cruisin_123

We were in 8285 a couple of weeks ago. There was creaking and banging the entire time the ship was in open water, calm or choppy. It was noticeable, but not loud enough to keep us up at night.

I'll be on the Beyond next week. My app doesn't show kids hours. We'll see.

I disagree with this whole topic, in tropical sailings. There is an adults-only area for a reason. No one wants to be splashed, or have to deal with kids running around the pool deck, yelling, etc. Do they allow kids in the solarium on Royal Caribbean cruises? Honestly, if they want to welcome kids on Celebrity cruises, they should beef up their camp at sea offering, by providing more activities for kids. When we sailed with our kids, I never even set foot in the solarium (on Royal) as I wanted to make sure my kids could easily find me without having to go to the adults area. Now that I'm an empty nester, I would prefer to not have to deal with everyone else's bundle of sunshine. I made sure my kids were well-behaved on our cruises and I knew where they were every second. I wish other parents would do the same.

So sorry you are having such a rough time on your cruise 😜. We board in 2.5 weeks. I sure hope our experience is nothing (or everything) like yours!

17 hours ago, Ripheus said:

The work week before a cruise, or any vacation for that matter, is strange. There's so much excitement and anticipation...but we also have to work. 😭

 

The weather here in Northern Virginia has not made our wait any easier either. It was nearly 80 on Thursday. It snowed Saturday. And today was chilly and rainy. I work as a landscaper, so the ever changing weather likely affects my work schedule more than most people's. With the rain today and another inclement day likely later this week, I fully expect that I'll be doing a bit of work during the cruise. I think it will be a good experiment to see if I can make it work. 

 

DW works in an office and will, fortunately, not need to bring any work with her. 

 

Now DW and I are back to acclimating our livers to cruise life....

Your dog is eyeing that glass of wine.

We will be boarding a week after you get off. I'm looking forward to your review as I'm in cruise-mode and love to look at pictures of the ship :).

Keep posting stateroom numbers. We're going to be in 8285 when we go in March. I'm packing earplugs just in case. Someone should compile a list of room numbers with the creaking problems (and ones without) -- Not it!

Having a shorter cruise with far less sea days and probably no consecutive sea days will definitely work in your favor.

You should read the last 2 pages of the May 4 Hawaii to Vancouver roll call. The ship was full of covid, crew and passengers! Even if they get rid of covid during her period in dry-dock, if they don't change their protocols on board and continue to take a relaxed approach to the virus, it will return. 

I'm curious as to what you presented to RCI as proof of owning the shares. My shares are with Fidelity, in a brokerage account that has a number of other investments. I'm trying to navigate through, looking for custom options, but I can't figure out how to print out a report without blacking out 95% of the page to show my ownership of shares.

Following, as we are looking to book this ship for next year. It's been awhile since the last time we sailed on Royal.

I also tried to cancel my upcoming Hawaii cruise, that has a $200 non-refundable deposit on it. This was a carry-over from my 2021 cancelled cruise. The rep told me I had to use this deposit on a cruise that sails before December 31, 2022, and we are unable to book anything else this year. I had already picked a cruise for 2023, which was before the May 4 deadline (according to cruise with confidence, you have 1 year from the date of sailing, or 12/31/2022, whichever is later). The rep said that because this deposit was a carryover from 2021, that it expired by the end of this year. We are still deciding whether or not to cancel and eat the deposit.

I would say Greek Isles hands down, but... with this virus, I'm not sure I would do it this year. It all depends on what testing requirements, restrictions, and rules are required to be followed at any of the Greek ports. Our Greek Isles cruise in 2019 was the best cruise we have ever taken!

Oh boy, there are probably issues docking in Vancouver. We are on the May 4 sailing from Honolulu to Vancouver.

