WhoCruiser

Me too, I checked again last night and found no change whatsoever regarding the absence of information on the website. For well over a month now my travel agent has been holding open to identically sized groups one on this original sailing and one on the Explorer departure two days earlier out of Miami I am about to tell him to Nuke this one so that I can go with the Explorer group and finally be able to tell my actor invitees when and where we're going it has been driving me crazy that I have a bunch of people I need to put official invitations out to so they can clear their work calendars and have been unable to do so because Royal Caribbean refuses to pull their finger out and do something about this obvious situation. I really would prefer to go with freedom as I like the ship a lot better but even though we've done Explorer two times before and wanted to go to a newer larger class ship the itinerary is actually much better on the Explorer so in the end I think I may end up happier there.

Yay for the apparent return of the cheese plate, I often order it for the table and would have seriously missed not having it available.

You'll just miss us by a few weeks, take good care of the Wonder until we get on board her on the 22nd...

I'm with you on that Fiona I absolutely do not believe anything they're saying it is obviously going in for dry dock and they obviously are keeping their mouths shut when they should be telling us I'm particularly pissed off because my group has a block of 50 cabins on freedom during the affected time you would think they'd be a little more concerned it's pissing me off greatly because I have to do invitations far in advance for the actors that are coming on my trip and while I can tell them now it's in the first half of December I can't give them a definite date I can't give them a definite ship at this point we've just said f*** it and my travel agent is holding a completely different group of 50 cabins on Explorer on the 5th and will simply get rid of one booking or the other whenever Royal decides to pull their finger out and make a f****** Public Announcement. Until then if you'll pardon the bad pun I'm dead in the water on my celebrity invitations because I have no way to tell them whether they're going to be doing a 10-nighter on the 5th or an eight night or on the 7th or which God damn Islands they're going to be hitting on the way if this goes on any further I'm just going to tell our travel agent to cancel the Freedom Cruise outright and just make us officially Explorer on the 5th I can't deal with more delay. Rant mode off now, LOL!

For you, or for anyone else, who has done the Chachoben tour through Native Choice instead of through the ship's own tour office, exactly how far of a walk is it to get from the ship's pier to the public area where Native Choices kiosk is allowed to have us meet their buses? I'm seriously considering going through them, but I will most likely have a few people in my group who might have issues with a longer walk, and perhaps even a Mobility Scooter user or two, should I be concerned?

They have not yet officially announced a thing, but all evidence so far points to it going into Dry Dock. I would make other plans if I were you, as I have already done for my group.

Yeah, inventory maintenance, sure, and how much is that bridge in Brooklyn you'd like to sell me too? Since they are apparently refusing to acknowledge the obvious reality of what will no doubt become a major pain in the ass once it does become official, we have covered our asses and are ready for the fallout BEFORE the $#!t hits that particular fan...

Just answering a question, hahaha. To get us more on target, I am happy to say that the papadoms at the Windjammer on Vision were heavenly!

Without mentioning any names for obvious privacy concerns, there was one person in the group who was feeling a little ill the night of the second Port call in Panama and did not come to dinner that night. She tested positive the next day, we believe she caught it while on a shore tour at Puerto Limon the day before. A couple of her dinner table mates from the night of the first Port call also tested positive several days later after coming back from Aruba. In each of those cases they went into quarantine in separate cabins from their roommates and the original cabins were deep disinfected by the cruise staff. On debarkation day back in Florida, one of those roommates who had been separated tested positive and one additional couple tested positive after driving home to Orlando. Oddly enough the original person's roommate never tested positive and stayed clear the entire time. We did a bit of our own quarantining and extra precautions within our own group above and beyond what little the ship was doing to deal with it. Of those who did test positive none of them had any symptoms worse than a cold or flu and it was a general consensus among the group that the isolation process itself was probably more of a hassle than any actual illness they experienced, and was quite stressful in itself being isolated like that. There were a lot more covid cases going around on that Voyage then the public was generally aware of based on the numbers who were in The separate group on debarkation day that had to wait in a different area from the General Public there had to have been more than 100 cases. As you may have noticed, the ship was still obviously somewhat short-staffed after having only been back in service after the startup for about a month, and a fair number of the staff were not as well trained as they might have been, I think those two factors contributed to the less than stellar handling that the staff did of the situation at the time. Their promised daily retesting of the various roommates who had been exposed stopped after a day or two and one of our people waiting for the test that day was told that the reason was because the person giving the test had now come down with covid themself. Fortunately quite a few within our group had brought our own supplies of covid Home testing kits with us in our luggage as a precaution, and we purchased additional tests on the final Port day in Curacao as well, and we did our own testing to make up for that shortfall by the ship's staff. I'm sure that Vision being the oldest smallest and most recently rejoined to the fleet following the shutdown I'm sure we're all factors that contributed to the situation. Hopefully if things get worse again in the future being on the newest and largest Flagship of the fleet this time around should see a stark difference in Staffing, training, and readiness, one would certainly hope.

