twangster

All things being equal such as departure city and ease of access to the port, if they all sailed from the same port on the same day I'd rank them: 1. Freedom 2. Indy 3. Liberty If Liberty ever gets amped that could change. Truth be told they are all great ships and I'd sail them all but Liberty is in need of her postponed amplification.

Still waiting on 3 Odyssey and 1 Wonder block. September 2021 for the first Odyssey block.

Sorry for everything that has happened up to this point and I hope your wife begins to feel better soon. As far as Royal's position it does appear they should work on their wording which appears to suggest you should board with whatever possible infection may be present as long as it isn't "COVID-19". There has to be a better way to handle this scenario independent of the financial impact of no refund/no FCC which clearly they should not be expected to provide. Perhaps they are hesitant to state you shouldn't board as that implies they are instructing you not to cruise which could have implications in a legal or financial sense. For example if they "deny" you boarding (by telling you not to board) then a credit card company could look at that as if Royal failed as a merchant to provide the service you purchased. Disney charges outrageous prices so they can bury losses and still be profitable. As a company that is their prerogative to take this approach. That doesn't mean every other company on the planet should follow the Disney way. As a consumer I don't want to overpay for my purchases so that others can not follow policy. I feel terrible for everything your family is going through but I don't think Royal should deviate from their policy and grant you a refund or FCC. I state this as I myself will probably walk away from a cruise in a week knowing all I'll get back is port fees and taxes. My personal situation has changed since I booked this cruise and now with a week to go I accept that's on me. No refund, no FCC, no attempt will be made to lie or fake a false positive or any other means to weasel a refund. At this point unless there is a pop up hurricane induced refund option I will lose my money and I accept that is on me.

Royal has been testing higher cabana rates at Labadee given the seemingly endless number of guests willing to pay outrageous cabana pricing at CocoCay. When they jacked the rates there were fewer suite guests buying them at the new price point so they opened BB cabanas up to non-suite guests. There was a thread about this at the time. They still enforce suite only access for non-cabanas guests. In July I saw some interlopers booted from BB.

Long been that way.

Princess may have an opening because Royal built a new terminal and is moving. Without the new terminal it may have been difficult for Princess to secure weekend berthing.

Often GGG rates require full payment since they are within final payment due date. Once a booking is paid in full it can't be transferred. For the purpose of GGG your favorite TA not getting the booking isn't the end of the world. Commission typically is very little for GGG rates. Unless the cruise ends up cancelled by Royal there typically isn't a lot of servicing that a TA can perform on a cruise booked after final payment due date. Talk to you TA about it. That's what I did. She didn't lose sleep over a few GGG direct bookings I made.

It depends. Even though there is verbiage that people hang their hats on in the end the price is the price. NextCruise in my experience provides a reduced OBC amount or nothing for GGG bookings. I've received weird amounts like $19.50 in OBC for solo GGG and for others the NextCruise OBC for GGG was $0. Since GGG is often after final payment due date there is no reduced deposit at NextCruise either. When they are offering rates like $70pp pre-tax for a cabin I would not expect to find a full CAS balcony discount available, it won't make the cruise free. Same with NextCruise OBC, I think you'll find $0 on the el cheapo rates. Yet the verbiage says "...combinable with...". At the end of the day there are some GGG rates so cheap they can't offer CAS and/or NextCruise discounts.

This is where you need to call and speak to them. Everyone above is correct by the words of the policy yet Royal is based in FL and "gets it". If you don't reach a sympathetic ear the first time politely hang up and try again. Calling CAS may help.

Prior to the shutdown North Star was complimentary except in China. Over the years I have taken many rides on that basis. As a solo cruiser it was almost assured to get in on a standby basis without a complimentary reservation. Years ago, thinking 2017-ish on Anthem there was no paid versions offered ever - it was always complimentary. In 2019 Ovation only charged for rides in Alaska at the glaciers the rest of the time it was complimentary. Later in 2019 on the way to Hawaii all Ovation North Star rides were complimentary. Early in 2020 Ovation and Anthem were complimentary, Ovation to New Zealand and Anthem to the Caribbean. When cruising restarted in North America Odyssey debuted with a charge for the rides that were 20 minutes and went over the sides of the ship. On port days there were some complimentary 15 minute rides that did not go over the edge of the ship. Other Q class ships followed this approach as they restarted. Quantum to Alaska in 2022 had some complimentary times but they were loaded into the system daily so if you didn't check often you might assume there were never complimentary rides available. The new approach seems to have triggered demand. Under the old approach it was common for folks to make complementary reservations and skip them. Now it seems demand is up and few people skip their reservations complimentary or paid.

I never leave my cell phone out mostly because a phone in the sun can quickly overheat to the point it shuts down or slows down. Crimes of opportunity will happen on ship so that is another reason not to leave a phone out.

