jticarruthers

As indicated by Frank, its about an hour each way in good conditions, likely to be a bit longer trying to get back "in the evening".

Up to you to decide if spending +/- 4 hours at some combination of the destinations you listed is worth it

44 minutes ago, Dmac said:

I’m going to log in tomorrow as if on the ship as a trial, so I will put phone into airplane mode and see if the offline code way works, if not I’ll leave in airplane and try laptop hotspot method….lots of good suggestions here. 
I too think the thought of working from the ship and the reality of it may not be worth it but I figure if there is anytime to try it would be on a short cruise with a ship without a ton of extra stuff to tempt me lol. 

Think it depends on what you are doing/trying to accomplish.

For me I got up each morning, grabbed breakfast and logged in for a half day of work.

Logged off at lunch, went and met up with my parents and spent the afternoon/evening doing things with them.

Saved me 2-3 days of PTO and didnt really feel like I missed anything on the cruise.

Now when i cruise with my GF/friends group I wouldnt try it because we are straight into "pool fun" etc by mid-morning.

40 minutes ago, memebag said:

About 60% of the spread of Covid-19 comes from people without any symptoms. Maybe you didn't know that. Now that you do, you know that a 15 minute test can let you know if you're infected, and the US government is making a lot of those tests available for free. So there's no reason to go by how you feel.

Multiple answers that would get the thread locked deleted.

Suffice it to say we disagree on the value/purpose of testing.

1 hour ago, Toby said:

This where my faith in others to do the right thing falters!

Note I said "If feeling healthy" ...

19 minutes ago, memebag said:

So you would roll the dice and maybe infect other people just so you could go on vacation? You wouldn’t feel horribly guilty if you found out later that you may have been the vector?

I would not feel guilty if I went on a cruise feeling perfectly healthy.

I did a little "WFH" trial on Harmony at Thanksgiving so the internet might be "newer/better" than some ships.

I logged my laptop into the ship Wi-Fi and connected, then hotspotted my laptop so that my phone could get Wi-Fi through the laptop.

That allowed the code to come through to the phone to do the VPN.

I generally found it ok, video on Teams was unreliable but audio was fine and email/data was ok if slow.

13 minutes ago, memebag said:

This is the bit I don't understand.

Regardless of the cruise line policy, wouldn't you cancel if you were contagious? And wouldn't you want to know if you were contagious?

If I am feeling healthy, not really.

I never used to test myself for any other diseases/illnesses just to see if I had them, not sure why I would want to with this one going forward.

25 minutes ago, Toby said:

Hypothetically, Carnival drops all health protocols, how many "Loyal to Royal" cruisers are going defect to Carnival?

I don't really count as "Loyal to Royal" anymore but I would probably jump in a heartbeat since I have a decent pool of people that want to cruise but cant ... the group on Carnival wins over "Loyal to Royal" without a doubt.

13 hours ago, Pooch said:

Of course I didn’t get an answer from HIM!!!  But the staff overseeing his emails are much more responsive than calling the customer service line.

I tried a few years ago, cant recall if it was Bayley or a predecessor. As you indicate I got an almost immediate response from one of his "assistants" who completely ignored what I had said in my message and trotted out a "canned response". Then ignored my explanation of the actual problem and hung up on me.

That was the day I stopped being "Loyal to Royal" and started branching out to other cruise lines, in general it has worked out well for me

Royal has been "on sale" for years now, the sale goes away the price doesn't change, its all marketing ploys and every now and then someone screws up their math and some people actually do get some savings from a "new sale".

Buy it when the price works for you and then price check from time to time to see if it has gotten cheaper.

17 hours ago, candmfox said:

That's too bad. I encourage my 18-year-old son to travel internationally - he just returned from a US to Belgium to Spain to Greece trip and he had a blast over 9 days. He and his girlfriend traveled with a backpack each and rolled with it and had a great time. Don't be confined by imaginary issues. Go for it - you'll regret not going. There have always been "rules" to deal with - visas and other heavy handed restrictions - and millions of people have had the time of their lives dealing while dealing with those issues.

