JasonOasis

I’m on Anthem right now we they accepted our Royal Up bid taking us from a balcony to a grand suite then once we got on board (and I’ve never done this before) my husband and I went down to guest services right after the sail away after we cleared the Verrazano Bridge to see if they had any empty suite higher than a grand we got an onboard upgrade to an owners suite for only $900 additional dollars total not per person. We started out with the balcony guarantee got the Royal UP decided to roll the dice when we got onboard scored an upgrade to the owners suite all for $7,100 dollars TOTAL!!!!! That is a far cry from the near $17,000 dollars Royal wanted for this 11 night cruise if we would have booked the Owners Suite out right when we book this cruise last minute. To top things off we went to the casino last night played one hand Wheel of Fortune and won $500 dollars. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I have never had this much luck in all my life and I’m 41 years old.

You might be in for a much more complicated pre-cruise requirement on Wonder of the Seas sailing in June sine Wonder will be sailing from Europe. Depending on when you arrive in Europe you will need to test before arriving in Europe and if you arrive in Europe more than 2 days prior to your set sail date you will then need to test again before boarding Wonder of the Seas. It is unfortunate but unless we see more governments take the same path of the United Kingdom which has ended all pre-arrival testing requirements for fully vaccinated international arrivals then you will still have to jump through testing hoops prior to boarding Wonder of the Seas. Just keep your eyes open as you get closer to your June sailing to see what requirements are in place especially sailing out of Europe. Hopefully Adventure Ocean is back to normal by then and I think the shows will be back to normal by June. On our last cruise in October on Symphony they played every show, I'm on Anthem right now we set sail in a few minutes we will see if they play every show on this cruise.

At one point Chicago and the surrounding suburbs was up to a 5 day turn around for PCR test we are now back down to 24 hours.

Yes Yawn. I look forward to the day where they no longer name Covid variants kind of in the same way we no longer name different variants or strains of flu. The flu vaccine is modified every year based on what scientist believe will be the most active strains of that virus. I look forward to the day when that happens to Covid which will continue to mutate. Just modify the vaccine, make it available to the public and keep it moving while leaving the rest up to the individual to choose if they want to take it or not. At this point there is no eradicating Covid, there is no need stopping the world every time a new variant pops up it is time to move forward.

I've done several 7 night summer cruises in the past on Anthem where we stopped at Port Canaveral. I would for sure recommend the Space Center to everyone and you do have enough time to see nearly everything especially if there are not super busy. However if you are perhaps considering a trip to either Disney World or Universal Studios instead of the Space Center we did that as well on one cruise (Universal Studios) it was a complete waste of time and money because it takes over an hour to get from the port to Universal Studios if there is traffic and it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get back to the ship. The travel time alone doesn't leave you enough time (in our case) to fully enjoy Universal Studios. I've always wished the ship would arrive in the morning giving people all day to enjoy Orlando instead of an afternoon arrival with a 9 pm or 10 pm departure, it just isn't enough time if you are traveling into Orlando.

I'm getting on Anthem of the Seas this afternoon for an 11 night cruise. My husband and I went to CVS in Chicago on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. for a PCR test and we got our results yesterday January 30th at 2:45pm. NEGATIVE!!!! It looks like things are back to normal testing wise and people are once again getting their results back within the 24 hour window at least in Chicago.

Exactly how did this happen? Sunday is a huge turn around day at Port Canaveral why was the launch rescheduled during what would have been normal departure times for cruise ship? Or if NASA and Space X have priority why wasn't Port Canaveral and the cruise ships advised to delay their departure because there are several articles claiming there was a second cruise ship other than Harmony that would have been near the exclusion zone during the time in question as well.

You seriously believe the Australian government will not allow cruising to resume by October of 2022? That is when most of Royals ships could be back in Australia after spending the Northern Hemisphere summer up in Alaska. One would think at this point Australian government would be comfortable in following the Singaporean Governments lead since they have demonstrated cruising can be done safely seeing how they've done it since December of 2020.