I don't know if they have changed this, but on our last three editions of my group's recurring celebrity/fan voyages with cast & crew members of the Doctor Who TV series, on Explorer twice and on Vision most recently, if you ask the waiter nicely there was a separate printed all Indian menu intended for things the crew eats in their own dining room that we were able to special order off of. If you're looking for something Indian, and especially more authentic Indian, you might want to try this tactic if they still allow it.

And this is exactly why they don't offer it free at the other venue, they want you to go pay through your nose...

Yes, sorry, my error, edited now to fix that...

They still not have not publicly admitted anything regarding the six weeks or so of sailings that will almost certainly be canceled on Freedom of the Seas in late November through mid December that is being discussed on another thread. It will be a major s*** hitting the fan operation when they do announce it. I wish they would just admit it so those of us who have already figured out what's about to happen can get things sorted before everything goes crazy. They are still telling my travel agent that it is just them cleaning up some computer issues for the reason why 6 weeks of that Voyage is disappearing from all of the search engines never mind the fact that the ship has apparently been reported scheduled through Madeira on its way to Europe at that time, can you say early Dry Dock anyone?... GRRRR, ARGHHH!

Explorer on the 5th is also what I'm looking at as my go-to option if this goes away.

There is strong speculation on another thread in general discussions that, although nothing has been officially announced yet by the cruise line, it appears from evidence so far that the ship may be being pulled from service to go in for dry dock or upgrades for that 6-week or so time period where it has dropped off of the search engines. I tend to believe this, because it has also now showed up on the Harbor Master's shcedules at several transatlantic ports at exactly the time one would expect it to be there if it were heading to Europe for dry docking. As someone with a group of 50 cabins blocked for the 7th December sailing I am not exactly thrilled at the prospect. If this is true, there is a VERY small possibility that they may jockey around another ship to take over this itinerary for that 6-week period, and simply face the issue of adjusting our cabins on the one ship for the closest equivalent available on the replacement ship. But that is a small possibility indeed, more likely they will simply at some point in the future announce that it has been canceled, and offered to move us to other bookings on other itineraries, which will become a madhouse as everyone figures out where they are going to land. Fortunately there is still a lot of time, but I wish they would sh!t or get off the pot and announce something already to make it official. I for one am already making other plans for my group, should they need to be implemented at a moment's notice, and other individuals or groups would be wise to think the same way too.

So, not an official announcement, but it appears to confirm that we're probably screwed. Wondering how long they will wait before changing their current (apparently fictional) story?...

If she's still there at the end of October when my recurring celebrity/fan group sails, I'll try to say hello. And if she's at all a fan of Doctor Who, I'll also be sure to introduce her to some of our celebrity guests from the show, I know it's fairly popular in Australia too.

Hopefully everything will turn out okay in the end. Brought it to the attention of my travel agent a couple of hours ago and he said that they had already noticed it and contacted Royal Caribbean asking about the issue. He says that Royal Caribbean's "revenue department" is telling him that "the ship is still sailing" but they are "simply cleaning up computer systems." I remain a bit skeptical for now, and will believe it when I see it return to the system. For what it's worth, on the cruise planner my own personal booking remains listed, even though when I do a general search the only departure for Freedom for the entire month of December that comes up in the Royal Caribbean search is the 29th of December holiday voyage. Time will tell. In the meantime, in an incredible coincidence, the very next email I received a couple of moments ago is from Holland America informing me that bookings are now open for their 2024 to 2025 Caribbean season, so as a precaution I will take a look at what THEY have on offer. I seriously would consider them, and the only reason I did not previously was because they did not yet have schedules open up to that time period. If Royal doesn't take care of us properly, somebody else may well be getting the business, as the voyage we are currently holding space on was the only one in the entire Royal Caribbean inventory that ticked all the boxes I was looking to fill.

Yes, while we have not yet publicly announced the dates are itinerary, and probably won't for a while because we are still actively promoting this year's voyage in October, we are in fact making plans and currently contacting potential celebrity guests of honor for this particular date and itinerary. As always, it will be bookable only through our official travel agent in order to be part of our group. If this itinerary does in fact get changed canceled or modified in any way we will have to wait and see what is offered to us before making any firm decisions ourselves.

My travel agent has us holding group space for 50 cabins on the 7 December 2024 voyage on Freedom, and has heard nothing yet on any changes. If they are doing a cancelation or a switcheroo we'd damn well better come out of it at least as good as we went into it or I'll pitch holy hell.

Mine for 22 October 23 on wonder of the Seas showed up yesterday. The $50 apology credit is there, as is the original $50 credit I had in the first place before buying, hopefully neither of them disappears.

My group and I will be boarding for the Western itinerary as you guys are getting off the Eastern, take good care of the ship for us, LOL.

And also non fresh squeezed fruit juices at breakfast time if I recall correctly.

Has not been available for free for a very long time, however, lemonade and iced tea continue to be available for free.

Several very good friends of mine are on it now and having a great time. More than half generally re-up for the next voyage while still on board the current one.