Reigert2008

In my opinion, if you have any concerns you should make the change now and move on. No need to stress out over something that you have no control over. Making the change now allows you more time to research and pick a trip that meets your requirements. The most important thing is to have fun on vacation and the planning is part of that process. good luck.

It took a bit for the TA to submit the form, then for Royal to accept it, and then to hit the planner. For us it was about 12 hours from the time I emailed the TA. ?

I'd recommend a good travel agent for this type of thing.

It is listed as Adults only (16 and older) but this really old post from @Matt in 2015 states that in rare cases that it could be opened up to 16 and under if they are directly supervised by and adult. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2015/11/16/everything-about-royal-caribbeans-solarium I was thinking that Covid could be a rare instance that causes it to be allowed only for vaccinated passengers even if they are under 16. it only came up since I was looking for the age limit in regards to our niece who will be cruising with our group and she is under 16 but fully vaccinated. Didn’t know if anyone who had cruised already had noticed what they were doing onboard. I seemed to remember that the age limit wasn’t necessarily 18, but couldn’t remember what it really was. Not a big deal, just something I thought of while on hold for something unrelated.

Since the solarium pool on Freedom is listed as vaccinated only, have they been allowing those under 16 and vaccinated to use it?

Perfect! Thanks so much!

This is an interesting situation. Personally, I would skip out on the Royal Excursions this time just to not chance becoming a "close contact" and then dealing with anything should someone test positive or show symptoms. Of course we are still wearing our masks and limiting our contacts to keep our comfort level under control, so you just need to do what makes you feel best. I tried to not wear my mask at an indoor thing this past weekend (it was a huge venue and had great air circulation), but all i did was think about the risk. So I masked back up and then had a great evening. I'd like for Royal to offer excursions that are for each group of people for a little while to ensure that vacations are smooth, but i don't think it will happen. We don;t do excursions, but generally get off the ship to wander and we will be wearing our masks as we visit any upcoming destinations since that makes us feel more comfortable. Had they required excursions through Royal for vaccinated people, we would have just treated everyday like a sea say and still had a great time.

Is it a Visa GIFT card or a Visa prepaid "debit" card? There is a big difference. When we have received these pre-paid "debit" cards, we use them at the grocery store to buy a gift card for something else that we would normally use (restaurants, groceries, etc...). However, if it is truly a gift card, you generally cannot use them to purchase other gift cards. Also you need to be careful about refunds to the card, say you booked something on the cruise, then something happened and Royal refunded something to the card, it may or may not work depending on the card. I think your best bet is put it in your wallet and use it for things like lunch, grocery trips, etc... until the value is gone. we try to use ours in "even increments" like $10 or $25 so it is easy to track, but we really dislike getting Visa gift cards. We appreciate the gesture, but they really are a pain to manage for us adults. ?

We like to mail ourselves a post card from our travels, so we are looking for the post office closest to the port in Nassau. If someone had a link to the Nassau post office site, perfect! I’ve been trying to find something and keep going in circles. if anyone knows where you can order Bahamian stamps online that’s even better. Thanks!

Yeah, I think the lesson here is to take care of it on your own. You're ultimately responsible for the towels, so might as well just do it. We've been having this conversation with the two other parties we will be cruising with to make sure they understand that each room just needs to do it and not "be nice" and take other peoples towels back.

I'd check anyway. We have a cruise that we are pretty well within the final payment and with our three rooms in the party we saved the following amounts last night: $42 - inside cabin $125 - inside cabin with a senior discount $239 -- Balcony (the category was even sold out and they got the discount) All i did was ask and our TA was able to get it done. Easy peezy. i'll check again right up until about 3 days before we sail, just in case.

Not if this is relevant to anyone else, but I've notice that over the last week, on my PC my personal VPN software has not let me get into the cruise planner when connected to some endpoints. If I disable the VPN or change my connection point it works fine. Figured i'd share. Stay Safe.

