MrSnarkyPants

5 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I think that a lot of people are basing their views and their outlook on one of two things, possibly both: 1. The facts and figures they see, and 2. Their own experience. People who see nothing online or on TV and in the media but gloom and doom are apt to assume the worst. Same with people who've lost a loved one to COVID and/or had a near-death experience with one. I know people like this and their fear is real. But it's also unrepresentative. MOST people, not many, not just a few, MOST people survive COVID, even people over 65.

They're preparing to bury my best friend this week from COVID. His whole family caught it when it was brought into the household during a custody swap from an ex. He went on a ventilator and died; the rest of the family had mild cases.

My sister was in the hospital for 3 weeks and survived.

I have a customer where COVID ripped through the department. Out of 4 staffers, one is dead, one was hospitalized for 3 weeks, and two had mild cases.

I work with people all across the country. The ones who follow protocols and don't engage in risky behavior generally stay well. The ones who are trying to pretend that this is no big deal and avoid masking,  go out to eat at indoor restaurants, make no effort to socially distance themselves, and act like nothing is happening are the ones who end up sick.

You can do whatever rhetorical flip-flops you'd like to paint me as "doom and gloom" or someone who is overreacting, but here's what we know:

• This virus affects people differently, and you don't know how it's going to end until you have it. 
• This virus travels through aerosols in confined spaces - and a cruise ship has lots of confined spaces.
• Until the vaccines are deployed worldwide and transmission is down, there is a significant risk being on a cruise ship
• If you think the industry is in bad shape now, try returning too soon and kill a few grandparents and see how many cabins you can sell after that.

You can call me all the names you'd like, but if you want to get people back on ships, you need vaccines in arms. Period.

On 1/23/2021 at 3:44 PM, MoCruiseFan said:

The pizza on NCL is FAR superior to the grease soaked ½ raw barely digestable junk on CCL.

That sounds like an improvement over the cardboard covered in cheese dished out at Sorrento's on RCCL.

1 hour ago, Ourusualbeach said:

Around 50% higher has been my experience. 

The parallel is air travel. If you want no restrictions, you can pay full fare; if you want to give up flexibility you can get a discount.

Here's the thing about Wonderland: the waiter will insist on ordering for you and not really telling you what you're in for so it doesn't spoil the surprise. That's great if you like what they order for you. I hated half of the menu.

The couple next to us had been there before and knew the drill, so they picked out the good stuff... so while I sat through courses of stuff that made my stomach turn and watched them eat stuff I might have liked.

Eff that. Order what you want.

2 minutes ago, Sun and Fun said:

We are a huge Seafood family so I can see us eating at Hooked multiple times. We will have to go to Wonderland once just to try it. We are huge hibachi fans so that will need to be a lunch and dinner. 
 

Did you have a favorite dish at Jamie’s?

Jamie's: Lamb chops, mushroom fettuccine, the tagliatelle Bolognese, and crab spaghetti are great. The Meat Plank is a great starter. 

At Hooked, the Messy Fish Sandwich makes for a good lunch. 

This is making me miss being on board. 🙂

Having done both Carnival and Royal out of Galveston, Liberty of the Seas is my pick. 

I can drive to port within an hour, but we've been booking out of other ports the last few years because we've done all the ports that everyone does out of Galveston enough to want to try something new.

Haven't had much of an issue getting on and off the ship in Galveston... I like the indoor parking place that's directly across the street; you can walk off the ship and to your car.

150 Central Park and Hooked were my favorite places onboard. We ate at those twice.

Wonderland doesn't do anything for me, others will disagree with me, but I disliked Wonderland enough on the Anthem to not bother with it on the Symphony.

Jamie's Italian is a favorite. I also liked the hibachi at Izumi.

I've always done the parking lots, even when I've stayed the night in Galveston. I've used EZ Cruise Parking and Galveston Park & Cruise. EZ has a shuttle; Park & Cruise is directly across the street and it's an easy walk. Park & Cruise has indoor spots available. Both have discounts if you reserve in advance. 

Regarding the private island question - last January we were the first ship to use the Beach Club at Coco Cay. It's an upcharge (of course), but the private restaurant was great, it had its own pool, and plenty of loungers with shade. I would pay to go back.

I took the deal. We're sailing for New Year's Eve 2021 into 2022, so I'm optimistic that the cruise is going to happen.

I pulled the trigger on my first NCL cruise in 2022 with this promotion. While the consensus on here is I’m getting ripped off, I’m happy with what we booked. It’s in line with what I’ve priced out on RCCL once you factor in the drink package, and we’ve always wanted to try NCL. 

27 minutes ago, hallux said:

I'll add my own opinion of NCL's "Freestlye" in comparison to RCI's dining.  I found it to be quite relaxing, being able to show up for dinner whenever I wanted, at whichever venue I wanted (when I wasn't going to a specialty).  I'm not one to 'dress down' when dining out at home, and I bring that along on the cruise so the attire wasn't of concern.

Yeah, back when going out to dinner was a thing we'd dress for the place we were going to. I'm not one to wear a suit and tie; a sport coat is more my speed. We've always done My Time on RCI because the early seating was always too early and late seating too late for us, so NCL should be easy for us to get used to.

We're booked on the Encore, so there are a lot of choices onboard. It will be interesting to see how they evolve as the ships return to service.

49 minutes ago, vswan said:

One other thing. You can make specialty dining reservations online before you go. This opens up prior to the cruise and in the past the reservations for the most popular places go quickly. Think it's 90 days prior. Not sure if this will be an issue with reduced capacity, but I would book as early as you're allowed.

