3monkeys4me

34 minutes ago, scorpluvsdolphins said:

Curious:  

Are people getting them back faster if they have Global Entry?

I just renewed my G.E.

 

It took less than 48 hours to be re-approved. 
G.E. is for 5 years and your passport number is part of the process. 

My passport will expire before my G.E. does. 

I wonder if when I re-new my passport will it come quicker because I have G.E.?

 

 

It did not come any faster for my husband, though he renewed his passport about 14 months ago. It took about 4 months. He did not pay for expedited and he had no travel plans then. 

1 hour ago, emory2001 said:

My kids are young teens and we only book spacious rooms or 2 rooms now. The extra space makes a huge difference. When we went on Radiance to Alaska in 2018, we had a friend with us, so there were 5 of us, and we had an Ultra Spacious Ocean View, which was amazing, with huge windows, walk-in closet, bunk beds for the kids, and tons of space. For our upcoming cruises this fall and next year, every booking is either spacious, Jr. Suite, or connecting balcony rooms.

I was going to say an ultra spacious ocean view is probably one of the only ways I would do 4 in single room (except for a possibly a suite). Part of the issue is beds, so many of the ships don't have the pullman beds and there is now way my kids could share a full sized sofa sleeper. We have 3 kids so it does make it a bit easier to justify two rooms. We have done balcony with an inside across the hall. Our next trip is side by side balcony cabins. 

As others have said if you are cruising soon I would just keep everything in your maiden name. The passport backlog is a big issue for a lot of people right now. If you have 9+ months to go then I would go ahead and change.it, knowing that the passport may take a good 6 months right now. 

My sister is in a similar boat, she was married early July and taking her honeymoon this fall. She is waiting to change her name until she gets back since she is unsure if she would have enough time to get her passport back, so everything is just booked in her maiden name. 

We are also set to sail on Brilliance next summer and we are planing to stay the night after debarking and flying home the next morning since there really aren't many flights inn the afternoon that we are seeing. Everything is pretty early (before 10am) to our preferred airport, or has multiple stops. 

Ty this one 

https://secure.cruisingpower.com/choiceair/protected/home.do?brand=C

FWIW, my sister also sent in her passport renewal a long with applications of both her kids end of May and they showed up last week. When she checked the status online it just said processing, until the day before it arrived in the mail. 

It does seems to vary greatly by which passport office it gets sent to (she's on the west coast), but there is still some time to go before your cruise. I think it is good she is getting back up paperwork together now though, you don't want to be scrambling the day before you leave. 

2 hours ago, BecciBoo said:

That is correct and I've been trying for years to get people to pronounce it correctly.  When I was a 13 yr old I saw a TV movie called "The Cay" and the main character had a whole monologue about how you say that Key.  I've remembered that along with tons of other insignificant trivia all these years.  Good movie BTW.  I'm just full of silly factoids like that.  I know more about nothing than anyone I know!🤪

Do you know if this was based off the book? We had to read the book in school when I was in 5th grade and I loved the book. 

2 hours ago, MorganClark said:

 

Can anybody guess what animal this towel animal is?

 

I would say a pig. Or possibly a cow. 

56 minutes ago, topnole said:

Since when?   I haven’t seen that?  
 

Since around July 9th (publicly at least). Pfizer is seeking authorization for a third dose. However, it doesn't look like the CDC or the FDA is jumping up and down to approve this anytime soon. From what I understand a big hurdle is they want more doses available worldwide before starting third doses. 

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/pfizer-ask-fda-authorize-booster-dose-covid-vaccine-delta-variant-spreads-2021-07-08/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/08/health/pfizer-waning-immunity-bn/index.html

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/15/1028803/pfizer-wants-to-give-you-a-booster-shot-but-experts-say-its-too-soon/

4 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

To be fair, we were on Allure TA. Almost no kids. I can't recall ever seeing anyone else take the classes.

 

I do regret not taking sushi and guac classes because they would have been complimentary for us

That may be a difference in the experience. Our sailing had an insane amount of kids, many of them were at the cupcake class unsupervised so that led to the eating candy from the dishes and dispensing the icing directly into their mouths. The crew just couldn't get a handle on them and there were way more people than they had originally planned for. They were scrambling for more cupcakes as people were showing up. 

I'd still give it another go on another sailing but it wasn't at all what I was hoping for. 

Our cupcake class was a complete bust on Ovation. Just bags of icing and bowls of candy put on the table and zero instruction. Plus there were way too many people, they kept having to find more tables. I got the impression people showed up that were signed up, since they were just writing down names and stateroom numbers. It was a bit chaotic. I had paid for 4 of us so it was a decent enough chunk of money. It was my one and only complaint to guest services. I did get refunded and the kids did enjoy the cupcakes so it wasn't a complete loss. I do feel strongly that this is not typical of the experience though. I would give it another try. 

12 minutes ago, Ozark_Kid said:

 

This sounds more like a time to enjoy watching how it is made then enjoying a nice lunch.   Thanks for the insight.

Yes, you do make your own to consume, it isn't made for you. I didn't do the class myself but I popped by to take a few pictures and the sushi chef was giving a demonstration. If I remember correctly the fish was all pre sliced and the rice was pre made, so the sushi making was just putting the ingredients together, rolling and slicing the rolls.  I don't know if there was any instruction before I snapped my pictures. So I would say it is a basic class with some enjoyable sushi afterwards. 

