Spurschick

Given my daughter starts college this year and found out today she can move into her dorms starting August 8th I’m feeling more hopeful. 

I need to to get our August cruise in before the next huge outbreak and they decide to close down colleges and send them home again!😉

4 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

Or Princess!  Sorry, I know I shouldn't be cruel. 

Given I’m at 3 months waiting for a refund from Princess for excursions i’ll allow it lol.

39 minutes ago, njkruzer said:

Just hearing that Jacksonville may need to use cruise ships to house delegates to the RNC!  Not enough hotel rooms.   Apparently they also used them for the 2005 super bowl.   Not sure where to go with this.  If people get sick will they blame the ships and not the thousands of people packed together at the convention? 

Hopefully they will use Carnival ships 😉

47 minutes ago, Mallefiscent said:

Lol.   You don't want to see me drink.  I am a total lightweight, so it doesn't take much for me.  The last time I drank, I had a third of a wine cooler and planned on car surfing down my street.  My oldest son told me I had enough and took it away from me.  It seemed like a good idea at the time. . .

 

Hopefully I can find one of those warm places to sit and eat.  🙂

Lol!

Sit by window it’s warmer. Lower ceilings. Best airflow is in middle where it’s open to the decks above. Does not get as stuffy and warm there. My dad prefers it as he doesn’t end up dripping in a suit! But DH doesn’t like being in full view.

22 hours ago, Mallefiscent said:

I know that no one can see the future with Covid 19, but assume that everything is back to normal, please.

 

1. Are the specialty dining venues open every night including our first night on the ship? 

2. Is the Izumi Hibachi good for people who really like sushi?  My boys love it, but I'm not a big fan. 

3. What do you think of Wonderland?  I am pretty intrigued by it.  I am wondering if it will live up to my expectations or if it is a bust. 

4. Where do you think the best place to eat is for a relaxing first night?

5.  Are formal nights generally on sea days.  We are doing a 7 night Western Caribbean with Perfect Day. 

6.  Is it better to eat in the Main Dining Room or a specialty restaurant on formal nights?

7.  Which one is your favorite specialty restaurant for a family of 5 adults?

8.  Do they do anything special for birthday celebrations?

My best educated guesses are 

1- Definitely especially if they are going for social distancing as the6 want to spread more passengers around more locations.

2-DD loves sushi and lived it. I am allergic to fish and still had good options.

3-not done yet

4-Any specialty restaurant.

5-not always we have had some sailings when it is after a port. Never on first night or last night.

6-really depends on what you think of the menu. We will look at and if not appealing to all three of us we skip the mdr and go specialty.

7- I’d recommend looking at the menus as it really down to personal taste that will suit 5 people on a general consensus.

8-tell them when you enter the restaurant and book the meal, they will bring out a cake and sing happy birthday. You can note your booking but they don’t always get it right. Imagine my surprise when they bought my cake out a night early and sang happy birthday then called me Carol. Poor Carol was sat on table behind me 😱 at least they got it right the next night 🤣😂🤣

3 hours ago, rs45thompson said:

How do people dress in specialty restaurants on formal night?  Do people dress the same as in the MDR or do they dress up a little more?

DH purposely books specialty for formal night so he doesn’t have to dress up 🙄 he will just wear slacks and short sleeve shirt and that’s only after I nag him 😂

6 hours ago, Mallefiscent said:

For those of you who wear dresses, do you get cold?  Being from Phoenix, I get cold very easily, so I'm a little wary of wearing a shorter dress in a cold dining room. 

Just have a couple of glasses of wine. You soon won’t notice 😉

All joking aside (although the wine does help!) the dining room can get quite warm at times depending on where you sit.

2 hours ago, taglovestocruise said:

Wishing I was in the Diamond Lounge with a New Amsterdam Gin and Tonic.  But I will splurge on this. 

I have been sitting and staring at my $700 bottle of Nolets Reserve Gin for over two years.  Next Saturday I will open it for my 70th Birthday cocktail.. neat no ice.  Total alcohol porn..

 

Hope you have a wonderful birthday 🎂 

On 6/10/2020 at 8:01 AM, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

We thought the original announcement to transition Allure to Galveston for a while was a hoax...as it made no business sense on several fronts (including air transportation options and also quantity of local hotel rooms).

