Chadster

Nothing like a quickie with the wife.
I'm talking about a cruise.
Get your minds out of the gutter people! ?

Among the available JSs are aft-facing ones.

3 days! #stillgoing

120 Days #stillgoing
P.S. On Liberty right now. ?

Changed from Grandeur on 5/14/20 to Adventure on 6/4/2020. Still going to New England and Canada!

Empress 8/9/21 now B2B with 8/16/21.

Cancelled my Mar. 29 , Harmony of the Sea on Sunday ✌️Don’t feel like lose anything but relieved.

We have deluxe drinks was included when we booked at a silly £1000 pp for a Central  Park view...and when we were on the Oasis in December we loved the new eating places especially the Playmakers ? I will need rolling off the ship by the time we get to Miami ?

I upgraded for free today to ocean view from an interior on Empress.  Spent 2 days trying to get through.  Finally got through after calling 3 times today and waiting over an hour each time I called.  Traveling solo so not having to pay for the upgrade is nice.  Upgraded 2 weeks ago for our (my sister & myself) cruise on Rhapsody in August to the Greek Isles.  Went from ocean view deck 4 to aft balcony deck 7 (the big corner balcony in the back 7652) for only 100 pp.

Even though we cancelled our cruise, we are still planning at this point to fly to FLL, stay for 4 days, then drive down to Key Largo for 4 days. We will drive right by the Oasis in Port on our drive down to Key Largo Sunday. Sigh .  .  .

We plan to hit the local Mexican and BBQ restaurants and there is talk of finally building the LEGO Death Star.  I'll be watching videos of 1740. ?

This is exactly what I did, and I'm already very thankful I did. I now have much more peace of mind and I feel like me having a positive cruising experience is one of their utmost priorities -- and that means a lot, especially when I can actually reach out and be answered in a timely fashion.

It has been a crazy few days. Lots of back and forth between go and don’t go. Ultimately, a few things sealed the deal for us.
Never were we worried about the virus on the ship. I am still of the mindset that the ship is likely one of the cleanest places at the moment. Quarantine on the ship was also an afterthought, because how bad could it be in the ATS?  
What really made us re-think over the last few days was the possibility of being further quarantined in Trenton (military base). That is where they are taking all the Canadians on the Princess ships. That does not sound like a great time.
Yesterday, Delta also waived change fees for all travel this month, and Royal revised their “Cruise with Confidence” policy in that we would get back our FCC that we redeemed for this sailing. So really, we would lose nothing by not going. It was beginning to get harder to justify going.
The ultimate deal breaker is that Plan B, was better than Plan A. This blog is officially, “To be continued...” in 166 days.  
We are sad, but at the same, for the hockey people out there, we feel like we just won the Stanley Cup of cruising!  

When one door closes, another one opens. ?

No, I'm not talking about the background images used or some weird decision to use a blue-and-evergreen tartan plaid. I'm talking about the ways that Celebrity's site really bends over backward to screw you up while trying to do any kind of action that brings you in a direction they don't want you to go. Like what?
How about if you're doing a mock booking and just want to exit out? Here a couple of images showing the popup you get when you decide to exit the booking flow.
        
I went back in to the same booking after exiting, pretending I changed my mind and I wanted to book anyway and then decided to exit after all. The "Exit Booking" button that was on the bottom is now on the top, while the bottom white button has become "Continue Booking" -- which was a link at the bottom on the first screen! They are banking on you remembering "I clicked the white button last time, that's how I exit" and just clicking that without reading it. Which causes you to end up stuck and trying to leave over and over until you finally take the time to read it. Especially because if you keep going back, you find that the buttons don't always change positions in the same way. Sometimes you go there and the first exit screen you see is the second one I pasted, and then when you go back a few days later it's back to the first one. Or they swap the buttons around again so that "Continue Booking" becomes the blue button on top.
This is an example of what's come to be called a dark pattern, a way to get people visiting a web site to become stuck and feeling forced through a purchase flow; or making it impossible for them to do things like find how to get in touch with customer service, or unsubscribe from some product you don't want delivered every month any more. Amazon is infamous for this, as are a number of retailer sites these days. But Celebrity's site is turning out to be a horrible textbook example of this, too.
The one that really gets my goat? This:

This is a recent change, and one that it took me almost a week to catch on to. See, for the longest time the left panel has been the option for NRD, while the right panel is the Refundable Deposit option. This even looks like it should still be that, what with that "+$200 USD* for Refundable Deposit" under the button, right?
Nope! You are still selecting NRD booking if you click that big blue button. First giveaway, which I should have caught on to do but didn't because, hey, I'm just doing a mock booking and I'm in a rush, and not really looking at anything besides the Starting From number in big bold text and the word Refundable (hmm, is that really different from someone just looking to book and move to the next thing in their list?)... is the fact that those two dollar amounts are not actually $200 apart. They're $280 apart.
Second thing I should have been wary of is... Take a close look at that "+$200 USD" line of text. Notice anything odd about it?
 
