Pianogrl44

Just now, Sunshine3601 said:

Did you call this morning now new policy is released? 

No, it was yesterday afternoon so maybe I should call back. When I fought their policy they offered 50% refund/50% FCC that had to be used to book by April.  They even fully admitted my husband wasn’t allowed to sail and considered unvaccinated, and they still wouldn’t refund me 100%

With this new vaccine policy I find it frustrating that Royal won’t refund our deposit for our November Florida sailing.  We are Canadian so our two doses aren’t considered valid because they’re more than 42 days apart.  Now they’re saying we aren’t allowed to sail and when I try to cancel they want to give us an FCC for our deposit.  We aren’t the ones choosing to cancel, they are now saying we aren’t allowed to cruise.

I’m actually wondering if part of the problem is that we booked through C***co.  We were on day 90 yesterday after requesting refunds for our March 15 and 22 cruises on March 25th.  We still haven’t received the bulk of our refund for both cruises and it’s so incredibly frustrating to have no answers.

We requested refunds March 25th for our March 15 and 22 sailings that didn’t sail and we still haven’t received our refund.  I called Royal today for the first time and the agent was so rude on the phone we asked to speak to a supervisor, and then he hung up on us.  We really don’t know what recourse we have right now but it’s incredibly frustrating that they are holding more than 10k in refunds with no answer as to when it will be refunded.  I’ve tried to be patient until now but it’s been almost three months of waiting as people have gotten refunds so much sooner than we have.

Curious if anyone has received refunds yet who were issued an FCC automatically but then requested the refund?  Our cruises on March 15 & 22 haven’t been refunded yet but we got the automatic FCC quite quickly.  On March 25th I requested the refund for both of them and haven’t received a thing yet.  I’m just wondering if the FCC confused the process and I should be calling or if I need to just be patient longer.

I'm just nervous about what will happen if they file for bankruptcy before we get the refunds owed to us since we've received nothing for our March 15 or 22nd cruises.  With Norwegian talking about bankruptcy in the news today, it makes me very uneasy about Royal not processing our refunds!

We couldn’t take our March 15th or 22nd Harmony of the Seas and we received our FCCs but haven’t gotten any port fees, taxes, gratuities etc refunded to our mastercard yet for either cruise.  Our credit card is about to expire in two weeks and I have a new date to update it with but I’m worried if I call RC to change it this will reset my whole process 😣.  Has anyone received port fees or taxes yet without disputing a charge with the credit card?  Wondering if there’s any hope in getting it before the 30th.

27 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Who was it posted regarding may cruises that they have 2 chances of happening, slim and none and slim just left the room.

 

There are ships still out there who cant get pax offloaded. Last I heard about the HAL ship about 70 with symptoms will remain until they are clear, and that's weeks from now. 

 

Not to mention ships like liberty and oasis reporting sick crew onboard. At best they have to remove crew or wait until they are healthy and clean ships top to bottom.

 

Why bother? Unless you just want to roll over fcc, then it makes sense to loan royal money. It's a gamble I'd take. Just curious. I'd book but with the expectation of more fcc. 

That was me you quoted and it was from a comment I made on March 15th.  Clearly things have drastically changed since then and we have no plans on cruising in May.  There is no way cruise ships will be up and running normally and with our family being Canadian, I doubt the borders will even be open in order for us to travel.

1 hour ago, bhami said:

I will rebook - ws supposed to leave today, 13 of us on Oasis of the Seas to celebrate my husband's retirement.  Actually looking at 6/21/20  Harmony of the Seas and as others have stated, there are not a lot of cabin choices left.  I would like to book now but am unsure about FCC opting to take 125% offer.  I hate to put out more $$ to cover deposits as I am picking up the tab for all of this.  Can anyone clarify exactly how this works?  Sounds like it may be 30 days before FCC is available?  I want to book now 0 not wait for FCC documentation.

I called Royal today about this exact issue and they assured me multiple times on a recorded conversation, that if I did a new booking today, even though it is within the three month final payment (May 31 sailing) that I could apply the FCC when it's issued by April 13th toward the cruise and receive a refund to my mastercard for the FCC amount.  I would call yourself to clarify this the way I did, and definitely make sure it's recorded but we felt comfortable moving forward with it though it's definitely an individual decision.

23 minutes ago, dswallow said:

I've already rebooked on Oasis 5/17/2020 and 5/24/2020. Figure that's a reasonable amount of time in advance for everyone to sort out things; we'll see if it happens.

We took a chance and booked Oasis 5/31/2020.  Now that China is starting to open things back up and hopefully with warmer weather coming and an end to flu season, I’m hoping as well that we might have a chance for a sailing.  Time will tell.

I thought I would share in case anyone is wondering about using your FCC.  We were set to sail B2B this week and next on Harmony of the Seas, so with Royal cancelling we will be receiving the 125% FCC.  