 

Perhaps the COVID-19 time has gotten the executives to "rethink" the original plan.  While we empathize with the passengers who planned to cruise Allure out of Galveston that now have to "switch ships", we can't say the pivot to another ship comes as a big surprise either.

As a high percentage of guests travel to Galveston on the day of sailing and it’s hard to find available cabins in peak season as it is I’m not sure why you think it’s a hoax. The demand is most definitely there. People drive from all over TX, OK etc.

Regarding quantity of hotel rooms, there are lots of people that fly into Houston and stay in Houston area pre sailing. There are more than enough hotels in the vicinity.

4 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

I have been reading where Sweden who didnt lock down is so horrible, then I went to the actual statistics and lots of countries still locked down were worse.  The news, what are you going to believe, apparently everything you read.

 

I dont

 

jc

To believe or not to believe that is the question 😉

4 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

Said someone who doesnt actually know because ...  NOBODY KNOWS...

 

Again, I said 10 feet...

 

quit propaganda... it is bad for the brain

 

jc

4 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

Said someone who doesnt actually know because ...  NOBODY KNOWS...

 

Again, I said 10 feet...

 

quit propaganda... it is bad for the brain

 

jc

They actualy had a news article on tv where I live with a scientific study that showed how far the particles spread and how long they stay in the air dependent on strength of breath. They actually showed the demonstration too, it wasn’t just a verbal article.

7 minutes ago, xpcdoojk said:

Peggy if you are say 10 feet away from a full COVID19 person and they do not cough or sneeze... I think your chances of catching the coronavirus is virtually nil.  Whether you or they are wearing a mask or not. It appears the infection is spread that way, and  the mask Is really a help when they are actively spewing the virus into the air.  No spewing doesnt matter.  Spewing O crap... I need a hazmat suit.  When spewing is not happening, don’t kiss or have sex with the person and the odds are you will be fine.

 

jmho and ymmv and I am not a doctor... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express in the last 20 years.

 

jc

Just by breathing they will send virus into the air, cough or no cough. They’ve already stated it stays in the air for up to 8 minutes. Granted, it will not travel as far but it will still be there. So anyone that has walked in their path is, per my understanding, capable or at risk of being infected by them.

I have given up trying to work out how any cruise line is handling this.

so far had 6 cruises cancelled with 4 different cruise lines.

cruise 1 April 11th not resolved

cruise 2 April 18th fully resolved

cruise 3 May 22nd not resolved

cruise 4 June 13th fully resolved

cruise 5 June 21st not resolved

cruise 6 July 18th fully resolved

getting there slowly but surely but not exactly in sail date or cancellation order 🙄

12 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Of the 50 plus I’ve done I have received updated invoices back on 2 of them. I’ve had several changed from refundable to non refundable deposits and OBC that has dropped off.

 

right now even though you may dial the STAR desk they are having reps  from Other departments answer those lines.  Today I got someone from C&A.  Unfortunately it means more calls to supervisors to get some things taken care of. 

Agreed it takes time. The final call that got it resolved was almost 2 hours and that was with the rep identifying the problem!

She apologized for the length of time it took as she was multi messaging her supervisor plus the original rep that did the original l&s to try to fix.

It was the second rep that advised the backlog for issuing corrected invoices was backlogged at 3 days. The first rep said 48hours! 

Its a shame that they can’t put it in and get their supervisors to process on the same call. It would save them having a whole new backlog with a team that now has to go in and fix these things! Especially if, like ours, they decide it’s not a valid shift as they hadn’t notified us of any issues until I called in.

I hope it doesn’t take you too long getting the rest of the corrected invoices.

6 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

It depends on the rep.  Some reps are authorized to do the full process including updating the price while others aren’t.  It’s great when you get one of the reps that has the power to fix everything on the spot. 

I know - she was good and she advised the previous reps I had spoken to should have known that if it was a valid L&S the invoice should be able to be processed at the same time, and advised that was standard!

She also noticed that the free play we had hadn’t carried over so added that back on as well. Had only called back as both reps I’d spoken to previously stated zeroed out corrected balance invoices would be sent within 3 days and it never happened.

I would recommend resolving ASAP. 

We had an L&S and couldn’t get a corrected invoice showing no balance due. On the third call they advised me the person that handled our L&S had moved us to a sailing we could not L&S to. 

