IzzyB

8 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

Oasis and Quantum class use to allow you book shows about 30 days in advance. That might come back before then and it might still be the way of the restart come Dec. 

I don't remember my Harmony cruise I had booked in December showing that in entertainment section, but noticed it this time.  Which is why I was wondering if they would open it up before our cruise in November.  Seems odd to say we can do it in advance when we really won't be able to.

I am wondering if they are changing that sometime soon, because when I got to my Entertainment planner it lists my ships as one of the ones that will be taking reservations before cruising.  My cruise is not until November.

On 4/10/2022 at 7:16 PM, Joseph Wahoski said:

Don’t mean to sound rude, but what do you consider small? Voyager and Freedom class? Radiance Class? Vision class? And have you been on Voyager or Freedom class since they have been amplified? They are incredible ships with a lot to do.

Last time I was on RC it was under 100K and it was the ship that was expanded.  It was terrible.  Now I will admit I haven't looked at weekend cruises since Covid hit as we have been trying to do a week long with the kids since they haven't been on a cruise yet.  My husband is not a fan of cruises, so we are starting with Oasis Class so he feels less claustrophobic.  I do see that Independence of the Sea sales for PC for 3 day cruises now, so that might not be bad to try either.  It appears they offer more ships than when I went in late 2016 when you had only under 100k to choose from.  I know I looked in 2018/2019 as we were thinking of a cruise then and it seemed they were still small then too and so I gave up trying to get my husband to try a weekend cruise.

On 3/10/2022 at 6:38 PM, JasonOasis said:

I think it is all about offering customers more options.  Will guest be able to take advantage of everything the ship has to offer no they won't but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a waste to put an Oasis Class ship on 3/4 night Coco Cay/Bahamas cruise.  How many guests are taking full advantage of everything an Oasis Class ship offers on a 7 night cruise? People pick and choose what activities are important to them and what they want to partake in. As competitive as the 3/4 night Bahamas cruise segment has gotten over the past few years especially out of Florida (it is more than just Coco Cay) this segment of the market just like everything else in the has become increasingly competitive with other cruise lines using larger ships on these cruises.  Just as an example MSC Cruises is currently (or at least they were) using Meragivlia on 3/4 night cruises out of Orlando this winter. NCL looks like they will deploy NLC Joy which is a newer ship (built 2017) on 3/4 night Bahamas cruises.  So we are seeing cruise lines move in the direction of putting newer larger ships with a lot more onboard activities in this 3/4 night market and I think it is great for guest who enjoy taking those cruises.  With 5 Oasis Class ships I think it is great Royal has decided to put Allure in 3/4 night Bahamas market.  For guest who want more time to enjoy the ship there are 4 other Oasis Class ships to choose from. 

100% agreed.  I am super excited about this living so close to the port I would love to do more weekend cruises, but I refuse to ever go on a small ship again.  I did a 4 night and disliked being on a ship with nothing, it was old, food options were super limited and weren't that great, etc.  So I was very excited to hear this news.

On 3/27/2022 at 8:49 PM, YNOT said:

Three tables and some slot machines.  Looks like they put it together for the handful of complainers that cannot seem to live with just a non smoking half of the casino.  The anti smoker crowd is a small but loud subsection of cruisers and I think they understand that.

I actually don't know a single smoker where I live and everyone I know that cruises hates to be around smoke.  I don't think it is as small as you think it is.  Marriott doesn't allow smoking anywhere near your room and I hardly ever see people in the smoking sections that have gotten smaller and less of them over the years.  Yet their resorts are still packed.  Disney laughed at smokers not coming to their parks.  They don't need smokers, that place is packed with families and the majority of people with kids don't smoke.  So they also had less and less and smaller and smaller smoking sections because they didn't need them and then got rid of them.  Everyone I know was extremely happy to see them go away.

Only 14% of people smoke.  I imagine a large % of that 14% can't even afford vacations.