My son took 4 days to go from NH to OK for basic training for the military. He is still in the air, so technically, he hasn't even arrived yet :). He had 2 layovers and each time, there was only 1 flight leaving from a particular airport, or the next leg was cancelled, and the most bizarre thing this morning was they took his flight number and assigned it a completely different route! Instead of going to Houston, it was now going to Orlando. As luck would have it, his Houston-OKC flight was cancelled this morning, so the agent was able to book him a completely new reservation through Chicago. He's going to be talking about this experience for years!

I don't really post much, but I do read the forums quite a bit. I found this thread to be very helpful in dissecting scientific terms and making it easy for a layman to understand. Thank you to all who contributed.

My husband and I have been working from home since last Monday. My college-age son goes to work at Dunkin everyday as it's considered an essential business. He says the lines in the drive thru are wrapped around the corner. Every customer has been extremely grateful for the employees resulting in much higher than usual tips. I have found that employees in essential retail stores have been really friendly and helpful (not necessarily the case in this souther NH town). The grocery stores are stripped clean of essentials (meats, frozen veggies, paper items, pastas and sauces, and the thing we needed most, flour). We have about 8 rolls of TP left before we'll have to get inventive. I joked to my husband last weekend that we have a higher liklihood of dying of starvation before we die of the coronavirus. I hear some of the grocery stores are starting to replenish from last weekend's fiasco, so we're about to embark on another journey "out there". Wish us luck!

So far, none of us are experiencing any symptoms and I hope it stays that way.

Try clearing your browser history. It worked for me.

I don't have any specific questions to ask yet as my cruise isn't for 1 year, 5 months and a lot can change between now and then. Glad you are enjoying your cruise. Australia is on our bucket list but may have to wait until we retire.

I am just reading this today :(. I don't frequent the boards that often, but I did follow Marilyn's posts leading up to our Edge sailing in September. She was a wealth of information and will be sorely missed by her family as well as all of us on here. I feel sad she didn't get to experience Apex as I knew she would come back here to answer all of our questions. Rest in peace Marilyn!!

This board sounds a lot like the Celebrity Edge boards while it was making its first voyages. There were people on there who never set foot on the ship who continually bashed every inch of the ship. I sailed on her last month, and my husband and I had a fantastic time! I like the concept of this ship and this weekend I'll be selling it to my husband. Thankfully the short itineraries make it possible to cruise over a long weekend. We do like to exercise on cruises and I am happy that they are including the fitness classes in the price as exercise is one of those things we enjoy on our sea days. My husband and I are in our 50's, as it seems are most of the people on this forum, which is funny as many people are talking about the younger demographic Virgin is targeting, but the reality is that there will be lots of generations on board and given the adults-only restriction, it may skew older by default.

Yikes! I can handle partially obstructed, but not 50%! I'm glad I asked. Maybe I'll rethink my plan.

We are considering booking Anthem out of NJ for next March. We are not too particular about our cabin location and were considering a guarantee cabin. I did a mock booking and choose a guarantee balcony cabin. When I look at the pricing summary, it says "Ocean view stateroom with balcony guarantee". What are my chances of getting an actual balcony that faces the ocean? Can you give me some of your experiences with a guarantee stateroom?

Thanks!

2 minutes ago, Cruise Junky said:

paying a change fee wouldn't cost that much if you were interested in switching, although higher air cost might kill the deal.

I got a fantastic price on tickets through British Airways. They went on sale for about a day (or an hour, who knows) and I snagged them! I'm not giving them up for the world! Now that I'm past final payment, I'll stay where I'm at. It does seem like my sailing is quite popular, and it should still be warm enough in Greece to hit some beaches.

I've been reading threads on people being offered upgrades on significant price drops after final payment. I didn't book through a TA, but you don't get 100% of the things you don't ask for, so, if the price does drop, I'm going to try for an upgrade anyways.

On 6/11/2019 at 11:33 AM, Cruise Junky said:

The September 20th sailing is wide open and about half the cost of yours.    They are showing all categories including all categories of suites being available.

I noticed this price difference a couple of months ago. I would have cancelled and booked Sept. 20, but we've had our non-refundable flights for about 5 months now. When I first booked, over a year ago, the prices were pretty close to each other. Oh well.