Spurschick

58 minutes ago, toad455 said:

If RCCL does sail on Aug. 1, it would likely only be the following ships sailing the Caribbean:

- Navigator(via Miami)

- Independence(via Fort Lauderdale)

- Mariner(via Port Canaveral)

- Enchantment(via Galveston)

- Harmony(via Port Canaveral)

- Liberty(via Galveston)

- Freedom(via San Juan)?

- Majesty(via New Orleans)

- Symphony(via Miami)

 

I doubt the Grandeur sails out of Baltimore and none of the three ships scheduled to sail out of Bayonne will be sailing this year. The Freedom out of San Juan is also questionable. So RCCL might be in a similar situation as Carnival in only having 8 ships sailing if they do start on Aug. 1.

I hope Miami is included a we have a Symphony sailing soon, but Miami is way behind the rest of Florida in terms of reopening.

1 hour ago, MommaBear55 said:

Asymptomatic carriers may not be able to transmit Covid 19, but those who are going to be ill 24 to 48 hours from now are able to shed the virus. I don't really understand the hatred of masks. Sure, they are annoying but if anyone can be helped, why not. Remember when seat belts came out? There was a lot of resistance against them, yet now they are second nature. 

I agree we wear masks out shopping. In the warmer weather my glasses fog up more, but that’s easy to remedy.

some of the places we go it’s mandatory to wear masks and it’s enforced.

My take is this - if everyone wears then regardless of whether you believe masks protect you or others around you, if everyone wears everyone is protecting everyone.

Some fun FACTS

We moved to a city of 19,413 where so far there has been 1 reported case. Mask wearing in local Publix and local restaurants over 90%.

We moved from a city of 38,659 so pretty much double. Number of positive case 54, mask wearing less than 20%. 

DD has an in person graduation ceremony last week. Rules where temperature checks upon entry, social distancing and face masks. Over 650 students and families turned up, the venue did not even try to enforce as less than 10% were wearing masks.they only enforced for the students. On top of that they are holding a graduation party this week for the graduating students and I expect the number of students that turn up to be similar in numbers. I can only imagine how that is going to go!

I will be extremely interested in the next couple of weeks to see if they have a spike.

At the end of the day rules are rules. If masks are mandatory then yes we will happily abide by these rules for our health and that of others around us. It’s also an issue of people accepting those rules. Look at the airline that resumed flights, masks were mandatory then once onboard passengers refused to continue wearing masks so the airline has now suspended all flights again.

Everyone has a choice to make, but please don’t allow that choice to be at the detriment of others.

The problem is “idiot” travelers.

I was just reading a news article about a man from Switzerland who flew this week to UK knowing he was ill, claiming he didn’t know the rules and now wants to go to hospital. He claims he is Covid free, even though he thinks he has had it.

You have to ask how he was allowed to ever board the flight, but clearly some people clearly have no regard for others even though the know they are ill.

22 hours ago, Kbonner said:

Err sorry, I did not read this thread for 24 hours.

Where are we right now?

At suite guest bashing, Pin bashing or D+ bashing.

I always understand Milwaukee's position, but for the rest: who is bashing who in the moment please?

I think that makes most of this board bashed 😉

On 6/7/2020 at 9:00 PM, stevea36 said:

 

No TA should be charging a cancellation fee for cruises that RCI cancelled due to the pandemic.  They are receiving full commission from RCI, as if you actually sailed, so they are not losing a penny (as they would if you cancel).

 

In my mind, it is just not good business !!!

Whilst RC should be paying commission I called them today to find out where our port fees and taxes refund was and they said it was on hold as they were trying to recall commission from TA even though commission is supposed to be protected.

I’m expecting it to be around 50%Just rebooked a cancelled cruise for off peak January and cabins were slim pickings. Normally when not many cabins available I see a price hike but prices were not high given number of cabins available.

We, knowing our cruise (British Isles) this month, was highly unlikely to proceed, cancelled all our excursions and onboard purchases in March before the cruises even started to get cancelled. 

Once cruises began to get cancelled I called to find out when we would receive those refunds and was told 60 days from our request.

i called again last week as now we’re over 60 days to be told they would now be refunded when they refund the cruise which will be 60 days after sail date. (5 months wait from when we requested)

i get the 60 days for cruise refund but needless to say extremely frustrated that they are trying to add on an extra 3 months to reimburse the excursions.

needless to say we filed dispute with cc.

I’ve sailed with Princess before but this was DH’s first cruise with them and after this I doubt I’ll be able to persuade him to ever sail with them in the future. (We have had 6 cruises cancelled so far with 4 cruise lines but this has definitely been the most hard work to deal with)

4 hours ago, RFerrington said:

That's interesting.  I didn't think they were allowing casino comp cruises to be L&S'ed at all.  So you can L&S a casino comp cruise but only through Feb. 2021 ?  Obviously that would violate their 1 year +/- 4 weeks rule.

