dswallow

There has been no hearing and no argument related to the lawsuit; everything has been specific to the motion for Preliminary Injunction. Arguments on the merits of the original case aren't due to begin yet. The defendant doesn't even have to file the reply to it until August 12. Florida submitted the preliminary junction they wanted to have, and that's the only place in which it's limited to Florida. And while opinions have been expressed on the case, the case hasn't yet progressed. The only thing that has progressed is action on the preliminary injunction, and right now, that's in Florida's loss column. But still has nothing to do with the case progressing.

Don't confuse the relief sought in the preliminary injunction (i.e., it only affecting Florida sailings) from what might be the end result of the suit (invalidating the CSO entirely, or some other result).

Generally family units share a single block when they're sharing a cabin and hitting the points needed simultaneously. In practice, I'm not sure what people may or may not convince a loyalty ambassador to give them outside that policy. It generally doesn't seem particularly fair when you consider how it works with a solo cruiser and double points, though in practice I'd suspect a family is typically not caring about getting duplicates for each person, either. And I'm not sure about how a child in the mix may alter anything, but I wouldn't expect it would.

You won't get one until your reach 140 points, and then at every additional 70 points.

Yes. Embarkation Day is a full day of the sailing; Debarkation Day doesn't.

On Adventure of the Seas, they could do PCR and Antigen testing onboard for the debarkation test, and when signing up for the test you could even select the one you needed. Several people I spoke with who had to have a PCR test to board after a positive Antigen test said they were able to simply get the PCR test first instead of going through that possibility again when they did their onboard debarkation test. This was from the 6/12 sailing on Adventure where they tested everyone before boarding with an Antigen test at check-in. Though similar things can happen during the B2B testing on Saturday morning onboard.

Considering it seems many cruise lines made this update at roughly the same time, I have to believe that somewhere behind the scenes someone at the CDC made them do it.

I would expect that at best we might see some changes in things that we've been hinted about changes coming from the CDC, such as reduced masking requirements for vaccinated people in areas mixed with unvaccinated people. It may be interesting to see technically if test cruises that haven't yet happened for ships out of Florida ports would happen, since the lack of an enforceable CSO may mean there's no authority for the CDC to even participate in a test sailing.

Florida has filed a motion for an extension of time to respond to the motion for preliminary injunction. They are asking to have until July 30, 2021, and to extend the time for NCLH to reply to August 6, 2021, and then a hearing at an unspecified later date. Of interest, though, is that as part of this motion they have included Exhibit D which is a transcript of the hearing that was held on May 12, 2021 from Florida v. HHS, CDC (8:21-cv-00839), which we haven't seen before, and isn't scheduled for release online until 8/11/2021. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd et al v. Rivkees, M.D. (2150.com) https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/16_051023592514_DefendantsExpeditedMotionForExtensionOfTime.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/16-1_051123592515_ExhibitA.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/16-2_051123592516_ExhibitB.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/16-4_051123592518_ExhibitD.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/16-4_051123592518_ExhibitD.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/16-5_051123592519_TextOfProposedOrder.pdf

The only way it won't is if the US Court of Appeals issues the Stay that the CDC requested. So all we can do now is wait and watch.

I hadn't seen much in the way of the documents filed with the US Court of Appeals so put this together: US Court of Appeals, 11th District, Case 12243, Florida v. HHS, CDC (2150.com)

Cruise Fare alone (no port taxes/fees, or any other expense) comes to $45,065.00. Port taxes/fees total $4,133.31. Drink Packages total $15,196.66. Internet totals $2,676.84. I received a total of $3,293.50 in onboard credit for various reasons -- booking promotions, NextCruise promotions, Shareholder benefits. Statistics are fun.

I most always book Ocean View Balcony. I have Boardwalk View Balcony rooms booked on Oasis. But there were 3 times I did Promenade View Interior and twice just an Ocean View. In total, including as much as I've managed to track, which includes airfare when needed, hotel stays when needed, transportation, parking, drink/internet packages (so far have always purchase the deluxe beverage package and VOOM SURF+STREAM every single time), and the occasional unlimited dining package, plus insurance costs, onboard incidentals, and gratuities... and in reality I have no doubt there's probably well more than $1,000 across all that I've not tracked well. But those would truly be very incidental expenses. But not including any (very occasional) gambling expenses. And I suppose one day I may go back through it all and fine tune it a bit when I can identify some missing items (sometimes it's more difficult to attribute some costs, like if I'm combining a cruise trip with a business trip, how should I attribute airfare, for instance). Anyway based on what I have been tracking I will have spent $74,452.10 to reach Pinnacle Club status when I do reach it this coming January, on my 31st Royal Caribbean sailing with a total of 259 cruise nights since October 2016.

