recogneyes

We've enjoyed having the shareholder's credit applied to some of our cruises.  I have been advised by the shareholder dept that complimentary sailings / casino sailings are not eligible for the credit but I'm wondering if anyone has had any success when paying to upgrade a casino offer.  Does paying to upgrade now change this from a complimentary sailing and thus allowing for the credit to be applied?

The cost to rent the day beds covers for yourself plus 3 others.  If you were travelling solo, the bed would just be assigned to you.  You get to decide who, if any, joins you for the day.  Upon check-in, you and those in your party will be given a wristband and assigned your bed.  Your name will then be written on a little board at the side of your bed.  This way, you can come and go from that area and enjoy other spots on the island.  You will absolutely love having the daybed - they are so comfy.  Enjoy!

7 hours ago, Yanna said:

If your unvaccinated but have been tested and the results come back negative, would that not be enough to be able to board?? 

Vaccination has been required since RCCL ships started back in service ... along with a negative test in order to board.

3 hours ago, anxiouscruiser said:

yes when i spoke to them again yesterday they said what the THREE reps told me was wrong and that it has the ability to be fully booked if needed. i feel really misled as i actually wouldnt have booked a cruise if it was full or above 50%.

While it certainly is odd that RCCL reps would share current capacity numbers, it is even more odd that they would commit to capacity of cruises weeks or months out.  Even if a sailing was at 50% as of today, the coming weeks could see that changing drastically as closer to sailing bookings are made.   We've sailed three times this year and had no idea how many passengers were sailing until we got to the pier to board. 

The RCCL website makes no mention of capping capacity and the news (and this wonderful blog) is full of stories of demand for bookings and high percentage capacity sailings.  Depending on when you booked,  you might be able to cancel under Royal's Cruise With Confidence program.  On a positive note, in our experience Royal has been doing a wonderful job of providing a safe and enjoyable environment.  Good luck with your decision. 

4 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

There have been some variations on this "rule".  My experience has been that they disallow Christmas and NY but often don't really care about other holidays.  YMMV

Oh that's good to know....thank you for sharing.  When I called to inquire I was told absolutely no holidays but I guess it doesn't hurt to ask once you have a specific sailing date in mind.

21 hours ago, Divelizard said:

Hi there, do you know on what length of cruise it applies too?, I still have a Tier Benefit available but it doesn't give me a guide as to what itineraries I can book, so do you know if it's 7 days or less or something like that?

My understanding is you can choose a 7 night itinerary anywhere in the world on any ship (other than Wonder until early march when she completes her first full year of sailing).  Cruise cannot fall over any US holidays.

On 4/30/2022 at 9:09 PM, RoHoCruise said:

The last rep mentioned this and we went and looked at it together, but I did notice the CAS membership benefits sheet that this is from was changed in March.   I need to find one from December (she turned 18 on December 29th) and see if it was different.   I just can't believe so many people told us wrong until today.   Needless to say, it's very frustrating.

I just spoke with a C&A rep to straighten out a double points issue. After it was straightened out I asked if anything relating to the C&A parent/child relationship status for points has changed in the last year and was told no.  She verified that if a parent reaches diamond or diamond plus and they have children who have a C&A number and have sailed at least once prior to their 18th birthday then they would retain their diamond/diamond plus status but their natural amount of points earned would be what shows on their profile once they turn 18.  This is how we've always understood it to be.  Hopefully you can get this straightened out with one more call.  Good luck.

The only way I can think of why this would have happened would be if one of your passengers originally qualified for the Kids Sail Free promotion and when you changed their birthdate then they no longer qualified for that promotion?  If that's not the case then I would definitely contact customer service.

8 minutes ago, 1st Mate said:

I disagree, in fact, there is more control getting off a ship than an airplane.  When you get off a ship, they DO scan your card that can have alerts/restrictions placed upon it, if I don't have the proper form, I don't get off, period.  When arriving at an airport, they don't scan anything when you walk off the plane, not that I've experienced.  You don't go through any security unless you leave the secure area and then again when you try to enter again.  

There is NO form to fill out verifying that I'm not carrying any illegal substances into the country. It's the law!  If found that I'm carrying an illegal substance, I'm liable to be charged and imprisoned for doing so.  The same can be said about the form, if I enter Canada and I don't have the legally required forms, including the ArriveCan form, and I'm caught without it, I'm liable to be charged and imprisoned for doing so.  

