Thrifty99

April 19th on Harmony Eastern Caribbean - will wait and see how things are going up until the week before. Hopefully with all the aggressive steps being taken we will see some topping out of new cases by then. if not, will play it safe and cancel. Sep Allure Mediterranean out of Barcelona - this is the wife and her 80 year old mother. Obviously will cancel if any risk to her mother but waiting to do anything. Dec Oasis Eastern Caribbean - hoping the virus does not regain strength in the cooler months at end of the year. Our family has four 2021 cruises booked (Feb - May - July - Sep). 2 Caribbean and 2 Europe. Not doing anything with those at this time.

We have a late April cruise on Harmony and are planning to still go and will re-evaluate it about a week prior to sailing. I have no issue sailing due to catching the virus. The issue I have is whether we want to risk an outbreak (or even 1 case) onboard and then being quarantined for 2 weeks or more. We are hoping in the next 4 weeks we see the virus spread stalling but that may be wishful thinking.

Just a couple of tips/ things you may or may not already have packed: - magnetIc hooks for extra hanging of things. Especially useful to hang wet items in the shower. - highlighter for the cruise compass. We like to look at it each night for the next day and highlight things to do. - with what is happening in the world, I would pack some of your own hand sanitizer and maybe a small spray can of Lysol. While there is lots of sanitizer on board you may want a small one to carry with you on excursions. I’d also pack extra medicine and some laundry tablets in the small chance something happens and your Cruise is delayed in coming home. I will be packing some of these extras for our April Harmony cruise.

You could also look at the company’s financial statements to get a general idea. RC has a trailing net profit margin of 17.55%. So for the past 4 quarters they have made 17.55% profit (after all expenses, taxes, etc). So IN GENERAL for every $1,000 you spend on a cruise they are making $175. But those profit margins vary by ship, cabin type, sailing itinerary, time of year, etc. It also varies by the “extras” you purchase. Internet, alcohol beverage plan, soda plan, excursions, the Key... they will all have different profit margins. So if you have a cruise where you have a suite and buy a lot of extras your profit margin for the company may be 25%+ versus a person who buys an inside cabin and pays for nothing extra on the ship may be at a 15% profit margin.

The prices move around a lot. I’m surprised that April 4, 2021 had “kids sail free” as they normally don’t include weeks around Spring Break / Easter. It looks like Easter is April 4th next year. We usually book direct and track our cruise prices weekly for any drops. If you can find a travel agent who will do that for you with 4 cabins that may be beneficial.

We are doing it next Feb 20th on Odyssey. CocoCay - Jamaica - Labadee

Cabin 9532 was great. Close to the stairs and had the small boat outside the window that blocked much less of the view compared to the larger life boats as seen in the 2nd photo.

As I can get claustrophobic at times, a balcony is a must for me. If I did not have that issue I’d go with double the cruises to build up to Diamond faster. After seeing what happened on the Princess Diamond it would be more difficult to do an inside cabin. Not that I expect a widespread ship quarantine to happen again, but if I became ill and was stuck in my cabin I would want the balcony and fresh air.

We just sailed on Majesty Jan 18-25 and I agree pretty much with all that CruiseGus said. We were disappointed they cancelled the nightly Diamond event starting with our cruise. The best alternative to mingle with other cruisers was the Schooner Bar and that was very busy before dinner. Had trouble finding a few seats together and waited a long time for drinks. We LOVE Oasis class ships but we did Majesty as it was a 7 hour drive from Nashville vs 10+ hours to Port Canaveral. We also had never been to Key West and wanted to try that port. The cruise had some mediocre weather (had to skip Nassau and do Key West a 2nd day). We did have good weather and a fun day at CocoCay. The entertainment was pretty bad. Partly due to an entertainer not being able to come on board at Nassau since we skipped that port. The singer at the beginning of the cruise was good. But then one night of the “Royal Caribbean Dancers” followed by 2 nights in a row of the Royal Caribbean Orchestra was not entertaining at all. We are spoiled by the much better entertainment on the Oasis class. Luckily we met some great people at our dinner table. We so enjoyed the 3 other couples and that saved this cruise for us. We normally do balcony cabins but did not want pay a lot for a suite to get one on this ship. We did the larger Ocean View on deck 9 and chose one we had researched that was not as obstructed by the lifeboats. It was a pretty decent cabin - better than what I was expecting. We would never do this small of a ship again and was not impressed at all with the port. We had to drag our luggage across the road with railroad tracks to get from the parking lot to the terminal.

They have been doing this on some of the ships with either no coffee machine or when they have cut out some Diamond lounge benefits. We were on the first sailing on Majesty last month when they eliminated the nightly Diamond Happy Hour in the Viking Lounge. Many have complained about this change and rumor is they may add the one specially coffee to Majesty to give a little something back.

In this case since you are after final payment date, a TA could not have gotten you a price reduction either, correct? Cruises many times drop in price AFTER the final payment date as the cruise line doesn’t have to reprice current customers. They can try to fill the ship with last minute deals.

We had a port cancelled in the Caribbean last year and I was surprised at how small the refund was to our account. It was less than $8 each.

If money is not a concern then Oasis is the ship to take your 2 boys on. So much more of a WOW factor with Oasis. I mentioned cost as not only is the Adventure cheaper but the water park at CocoCay will cost you more $$ too. While we enjoy CocoCay without spending any extra $$ on the island (we are empty nesters now), it could be hard to take teens there and not pay for the water park We have done most of the Oasis class ships and also the Adventure. When our son was a teen and we did Adventure (after having been on Oasis & Allure) he was pretty bored / disappointed. Luckily we had a last minute great deal on a 2 bedroom suite and he loved that. I would take the boys on the bigger ship to a more fun place (CocoCay) for a more memorable trip. I would not be concerned with the ports being outside the U.S. - they are very safe places to travel. Remember... whatever you decide it will still be a great cruise.

If not in a suite, we like deck 6 for these reasons: - same deck as Boardwalk / AquaTheater aft and Spa forward. - walk down one deck to the Promenade. - walk down one deck to walking / jogging track. - walk down two decks to Casino and Amber theater. - walk up 2 decks to Central Park. - walk down 1 or 2 decks to Main Dining Room. So most of the time we do not need to bother with elevators and just take the stairs up down 1 or 2 decks for the majority of our activities. The exception is going to/from the pool deck 15.