Calculating my "Crystal @nnn" column: Column M is the current point total, so the above $M30 is the point total at the end of the current sailing, $M29 is the point total at the end of the prior sailing. I'm kinda laughing that our point totals are actually both in column M in our completely different spreadsheets. (Sorry, had to post the formula as an image because cloudflare detects something in there as an SQL attack. Someone has configured some really poorly-created script to look for such things.)

The double points offer has simply been amazing for helping reach that goal more quickly than I'd have considered possible. I found this on Super Mario: Royal Caribbean's #1 Cruise Passenger Super Mario Records 8,000th Cruise Point (cruisefever.net) Based on that, I'd guess he's somewhere a few hundred points shy of 9,000 now.

It's a drawing of the ship class you're on plus the name of the ship.

Yeah. My spreadsheet does that as well, but I wanted it to also show the point level just to make it a little easier in my head to look at what may shift if I add something in the middle. I do just manually enter the expected points for each sailing in my spreadsheet, though. #firstworldproblems

You are not alone doing that. On the other hand with double points it gets a little silly.

The Cayman Islands Plans to Reopen for Cruises in Late January 2022 (cruisehive.com)

NCLH has filed a motion to hold a status conference and included copies of an email chain attempting to open communication with the office in Florida. A little snit of sorts going on. https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/11_051023587474_MotionStatusConference.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/11-1_051123587475_EmailChain.pdf https://www.2150.com/files/cc/1-21-cv-22492-KMW-CMM/11-2_051123587476_EmailChain.pdf Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd et al v. Rivkees, M.D. (2150.com)

I'm told it was announced today that Royal Caribbean will phase out distributing Crystal Blocks to Crown & Anchor members at 70-point milestones and will allow the current inventory to deplete. They claim 60% of them were being left behind in the cabin. Well, I say that would be a cost saving measure to be able to give people a benefit then recycle them for others. ? Anyway, they're apparently also trying to figure out what to replace it with, like a mention at the top tier event or perhaps a printed certificate.

It's probably good to every once in a while remind people that protocols for each ship may vary, and may vary based on sail date and may vary as protocols are updated over time. Always check the actual guidance provided by Royal Caribbean for what is required for your sailing, and always keep watch for potential changes, even close to sailing dates. As each ship resumes sailing, you'll find links to the specific applicable vaccination and testing policies for them here: The Healthy Sail Center | Healthy & Safe Cruises | Royal Caribbean Cruises

At best you have claim that shopping at a grocery store is an essential activity, and even there you would be subject to rules for public health reasons, which, yes, could include needing to provide vaccination against some infectious disease should the protection of public health warrant it in such circumstances. Cruising most certainly is not. And speaking of petulant children kicking and screaming... probably a particularly poor choice to include such an analogy with your particular argument. ?

No, the drink vouchers are available only to those of legal drinking age. I asked the Adventure Loyalty Ambassador about this specifically in response to someone with a similar question. He also said they have access to the discounted internet benefits now. I really don't know myself if that's something new. Just what he mentioned.

In theory the double points offer is simply offsetting the 15 months during which zero points were earned by anyone. So it's not like the total points distributed from March 2020 through December 2022 would be much different between what it would have been had sailing never paused and what it will be if sailing continues opening up as planned going forward. In fact, considering the removal of a few ships from service, it's likely the maximum number of points that could be earned with the current fleet under double points is less than could have been earned pre-COVID-pause. Certainly, some people are taking full advantage of this double points offer. But there really are just a limited number of cabins to be sold. I expect the new Diamond Drink offers will become permanent. It takes a significant load off staffing for the Happy Hour period in the Diamond Lounge and overflow areas, spreading the demand out ship-wide throughout the entire day. It likely makes for a happier diamond and above passenger, overall. A handful of people might have gotten more alcoholic beverages the old way, but it's unlikely to really be a large number of people who will be upset with the change. And I suspect many more people will like the change overall.