JoeFan

On 4/17/2020 at 3:40 PM, Pratique said:

Too many hurricanes.

I hear that. But that is the only time we can go.

We got stuck with Dorian on Harmony last year. We were on the good side, so we got an extra 4 days of cruising. They extended our dining and drink packages. So all good.

Just now, Roger88 said:

It wont be strange at all. The cruisers at least will earn some money and provide jobs for the crew. Moreover, its always better to have the ship operating rather than keeping the ship at docks. Also, just think about it - the entire ship will be at your disposal, quite and clean. Some people hate overcrowded places especially these days when many are afraid of places with many people in it. I think you are doing a great job by planning your trip right now 

Thanks. We had this trip planned for some time. We hate to see it get cancelled. But so looking forward to it.

We sailed Harmony last year with Unlimited Dining Package and never saw the MDR. All the specialty were so quiet and we had the places to ourselves. I can't imagine what it would be like on this sailing.

I am set to sail 8/29 on Symphony. It is hard to tell but the ship looks half empty when I browse around at cabins.

Ultimately, I guess this sailing will be cancelled. My final deposit is due 5/31, so I will just ride it out until then.

Who knows what restrictions will be on cruising that early.

If this sailing goes forward, will it be strange having 50% capacity?

My friends and family think I am nuts to cruise now.

My current cruise isn't util 8/29. 

I am not sure why, but the prices in my cruise planner haven't changed in weeks. The prices usually change every couple of days, either going up or down and hoping to snag something on the down. But everything on my current cruise is stuck at highs. When will it get back to normal. I am not going to spend $61/Day for deluxe.

 I was also surprised to see this as we don't sail until 8/29 Symphony.

We got such a great price on this sailing way before this Covid-19 mess. I am afraid to see it get pushed to next summer 😞

20 minutes ago, BND said:

Retirement accounts will be fine.  The stock market over it's lifetime has averaged about a 10% return every year.  This is temporary, as are all the restrictions.  BTW, I'm retiring in two weeks.

Just don't stop buying. 

Dollar cost averaging

7 hours ago, chadcf said:

How did you upgrade? I keep checking for our 8/30 sailing but prices haven't budged.

I called RCI. I was on hold for 45 minutes, but I did finally got them.

The prices are all over the place.

Now it went down again since yesterday.

They might not have a choice soon.

The State Dept put a Global Level 3 health advisory. Reconsider travel abroad.

If I am reading this correct, the State Dept put all international travel to Level 3 advisory.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/ea/travel-advisory-alert-global-level-3-health-advisory-issue.html

I booked my 8/29 Symphony sailing direct with RCI. My interior GTY dropped $130 last week.

But today I upgraded to Ocean View GTY for $44.

Fingers crossed I can get this to a balcony soon 😉

Just now, Ourusualbeach said:

Worked in favour of everyone who has ever gotten a price drop, been able to up upgrade or grabbed a cheap last minute cruise.  

 

Id say it works both ways. 

isn’t this the same thing?

Why does supply and demand work only in favor of the cruise line?
 

Why is CocoCay beach club $59 for some and $199 for others. Wouldn’t it be fair if it were the same price for everyone?

Why should they make more profit because something is popular? 

3 hours ago, jknc said:

you assume companies care about the health and well being of their customers. they don’t. 
 

don’t cry for the airlines who will lose billions, when they’ve added so many additional fees over the years. 

The airlines are the ones to jack up prices when fuel goes up. But it never goes down.

I checked everywhere.

I will keep looking. Hopefully it will open up.

I just book SOS for 8/29/20 and in the Cruise Planner, there is no Deluxe Beverage package without Voom.

Is this normal now?

The best part about it, is you don't have to spend a dime to have a great time on PD.

The last time on HOS we had a balcony on deck 8 which was awesome since we had the UDP and most of the dining was a quick walk from the room. But we really didn't spend so much time out there. Just while others were getting ready.

So I I just booked a interior guarantee for my family of 4. $400 to pick our own interior and $1k to get a balcony.

Just not worth if for us as we are away from the room when we are not sleeping.

So I rolled the dice. Just hoping we don't get the worst room on the ship 😉

OK, I pulled a typical me and changed gears totally.

You know when you are looking at cruises and you see from lowest price $X.

Well Symphony of the Seas on 8/29/20, 7 night Western, 3 days cruising, Falmouth, Labadee & CocoCay, sailing was showing lowest price of $849, but when you click through the real lowest was $512 for Interior GTY. So including taxes and port fees, the actual cost per passenger came out to be $647 which is $201 less.

Which in contrast when I was looking at Oasis out of Port Liberty, it was showing $649 lowest PP which actually came out to be $1,069 PP or $420 more.

So feeling we got a bang up price on Symphony, for the 4 of us it came out to be $1,100 more.

3 hours ago, Biker19 said:

Mardi Gras is only a few months away.

And Matt is going to be CD. He’s a love or hate guy. We had him on our only Carnival Cruise in Breeze. It was good. Our first cruise ever. 
 

After that, Anthem and Harmony. We LOVED Harmony. So we do like the big ships. 

We also have global entry which I read they might take in Port Everglades. 
 

We are driving from NJ. 
 

So for about the same price I am looking at.

Independence - 5 Night  with CocoCay, Cruising, Labadee, Cruising

Mariner - 4 Night with CocoCay, Nassau, CocoCay

I did CocoCay last summer and loved it.

Is it worth going to Labadee and having the extra night.

How do the ships compare? On Harmony we loved Jamie's, but on Independence they have Giovanni's.

We just got back from the 8/25 extended HOTS cruise. 

We had the UDP and Deluxe and refreshment drink packages.

I will go over a couple of our experiences.

We have no prior experience with specialty on RCI, so we have nothing to compare it to. Some nights the steak was better than others. But overall, it was very good food at all. 

There were guests complaining at Chops on several different occasions. 

We went to the Windjammer twice an hopefully never to go back. Just to experience it. You have to circuit forever to find a table and when you do the food is horrible.

We stayed on deck 8 and it was perfect walk to the restaurants and back and park cafe in the morning for a bite.

Multiple Entrees

We never requested nor desired a second. In fact towards the end of the cruise we had so many visits to all the places we started getting 2 entrees between the 3 of us. It was so much food. At Jamie's our server on our embarkation lunch just kept bringing food to the table, we had to tell her to stop.

One sea day we stopped at Sabor and got drinks, chips and gauc, some empanadas  and desserts.

Shakes at JR without dining.

With the refreshment package this was no problem. They often had a line of people getting shakes. So not sure if they will cut this off at some point.

One day after an excursion we had some time before our dinner and we stopped in for just fries and shakes. So she just put them in to go cups.

Hibachi & getting sushi before hibachi

Everything I read say you could get two proteins, but they didn't budge. They up-charged us $4.

The second time we went we had the late seating and we showed up early. We went to the sushi bar first and had some nigiri, then onto the hibach with no extra charge. I am sure if we ate it at the hibachi table we would have gotten a bill. We only got one protein that night and skipped the rice. Thinking of rice. I remember some thread saying that they didn't get enough rice. Well both nights at the 3 tables, they gave everyone a bowl of rice and made plenty for seconds. They took away a full plate of rice away uneaten at every table. So there is plenty of fried rice.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

1 hour ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Yesterday

Is this a speed you are getting?

Check this. We are in Vitality  cafe and they have Evian. And they told me it’s covered with refreshment package. 

Good selection. Along with fresh fruit smoothies.