Oh I agree in general, spent most of my life overseas so its definitely not a "travel is bad thing". Just not something I am willing to deal with when the rules dont stay in place long enough to plan for, I have better ways to relax than trying to figure out which papers i need, to prove what, today.

I have a couple of friends who work in the Travel Industry and after hearing all their tales of woe trying to shepherd people through the ever changing rules from country to country, I decided there was no way I was going to mess with international travel until all this stuff is done, not worth the hassle.

Bad enough dealing with the machinations of our government never mind having to worry about what all the other ones are thinking.

I have never seen anyone id'd in the solarium but with that said (as noted above) if you look/act like you belong you should be fine ... if you stand out chances of getting checked are higher.

Personally, age doesn't bother me, behavior does ... but i rarely get to be in charge of making the rules

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Societies, communities and countries are slowly learning to live with the virus.  It's a process.  It's take time.  The fact that the CDC isn't completely losing it's mind over the current variant is proof that even they are learning to live with it in their own way.  

There will come a time as the world has inched its way forward that cruise life will move closer to the days before.  We just aren't there yet.  As every day passes we move closer.  

I would amend this to some societies have learned to live with the virus and are getting tired of waiting for those that haven't.

I do get that it is a process that everyone has to go through to get to their comfort level but kind of like the vaccines, those that haven't gotten them at this point never will and those that aren't getting comfortable with living with may never get there either.

12 hours ago, Bowen said:

I have absolutely no confirmation of this, just some Tweets from an account that is generally reliable. According to them the rumor is that the US government will be extending the pandemic emergency on Friday. If this happens then it seems like the idea that pre cruise testing and vaccination going away will not be happening anytime soon. If this happens, do you think the cruise ships will continue to go along with the opt in for what the CDC is currently making them do?

I hope so, but doubt it.

Nope Diamond has essentially been converted into 4 free drinks per day and a few other minor perks.

I'm still cruising regularly but my spending has dropped like a rock, just not worth it to pay the crazy prices.

CocoCay is free if you just want to enjoy the beach and snorkle with your own mask

Walgreens had an issue with their system on June 16th. My son tested and his results still havent come through "via email" despite the automated response telling us repeatedly that it would resend them.

Eventually spoke to a human who said their email system had crapped out for the day and to go to the nearest Walgreens and request a reprint.

Worth knowing for the future that apparently ANY Walgreens can print out the results for you if you ask.

I have done a couple of group bookings (company I worked for was willing to make it a company event).

It can be a lot of work but there is some savings.

I think it was along the lines of: 1 free cabin (excluding taxes, fees, gratuities) for every 8 cabins .. call it about a 10% discount ... and then we were picked up $50 per cabin OBC.

Definitely can see both sides.

For me I am starting to get past my "I miss cruising" phase and headed into my "I miss hanging out with my group of friend's while on a cruise" phase ... since a good number of them cant cruise because of the restrictions that has me looking at "where can we go as a group without boarding a cruise ship" which reveals lots of other destinations .... and ultimately is going to cost the cruise lines business if they are the only vacation destination that doesn't allow the unvaccinated to participate.

Still not open but i did see something saying the lazer tag was open this past weekend (didnt get down there to confirm it but it was listed) which is a change from two weeks ago,

We can hope for sooner

I herd/saw both articles/rumors.

The Carnival one sounded like basically "medical exemptions are on the honor system". I dont recall how Carnival is setup vis a vis the whole %of unvax/allowing exemptions deal. It might basically be meaningless since they can only take a very small # of unvax individuals anyway.

I know the common wisdom is that it is going to be a while yet, i just dont see how much longer one tiny segment is going to be enforcing rules that no one else is even thinking about.

It was not two weeks ago, they thought "soon" ... I can let you know later on today if that has changed.

Just sailed Equinox in May.

Generally happy, very different experience from an Oasis class though.

Ship was in great ship, food was good, they were having staffing issues so service was willing but limited.

The target audience was a little older than us though which was fine since we were looking for the ABC islands and some pool days - mission accomplished.