LCinPDX

20 hours ago, Shay said:

I booked a cruise for October 2023 and I'm wondering will I still be able to take advantage of the best price guarantee? If my sailing price drops Is this policy only applicable to cruises sailing before April 2022 or is this a standard policy? 

I was just able to get a lower price for a July 2022 cruise.  I couldn't believe how easy it was.  Saved $500 on two cabins and I plan to keep watching the prices...

5 hours ago, Neesa said:

Just go to guest services and they will make you duplicate keys, once on board your sleeping arrangements are how ever you would prefer them. This practice of booking connecting with "kids" is common place. They will make you cards to enter the room of your choice.

Thanks! That sounds perfect.

7 minutes ago, James Mills said:

You'll be fine.  We always book our connecting rooms like this.  Yes, your key will be to the room originally booked, but you have connecting rooms so it should matter much.

My wife hardly drinks, so we book the rooms this way so I can get the drink package and she doesn't have to.

Weirdly, we had connecting rooms on Navigator once and each room had a different muster station.

James

Thank you!  I guess we can just keep the connecting door open so that we can enter one room and go into the other.  And the muster situation on your cruise is super strange!

Hi!  We have been on one cruise, but next summer are taking our older teens with us.  When I booked the connecting rooms I had to book myself and one child in one and my husband and our other "child" (actually will be 18) in the other room.  This may sound naive, but do we actually have to sleep in that arrangement, or are we allowed to put the kids in one room and we sleep in the other?  Our door keys would be keyed for the initial room booking, correct?  Can this be changed?  

29 minutes ago, Snotarni said:

Thanks!!!   I just submitted a request for the Beach and Sloths from Bodden

 

You will love it!  We did the tour in August and the only thing I would suggest is that you skip the zip-line unless you REALLY love zip-lines.  I would also bring an extra shirt, as it was extremely humid and we also got peed on by monkeys. 

11 minutes ago, Yo2slick said:

I believe we had a couple of hours after the excursion before we had to be back on the ship but after being in the sun the entire day and doing a little shopping we were beat.  

That makes sense.  Thanks!

Wow! You sold me for sure.  Was there any time afterward to go snorkeling?  I would love to try and do both, because Cozumel has amazing marine life.  Thanks for the photos!

On 8/13/2019 at 12:42 PM, Yo2slick said:

Has anyone been on this excursion?  We booked it but have read a lot of reviews about stopping at a few tourist traps along the way and they dont even release the turtles until evening time.  Excursion is from 9:30 to 1:30 so Im wondering if its more tourist traps then actually working with sea turtles.....  Any advise?

I am looking at this excursion for August.  Did you do it? 

Hello!  This excursion just popped up on my cruise planner for an Aug 15th cruise on Allure.  Has anyone done this?  It sounds amazing.  Also, if you have done this excursion, did you have any time after to hang out at the beach, snorkel, etc? This is our first cruise and I don't have any experience booking multiple excursions back to back or the ability to just go off on our own.  We are both vaccinated, btw.

We are on Allure Aug 15th and our cruise is no longer being sold.  I am hoping that is because they are at capacity (whatever that means) and not because they anticipate cancelling it.  

From a purely safety standpoint, wouldn't it make more sense to fully integrate unvaxed pax with vaxed pax?  If you put a bunch of unvaxed people together to eat without a mask on, it seems like if there was a covid positive individual, it would spread much more readily within this crowd.  Vaxed people could potentially buffer that from happening due to decreased viral loads/shedding, no?  It seems like some of these procedures are more to provide gentle pressure to pax to get their vaccine so that they don't have to deal with the inconvenience and extra cost.

We booked a Chill Island beach bed on PDCC, as it is only 2 of us and it seemed more cost effective.  I am not sure if we made the right decision or not (as we have never been there), but that may be another option if you want some place to land that is guaranteed and has shade.

3 hours ago, LovetoCruise87 said:

We are on the Aug 22nd sailing. Have not heard anything yet on if our destinations are changing or not. Funny part is when anyone asks my wife where we are going on our cruise, she says 'I don't know, I'm just happy to be going on a cruise.'  lol

That is a very healthy way to look at it, considering that so much has been up in the air for so long. 

3 hours ago, Jverge said:

Thanks for the heads up... I'm on that sailing too but did not get an email yet.  I'm not happy with that new itinerary... one of the reasons I booked on Allure was it wasn't going to Puerto Costa May, Roatan, or Cozumel since I have been to all those on a different ship and wanted something new.  Plus I was looking forward to going to Labadee for the first time.  Oh well... I'll just be happy that I'm on a cruise finally but I wouldn't mind some on-board cruise credits for my troubles.

I can see how that would be a bit disappointing.  I am just glad that they kept Perfect Day.  I am not sad about the other changes, because I haven't been there yet...

3 hours ago, AshleyDillo said:

It is typical for a variety of reasons. Cruise itineraries get set up typically 2 years or more in advance, so there's plenty of reasons ports can change in that time.  

However we are talking about an industry that has been dormant for over 15 months. Though it's not a total return to service, it is expected that the ports may not be able to get fully up to speed in the time they had so it made sense to switch to other ports for this particular cruise.

I guess I should be encouraged then, rather than thinking this is one step closer to a cancellation...

1 hour ago, ClockingOut said:

Are you on the Allure sailing?  I am sailing on Allure in September and just saw an email, in our Allure September cruise Facebook group, sent for an Allure ship in August that was supposed to be going to Jamaica, Perfect Day, Nassau and Labadee that had it's scheduled changed to Costa Maya, Roatan, Cozumel and Perfect Day. I wouldn't be mad if they switched ours to that itinerary too but we have a Symphony of the Seas booked in April with the same itinerary as the new Cozumel one.