I didn't even realize they were still required.  They aren't required on Carnival which my friend just cruised on.  My kids wore masks a lot during the pandemic but since they have been vaccinated that haven't wanted to wear them as much.  They did during Omicron but then stopped at Spring break.  We had to wear them at the doctors this past week and my oldest was not happy.  She wore it, but I am thinking she may want to skip all that if it is still required.  I can't imagine though in November it will still be required.

Honestly anyone I know who goes on cruises is vaccinated.  The people I know who are not vaccinated are not people who go on cruises.  So is it hurting them?  It may not be in the long run.  I imagine they have a lot of smart people looking at this to determine if it hurts them or not.  If it doesn't, they have no reason to drop it.

Interesting I was going to ask when they start showing up.  The last cruise I booked I booked it within 60 days of sailing so all excursions were up, but now I booked 9 months in advance and at first some stops didn't have any listed.  Slowly more have appeared, but not all the ones I am looking for.  Wondering how long before cruise they do appear.

Thanks Matt.  I didn't realize it was certain times for the rock climbing wall and flow rider.  I thought you got to book a time.  Showing up 45 minutes early for shows doesn't sound ideal.  So now that I look at it all it isn't worth it since it is so costly right now for a Thanksgiving cruise.  Mine does not list room service or dining discounts, so it is even less perks.

What are the things you get priority booking for?  We are going Thanksgiving week and so I know the boat will be more packed than normal and I am afraid of long lines.  So wasn't sure if They Key on Symphony of the Seas would assist us in avoiding some crowds.  But I have a 5, 7, and 11 year old so wasn't sure if it would be things that they would be interested in.  Right now it says rock wall, flow rider, and more.  Not sure what the and more is.  I think only one of my kids will be tall enough for flow rider.  Not sure as the 7 year old could grow taller, I think she is 50ish inches now.

32 minutes ago, CruiseGus said:

a cruise is a cruise is a cruise.

if you study it Royal Caribbean has had the best record of the major 3 in both telling passenger what going on and taking care of them if the come down with the big C.

all this is the result of the new more transmissible variant.

I have a personal opinion on how we should be handling those that are asymptomatic or with minor symptoms, but then that is only my opinion.

You will never have NO cases of the big C on a cruise and should not expect to.

BTW i sail tomorrow, so ask me in 8 days if it was worth it or if my opinion had changed?

I am not blaming RC.  I do think they upped the capacity too fast, that is just my personal opinion.  But the only reason we did RC is it was the only one that my son could go on.  Next year when he is vaccinated we will have lots of options so we may or may not stick with RC.

My biggest reason for cancelling is being stuck on a ship with no shows or ports and 3 kids.  That sounds like zero fun and my husband would throw a fit because he is not into cruises and wanted the ports.  So it seemed not worth the risk for the insane amount of money we were paying.

14 minutes ago, Matt said:

This week has been a good reminder for everyone that is going on a cruise until further notice to expect the unexpected.

We were lucky that most of the summer and fall was largely uninterrupted, but those of us who went on cruises back in June and July anticipated more changes regularly.

So if you have a cruise booked at all going forward, until Covid is akin to Zika now (in terms of a non-issue), assume something like this could happen on your sailing.

I agree it can happen, it just seems with Omicron spreading like it is, the chances of 50 people testing positive and that shutting stuff down is a higher chance.  I could be wrong and all goes well next week, but I didn't want to take the risk with an already hesitant husband.  I booked for the lower capacity and it seems all I hear about is how crowded the ships are and long lines on here.  That already had me hesitant mixed with not being able to AO because of the lower capacity in AO but higher capacity on ship.  Now ports closing?  Just didn't seem worth it anymore.  We are all bummed but we are looking at maybe a short beach vacation instead.  Advantages of living in Florida.

All of this is why we decided today to cancel our cruise.  No ports, no shows, and standing room only at a pool sounds awful for my kids first cruise and my husband already wants a reason to hate cruises more than he already does.  We are out.  Called and they said we will get a cash refund in 30 to 60 days and if that happens and no FCC we will be looking at all different cruiselines for next year.

i just cancelled today and they said I would need to take FCC and I said I wanted cash and they said OK, we will send it to that department and you will receive your refund in 30 to 60 days.

