TiiiSailor

5 hours ago, MSEm said:

Drink Package or NO Drink Package.  Both people in a cabin must purchase the drink package.  We found included  wines and beers good to very good.  We found the the cost of just ordering from the menu for was cheaper than the drink package for us. Specialty coffees without alcohol are no extra change. Best coffee is from the the cafe on Deck 1.

We often find a great bottle of wine or beer in port that we purchase and bring on board.  Usually we take an excursion to a winery or brewery.  Viking allows you to bring locally purchased alcohol on board.

Hopefully you can find a drinks menu with current prices posted on the Viking board.

Enjoy your first Viking Cruise

If I bring on wine or spirts onboard, on embarkation or a port stop, can I consume it around the ship out side my cabin?

Also a dart board on Radiance.

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"Every night between 2am-4am (or thereabouts) they did a machine-type disinfectant along all corridors."

Which corridors were cleaned during this late night cleaning?  If the stateroom corridors, was it loud enough to wake passengers? 

Thank you.

On 6/5/2021 at 4:59 PM, RSLeesburg said:

Hi Tim

 

 No.  No upgraded rooms or any real perks on land portion other than the double points.  When you get to ship though, they had someone waiting to escort us on to ship.

Thank you for the information.

I thought mask requirements were to be wearing the mask in public areas unless you were actively eating/drinking.  Which was defined as taking a sip of your drink or actually putting food in your mouth.  Kind of hard to smoke through a mask.  Maybe a mask with a small hole for the cigarette to fit through and left in for the duration of that smoke.  LOL

48 minutes ago, RFerrington said:

Very good question.  I will be interested in the answer as well since we are not getting vaxxed.

 

May I suggest that the members of your party that do not want to get the vaccine perhaps discuss this matter with their physicians and see if the docs would be willing to document a medical exemption/contradiction.  I was delighted to find that our physician did this for both my husband and myself so if Royal is going to allow for medical exemptions, we will be in good shape.  That is far from clear at this time.

 

Are these friends on any kind of COVID prophylaxis ?  Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), Ivermectin and others that I cannot recall.  Personally, I would not recommend that unvaxxed pax go on a cruise unless they are otherwise protected (and to protect others) by an acknowledged prophylaxis.  I am not a physician or clinician.  This is just my personal opinion (as well as that of my physician) after much research on the subject.  We are both on a physician-monitored regimen of HCQ.  

 

If all of this fails (and it may well), then I would certainly hope that Royal will offer a full refund since we are medically documented to be unable to be vaccinated.  I have anecdotal (strictly hearsay from someone on the blog) information that refunds have been provided recently based age restrictions (children) who could not be vaccinated.  Whether that was a one-off, I have no way of knowing.  Time will tell, I suppose.

 

Best of luck to your party.  I share their concerns.

I didn't see any mention of any exemptions to the vaccine requirement, medical or otherwise.  Did I miss something?  But then the sailings are still months away and we see changes weekly, if not almost daily.

On 5/21/2021 at 11:10 AM, mavo68 said:

.

On 5/21/2021 at 11:07 AM, newcruzer2 said:

What worries me about ambiguously saying in first sentence "all fully vaccinated" and then immediately saying "if not vaccinated you will need a negative test"  IS,

all of the rule breakers who will see this as an opportunity to not vaccinate .

Because as we know RCCL didn't use to enforce the rules well, on other matters.

The statement should have been .... Those under 12 need a negative test.

They'll still be trying to "lawyer" their way onto the ship as it sails out of the harbor.  

Wonder how this will affect future sailings out of Florida?

12 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

Germany is a great example on how masks and lockdowns don't work

But on the other hand, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand are examples of how lockdowns and masks do work.

On 7/22/2018 at 4:15 PM, prodoc said:

Thanks for the informative review. I found this most interesting as we are taking the August 10th cruise and post-tour that sounds very similar, although we do a few segments by bus and also stay at a different hotel in Fairbanks (the Pike's Waterfront Lodge). Hope to put your information to good use as we are in the final days of planning. We have been able to get the post-tour excursion information ahead of time so although we have not been allowed to book the excursions yet, we have already picked out what we want to do at each stop. I especially appreciate the information about the tundra wilderness tour in Denali Park as we plan on doing that 8 hour excursion, especially good to know which side of the bus to sit on. Is the bus a school bus type or is it more comfortable than that? I am sure I will have more questions as I think about your review.

 

Penny

Penny,

Where did you locate the post-tour land excursions?  This is one part lacking in RCL's tours.

Thanks,

Tim

On 7/1/2018 at 11:50 PM, RSLeesburg said:

After checking in, we boarded the ship and picked up my son’s evacuation bracelet and then headed up to our room. We were staying in this GS cabin.

 

And a few pics before we messed it up with an explosion of clothes [emoji6]

 

 

 

 

 

When we arrived, two of our bags had arrived already, and the remaining ones came just after muster. Muster was at 6pm, and then we set sail at 8pm.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

We were supposed to have this room this June for a cruise tour, but now bumped to 2022.  I noticed you mentioned in an earlier posting that you received the same points during the land portion of your trip as you did onboard the ship.  Were the rooms you stayed in during the land portion up graded rooms or the same as everyone else?

