rudeney

Same here - if a place requires me to mask, I won't go. The exceptions were doctor's offices and airplanes, but they are all mask-optional now. We'll be in Perdido Key in 2 weeks, looking forward to a mask-less vacation. If we get COVID again, so be it - I won't blame anyone.

That's funny, but of course not if it's "my" luggage! (and I think CC needs a 😮 emoji on the "like" button).

No worries - I didn't take that as an attack. I do think that going back to full capacity with known shortages is a poor decision. While I anticipate that there may be problems on my upcoming October cruise, I intend to enjoy it regardless. My big thing is that I won't be like the frog in a pot of lukewarm water, accepting this as "the new normal". I can work with some temporary shortages, but if RCCL (or cruise lines in general) begin to realize people will still fill ships with reduce quality of service and food, I'll vacation elsewhere. In fact, I already do! My wife and I only cruise every few years. We enjoy many other vacations, but cruises are special to us and we spend much more on those than any other getaway. Speaking of WDW, I have not been back since the pandemic. My last visit was January 2019. We had planned a trip for October 2021, but cancelled as masks were still being required indoors, and they required "reservations" so we decide do wait. Once things totally reopened there and masking was no longer required, we see that they not only kept he reservation system, but they started this Genie "FP for fee" thing. Um, no thanks! I'll wait until the frenzy is over and thins go back to normal there. And if they don't I just won't go.

My take on this... I believe that @CuseJeff44 has given a honest report of his experiences and I don't question his motives. I've had some bad experiences with some very popular and well-loved companies. Just because a company is usually highly-rated does not mean that everything they do will always be perfect. I am sure that RCCL is challenged by labor and supply shortages, but I suspect they are making sure that their newest, largest "headliner" ships are better stocked and manned than their older, smaller ships. Telling someone with a bad experience on an older, smaller ship that they should had chosen a newer, larger ship is like telling someone that if they didn't want a lemon car that breaks down all the time that they should have bought a Cadillac Escalade instead of a Chevy Malibu. I am very concerned that we as consumers are becoming conditioned to accept substandard levels of service for inflated prices. I'm nit suggesting it's some sort of back-room driven conspiracy, but that companies are taking advantage of the "because...COVID" and "because...supply chain" and "because...labor shortage" excuses to do this. Because of the lockdowns, people are so desperate for escape, they are willing to accept anything even it is a totally negative value. I'll be taking my first post-pandemic cruise in two months on Navigator. I am spending a lot of money on this trip and I expect to get an appropriate value for that cost. I can forgive some things, like escargot replace by scallops, and wait staff that is still training, but I need to see that they are still trying to give me a great experience. Indifference is inexcusable. I may be here after my cruise posting the same things as @CuseJeff44 , but I hope not.

I like baked Brussels sprouts, but they are even better fried. Come to think of it, most things are better fried.

OK, I had to go back and look at my notes...We had a suite concierge on Navigator out of Galveston in 2015 named Nadja. We started out with Ricardo, but he had a medical emergency and had to leave the ship in Jamaica. Nadja was the DL concierge, so they had her also working the SL. I remember her being a bit frazzled, but still dong a great job - she was really sweet. I assume this is the same person. I'm glad to hear she's still in that job - she's definitely in the right place!

I contracted COVID before vaccines were available. I am not saying that means anything other than the vaccine was not an issue in my case. I am not so sure the current vaccines are doing much with the Omicron variants. I know the drug companies are working on new vaccines specifically to target Omicron, which leads me to believe that.

She was a great lady - I could not have asked for a better MIL! I always laughed when I heard other guys talking about their MIL's like they were evil demons. She did a lot for her family and we for her. She'd love that you "liked" the story!