I sure hope your last sentence is right.  

  

I simply meant when a ship docks for a day the idea is to get people off the ship and onto enjoying their day in the port.  It would be a huge undertaking to be monitoring who does and who does not have their ArriveCan completed.  

17 minutes ago, 1st Mate said:

Well, until just a few minutes ago, that was still an open ended question:  "in another country for a cruise that will enter Canada".  What needed to be answered, if you are on a foreign flagged vessel and you never put one foot on Canadian soil, have you legally/officially entered Canada.  

But, I guess I got my answer, we have to fill out the form before even entering Canadian waters.  But, I can fly into Canada, get off the plane, walk around the secure portions of the terminal, get right back on A plane and not have to have the form.  Imagine that!

Yes, that appears to be what the current rules are.  I suppose the rules are different for the arriving by land/arriving by cruise ship because there is control over who leaves the airplane and where they can go/not go but it would be a huge undertaking to try to set up same parameters for say a one day port stop from a cruise ship.  As you know, the "rules" change constantly so perhaps things will change to make it not necessary to complete ArriveCan for cruise ship passengers.

28 minutes ago, 1st Mate said:

Yes, it is a document that you can print or just have in the app on your mobile device.  But, before you get to the document, you have to register an account with the Canadian Government just to complete the document.  Supposedly, the Canadian Government is going to verify your Jab record????????  

I just sent my TA another email letting her know that she did not comply with my question/request and that I asked for some kind of official authoritative documentation.  We'll see.  I know I'm pissing her off.  But, that's Okay.  She and her company have made a lot of money off of me/my group and we are actually very easy to please, believe it or not.

Looks like I'm going to have to call the number on the ArriveCan website and ask and request a document or link be emailed to me.  I'll post what I get here. 

I took a quick look at the travel.gc.ca website and this is what it states as of today:

Vaccination and testing requirements for Canada

To board a cruise ship that will dock in Canada, if you’re 12 years of age, or older, you must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with very few exceptions.

• Note: many cruise lines require vaccination for children 5 years and older.

If you’re entering Canada to board a cruise ship:

• you’re required to use ArriveCAN prior to boarding your flight or before entering Canada by land and you may be selected to take an arrival test
• if you’re entering Canada as part of an excursion during the cruise, you won’t be selected for arrival testing

Before boarding your cruise ship: all travellers must submit their embarkation test information into ArriveCAN within 72 hours of boarding a cruise, including Canadians and those who just used ArriveCAN to enter Canada:

• in another country for a cruise that will enter Canada
• in Canada

We have upcoming sailings on both Symphony and Allure.  We have sailed Allure years back.  We specifically chose Allure this time for the itinerary (Aruba and Curacao) and because we wanted to sail her again before she gets amplified.  Nice to walk the boardwalk without the Ultimate Abyss slide; still has the donut shop amongst other things that could change when amped. We booked Symphony afterwards but if choosing one, right now, we would choose Allure.

Ours were loaded last week too.  One thing I did find - I earned prime with 2500+ points but my husband earned his with the lower requirement of 1500+ points.  I had to call to have his status updated as it didn't happen automatically.  If that is perhaps your situation you should call Club Royale and have it checked.

18 minutes ago, Sharla said:

Nope. Most agents don't- because we'd have to charge fees and we're not allowed to do that. Maybe @Beci would have a better answer as to why we can't book air outside the supplier, but mainly we can't have the liability.

Even though it is stressful when flights are cancelled/changed by the airline, there are advantageous to not have to rely on a TA to deal with it.  We were set to fly home from FLL in January.  We did our online check in around 1AM and when we woke at 6AM we had an email saying our fights were cancelled and rebooked for 2days later.   I certainly would not expect a TA to be dealing with flight changes at 6AM.  By 8AM I had us all rebooked out of MIA and still got home that night.   Yes it's a headache and lots of wait times but if an agent isn't making any money on that part of our holiday I would not expect that service from them.  I also prefer to have the control to make decisions on any changes rather than going back and forth - in the end that just takes longer.