Only allowing L&S on cruises that were cancelled in latest phase ie cruises saying on/after June 12th.

got nowhere trying with my April/May sailings - they fully cancelled those, but allowed my July sailing to be lifted and shifted. 

I argued that the l&s rules were one year as when I originally called in the CR rep was the one that told me had to be within a 4 week time frame of original sail date, and she moved it. After almost 2 hours on the phone trying to resolve and the new rep and original rep going back and forwards I agreed to move within the feb time frame as they were now refusing to honor the date they moved us to.

Luckily managed to find a cruise that worked as DD starts college and with holidays blocked out, trying to find a cruise that fitted in with her schedule was not the easiest!

very grateful to move, but it is frustrating they couldn’t get it right the first time round. Luckily a competitor that I’m also trying to l&s hadn’t finalized moving that cruise so I’m flipping them round for her to travel with us.

All l&s’s have to be done by the 10th of this month.

On 5/21/2020 at 11:47 PM, texasreb said:

2. Lift and Shift: If you prefer to move your existing booking to a 2021 sailing – we’re happy to move you! We will price protect the original pricing and/or promotion on the same itinerary, length, product, and stateroom category as your original sailing within 4 weeks (before or after) of the original sail date in 2021.

Did I read PROMOTION ? With most casino offers. If you cancel that is it. I did not cancel, and I see the word promotion. Still waiting to hear from Club Royale.

Well I am glad I called CR today. 

Had lifted and shifted a casino cruise for this July to next July (per their one year stipulation when I lifted and shifted) but after multiple calls could not get a corrected invoice. Helpful CR rep I spoke to said l&s for casino cruises is different rules and that we can only l&s up to February. 

Managed to rebook thankfully but unbelievable that even within themselves they have agents l&s to invalid dates hence leaving outstanding balances as they won’t price protect after February. 

If if you did a casino l&s please check your invoice matches what your original booking showed or you may have issues. We struggled to find a same cabin same itinerary available.

23 minutes ago, staygulf said:

You need to ignore that invoice. I’m surprised they’re still sending them out seeing as they’re supposed to have upgraded their IT system. But it will right itself in the end. 

Thanks, I’m hoping the correct amount goes in.im hoping we will see soon as a lot of people have said they received refund before they got the invoice!

Does anyone have an email for them?

We received email cancellation invoice yesterday but the amount being refunded is less than amount paid. The amount being shorted doesn’t even match deposit amount and we booked direct with P&O no TA involved.

TIA.

7 minutes ago, atanac said:

Getting crew back is probably the easiest part as most of these people need these jobs

to support themselves and their families. Getting the various and diverse entertainment

personnel is going to be the real challenge as I believe they have more options.

As they still working on getting crew home after cruise been cancelled for weeks I don’t think it’s that easy. Look at how long that is taking.

If if you look at the number of crew needed for these ships and the fact that international flights are not fully resumed it will take time. 

Also, given that all these crew are not on current contracts so new contracts will need to be done and with no definite start up date it will not be as quick as people think.

16 minutes ago, LXA350 said:

 

Let's wait and see. On one hand it was said that Europe or Asia might be ready for cruising earlier and then something was mentioned about shorter cruises to go first. I think such statements were both made by Bayler and or Fain even.

 

Concerning the filling of the ship, by August traveling all over Europe will be possible without Quarantine restrictions. Also means of transport such as Air Travel will make it posible to reach the cruise port cities easily. Should RCL sail this year in Europe it will be with 1-2 instead of 6 ships. Assuming that the ships that will sail might be Allure and maybe Anthem, the loads can be as low as 30% to make it feasible to sail. The first cruises are not about getting ships with high occupancy rate it will be a bit of a experiment to test and develop the new concepts in practice in real operation with guests.

We shall see. But given P&O extended cancellations of all their cruises until the end of October this week and they sail from Europe I do not see them being  that optimistic, especially given the announcement came as Europe was loosening travel restrictions.

13 minutes ago, LXA350 said:

 

The cruiselines will need to prepare and probably by now at some point the logistics will need to be aranged to enable to operate cruises on select ships as of August. They can't wait for the cdc to decide somewhere in July if the no sail order will be prolonged or not. This makes me come again to the conclusion that if at all we will see 1-2 cruise ships sail out of Europe from RCL + X in Europe before cruising would begin out of the US.

I do not see Europe cruises taking place first. 

My contact at RC said that initially cruises are likely to be the shorter sailings and will only go to Cococay and Labadee. It is getting into ports that is more of an issue.