Ugh, we are sailing Harmony starting the 26th and I haven't heard anything about that ship and whether there are positive cruise cases.  Now I am really starting to second guess all of this and wonder if we should cancel.  standing room only doesn't sound fun along with zero ports.  How can they even think to sail if they can't go to any ports?!?

4 hours ago, twangster said:

I don't see it as a mistake.  It doesn't matter if they were still at 30% capacity the reaction and opinions about cruising would be the same.  The protocols are working on ships and they are adapting to the current pandemic progression by updating the protocols.  Even if ships were still down at 30% capacity the mask policy would have still been updated as required by the CDC.  

It's easy to armchair quarterback while in reality no matter what capacity is on board right would have resulted in the same outcome.

The smart thing to do is to stop new bookings in light of this variant.  That would be the smart reaction regardless of how we got to today, regardless if we were at 10% capacity or 90% capacity.  In the future if some future variant is highly spreadable the smart action at that future point in time will be to pause new bookings then. This is a far better reaction compared to the knee jerk reaction of shutting down the industry.  

No different protocols, booking trends or capacity limits would have changed the outcome and what they face today because ships are not the reason why this new variant is upon us. 

If the requirement will ever be placed on cruise lines they must never exceed 30% or 50% capacity they might as well declare it and shut down.  Just like a land restaurant that would have to make the same decision, if the long term requirement is never to go above 50% they might as well call it and go out of business.

Cruise lines must be able to scale up and down as the pandemic ebbs and flows.  Otherwise there is no business point in going on.

I see it differently.  There is no way to social distance at 100%.  The biggest mistake I have seen states and schools make is they change too much at once.  You can't go to 100% until you have tested higher capacity in theaters and vaxed areas.  So the best way to do this would reduce the number of shows and allow more people in the shows.  Do that for a bit and see how it goes.  Add more kids to AO and see how it goes.  Add more people to the pools and see how it goes.  But they went from everything reduced capacity to making ships 100% overnight. That was too much.  Because now you don't have the capacity in the pools, shows, and AO for that.  I am not against them getting to 100% what I am against is them jumping from 60 to 100 overnight and not being ready for that.  They flat out are not ready to handle 100% at venues, pools, and AO.  They aren't there yet.  And honestly I am super frustrated because the CEO said 65% thru December and I booked based on that statement.  I surely didn't book to now not be able to do anything because everything is reduced capacity and they crammed people in the ship. That is then going to make the pools and everything else super crowded because no one can do the other stuff.

2 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

-Pleas from the hospitals will be there no matter what, especially hospitals suffering self-inflicted staffing shortages.

-Professional sports are already changing their protocols since they realize keeping asymptomatic people off the field is not a common sense approach anymore as covid weakens

-There have been cases on cruise ships since June.  With current protocols there will ALWAYS be cases found on ships.

Our local hospitals currently are not making any pleas as we got past Delta, but when we were in the thick of Delta they were, but they didn't mandate vaccines, so there was no self inflicted wounds.  Not all hospitals are the same, so when health officials plead, we should listen.  I will say where I live when pleas happened mask wearing went way up and we got thru Delta much better.

I don't see all of cruises being shut down over Omicron because Omicron is not hitting hospitals to begin with.  So any hospitals overrun are still dealing with Delta.  I think it will be individual cruises based on staffing.

The one HUGE mistake I think RC made and they are regretting this and changing this quickly but too late for some cruises is upping capacity.  They should have stuck with the 65% the CEO stated and upping by 5% every month or two.  They got greedy and that is going to cause them headaches and may cause individual cruises to be cancelled.  They jumped too high too fast and got caught in Omicron worse than they would have been.  Because social distancing is impossible at 100%.