I've walked to "downtown" several times from Crown Bay. The first half of the walk is without sidewalks, the second half has sidewalks. I've never found the walk dangerous. Pop up rain showers can occur anytime so your best option is to pay for a Safari taxi ride (back of modified pickup). I used to live on St. Thomas so the lack of sidewalks doesn't phase me. That's St. Thomas. Charlotte Amalie has sidewalks for the most part, depending on what you consider to be the town limits. The shopping is better in "downtown" compared to Havensight where the merchants pay a bloody fortune to be in Havensight and pass that additional expense to consumers. I can see why tourists might like the environment of Havensight more with less vehicle traffic and ease of walking around like a tourist (not watching for traffic) but downtown has better deals.

All dining packages are capacity controlled so there is availability for reservations at full price. If they oversold the dining packages they'd lose money since no one could book a specialty venue either in advance or on board at full price. They aren't trying to pull the wool over your eyes, it's not a matter of being stupid. You probably did get the last dining package available.

Crown Bay unless it's full and space is available at Havensight.

I'm not expecting very much on the back side.

Simply put an ice cube in a ziplock bag. If it melts and refreezes it won't be an ice cube but a weird shape flat chunk of ice based on the how the ziplock bag is resting in the freezer.

Starlink is eagerly waiting for the Starship rocket to enter service. The Falcon 9 rocket has been great launching Starlink satellites in the low 50's count at a time but Starship is required to really get Starlink constellations built out. Starship has roughly four time the payload capacity of Falcon 9. Think ~200 Starlink v1 satellites at a time. Starship can also insert satellites into a higher altitude closer to Starlink's desired final orbits. It can take up to 9 months for a Starlink satellite launched on a Falcon 9 rocket to reach its final orbit and enter service. Starship launched satellites will enter service much quicker, like a month or so. Lastly the newest proposed Starlink v2 satellites won't fit on Falcon 9. The nextgen Starlink satellites require Starship. The v2 Starlink satellites are required for many of the advanced Starlink capabilities that Starlink is promising such as the cellular tower in the sky disaster connectivity and some satellite to satellite features to make Starlink internet what has been promised such as the 20ms latency all the time. Great things are coming but a lot of it depends on Starship rockets.

Starlink Maritime is not using the residential "Dishy" antennas for ships. Those residential antennas they used on Freedom for the test trial are not the antennas now providing service on Indy or Freedom. Instead they have installed better industrial grade phased array antennas on top of the shelters around the Flowrider on both ships and in other locations such as above the suite sun deck on Oasis class. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2022/09/13/spotted-starlink-being-installed-across-multiple-royal-caribbean-cruise-ships They started with Indy and Freedom because those two ships stay within the current maritime coverage for Starlink which is very limited at the moment. Since Indy and Freedom both only do the short 3 & 4 night Florida cruise market they stay close to the US mainland, close enough to remain in coverage. https://api.starlink.com/public-files/maritime-coverage-map.pdf Starlink has promised to expand the maritime coverage in Q4 2022 or Q1 2023 but Starlink also has a long history of not achieving their marketing claims. It's still in its infancy so be patient. The issue is the lack of satellite to satellite lasers so that a satellite that is far from land can relay through other satellites to reach land. Currently each satellite must connect directly to an earth station so Starlink satellites over the middle of oceans don't work, they can't reach reach land due to their lower orbit. So for the moment ships that venture beyond the Bahamas can't use Starlink because there is zero Starlink coverage outside of the light blue areas on the Starlink coverage map above. For any ships that venture beyond the 3 & 4 night short Florida cruise market Starlink isn't an option right now but will be "soon" - hopefully. Bahamas - covered now. Eastern Caribbean - no Starlink coverage today. Western Caribbean - no Starlink coverage today. Southern Caribbean - no Starlink coverage today. Transatlantic - no Starlink coverage today. Transpacific - no Starlink coverage today. Panama Canal - no Starlink coverage today. South Pacific - no Starlink coverage today. Tasman Sea - no Starlink coverage today. Asia - no Starlink coverage today. ...and more - no Starlink coverage today. Users on Indy report Starlink is subject to the 3.5 Mbps per user Voom cap that we are loathe. From the frying pan into the fire. Users on Freedom right now are reporting ~60 Mbps down, ~ 15 Mbps up.

If they are adding fuel only stops mid cruise it impacts the itinerary. Maybe this was a one off from missing SXM or maybe it's start a something new. If so that may make Royal's itineraries less appealing.

At what point would it make sense to pay the extra pilot and port charges to make an extra stop in Port Everglades vs. bunkering the next day in PCN? Trying to understand the logic in their decision making.

They may have had a contract commitment left over from Odyssey that had a better price point compared to PCN. When bunkering in large quantities and topping off for storm preparation that could mean thousands of dollars.

CAS priority is generally after check in if you arrive before the ship is embarking guests. If the ship is already boarding when you arrive then there are generally no CAS lines or queues in play. Outside of the terminal prior to security there is typically only a suite/pinnacle queue and then everyone else. D+ or any other level don't typically have a queue any more.

Satellite internet is sketchy in Alaska for all ships but WiFi calling still worked for me in May. It would sometimes break up but cell phones do that sometimes.

How old are the folks in each cabin? If you are booked direct then all you can do is call them and ask. If booked through a travel agent it is their job to handle this so call them.

That didn't take long. Wonder block on eBay... $400!