Thanks,

Tim

Only the Jewel of the Seas has rooms on Deck 11, as Saab4444 mentioned.

I just looked and the 18 day Ultimate Alaska & Canada Combination - Southbound sailings for June 2022 and get the same issue.  This happened to me when I was looking to book a different Alaskan cruisetour for June 2022.  It cleared up a day or two later.

While in the process of doing a Lift and Shift from my scheduled June 21 cruise our TA got on the phone with the RCL rep.  The RCL rep told our TA that it would cost us $100 per person to do the change.  I mentioned to the TA that many times when a private person calls the RCL rep and get an answer that seems to be different than advertised by RCL they call back again and talk to a different rep and get a knowledgeable one.  The TA did that and came back with the no extra cost to conduct the L&S.  Sometimes it's worth educating your TA on what we read on these forums. If you need to educate your TA too much it may be time to change TA's.

On 2/14/2021 at 10:44 AM, fox02554 said:

cb , I always wear shorts when I'm traveling , proud of my metal and my abilities , don't mind the pat down , it was the security staff I had issues with, they were rude and unconvinced by me and didn't tried to hide the attitude , looking forward to have escort this time 😄

That kind of security should have been reported immediately. Seeing how this is a GS topic, I'd have first contacted the Concierge.  If necessary, I would have taken it all the way up the chain of command until I was satisfied the issue was taken care of, or until I talked to that Captain. 

On 1/22/2021 at 8:48 AM, 1025cruise said:

It should be noted that when this question was originally asked, Quantum was still slated to sail Alaska.

 

Opps.  Didn't see the date of the original posting.

Quantum not an option 2021.  It's staying in Asia this year.  

Read in today's paper that Qantas airlines CEO Alan Joyce said once the vaccines are widely available, they'll be requiring travelers to show proof of immunization.  Wonder if this will spread to other airlines and cruise lines?

11 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

Hopefully optimistic that people keep wearing their masks, we don't get a second wave of horribleness, and things start going back to a reduce sense of normalcy.

 

My guess is that for the Canadian stops they won't allow non-Canadian citizens off the boat. Or, it will only be with NCL sponsored supervised excursions. Either way I'd be fine with that. We splurged for Haven on this trip for a reason.

So how does that end up working?  Most of the Alaskan cruises either start or end in Vancouver?

On 6/13/2020 at 11:10 PM, Howasaur said:

I have book  a 14 day Great Alaskan Explorer cruise in July 2021 I just wonder what entire requirements Alaska will require if the Pandemic is still about Covid-19 

If COVID-19 is still of concern I don't think Canada will be open to cruise ships. If Canada doesn't open Alaskan cruises will not happen.

On 10/16/2020 at 12:37 AM, donaldsc said:

 

It isn't the cost of the excursion but the quality of the excursion.  Many of the cruise ship excursions wouldn't have been worth it even if they were free.  In fact,  we won one cruise ship excursion at a drawing and it was free but still was not worth it.  The only time I would ever take a cruise ship excursion is if it was unique and I felt that I had to take it the it was a small port and the cruise company had bought up all the excursions in town.  

 

DON

Don,

The excursion I booked through RCL for next year was one I was about to book through the vendor.  Checked the time of the RCL excursion and it was exactly the same time, same description and pictures as the vendors.  RCL's excursion was $20 cheaper than purchasing from the actual company running the excursion.  I've taken a bunch of excursions booked directly through the vendor and had RCL passengers who booked through the ship on the same excursion who paid a higher price.  This time it's just the opposite.

The million dollar question of the day.  LOL  I have noticed excursions from RCL for next year are less expensive than what the same excursions were previous years directly from the vendor.  So that may be RCL's way of getting excursions booked through them.

All twenty of the chair hogs?

9 hours ago, Goodtime Cruizin said:

Think chair hogging. 

Next summers Alaskan cruises are still selling interior and ocean view cabins.  So I'm not sure RCL is having a 50% capacity by not selling those rooms.  

We'll just need to wait and see what they do when cruising restarts.

We were in our late 50's when we saw it 18  years ago.  The ones enjoying it the most were elementary age school children and people the age we are now.  You sit and are entertained.  It appears the lumberjacks are really competing against each other doing the sawing or chopping logs, climbing up poles, and the balance thing on logs in lumber in the water.  I remember seeing competition like this on TV in the 50's.  A young child was brought up to the lumberjacks and they chopped a custom fit chair out of a short log for her to take home.  Not sure how the chair made it home if there was a flight involved, or if it was allowed back on the ship. We'll, hopefully, be on another Alaskan cruise next summer that will stop in Ketchikan with one of our teenaged grandsons and won't be taking him to the lumberjack show.

On 9/13/2020 at 10:37 AM, time4u2go said:

For those suggesting that violators should be booted off at the next port (which I think is the right thing to do), what do they do about people that violate the rule after the last port of call?  I suppose they could confine them to their cabin.

The cruise industry would probably do like the airlines - ban those passengers until the need to wear masks is no longer required.