GKMCruising

Seeing as Royal is always adding new venues, I'm curious what others might want to see as a new specialty option in the future. I'm thrilled that they've added Hooked, as I absolutely adore fresh seafood, and I'd like the southern comfort restaurant idea they pitched in the recent survey.

I'd also love to see them take a page from Virgin and do a Korean BBQ restaurant - Izumi is already a big draw, so I'd imagine a K-BBQ place would be similarly popular.

11 minutes ago, UNCFanatik said:

I can agree on the buffets for non-covid reasons but I think its ok for people to get their own sodas from the freestyle coke machines without risk of getting Covid. 

I'll agree with you on that one. Having someone manning the Freestyle machines is definitely just hygiene theater, just like having someone wipe down every single touch point every 5 minutes. It might cut down on stuff like noro, but nobody's catching COVID from sitting in a chair that someone with COVID just sat in. I imagine the theatrics will disappear if/when the CDC backs off a bit, and the truly useful protocols will remain.

38 minutes ago, UNCFanatik said:

Do you think the Airline unions would admit to an illegal work action?

Given that the union leaders are usually the ones supporting and organizing sick-outs and protests... yes?

4 minutes ago, twangster said:

Reports from onboard indicate they have already been told they are going home.  

Yup. I've kept in touch with our waiter from Ovation. They're headed home until after the new year, and are not guaranteed to come back to the same ship when they return to work.

7 minutes ago, fireclan said:

Definitely sounds like a case of the "Blue Flu" to me (firefighters and police will get this reference).

I'd agree if the pilot's union wasn't also calling it unfounded. Usually the union will go along with the "blue flu" statements when the cops do it.

15 minutes ago, UNCFanatik said:

And Royal cant track all 500k passengers since the restart when they go come with Covid. 

Not definitively, but if someone goes to the doctor a couple days or a week after going home and is diagnosed with COVID, you can guarantee the CDC is going to pin that case on Royal. So honestly, that number probably isn't too far off for symptomatic cases. Sure, there have been more asymptomatic cases than anyone will ever know, but that's the case even on land.

2 minutes ago, ChessE4 said:

Thanks, but only a few were posted when I checked last night, like 5 or 6 for each port.  I noticed the same thing for a Med cruise later in the year.  

Some of the shore excursion companies haven't fully reopened yet. I imagine more will pop up as time progresses.

9 hours ago, RWDW1204 said:

To go in the opposite direction, we once did a formal night in Windjammer (long story).

I feel like we need to hear this story.

I'd be interested in trying to compile a master list of affected sailings/cabins, see if there's any noticable pattern - itineraries, ports, sailing dates, which decks/cabins, etc.

8 minutes ago, twangster said:

Didn't the CDC once float the idea of using a cabin every other sailing?  Cruise 1 use one set of cabins, cruise 2 use the cabins that were empty in cruise 1.  Cruise 3 back to cruise 1 set of cabins.   This reduces the opportunity for spread if a guest is undetected positive, cruise ends and new occupants move into that cabin.  

Explains why they are displacing Royal Loft Suite guests on a particular cruise.

Yeah, despite the fact that we've basically proven at this point that surface transmission isn't really a vector and the "contaminated" air inside the cabin should be long gone before the new occupants have access to the room.

It would also partially explain why I haven't heard of anyone on the Wonder inaugural with us getting and email yet - it's a brand new ship, so there can't be any contaminated cabins yet.

4 minutes ago, twangster said:

Read between the lines, Bayley already knows what the CDC wants next

If the CSO is extended or not is irrelevant and this may be Royal's display to the CDC that they will comply with CDC recommendations even without the CSO being formally extended and/or CSO 2.0 being published.  

Clearly there is communication and conference calls occuring with the CDC.  There must be a CDC recommendation that if cruise lines want to ease vaccine requirements then they must space out guests on board.  This also imposes a built in capacity limit of ~50%.  Very sneaky CDC.  

I got to thinking about this last night and made the same comment to my wife about the vaccine requirements - that they must be enacting some sort of spacing so they can add more unvaccinated guests. Maybe it'll wind up being like the shows currently - some cabins / sections designated as vax only, other areas being "general population" rooms?

11 minutes ago, nrgMike said:

Hello.