Our first RCCL cruise was 2007 on Freedom of the Seas. Before that was mostly DCL and a few others. We had just returned from a DCL trip in 2006 and was showing my (then 76yo) MIL photos. The next day, she called and said she wanted to try a cruise and had seen an ad for Freedom being the largest cruise ship in the world, so that was the one she wanted. We had a great time, but MIL had some horrible leg cramps during the trip. RCCL loaned us a wheelchair and we pushed her around in it most of the trip (even around Cozumel). It turned out that the cramps were a side-effect of a new statin cholesterol med she started taking. Had we thought to ask her if she was on any new meds and known that, we'd have told her to stop taking it! Even dealing with the leg cramps and wheelchair, she had a great time, and so did we. She talked about that trip all the time and we always planned to take her on another cruise, but she was never up to it. She had COPD and spent the last 5 years of her life tied to an oxygen hose. She will be missed, but every time we step onto an RCCL ship, we think of her.

That was why I was saying to re-buy the repriced shorex first and let the system auto-cancel when it sees the conflict. The problem is, I tried this once and Cruise Planner said it couldn't complete my purchase for some reason. It was only $17 savings, and I did not want to take any chances losing the shorex, so I just didn't worry about it.

🤣 I've been in B2B services for my entire 40+ year career and I learned "underpromise - overdeliver" early on in front-line customer support. I also learned that you NEVER give a range - either in time or dollars - because the customer always hears the lower number and never the higher one. The funny thing is, it gets no different as you move up the ladder. I've worked on 8-figure projects dealing with C-suite contacts and lawyers and they are all the same.

They "underpromise and overdeliver" on the refund timing to keep down calls from people not getting refunds in a timely manner. If the CSR said "5-14 days", most people would hear "5" and be calling on day 6 demanding it be expedited.

First of all, be careful cancelling and re-buying excursions because if they are filling up, you may lose your "spot". I think you can try to re-buy it first, and when you go to select the schedule, it will tell you there's a conflict. At that point, it should automatically cancel the old booking and add the new one. As for the credit card refund, I've made some cancellations and it's always been back on my AMEX card within 4-5 days. Many credit card issuers play the "float game" so even though RCCL has given the money back to them after a few days, they hold it for another week or so before crediting it to you.

While I do not like the runaway inflation we are experiencing, I have no issues with gratuities increasing. It seems that every time I go out to eat, restaurant prices have gone up again and since I still tip a percentage of the price of the meal, the servers are continuing to get their "raises", so the ship's crew should, too. If anyone wants to whine about it, the real issue is that suites only went up $1 while all others went up $1.50.

It was not there until I updated the app. I can't recall what it said before, but it was some sort of "Check back..." message with an OK button like the other things not available yet. Now it shows the muster station and videos. It certainly could be as you say that it "becomes available at different times" and it was just a coincidence. I haven't played with the app in the last few days.

I'd rather have some lukewarm Taster's Choice than Starbucks.

I wonder if this only works for ships using the "new" Cruise Planner. My next cruise is on Voyager, which uses the old Cruise Planner, and when I click Excursions on the app, it just refers me to the Shore Excursion Desk. But of course I can book excursions on the website through Cruise Planner. As I side note, I did download the latest version of the app to verify it doesn't have any additional features, and I did fine one: Today, 65 days out, I can watch the safety video. Strange!

If you go to the cashier, they charge a 5% fee unless you have casino "status". If you do it on a slot machine, there is no fee, but you should play a few spins before cashing out or else you might get flagged and they could cut you off from doing any more transactions like that.

I have "long COVID". Myine is a partial loss of smell. Right after my Nov. 2020 bout, I lost taste and smell. Taste came back, but smell only partially. There are some chemicals that trigger no smell response for me. An example is that sewage only smells like sulfur. And so do eggs. So you could blindfold me and put either poo or eggs under my nose and I couldn't distinguish them - jut sulfur for both of them. An interesting side-effect of that is that for the chemicals I do smell, I have "super-smell". I guess with all the other things I can't smell filtered out, I can home in on those that I do. Some people think this is just horrible, but I've always had an odd sense of smell due to a high school chemistry lab incident. This is just different, and luckily I can smell smoke and fuels, so it's not dangerous.