We got rectified but all valid L&S will send corrected invoice whilst you are on phone.

i would call back and get corrected and escalate if needed.

1 hour ago, firefly333 said:

I believe, I believe lol. Will that help?

 

Local news says stock market sold off because of the rise in cases and hospitalizations. Dallas hitting records day after day, I think they said 348 hospitalized just in dallas. 

 

Idk how positive that is for cruising soon. I heard 70 covid testing sites burned and thought maybe that might make number of positives go down if less testing, but nope. I dont see this as positive for cruising in a month or so, but crossing my fingers.

Not surprised Dallas getting spike in cases. All the schools in DFW area going to Arlington for HS graduations.

instructions for graduation - masks mandatory and temp checks on way in. Well they did enforce for the 650 students, but not for the 650 families (5 attendees permitted per student)

less than 10% of families attending were wearing masks and whilst you couldn’t sit next to another family they could sit one seat behind you🤔

this was 2 weeks ago.

9 hours ago, lovescats5 said:

I don't want a refund, I want my A1 at the price I paid for it.  Destinations were not a factor when we booked Allure out of Galveston, the really low cost of the A1 was the factor.  Doesn't matter where we go, it is between 7-10 hours flight time.  We enjoyed Oasis, both the Star Loft and A1, and were excited to see be back on that class with a great view of water and activity.  I looked at other ships about the same time frame and there are no A1's and any other SC room is at least $10,000 more that we have.  No chance we will go back on Liberty so I guess refund is what will be asked for.  I am jealous of you guys that have good TA's.  I talked to mine today and he said wait for the letter and then we will see what is available.  Well, nothing is available and our booking was for March.  Still hoping they will offer to just let us keep the room and go to whatever port Allure will be at.

I wish you luck but I doubt it will happen.

We had a 4 night cruise in RS on Enchantment out of Galveston that they then decided to put in Port Canaveral and shortened to a 3 night cruise. They wouldn’t even honor the price in fact they put price up! Only thing we were offered was minimal OBC. 

It didn’t matter that we were originally driving to Galveston and had to now fly 3 of us to MCO. We ended up paying it and added on a couple of days to do a college visit for DD to make it worthwhile but we were not impressed they put the price up and shorted us a day.

3 hours ago, shemp2000 said:

got mine for May 27 cruise

And yet we still wait for our May 22nd cruise.

glad you received but would be nice if they could do in sail date order!

11 minutes ago, thefog said:

Canceled Mar.10th for my may.7th cruise to Hawaii and told me it would credit to my CC  in 30 days.

Not sure if you cancelled or RC did. My May cruise was cancelled but was not processed in RC’s system as being cancelled until several days after the cruise should have taken place. 

Im currently being told refunds are being processed approx 45 days after cruise was cancelled in their system (not actual sail date).

(I’m not making excuses just advising per the latest info they have provided me.)

(if its it’s any consolation a competitor is quoting me 5 months to refund an excursion I cancelled in March so I have had to file a cc dispute on that one)

If you were looking to rebook why didn’t you take an fcc? 

What was your sail date?

Florida has ports in phase 2 - they have not reopened either. I would not expect cruises to sail until at least stage 4

At the end of the day if CDC require it as part of conditions to restart and sail then yes we will happily agree to wear.

I agree that in heat they can become laborious to wear, but Universal Studios has now set up up U-rest areas that you can walk through with no mask to have a break, maybe they could do something similar. 

Inside in AC no issues wearing. I’m sure you won’t have to wear them on your balcony or at table in restaurants. May be required in confined high traffic areas, casino, shops etc. 

The biggest challenge to the cruise line is the health of their staff as well as passengers. It would only take a small outbreak in crew to potentially bring everything back to a grinding halt.

One airline resumed flights recently and promptly cancelled them again as passengers refused to wear for the duration of the flight. I hope if it is mandatory on ships they don’t run into the same scenario.

They are based in Europe. I expect that some US sailings will start up first. It is an issue with ports reopening. RC have private islands they can sail to.

I expect suspension to be extended for select markets but by November I do expect some sailings to have resumed.

(Disclaimer just my honest opinion based on conversations I have had with RC)

I’ve read reports on asymptomatic person to person not primary cause of spread.

Have also read reports that highly unlikely to get from surfaces.

IF both reports are true how is it spreading🤔