  Royal offers the cruise to the agency not at $X but at $Y.  The travel agency turns around and sells you the cruise at $Y + $Z where $Z equals their commision and profit. 
$Y (they're cost) plus $Z (their commision and profit) = $X what you pay.  
When a cruise is cancelled and FCC is offered, Royal calculates the FCC based on what they sold the cruise for.  In this case they sold the cruise (to the agency) at $Y.  That is the number Royal will use to calculate the FCC.  You are thinking the FCC will be based on $X - what you paid.  Wrong.  You get FCC based on the agency rate, not what you paid.  
When you work with a travel agency like MEI they don't play this game.  Royal charges your credit card for all amounts so Royal will see all of your payments and that is what Royal will base any FCC on.  Royal pays these types of travel agents their commision on the back end that you never see.  Royal typically takes care of travel agencies in times of mass cancellations.   They can't afford to upset thousands of travel agents who sell other cruise lines as well. 
However when certain travel agencies that use commision reduced rates are involved with mass cancellations Royal doesn't treat the the same because there was no commision.  These travel agencies resort to not refunding the charges they made directly to your credit card as a means to retain some commision or profit. 
This is why these types of travel agents should be avoided.   Cheap rates look appealing and when everything goes as planned you save some money.  However when things go awry you don't get all the money that other people get who used more reputable travel agents.

This won't stop people from touching their faces. People will be licking their fingers! You know Marylanders -- they put that stuff on everything! ?

I was thinking about the fact prices are jumping up for 2021 and '22, and I'm honestly trying to figure out if this is because (a) despite all the bad press against the cruise industry, there are still a ton of people who are sold on cruising and immediately rebooked for next year and beyond, causing the spike as supply rapidly dwindles; or (b) Royal is not fully thinking this through long-term and is trying to get a short-term financial shot in the arm to offset the losses hammering them right now.
I'm guessing that it's more A than B, though still a mix, and certainly hope that's the case. Every cruise line has a big black eye after this, even if they've done nothing to warrant it up to this point, simply because the media has decided to dog-pile on the industry as a whole and continue to refer to ships as petri dishes and floating incubators and the like. I seem to recall statements here and quoted from quarterly financial calls noting the high percentage of first-time cruisers that make up Royal's annual booking numbers each year; if they expect to continue to draw in new cruisers and grow their customer base, they can't go and do things like spike prices at a time when people may be looking nervously at whether they should book or not. Thinking of this image that my wife sent me a few days ago:

 

I won't do anything differently on a cruise -- I already exercise the best hygiene practices I can given the large crowds and the fact the ship's my home for several days.
This has driven home the importance of travel agents for me, though, and I will certainly never book a trip on my own. Also, I now understand the value of keeping an eye on prices even after you book and even pass final payment -- the upgrades that can be found are sometimes fantastic!

I think Carnival has greater impact from this.  It was the Carnival brand and Princess name dragged through the mud in the media.  With more ships to fill they really need to entice customers back.  Royal does as well but Carnival's exposure is greater.   

I will never book again without a travel agent! I do believe the amount of time and effort and stress my husband and I dealt with and spent over the phone would’ve been alleviated had we had a TA. Lesson learned. But we will truly value and appreciate the TA in the future knowing what they deal with!

I think it's too late. I'm busted. It would have been a drink on a group cruise if you had the drink package....hhhmmmm

NOW you’re thinking like a real addict !  Great job !

I find that I use Royal's site directly to price out cruises that I'm looking at and then I take it to my MEI agent to quote it.  Usually the TA can't undercut the cruiseline prices unless they locked in a group rate of some sort. 
The bigger agencies do this a lot which is why you may find cheaper prices.  But you give up the personal level of service that you would get from working with a smaller agency.  Plenty of folks found this out when they had to sit on the phone trying to get through to a large agency's call center.
MEI can get you the same incentives as booking directly with Royal.  Best thing to do is contact MEI and get set up with an agent to immediately start working with to take advantage of the current RCL promotion.
You can also book yourself directly and transfer it to a TA within 60 days.

Yes!  My wife and talked about this same thing while driving home from Bayonne today.  We like to cruise as cheap as possible, so we can cruise more.  BUT, one of the reasons we were willing to sail the Anthem last week was the extra comfort of having booked a balcony.  By coincidence, our next two cruises booked (Harmony & Anthem) are also balconies.  Like @Mljstr, I think we are going dig deeper into our pockets going forward.  Also another benefit was the view at 6:32AM on Friday the 13th...