I don't really see that testing like that would make any difference. It might catch a few extra positive passengers, but there's still a chance for people to be within that longest (5 day) incubation period. Even if we made people start testing at 10 days out and test every single day and at boarding, one could get exposed within 5 days of boarding and not be positive until after boarding. Trying to prevent COVID on a cruise ship by testing is like trying to prevent speeding on the freeway with a radar trap. You will catch a few speeders and (hopefully) that stops their speeding, but once all the other cars pass the trap, they go back to speeding. Both of these are just snapshots in time. If they truly want to keep COVID off the ship, they would have to do crazy things like require everyone to be in a controlled quarantine environment for at least 5 days prior to the cruise, test every day, and then have no port stops. They would also need to do the same with the crew, as well as any terminal workers coming in contact with the passengers or crew. Of course that is totally ridiculous - about as ridiculous that thinking testing 2 days before cruising will keep COVID off the ship.

I seem to have a very good immune system. I never get the flu (nor a flu vaccine) and I get a cold once every 2-3 years. My wife is the same, but she does get a flu vaccine. I had Original Recipe COVID in Nov. 2020. It was a cold, with an extra-bad headache. I continued to work (WFH). Since then, I have been vaxxed and boosted (J&J). I am not sure if I've had any other strains of COVID or not. There have been a few times when I'd have a sore throat, or congestion, or a bad headache, but those are all symptoms of typical allergies and a chronic neurological problem I have. I only tested once, when I felt a bit "meh" after returning from a conference in May where it was reported that some others had tested positive. I was negative. BTW, I have a sure-fire cure for the common cold (and COVID when it's symptoms are like a cold: First thing in the morning, take one 12-hour max-strength Mucinex DM followed by a hot shower. Drink water all day long, and eat as normal. About two hours before bedtime, stop drinking water and switch to Scotch (Johnnie Walker Black seems to work best). Don't take shots - put it over ice, with some water or club soda. You will need to drink at least three of these. Do NOT take more Mucinex - it;'s once a day in the morning only. Do this for 6 days and your cold will be cured.

You are going by "best case" with the 4-5 day, I am going by "worst case" with 2 days incubation. Regardless, we are also talking about the spread from only one infected passenger boarding. If it's 10 that board, it spreads more quickly - not 10x, because of repeat close contact exposures, but much more quickly. When I say "politics" I mean "spin". RCCL is spinning this as "we care greatly about you and are following the CDC recommendations" when in reality, they are only following CDC recommendations in order to not scare off potential cruisers and choosing 5 days to push the problem off their ships. If they really wanted to toss out the politics, they'd just say, "We will only test where required by the ports we visit. Please keep yourselves safe by following whatever protocols you feel are best for you."

Again, it's not an attempt to stop/slow the spread and protect passengers, but to keep RCCL from having to deal with it on their ships - it becomes someone else's problem.

I also have a degree in economics (E&S) with a dual in Management. I worked more on the statistical side, but then settled into tech management. The definition of a recession is what it is and we are in one due to the GDP numbers of the last two quarters. The question is how bad will it be? It might not be so bad because reduced spending might help with inflation. My hope for the cruise industry is that the bookings they have into the next year will carry them through this recession. If not, I could see them doing something like they did with CWC to entice uncertain customers into cruises. I am not sure what that would be, but companies can be quite creative when they are fighting to survive. If they throw something out there, I'll bite! And I do like your recession/depression analogy!

Omicron is 2-4 days. And it's rolling days. So that first person boards on day 1 and is infected (his test two days prior was negative, but now he's contagious). By day 3, 18 more are infected and contagious. And the factorial starts at that point, so 5,832 infected by day 5. All this shows is that it's not an attempt to contain infection - it's an attempt to keep it off the ships so that it becomes "someone else's problem". Like I said, politics not science.