My teens did the class on Ovation in 2019. They enjoyed it and have a nice lunch. Some ships have allowed people to take leftovers back to your stateroom.  but on our sailing they did not and they weren't able to eat all of it (though they said the put a big dent in it!). We had made sushi at home before going on that trip and my oldest works at a Japanese restaurant and while she isn't a sushi chef she does sometimes make sushi for herself to consume at work (and brings it home for us if we are lucky!) 

I'm not sure how much they actually learned in the class, but they had fun and enjoyed it. Both would do it again and my youngest would also love to get a chance to try it out. 

Most of ours just slide under the bed. We have one that didn't last time, so we just left it open and slid it under. We also used it to throw the dirty clothes in until we were ready to pack to go home. 

22 minutes ago, Thenagers said:

Also the younger generation prefers the e-cigarettes. Those hardly smell at all. Not sure of the affects on bystanders? But definitely doesn’t make me disgusted. 

I don't mind the e-cigarettes as much, but some of the vapes turn my stomach a bit. Especially the cotton candy type ones. But at least those smells don't cling to everything like regular cigarette smoke. 

My mom was a heavy smoker before it eventually killed her (at only 56 so I would quit if you are able!) but one of the worst smells I have ever smelled was holding my newborns after she held them and smelling that smell. Blech. 

I am making sure I understand correctly-

You went through like you are making the reservation and when it gets to the refundable deposit screen it says $159?

If so, you would pay $159 extra per person to have a refundable deposit. So your deposit would be the $250 per person still and the $159 is added to the price of the cruise fare. Then you would get your full fare that you have paid back to the original form of payment as long as you are within the cancellation window. I believe outside the window you would have to use CWC and do the FCC. 

The standard fare you are quoted online is for a non refundable deposit. You would have to elect a refundable deposit if you want cash back. That fare will be higher. The difference in price varies by sailing. 

If you cancel using the CWC policy, everything you paid, deposit included,  would be refunded in a FCC. If you have a refundable deposit then you would be refunded with cash for everything (within the cancellation policy). 

I've seen a lot of people reporting that cruises are being pulled from the website while they check capacity. I'd keep checking back, it might show back up. 

While I would love for smoking to be banned from the casino I just don't see it happening yet. I did enjoy our cruise out of Australia since they do not allow smoking inside on those cruises. The U.K. has a similar rule and we had planned to cruise from there, but that cruise was cancelled and unfortunately none of the cruises work from these for us next year.

I was thinking a turtle with missing legs.

We are also booked out of Ravenna in June 2022. There will be 6 of us, 4 adults and 2 teens. We will be either arriving from Rome or Venice depending on how the trip goes. If we are coming from Rome we will likely travel to Bologna the night before. In any case we will be doing the train (unless RCL offers free transfers and we are coming from Venice). We have traveled by train all over Europe and Asia since our oldest was a newborn and I don't see it changing. We prefer the trains and find it very inexpensive for the most part. We do travel light, one small/medium suitcase and backpack per person and everyone is able to carry their own luggage (except my youngest occasionally needs a bit of help).

I had dose 2 of Pfizer a couple of days ago. I had a mild reaction to dose 1.  I had as stronger reaction after the second dose, but it was nothing too horrible.  I received the shot around 10am. I was fine immediately after and after waiting the 15 mins my husband and I went about our day and ran a few errands. By 4pm my arm was pretty sore from my elbow up my neck and down to the middle of my back. By 8:30pm I couldn't keep my eyes open and went to bed. My husband went to bed around midnight and I remember mumbling something to him about not feeling good. Around 2 am I woke up with a pounding headache, chills, body aches and really, really thirsty. I went downstairs to get water and take Tylenol but didn't make it back upstairs and slept in the chair next to the staircase. The rest of that day I had the headache and the chills/body aches and some arm soreness. I was also very fatigued and slept the majority of the day. The day after that I woke up feeling back to normal.

So it wasn't fun, but not terrible. My husband gets his second dose next week. Hopefully it goes a little better for him. 

I am also on a Mac with chrome and I have had the issue in the past but have not had it for several months. 

I do have issues when I try to log in on my phone  (iphone) and rarely log in on it anymore. 

1 hour ago, cruiseguy1016 said:

 

My first and second dose were scheduled at the same time. I knew when my second dose would be before I had even received the first dose.

This is really how it should be done everywhere. We were encouraged through the school district I work for to go to the county POD site, which is where I made my appointment. We were told we would receive an email after the first dose inviting us to schedule our second dose. a couple days later when I did not get the email I was told you would only get the email if you went to the state run site and not one of the county ones. The county then released a signup sheet (only on twitter as far as I can tell) to sign up if you are interested in the second dose. Supposedly they'll email if appointments open up for the second dose.  In the meantime I am tryinng to find out if I can just get the second dose through one of the state run sites. So far it is a no, since they aren't working together but hopefully that is being worked on. I am going to keep pushing. I did hear from someone if you can get an appointment for a first dose at the state run sites (currently they are all filled) they will give the second dose to someone else already in the car.  My husband's group should open up soon and if I can get him nn appointment I figure I will bring my card and go with and see what happens. 

Meanwhile so many people were having issues with getting appointments the school district arranged their own drive through clinic for employees and have the first and second dose scheduled. But I can't get my second dose through them since I had Pfizer and they are using Moderna.  It is very frustrating.