TXCoastPatriot

Sad that RCI is not honoring their original agreement.
My suggestion, get an attorney to write RCI a letter requesting to be fairly compensated.
I doubt the attorney fees would cost anywhere near the $840 cost for testing.

Having a no smoking section in a casino is like having a no peeing section in a swimming pool 

We have been on 2 cruises since the restart of cruising both Freedom of the seas.
Concerning mask wearing most people were adhering to the ships policy. every now and then we saw somebody without a mask no biggie.
Guest services all ways gave us a mask when we asked.
Do not worry to much about your check in time. Get there as soon as you can I guarantee you will board the ship.
Have a great cruise!

Please don't follow this advice. Unless you want to be waiting for hours in questionable weather. RCG has been sending out email advising people to arrive at their schedule check-in time. Granted one or two ports will put you in a line if you show up early but most will not.

Once again the media casts the dark cloud over the cruise industry & everything is completely blown out of proportion. I’m already getting the “Are you sure you should be cruising” and the “didn’t you see that the ships aren’t allowed to dock anywhere” usual crap from people who don’t cruise. Personally my family & I have been to every single one of these islands so many times that we cruise for the ship and not the destinations. I really don’t care if we get 6 sea days + perfect day because Oasis is enough for my family. The haters will do whatever they need to do to make the cruise industry a scapegoat for Covid, and that won’t ever change. 

I have a knack for getting that travel agent who is not up to par.  

I believe in using an agent and do so myself. However, you asked about disadvantages and I've only encountered one.
If an agent is servicing your booking, then Royal will not discuss your booking with you.  Normally, this isn't an issue, but it can become an issue if your travel agent proves unresponsive. (this might happen if you get a bad agent that just doesn't care, or if he/she has health or other issues)
If this happens, you can have your booking transferred to someone else, but it is painful.  I've never had it go that far, so I don't know exactly how to do this.

1) They deal with Royal directly when there are any problems or issues, saving you time and frustration.  They get to know your likes/dislikes over time.  You allow some independent travel advisor to get the commission that Royal would keep if you booked directly with them.
2) MEI Travel is a sponsor of this website, and many of us use them.  There are many there who are awesome.  I personally use Michelle Cunningham ([email protected]), or you can fill out the yellow form on the home page of this website and one will contact you.  Others will likely chime in singing MEI's praises as well.

One pro is that your agent should be on the lookout for price changes.  My MEI agent emailed me last week with almost $500 in savings on 2 different cruises.  
I actually like to book my own cruises, but I then transfer them to my agent to handle from there.  As Matt said above, there are no charges and lots of benefits.

A solid deal by RCI, especially considering they, as a business is not responsible for the decisions of those countries.

A solid deal by RCI, especially considering they, as a business is not responsible for the decisions of those countries.

Where's @CHRIS WONG 🙂 ?

I assume the purpose of the smoking ban is to force all to mask up.
However, by their own rule, when I sit down in the casino with a drink in hand, I can drop my mask.
Logically, the next step is to ban drinking.
The next logical step for RCI is to eliminate casinos totally.  Smoking, drinking, gambling…GONE!
Banning eating is going to be the difficult task.

This kind of stuff annoys me. Do they have evidence that a leading cause of covid cases on a cruise ship are due to smokers in the casino? Or is this just a dart board measures to make it look like they're doing something.
 
Adding masking is dumb in my opinion for various reasons, but at least there's widespread precedent for it. Picking on the smokers though?