Thinking about going on an Alaskan cruise next year. My question is can you still enjoy outdoor ship activities like water slides and pool on Alaska cruises? I’m from midwest so I know cold weather but can you still enjoy pool and outdoor activities like that on ships? What’s your take on Alaskan cruises?

Assuming that they're open, yes, you definitely can enjoy them. However, the seas were too choppy and it was too windy for them to have the outdoor pools open on several of the days during our Alaskan cruise last month. That said, Ovation does have an indoor pool, and I believe Quantum does as well.

3 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Thought so too..nothing prior to Nov 1 is being messed with and it's affecting sailings through March and April.

I guess I should be glad I don't have any emotional attachment to my specific room on Wonder in March. No email yet, but clearly they didn't send them all out in one batch, so I'm not in the clear yet.

44 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

Maybe they're bringing more crew onboard and need guest cabins for them to quarantine.  Who knows. My TA said she was told the changes start tomorrow.

That was my guess - but it still doesn't explain the loft suites.

8 minutes ago, AshleyDillo said:

We specifically chose a room for reasons I'm sure they won't consider in a repositioning but are a huge deal to the one that holds the pocketbook.

This is almost exactly like the fiasco with people and the merge from Allure to Wonder. Just because two rooms have the same deck code doesn't mean that they're "equal" in the eyes of whoever booked the original cabin.

5 minutes ago, Jill said:

So I’d expect Royal to make an announcement soon. I’ve seen several Facebook posts of people getting emails about early 2022 cruises and their cabins being moved due to “distancing.” 

Yeah, I've seen FB posts, a couple posts on here, and at least one or two on CC. They definitely need to clarify exactly what they're doing and why before people storm their offices with torches and pitchforks.

2 minutes ago, Pattycruise said:

Perhaps just purchase every cruise for June/July, is CWC still going on? LOL

I wouldn't be surprised if there's some people with insane amounts of FCC and an open schedule that do exactly that.

6 minutes ago, Jill said:

We’re sailing with Royal “virgins” week after next. They just called asking about dress. I said casual but pants at dinner. I told them you don’t want to be “those” people

Seriously you’ll see it all. 

I've gotta wonder if staff would draw the line *somewhere* in regards to dress code. Someone see what happens if you show up at the MDR in a bathrobe.

10 minutes ago, wannabecruiseexpert said:

I’ll get caught up with day 3 dinner and evening soon but here’s a spoiler for day 4……

It involves a sick kid, medical center, covid test, a very pricey private journeys tour that was scheduled at 7:45 (while we were quarantined to our room) 

Yikes! That sounds... unpleasant.

8 minutes ago, D Alt said:

I'm surprised they let people walk around on deck if it's really bad. 

If it's really bad, they won't.

1 hour ago, XtremeGK said:

I think #4 tends to be fairly common on the northern TAs. From Quantum 2015 (shortly after these photos, the ship lost power for about 10 mins...more than a few not-so-relaxed faces at that moment).

1 hour ago, HeWhoWaits said:

We had #4 on an Alaska cruise once. Everything was deserted and we had the run of whatever area we wanted. Even saw some older kids in the Solarium pool while it was crashing back and forth. Looked like they were having a blast and it was fun to watch them (yes, their parents were there).

Yup, this was on Ovation in Alaska last month.

6 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

We’re booked on Allure 11-14 and 21.  We did not get such an email.  Maybe it’s just specific decks

Maybe if they have large chunks of empty cabins on a floor they're trying to use those to "balance" the ship out in terms of capacity, so to speak?

4 minutes ago, twangster said:

Yeah I'm not sure they were comfortable enough to talk President cruises until now.  A month ago with delta up everyone would have called them crazy and blown up social media.

Yeah, that's fair. Here's hoping to more notice under less "unprecedented times" moving forward.

3 minutes ago, SpeedNoodles said:

Ok, I've never seen kids under 12 running around ships that I've been on after midnight and later.  I understand the frustration, but I think this is a bit of hyperbole.  

At least the cruise lines are sailing.  

Agreed. We don't typically do summer sailings, so we haven't had the sheer numbers of kids that come with the May/June/July sailings, but for the most part all the kids I've seen on board have been at least somewhat civilized.

For those of us with limited vacation time, it'd be nice if they'd announce these just a *little* farther in advance.

Alaska wouldn't have really been feasible for me next year anyways after just going this year, but still.