 

I am booked for specialty dining on my Jan.2021 cruise which I assume - sadly - will be canceled.

Thanks. Sounds similar to how things worked on the bigger Royal ships.

January, huh? Yeah that's going to be tight. Hopefully they'll let you move the booking forward without much fuss.

I don't have a cruise scheduled until New Year's going into 2022. I'm hoping that by this time next year things are in a better place, but it's hard to tell. It feels weird booking for spring 2022, too just because it's so hard to predict what cruising is going to look like, but I liked the price and the offers. It's not the cheapest cruise we've ever taken, but it's in line with what I had looked at a year ago.

My emotions feel different about booking this one. Usually I'm so excited. Now I'm questioning myself. Part of me feels guilty because this virus put a family member in the hospital and they're still feeling effects months later. We'll see how we feel about this over time, I guess.

Hi, most of my cruise experience has been on RCCL, so I'm new to all things NCL. But we decided to pull the trigger and booked an Alaska cruise last night for summer 2022.

I'm searching the forums to get caught up but I have freestyle questions. I see there are multiple main dining rooms that are complimentary. Is there any difference between these venues other than the furniture? Do they all serve the same menu?

The current promotion has 2 specialty dining meals included. I'm just trying to decide if it's necessary to buy another dining package to add some more to that or not.

But at least we have something on the calendar to look forward to.

Our family is getting vaccinated, whether RCCL requires it or not.

Basically, once it's available and our doctors say go, we're getting one.

On 11/5/2020 at 12:01 PM, Sea Dog said:

I think they should honor that too. We had a $25 OBC given to us for our son to use to join us for a specialty dinner for 2 that our TA is throwing in. Royal took away the $25 and now my TA is trying to get the credit back. Weird that the travel agency would give us a dinner perk for only 2 of 3 people staying in our suite.

After a lengthy stay on hold:

- The OBC for not canceling the cruise is $100 per cabin

- Of the $175 OBC on our original booking, $75 of that is promotional credit that they will not transfer to the new sailing.

However, the new booking is costs less than the original, so that was a nice surprise.

So we ended up with $200 OBC total. Now we wait to see if the cruise happens! Mask up, folks.

3 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

I had first heard that it was going to be $100pp as that was what Royal Reps were telling people on the phone. I have confirmed through my TA that is now $100 per cabin. I wish it was pp but I'm not surprised that they made it per cabin. With 3 in our Jr. Suite, it's not like we can do a whole lot with the extra $100 but we will find a way to spend it.

Well, I can live with $100 per cabin, but I'd like the original $175 OBC back.

Got an email confirmation this morning with the Explorer booking.

1. We had $175 in OBC on our original booking. That's now gone.

2. We only received $100 in OBC for them changing the cruise, not $100 pp. So the only OBC we have is right now is $100. 

Not real happy about this.

1 hour ago, robmtx said:

We're on the Nov 28 2021 Freedom. We have two reservations. One has been moved to Explorer and it's showing exact same itinerary so that's a relief. But I don't see any OBC available when I go into cruise planner. So not sure if that will be added later. The email would have gone to our friend and I haven't connected with her about the change. Still waiting on my cabin to change over so we can see the email details.

Our OBC hasn't shown up yet, either. For that matter, when I log in it says I'm still on Freedom. I suspect that stuff won't switch over until after the 30th.

1 minute ago, Ashland said:

I'll have to call about my itinerary:

1st leg was St Maarten, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire

2nd leg was St Thomas, St Maarten, St John Antigua, St Lucia, Barbados

 

I hope it hasn't changed !!

Dan P upthread had this information:

here's the Explorer flyer:

http://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2021_2022/EX.pdf

And Freedom (which shifts to Miami)

http://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Royal/Deployment/2021_2022/19071003_FR_Caribbean.pdf 

5 minutes ago, Ashland said:

How did you find out your new cabin # and what the itinerary is going to be? 

For our cruise they haven't reassigned cabins yet, but they just got the itinerary info today. Lots of moving parts, so they don't have all the answers right now.

1 minute ago, Ashland said:

Yes mine said that also but is it $100pp suite or $100 per cabin?

I think that's per cabin.

11 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

So I guess I can live with being switched to Explorer instead of Freedom for our Nov. 7th 2021 sailing, but I disappointed in several ways. They changed our junior suite cabin number. We are on the same deck but down the hall. We paid extra for "You Pick," so it would be nice if they gave me some OBC for that. I know it's not a lot $20-40, but if I pay extra for something I'd like to receive that. The main thing was that we picked this cruise to be on Freedom. I had heard many great things about Freedom and wanted to sail on her after her amplification. I'll live with the changes, at this point I'd go on a tugboat just to get out at sea.

Check your email. Mine said that balconies and suites were getting an extra $100 in OBC because of the move. Interior & OV rooms get $50 OBC.

40 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

The itinerary is not up in the system.  The reps that you call will not have access to it either.

I called and the rep was able to get that information after checking with someone. 

In our case, we're changing from St Maarten/Aruba/Curacao/St Kitts to St Maarten/Aruba/Bonaire/Curaçao. They can't see the cabin assignments yet, but I was told that I would be receiving the same class cabin as close to the original position as possible and that our price and terms would not change.

I'm happy with this, so I'll let them automatically move us. We'll make a final decision before the final payment date based on where we are with COVID and how safe we feel about cruising next fall.

I'm on Freedom for December 26, 2021. The email says we will be moved to Explorer for the same day and similar itinerary. But I don't see a matching itinerary for Explorer online. 

We sail more for the ports than the ship, so I'm not upset, but I guess I'll have to call and find out where we're going.