14 hours ago, bobroo said:

Cautionary note: once you apply a casino discount to any reservation you usually are prevented from receiving any other discounts. And, you may not be able to reduce the cruise fare if there is a future fare reduction.

The casino is a snakepit. 

I did ask this question when I booked using the discount and they did advise that the best price guarantee was still in place.  I suppose we won't know for sure unless we see any reduction in fare.

14 minutes ago, Pooch said:

There was no “sash” on Harmony last month.  Not sure the vax bracelet is around anymore.

On our January and February sailings we were provided with the vaccinated bracelet.  In March, they had stopped giving them out.

When I called to book our Annual Tier cruise a few days ago, the person I spoke to mentioned that Wonder could be booked in mid-late March as it's one year in service would be completed.  If that time works for you I would call as soon as you can as I'm sure lots of people will be jumping on that.

You can call the casino number and ask if they can be moved to a casino booking linked to your profile.  Depending on what rate your family received when booking it may or may not be advantageous to move it because it will be priced based on current rates. Good luck!

7 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

That's awesome and very surprising to me.  I have always had to pay the full balance anytime a cert casino discount was applied.

A few weeks ago, I was able to apply a $500 certificate to a cruise I have booked at the end of the year.  The sailing did not qualify to use a complimentary certificate, however, Club Royale transferred the booking to a casino booking and the $500 was applied.   My final payment date remained the same.   When booking any complimentary sailings, we've been asked to pay full upgrade and port fees & taxes.   This is all new to us so but this has been our experience thus far.  

We just redeemed our annual tier credits today and booked cabins for friends and yes, it amounted to about a 5% savings with our Prime discount. We were told each tier credit redemption is allowed to book one additional cabin with the discount.

We had this happen one of our sailings this year.  We had two cabins and I called our TA to switch 2 of our party between the cabins.  Long story short, there was an FCC attached to one of the parties and when they moved cabins their FCC fell off and the cabin now had a balance owing.  The problem was -  neither our TA or Royal advised this was the case.  I only found out because the booking disappeared from my app.  The cabin was no longer available and Royal was still capping the sailing.  Royal would not deal with it as it was a TA booking but thank goodness our TA pressed on and got our booking back -in the original cabin.  Royal insisted that we needed to pay the current fare but in the end they honoured our original booking.  The cruise planner items were lost but with Royal's math and promotions it didn't really impact us as we just re purchased during the next sale.  So, my advice is to have your daughter's TA work with Royal's resolutions dept to get this sorted out.  Sounds like the TA gave incorrect information so they should be willing to try to fix.   Ideally, she would like the original reservation number reinstated which should then identify her as having being booked during CWC.  Good luck

4 hours ago, CruiseMom82 said:

Thank you all so much for your thoughts we have decided just to spend an extra day in Vancouver. Now if we could just figure out the testing requirements… I will try to post some thing about our experiences, perhaps not a full blog, so other people can understand what they might need to do later in the season.

You will be so glad you had this additional time in Vancouver.  There is so much to see and do.  Testing can be booked right at the Vancouver airport so if you can confirm testing can be done 2 days prior to sailing, you can test when you land and then be done with it.  I believe antigen tests are $79.

I believe you can still book antigen appointments at the Vancouver airport through CVM Medical.  The cost is $79 and results take approx 30 minutes.   If you are arriving 2 days prior to cruise and can confirm that the test can be taken 2 days prior in order to board the ship, this would be the most convenient and likely cheapest option.

31 minutes ago, twangster said:

The other thing to consider is the CDC has always been extremely hard on the industry.  Extreme is not an understatement.  Even this extremely biased and cruise ship hating agency has backed off and stopped warning against cruise travel for healthy individuals. 

The fact that the CDC is now given up it's anti-cruise position speaks volumes about what they see is going on with the virus.   It's gotta be safe or they would be still ranting like mad scientists to avoid cruise ships.  

I think you are bang on with all of that!  

55 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I'm willing to bet the number of people who would sail if protocols were done away with is higher than the ones that would stop sailing.

 

 

That absolutely could be the case but as a business, why risk it?  The sailing capacities continue to increase so in the short term it's not really hindering business - at least not enough that the cruise lines are willing to take the chance.  At some point the protocols will go away .... we just can't say when.