MrK1ttens

Interesting, we purchased The Key a long time ago for our Symphony sailing on October 30th. I’ve yet to receive an email like this, but I am liking those perks. I called them up about half a month ago and was told the Key Lunch was being extended, looks like they’re changing that to room service, which I like.

I bought the Key for our Symphony of the Seas sailing in October and I actually called the support line for purchased packages. I was put on hold for a bit until I finally got the answer to these following questions: 1: What happens to the Key lunch when boarding times can be later than 1:30pm at the Earliest? 2: The key gives the benefit of priority embarkation, is this still available? 3: The key gives the benefit of “reserved” (for lack of a better term) spots at entertainment. The answers I received were that #2 & 3 are dead. You have to book those by availability because of covid. However for #1 they said they were extending the Key lunch past 1:30 and it’ll be in a specially sanctioned spot of the main dining room.

I’d agree with that, with all the delta going around, the allure of a fully vaccinated cruise is definitely real. Personally, me and my significant other are actually quite pleased with this change. This will be applied on our cruise in October, and it’s nice to know that everyone will be vaccinated. Alternatively, I wonder what effect this will have on masking and other requirements during the cruise. Since if everyone is vaccinated, do they even need to do that policy anymore?

I’d say that #1 is the most likely. Considering Royal Caribbean themselves have said that the ships end up being around 90% vaccinated anyway, they probably don’t care too much about losing the unvaccinated. #2 & #3 affect a lot more people than #1, so I would imagine they’d take the route of least annoyance to customers here.

I just checked into my Oct 30th cruise. And I’m unsure if I should ask for a refund? We are essentially forced to board by the earliest 1:30pm (due to covid), which is fine. However it removes some key benefits. Like early boarding, and I’m assuming the Key lunch. I am unsure why they are still selling this as is.

Unfortunately it looks like this definitely hurt my cruise. My 4 port cruise is now a 3 port, with Labadee and San Juan getting deleted now. They’ve replaced Labadee with Philipsburg. I’m not too thrilled about losing a port.

My Significant other and I have purchased “The Key” for our Symphony Sailing in October and we’re just wondering if there is any current knowledge on what changes will be made to the program? We’ve had the Key before for previous sailings and one of the things we enjoyed was dropping off our luggage at the main dining room right at the start of our cruise so we can walk around unencumbered. However that drop off period has a time deadline (I believe 1:30?). With the new Covid restriction of only being allowed on the ship at your designated boarding time, we can imagine a scenario where you get on board the ship past that deadline. I’m sure there are other differences too, like Key areas for entertainment and whatnot. I did some some searching and I cannot find any up-to-date information. Have there been any changes made to the program that have been announced? Appreciate any information

RIP my Aug 7 Symphony of the Seas cruise. The week after mine gets to go though ?

My Father is also a TA and he has absolutely no clue what to tell people on this situation either. They’ve really fumbled the ball on the whole PR aspect of this. It wouldn’t have been that bad if they had just cancelled first, but now there will be extra angry customers who see this news and are confused about their status.

This is super annoying, I am supposed to be on Aug 7 with Symphony of the Seas but clearly that won’t be happening. They need to just up and cancel those cruises already so people can either rebook or make other plans. At this point they know July/early Aug won’t be happening, so it’s really bad customer service that they aren’t moving forward with that information.