20 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

While I agree with the sentiment of your post. I take issue with the "I am well past retail/hospitality jobs" in your post. It implies an elitist aspect to working. I am sure that there are crew members with multiple degrees, who happen to love the industry. Also, some people who work retail/ hospitality have chosen to do so as a career. It sucks in every way having to tell grown people rules that, have not only been clearly posted, but agreed upon before service even started. 

You are correct, I could have stated it differently.  I did retail jobs early in life, but wasn't a fan so moved to something else.  That would be a better wording. 

32 minutes ago, cruisellama said:

That will eat into business.

Will it?  My husband and I will gamble more because of this change.  I have to imagine there are more like us.

I honestly never understood why they haven't banned smoking before this.  I know very few smokers, the large majority of people I know hate being around smokers.  So having smoke free casino seems more people would want to gamble. 

Honestly this masks rule until Jan 5th is working out nicely for me.  I wasn't planning on going to clubs or bars anyways since I have kids.  The only thing is the adult comedy I will now have to wear a mask.  And now with the new mask rule the casinos will be smoke free.  This is a huge win. Not to mention all the people cancelling because of the new policies means less people on the ship.  Which is honestly my #1 concern because when I booked everything stated reduced capacity so I would love for capacity to be lower.

It doesn't shock me.  I spoke to someone that claimed my whole family is marked down as vaccinated.  If they were, why am I getting e-mails to schedule antigen tests at the port?  Clearly they are not marked as vaccinated.  I just ignored the e-mails and assume I will have a ton of issues as the port since they refuse to actually mark them properly and allow me to upload their cards.  Some of these customer service people really have zero clue.

I think this post is pretty much any job in retail or hospitality right now.  Most of these people are just trying to make a living and they got stuck in the middle of an ugly political battle.  They don't like it because they don't want to enforce the rules that they may or may not get yelled at for enforcing, but since they don't know the patron they probably assume the patron is going to not like what they are telling them.  I am so glad none of my kids are old enough to work and that I am well past retail/hospitality jobs.  I feel awful for most people that have to do customer face to face interactions.

Harmony?  Nice, I might actually gamble more if there is no smoking on my upcoming cruise.

Clearly they changed this rule because of Symphony having so many cases.  Personally I am hoping a ton cancel so the cruise I am going on is not so packed.  I noticed the cruise I am on doesn't show up at all so my guess is that as people cancel they are not opening those rooms up because they are trying to lower capacity.  The CEO said it would be 65% and it seems they didn't follow that and now they are in trouble because they sold too many rooms.  A shame because I am really hoping this cruise doesn't suck because they crammed the ship to 100% without really having the staff or shows for 100% with social distancing protocols.  All a money grab in my mind.  But this new mask policy is to reduce spread that clearly happened on a ship.

What is even more confusing is it isn't kids it is unvaccinated.  lol

Like my 6 and 11 are fully vaxed and therefore antigen is fine for them and they will not be tested at port.  But my 4 year old is PCR and antigen at port.  It really has nothing to do with age and they should change their e-mails to just reflect vaccinated and unvaccinated.

1 hour ago, Matt said:

In fairness, other cruise lines aren't even running their kids clubs. I think Carnival just started theirs up (or is going to), but DCL isn't running their clubs yet.

I do agree there is a problem if Royal is scaling up ship capacity well over 50% but AO capacity is still stuck at a fraction of what it could be pre-pandemic.

And them not running them is why we are on RC.  But they will be starting to run them as kids can be fully vaccinated, so that is why we would move over.  Carnival is most likely who we would sale with as my understanding they have some great ships for kids.  We would have been on them if their kids club for under 5 would have opened with the 5 and over.  But our 4 year old throws everything off.

44 minutes ago, MattG said:

We got off Anthem last week, and there was zero social distancing in AO, only masking. We had no objection to this. There were still capacity limits, and I personally believe that's driven by staffing shortages. 

I haven't heard the same from the Oasis class ships, so we will see how Harmony is.  I am hoping to use them a couple times as the whole reason we picked RC over Carnival and paid 3k extra was because of the AO being open and Carnival not having theirs open for the under 5 crowd yet.