I think this would be too much for Royal to track and we all know how people will "game the system" to try and get more than they should. We are not drinkers, but would be open to "try" things from time to time. We do enjoy the fresh squeezed juice, bottled sparkling water, mock tails, and my coffee so we get the Refreshment package. At the right price, you really only need about 5 drinks a day to break even on it, so it's not hard to do . Recently we were able to get the Refreshment package at $23 per person per day, and the Deluxe was $63. So basically, if we want a "hard drink" each day, we still come out ahead and if you use the $13 as the price, then it's only $91 for a 7N cruise. Of course, this is for one person and doesn't include the tip. I think that Royal does a good job with thier options, but at some point there could be too many options that may or may not be used and that takes time and money to maintain and manage.

If this is your concern, then you should probably cancel and take the refund and book for a time later that may or may not have these rules. The rules are the rules even if people don't like the rules. No point in going if you already know you don't like the rules listed. Of course, October is months away, so who knows what the rules will be then. Could be more restrictive, could be less. Stay Safe.

Right, we’ll have to make the reservations once on the ship for things like the Windjammer and entertainment. I’m just trying to get an idea of what the options could be so that when our party boards we can quickly reserve everything and already have a list that one person (like myself) an quickly work off of. if it was just my wife and I, we’d be able to “go with the flow” and change things up as needed, but with our party of 7 we’d like to have some idea of the daily schedule to plan accordingly. Admittedly, what I’m trying to do may not come across as being explained well in an online forum. Basically if I could see the 4 day cruise compass I could give the group a general idea so that on day 1 were not standing around wasting time. It’s already a short trip and every minute counts. Thanks!

My only problem with that is that I am on an upcoming cruise, but due to security reasons I don’t talk about things like that until I get back ? I’ll keep holding out on hope!

Does anyone have a recent set of cruise compasses from the 4 Night Freedom sailings? Trying to get a handle of which entertainment and included dining needs reservations, currently my app is still working on the fun. I know things are subject to change, but we have a medium size group and want to be prepared to make reservations in the app on the ship, if we cannot make them earlier. we have early dining for dinner, so that is set but just trying to be proactive. Thanks in advance. I was able to see in the 3 night one here on the site that some venues said RP and some said RR,but even that seemed to change by day and time.

We have Explorer in November. It was already lifted and shifted from last year ? I’ll keep moving it until we can go, cause the price we got was amazing. Guess that happens when you book something during the first week of a pandemic ? it we suppose t9 be Freedom, but things changed.

I wonder what it means for cruises that are supposed to embark from San Juan. Explorer is supposed to start in September.

Related to this, I am looking for a "shuttle service" for 7 total people to get from the Hollywood Beach area to Port Miami. Anyone know of any reliable services that I can investigate? I've been looking at Mears, since that's the name I know from Disney transportation, but not familiar with other South Florida options.

To steal from @Matt, buy the things you want and reprice them later when a sale occurs. Labor day is coming up, which will probably have a sale and then "black friday" is typically good. the % off listed is the savings from the onboard pricing, which varies wildly.

Thanks! We have to thread that line of not being early, but also not missing the window.

So, our party of 7 will be going out of Port Miami and we are trying to figure out the timing of things. From "best estimates" it will take about hour to go from our hotel in Fort Lauderdale to the port. Since we know we have to adhere to the check in time of 1:00 to 1:30 PM, we plan to be picked up between 11:45 AM and noon, to allow for any hiccups along the way and to make sure we are there by 1:30 PM. Should our ride arrive early, where do we get to "stand and wait"? Is there a place? We picked the earliest check in time offered to us, but not sure if any check in times were earlier. Any knowledge is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

In my opinion, if this this is your concern, then maybe you postpone the cruise to a future date when things are more certain with how things are going. We were ready to post pone (again) our cruise this year, since a member of our traveling party was not initially eligible, but then they dropped the age limits and they have now been vaccinated. It wasn't a risk we were willing to take. Stay Safe

I just added the early bird for Southwest. We've been evaluating just adding it all the time, since it seems like so many people are already adding it, that when I wake up at 6 AM to check in and still get B59 and B60, maybe it's worth it. it's probably more worth it when we have flight changes in places like BWI, ATL, MDW. If we're on a direct flight, it probably doesn't matter too much. This way I don't have to stress out about getting to the terminal while on the ship. Thanks!