I called Royal to book another cruise May 31st this morning aboard Oasis out of Cape Liberty because the prices are incredible but I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to use the FCC since we are past the final payment date.  We were advised (and the call recorded) that we will be able to apply our FCC once issued to this new cruise booking and we will be refunded our money back to original payment even though we are after final payment.

Now here’s hoping everything is cleared and we’re back sailing again in 75 days 😬

Anyone know if cruises leaving this weekend, March 14-15, offering a bit more in the FCC because of travel expenses?  I’ve heard of other lines doing this.

16 hours ago, efussander said:

This is refreshing. Fauci and VP answer question about those with existing reservations:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/douggollan/2020/03/09/fauci-says-cruising-is-ok-if-you-are-healthy/

I’d say this is very reassuring and tends to put the whole thing in perspective a bit.  Thanks for linking!

4 minutes ago, maureencruiser said:

I got through.  Royal says they'd be happy to charge me an additional  $2400 to upgrade to a balcony.  That's be $3600 total.  Gee, let me think about it.  🤬  

That’s absolutely ridiculous!!! You’d think they would be trying to fill rooms with loyal cruisers and reward those willing to cruise right now.  Wait it out a few days with even more cancellations and see what happens to pricing come this Saturday. 

24 minutes ago, maureencruiser said:

I'm in a solo studio.  My first time in one of those.  Normally, I'm fine with inside cabins, I sleep the sleep of the righteous in them.  I'm thinking if we get quarantined, I might go stir crazy in less than 100sf.  .  It'd sure be nice to have a balcony.  Still on hold...

Please be sure to let us know how successful you are!  I was on hold with Royal and got through but there wasn’t much they could do for me since I went through a big box store - this is the last time I do that since I’ve been on hold 4 separate times for 2 hours with that store only to be hung up on all four times. I’ve even tried different phone numbers!

I’d love to know if you were able to upgrade successfully since I was just trying to do the same. In fact I just wanted two connecting rooms in the same category we already had.

3 minutes ago, Jay Everyday said:

Sailing 3/14 on Symphony.  Anyone else traveling with kids?  My kids only concern is that there won’t be other kids onboard.

Set your kids minds at ease.  We took a 12 night Anthem last March break and only had 150 kids on board from ages 5-12.  My kids loved these small numbers since the kids club wasn’t crazy and they really had a great chance seeing the same kids over and over again.  We are still planning on sailing with our 2 kids March 22 and they are actually happy there might be smaller numbers and not so overwhelming.

I keep checking our cruise that leaves in two weeks and so far I haven’t seen any price drops on it at all.   I was really surprised they haven’t adjusted pricing given the number of open rooms in all categories right now.  I was hoping for a cheap upgrade but it’s not looking very likely.

1 minute ago, molly361 said:

Can you email them?  My TA works for a big box agency and we do all our business thru emails.  He;s the best😇

Ya, I’m regretting not going through a personal agent instead.  They offered email instructions if one needs to cancel but I don’t want to, so I’m going to have to look into it further and see if there’s another way to contact them.

8 minutes ago, Luxurycruise2 said:

Same- just make changes, not to cancel.  Hung up..

Twice I’ve been on hold for over two hours and then the big box store line just hangs up on me.  This is to make changes and have no idea how I’m going to get through.

These are some great ideas, thanks!  I had totally forgotten about the kite flying at El Moro!  I think we may also look at renting a car and heading to El Yunque since we haven’t been there yet.

It’s definitely worth a try but not guaranteed.  We upgraded to a better room that dropped in price after final payment last fall and still got a credit card refund for the difference in price.  I was shocked!

16 minutes ago, joand452 said:

What kind of magnets did you get?  After the last cruise, I decided that I needed something stronger!  I usually bring the plastic clips with tiny magnet on the back.  They barely held up one piece of paper!

 

Maybe the walls are less metal these days (last cruise was on Anthem)?

The earth magnet hooks on amazon are awesome for holding up swimsuits etc - they are VERY strong

Our family is travelling to San Juan in March, we’re in port from 7am-4pm with Harmony.  We’ve been a few times previously and done the walking tours and forts but wondering if anyone has anything new to suggest.  We have two daughters 7&11 - they will be happy no matter what since we’re on vacation, but I would love some new ideas of things we could do here, particularly if you’ve done an excursion that you loved and would recommend!

Same thing happened to me about 6 weeks ago and I have no idea why it did.  I upgraded our cabin a month after final payment was due and I ended up getting a $230 refund from Royal Caribbean on my credit card.  I sure wasn’t expecting it, I was just happy at the time for a room upgrade.  All I can figure is that someone must have made a mistake in my favor.

Thanks all, I’m assuming we will be in a junior suite and we’re quite happy with that!  Anything else would be a pure bonus but not expected at all.