My Royal Up bid was accepted for Anthem January 31st sailing they emailed me new documents right away. Royal wanted over $12,500 dollars total for a grand suite, (granted it is an 11 night cruise) since this was a last minute booking my TA advised me to book the balcony guarantee and cross my fingers for a Royal Up invitation because the ship was more than half empty. The TA got us a deal on the balcony guarantee at $1,300 dollars per person for my husband including taxes and fees. Two days later I had a Royal Up invitation in my email my TA advised Royal still had 12 grand suites unsold so I bid $1,800 dollars and yesterday morning bam bid accepted. So instead of paying over $6,000 dollars per person for a grand we paid $3,100 dollars each for 11 nights in a grand suite.

That would be a great if the rumor proved true, all 5 Oasis Class ships together for a big photo op. If that happens they have to put Oasis in the middle although she isn't the newest ship she is the ship that started it all. Just my opinion LOL.

I just booked a last minute cruise on Anthem departing January 31st, this past Thursday and I had a Royal Up email in my inbox on Saturday.

Right now a delayed launch is nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor. Every email that I'e received from Royal and all the information I've read on line still has Wonder launching in March. Unless anyone here has insider information that they can and are willing to share I'm not putting any stock into the rumor of a delay in Wonder's launch.

Normally you receive an email letting you know you qualify for a Royal Up.

I think it will be quite a few months before May/June of 2024 is released. Royal is still hasn't loaded the entire 2023 summer/fall cruise schedule and I think I read somewhere the remainder of the 2023 season should be fully released by end of March or April of this year. So with that in mind and looking at how Royal normally releases their schedules I don't think you will see anything for May or June of 2024 open for sale before December of 2022 if we are lucky. The 2024 winter season January through April of 2024 will probably be posted in April of this year but after that my guess is the spring/summer season of 2024 may not be posted before December of 2022.

I know and I hope I didn't come off sounding condescending if so I apologize. I was just trying to point out for some people it is totally worth it savings to hustle to the airport from the port especially if they are saving a nice piece of change on the return flight instead of waiting until the next day.

Sometimes depending on the month you're traveling and the day you're traveling from Europe back to the U.S. the price difference in the ticket can be between $500 to 1,200 dollars more in coach if not more. For people who don't want to spend that extra money plus the cost of a hotel coming back to the US the same day could end up saving them quite a bit of money especially if it is family of 4 or a group of 4 or 5 people traveling together. In Europe most cruises arrive early enough in port for people who may be a bit cost conscious to make a flight back to the U.S. the same day thus saving quite a bit of money. For instance if your cruise arrives back at a European port on a Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday you could end up saving quite a bit of money flying home verses if you flew home on a Friday, Sunday or Monday. So if you cruise arrives in port on a Saturday, flying home on Sunday could be more expensive than the cruise itself in coach and you may not find an affordable ticket until Tuesday especially if the person of family is cost conscious. If you are not looking to make the airline rich it may just be worth it to get off the ship early on Saturday (for example only) hustle to the airport to make that Saturday afternoon flight and in turn save potentially thousands of dollars in the process.

Quantum is going to Alaska in the spring of 2022, the link to the article is talking about Spectrum of the Seas which for now is schedule to resume cruising out of Shanghai in April then move to Singapore in October. Now according to the article Royal will move Spectrum of the Seas, starting in April she will cruise out of Singapore not China. This means China has not only lost Wonder of the Seas, China will loose Spectrum as well at least temporarily. China's lost is Singapore's gain although I'm not sure when Royal intends to update the website. it is obvious Royal's Singapore cruises even the cruises to no where were very successful. However I do wonder when Royal will resume cruising from Australia but I'm not sure if Royal has any control over that at this point in time.