 

This is the email that was posted in the group.

Yes, this was the same itinerary and changes that we received as well (Allure).

On 6/7/2021 at 4:15 AM, JSB_Z51 said:

So must of those reading the boards here are well aware that cruises are beginning in July and August.  Any news on ports of call.  Labadee and Coco Cay are eas6 to allow.  Any news on real ports of call like Aruba, Cozumel, Curacao, Jamaica, or Roatan to name a few. 

We have an Aug 15 cruise out of Port Canaveral and it was supposed to go to Nassau and Labadee (in addition to Falmouth and Perfect Day).  The itinerary was just change today and now we are going to Costa Maya, Roatan, Cozumel and Perfect Day.  Assuming it goes at all....

We just got an email informing us that our August 15th sailing out of Port Canaveral has been changed.  Like, really changed.  Only one destination is the same (Perfect Day). The reason given was due to "port availability".  This is our first cruise and we actually don't mind the changes so much, but I am worried that this is the first step before cancellation.  Or...could it be that they really hope to sail and have planned stops based on what they can realistically deliver.  Is this a normal practice outside of Covid19 times?  I know everything would be speculation at this point, but I would appreciate any insights.

3 hours ago, wordell1 said:

I blame the CDC for this.  Children who are not eligible should have been exempted from the vaccine requirements for a "fully vaccinated" cruise, which is the option that RC would have preferred.  

Personally, I don't really care whether non vaccinated people are on a cruise with me, or what the rules for those people are as long as it doesn't affect me.  My only slight concern would be an outbreak amongst the non vaccinated people ending the cruise suddenly - which is highly unlikly if we are testing beforehand.

Cases are dropping all over the country so this may all be a moot point soon.

This ^^^^

22 hours ago, Dad2Cue said:

How will Royal know if they can't ask who is and who isn't vaccinated?  This all seems silly to me because supposedly nobody will know who is vaccinated or not.  It will just be a personal choice about what people want to do to protect themselves which is fine with me.  It just seems more likely that there will be outbreaks of covid on cruise ships and then we will likely know who wasn't vaccinated.

Maybe they could ask after the cruise leaves port and then give vaccinated people a bracelet or something.  I know, it's all weird and I agree that the chances of more covid oubreaks have just increased.

I wonder how this will pan out.  It seems like DeSantis is being a huge bully. If private businesses choose to have requirements that they believe will either keep customers safe or improve conditions, the state should not interfere.  If anything, this seems like a higher level of governmental influence, which governers like DeSantis have been against.  It's purely political grandstanding to get him on the Republican presidential ticket (IMO).  All that being said, it does seem like RCL could make some arrangements for people who are unvaccinated, which may require more mask wearing and/or daily testing.  

Wasn't there a kids show that had a school on a cruise ship?  Since the priority seems to be opening schools right now, to the point of changing metrics to fit the current case/death/percentage positive counts, maybe all cruise ships should open up a little school onboard...

18 minutes ago, twangster said:

Unfortunately the typical action is for them to cancel all cruise planner purchases when a ship or date change is made.  Only when you change cabins on the same ship and date are cruise planner purchases retained.

Once in a while you may see a report that someone managed to keep a purchase when changing ship or sail date but it's never happened for me.  Why they do this is not known other than some things are capacity controlled and pricing can vary for a number of reasons.  

Well, I have to say that this is the answer I was expecting.  It is disappointing, but I will keep watching prices. There is definitely time for that. 

Hi there.  I have travelled widely throughout my life, but I am going on my virgin cruise voyage in August '21 to celebrate my 50th birthday.  We chose an 8 day Southern Caribbean cruise out of Miami, which was initially on the BOTS.  A couple of weeks ago they had a fantastic sale on drink packages and also some shore excursions.  I bought Unlimited Beverage Packages plus Voom for less than $1000 per person.  We also snagged a beach bungalow on Labadee for $175.  As many are aware, they swapped our ship for the Independence while keeping the itinerary the same.  In the process, they also cancelled all of our packages and refunded us.  When the deal was done and we were assigned our new cabins (which I am quite happy about), I wanted to re-book the things that were cancelled.  The bev/voom package was still "on sale", but we paid approximately $70 more total for the both of us.  The Labadee excursions were not even available anymore until a few days ago, but they have returned to the pre-sale price.  I am confused about why they cancelled our packages and when I contacted RC to see if the original prices would be honored, they said no.  Is this normal?  Is there anything I can do?  I realize that on the grand scheme of things my issues are minor, but with my lack of experience I wanted to check here to see if anyone had had a similar situation.  Thanks in advance! 

3 minutes ago, WannaCruise said:

Really tempted to change our 5 night Freedom (Bermuda) to 8 night Southern Caribbean on Independence.  Similar ships (and Sky Pad for my younger one who loved it on Mariner).  Great itinerary and we could add 3 nights for almost the same price.  Think we're going to keep Freedom though with covid being so unknown as it's a departure port we could drive to if needed whereas we wouldn't drive to Miami (i.e New Jersey vs Miami).  Plus, we do really want to see Bermuda (and doesn't hurt that we got the "cheap" drink package too).  

I am on the Aug Southern Caribbean Cruise that was changed to Independence.  I am happy about the ship change, but a little nervous about any possible itinerary changes and cabin reassignment.