Europe cruises tend to be made up from travelers from all over Europe and more international passenger percentages. Europe will have issues getting people to ports more so than in US where more passengers are able to drive to ports. Also cruise lines do not own private islands in Europe to take passengers to and generally do not offer many 5 night and less cruises.

it is currently more of a logistical issue getting crew back in place for the sailings and I understand they are working on the number of onboard staff required to be able to sail. I got the impression they are not expecting to sail close to full capacity.

2 hours ago, molly361 said:

I just completed my check in for our August Mariner cruise so  the answer is YES they will be cruising in August😇

As much as I hope our August cruise goes ahead, we were able to check in for our April, May, June and July cruises (6 in total) and none of them are going anywhere.

The way I see it is an awful lot of casino players are "high rollers" The casino gives them a free room then they upgrade it to a suite. Getting double the points towards a higher level. They save a lot more than $100 or $200 . Some "real high rollers" are given suites from the start.

My wife and I have 75 cruises with Royal (plus 2 starting this Sunday) We have worked every angle from "Diamonds in Dec" to Junior suites, And even booking 2 connecting inside cabins, one for my wife and one for me.

If you are on the big ships you get to use the Coastal Kitchen if you are in a suite. One of the best "perks".

Even with only one point per day. Just cruise more. Since we decided to go for Pinnacle we have cruised over 35 times in the last 2 years. I was under the impression that years ago if you got a "free" cruise you didn't get any points, unless you spent some money on an upgrade. I can't verify it because we never got a free cruise.

Wish I could cruise more but with kids in school that's not always possible when we already sail multiple times a year.

Milwaukee you are absolutely right this will put the brakes on a lot of loyal customers speeding towards diamond, diamond plus...

 

It will actually force you to spend double in the casino and or double on cruises to obtain different levels.

 

It really pulls the casino players out of the "fast track" advantage of pissing our money away in the casino to reach higher crown and anchor levels. This is "free" money they will lose in the end.

To throw even more of a spanner in the works I have heard from a reliable source they are even looking at changing C&A to combine points from RC, X and Azamara to create new tier levels. Given X give points based on category imagine the mess that would cause. Our 1 point for our high end suites would be worthless!

Thankfully the only good thing is that they are so slow to implement changes this might take several years to get implemented :eek:

Relieved a brief message to say they are expecting to set sail tomorrow night. Hope the work is complete in time for this to happen. Have not been able yo confirm the itinerary changes yet.

To all those onboard enjoy your cruise.

If there is any sort of discount on final payment date for switching do it. At that point you are locked in anyway :D

That's a real shame. Hope it all gets sorted out quickly for them.

 

Ventura has not been lucky recently, different issues before the New Year.

Thanks, so do I. I will update when I have more info. I am hoping to catch up with them later today.

Parents currently on Ventura. They contacted me last night to let me know they arrived in Antigua a day early and expect to be there for 3 nights. Apparently some mechanical issues with ship and they are trying to fix.

No news yet on how the remainder of the itinerary will be amended.

Yes, I believe this to be true as well.

 

 

They certainly didn't when I called them this afternoon. The woman made it seem like it was something she'd try to see if she could do, but that she'd be going out of her way to do so and it would be take-it-or-leave-it.

I agree that they try to sound like they are doing you a favor now. We have EN booked for next year. We booked a few months ago when they were still doing casino rate and you could apply play based discount or certificates on top.

As the EN has been cancelled by RC I rang up to start figuring some alternatives. I was flat out told no they will not transfer my booking with casino rate and extra discount - I have to lose one. The person I spoke with said "well it's been a while since you booked. A lot has changed" yet he wouldn't go into many specifics.

He made it sound like he was going out of his way to offer me a discount on a Bogo rate even though me and my DH are losing $1750 in certs between us. We are not low end gamblers by any means.

I will let resolutions sort it out with them but absolutely no point now gambling any more than needed if can't even get anything extra to a casino rate.

We have booked MSC so will give that a try. Looking at sorting out X - at least their program is clear and transparent.

Check your "spam" email folder or maybe it'll come tomorrow, but it's gone:(

Perhaps this is how they are going to market new Going, Going, Gone offers.

You book a cruise, they are Going to make interest on your money whilst you think you are Going on a cruise to then find out the cruise is Gone :D

Not to hijack.. just a comment. With miles, free first class air to London is crazy. $1368 for two... and that was the lowest. :rolleyes:

Economy no miles is close to $1400 each:D

Can I have your miles ;)

When I Changed 2 months ago they DID NOT charge me as they verbally told me no charge. Only when RCI removed all solo rooms and assigned me another ocean view room did the 100 dollars show up. It was auto done and they wont honour invoice #2 only invoice #3. One agent told me they cant help. Oh well.

But you stated you changed from Barcelona to Miami which sounded like a cruise change. Now you are saying it is a fee from a cabin change when you were moved from solo room to ocean view. I'm sorry but I don't think I'm the only person who is confused by the circumstances here.