Is your cruise starting and ending at in Rome (Ciitavecchia) if so then the cruise is considered domestic because you starting and ending in the Schengen Zone so you basically walk off the ship collect your bags and walk out the terminal. Whenever I've done European cruises I've always booked private car to transport us to the airport from the cruise port. Citiavecchia is about 45 minutes to an hour from FCO. You could get off the ship at 7:30 am (or earlier if you want) and could be at the airport by 9 a.m. which is in my opinion more than enough time to make a 12 p.m. flight. If you really want to make that flight book private transportation from the cruise port do not use cruise ship provided transportation. You tell the company when you book at what time you want the private transportation to show up and in my experience the transportation has always been there.

On yesterday China's Civil Aviation Authority order both US and Chinese carrier to temporarily cancel all flights (which were limited to begin with) to China do to Omicron. While that is interesting that isn't the real news that caught my attention. What caught my attention is when the China's Civil Aviation Authority stated they do not expect any recovery in China's travel industry until 2023 (no that is not a mistake they said 2023) at the earliest. Airlines may be allowed to resume their limited schedule at some point in late January or early February but some airlines have responded to this order by cancelling all flights to/from the US to China through mid-February. Given the immense restrictions China intends to keep place on all sectors of the travel industry this move by Royal does not surprise me. Get Spectrum out of China cancel those itineraries and launch Spectrum from Singapore. It is unfortunate for the Chinese market and Royal's loyal customers in China but at this point in January of 2022 I get the feeling it will take years (perhaps 3-5 years) for the Chinese cruise industry to recover and approach anything near where they were in 2019 and that is if they open and relax travel restriction in China in 2023.

It breaks my heart to read your post but I completely understand where you are coming from. I hope are able to reschedule and take a cruise soon. Hopefully this Omicron variant surge burns out by the 3 week of 4th week of January. It just hurts every time I read someone has either canceled their cruise or had their cruise canceled.

European 2023 is finally open for sale!!!! Anthem is scheduled for a 7 night cruise of the Norwegian Fjords in June 2023. There are so many great cruises this going to be an extremely hard decision.

Good for St. Maarten. God I wish I could have seen this in person I've been in ports where there were 3 Royal Caribbean ships two of which were smaller ships in port but I've never been in port with 2 Oasis Class and a Quantium Class ship in port at the same time.

I 100% agree with everything you've posted here about MSC. We've cruised with MSC 3 times once on each of the following ships Divina, Seaside and the Meraviglia. I think it will be a few years before I ever set foot on another MSC cruise either here in the US or even in Europe. I would get on Carnival again (I kind of want to get on the Mardi Gras) before getting on another MSC cruise. I was expecting Royal Caribbeans level of service onboard and was highly disappointed with each of the cruises I took with them. Having said that there are two redeeming qualities MSC has that I absolutely love, the first is the 20 hour buffet. Leaving the dance club and having the buffet still open is a great compared to just pizza on Royal or room service. The second redeeming quality happens to be on the Meraviglia in the form of Cirque du Soleil, there are two completely different shows on the Meraviglia and both are spectacular, but it isn't enough to make me want to spend 7 days on another MSC cruise. I think MSC needs to understand it is the passengers vacation and they need to learn to be more flexible onboard. Not everything needs to be timed out to the tee especially when you are trying to make end roads in the US market where most Americans are use to a lot more flexibility and freedom onboard cruise ships.

I think cruise lines that adopted the policy of 100% vaccinations did so because we were all led to believe by the CDC that breakthrough infections would be a rarity. Royal Caribbean isn't alone in seeing positive cases onboard their ships cruise lines like NCL, Celebrity and others have all seen breakthrough cases, so switching to a 100% vaccinated policy isn't the answer.

Take the crown loft especially if you can handle one flight of stairs, nothing compares to that two story suite. And another thing I love about crown lofts that owner suites don't have is crown lofts have 2 bathrooms the one downstairs has a shower while upstairs has the tub except if you're in the accessible suite then they both have showers. Something I learned the hard way a few years back on Harmony of the Seas they booked us in the accessible suite and my husband complained for about the first few hours that he didn't have his tub. He got over it quickly when the concierge offered to downgrade us into a junior suite, I guess the tub wasn't that important to him LOL.