 
 
 
Like the fact it's underlined? Oh, you didn't see it because it kind of blends in with the water and is really thin? Yeah, me neither.
 
 
That's right. That's not just informational text. It's a link.
If you want a refundable deposit, you have to go and click that, not the big obvious button above it. Just to get the offer of 2 perks, but without the "Save $200" part. And who is going to think to do that when they see what they think is a good deal on that bump-out balcony, and the thing that everyone knows you click to go on to the next step in any web shopping experience is a button, and what's right there but a big blue button?
This is a dark pattern to keep you on the NRD booking track. And I missed it, multiple times. I read about this crap all the time because I'm in web development and, well, I need to know what competitors to my employer are doing and what are the latest trends in web design, and ohmygodisthisstuffdisgustingIfeeldirtyjustreadingabout it!! And I still missed it.
Only reason I finally figured it out is because I took a screen shot of the final booking review screen before making payment, and sent it to my TA... who promptly emailed back to point out that my screen shot had a line referencing an NRD perk discount. That I saw but that never registered. Because the primitive lizard part of my brain was just seeing "GOOD NUMBER!! SAVE MONEY!! GET PERKS NOW, MEATBAG!! BIG BUTTON RIGHT THERE CLICK CLICK CLICK!!!"
 
Royal's site does stuff like this, too, but it's not as bluntly deceptive, at least not in all the same spots. I've seen the same BS when trying to exit a booking, where the buttons change position every few times. But at least when you want a refundable booking, they just make you go all the way to the last step before you see the checkbox to get the refundable price. (unless they changed that, too?)
Watch out for stuff like this. Otherwise you're going to call your TA a bunch of times thinking you've found a good chance to save some money, and instead walk away really annoyed and disappointed.

Hey,
 
Wanted to put this out there for everyone.  While Travel Planners get lots of emails about cruise planner sales, royal ups, changes in itineraries etc.... we do not get copies of your Future Cruise Credits. (FCC).  The cruise lines send those directly to you the client because they are not tied to the agency you booked with.  This way you can book with a deposit what you would like, with whom you would like and then apply that FCC to your booking.
Lots of questions on this, so figured make it a topic - although I don't know how many people search a topic before asking.  It's all good!  

This is exactly what I did, and I'm already very thankful I did. I now have much more peace of mind and I feel like me having a positive cruising experience is one of their utmost priorities -- and that means a lot, especially when I can actually reach out and be answered in a timely fashion.

This is exactly what I did, and I'm already very thankful I did. I now have much more peace of mind and I feel like me having a positive cruising experience is one of their utmost priorities -- and that means a lot, especially when I can actually reach out and be answered in a timely fashion.

Well said.  One thing to consider is if you are cancelling your upcoming cruise under the "Virus rules" and getting a FCC for your rooms.  Those FCC's are tied to you and not the agency.  This means you could find new cruises and use that with another agency.  Not saying you need to cancel - if you still want to cruise your TA on record is going to have to work on that for you, or you could request to have them turned back over to you.  Normally that would take 3 to 5 business days but right now  - no clue.
Sorry you are going thru this, but I would recommend next time interview a few agents to make sure you are going to get the agent or agency that you feel would work best for you.

A great TA is what makes travel so much fun.  My usual TA left the company I used and I got a new one this time around.  Let's just say, even before CV popped up, she's not a fan of any communication.  We tried to upgraded 2 of our 3 rooms as prices dropped (after final) and she was unable to do so and in the process, lost our sequential cabin assignments.  Her response - "sorry, I'm sure it'll work out when the rush of callers die down".  
Can I switch to one you amazing TA's?

Love this!
https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/03/10/royal-caribbean-promises-protect-travel-agent-commissions-deferred-cruises-coronavirus

We’ve done Grandeur for Christmas many times. It’s always great.

Thanks for the insights, everybody -- I'll be cruising on Grandeur Dec. 18-26 this year! I'm excited; Christmas honestly hasn't ever been one of my favorite holidays -- I'm not an Ebeneezer Scrooge by any stretch, though -- but this year, I'm really excited that I'll be on a ship on Christmas Day in the morning (and I guess the rest of the day, too...)

Thanks for the insights, everybody -- I'll be cruising on Grandeur Dec. 18-26 this year! I'm excited; Christmas honestly hasn't ever been one of my favorite holidays -- I'm not an Ebeneezer Scrooge by any stretch, though -- but this year, I'm really excited that I'll be on a ship on Christmas Day in the morning (and I guess the rest of the day, too...)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2020/03/09/fauci-says-cruising-is-ok-if-you-are-healthy/?fbclid=IwAR3CkM4UR0f97ez3-eAT1E9PV6Jzdl54ClrabeRdWMRfL50Mdhs5ghsApnA#1690e0ef2d4d