jpolm

I'm in Los Angeles, Weve been home over a week, school work on line, working from home. Lines at store were insane last week, shelves empty but things at stores are better and getting back to normal. We are told to stay at home' "safer at home" meaning all non essential businesses are closed, work from home, school at home only go out for essential items- pharmacy, groceries, , healthcare and banking remain open. everything else is closed, we are not even to go to outdoor parks/playgrounds. we can walk outside, but away from people.  

20 minutes ago, AlohaLivin said:

There isn't a lot of fake news around on major networks unless someone is rather skewed in perceptions.  These entities are playing the odds to not get sued most likely and to not get blamed should things go side ways. No one has all the facts yet, so it's better safe than sorry.  The businesses are acting more sanely than we humans right now.  RCL doesn't want to sail half full given all the restrictions and I can't say I blame them (even if our much needed vacation is now wiped out).  It seems they are all trying to get past the 2 week limit. But a crock? Okay, if you say so.

not a crock = i agree with the other poster, it's smart and wise. why cruise a ship with half the capacity it's alot of money /lots of overhead vs cancelling and avoiding lawsuits and keeping people safe. yes it may took some companies abit to make a decision but we need to confine this. cruise ships are not the safest place if have one person that ship that has it and didn't know you now infected a lot more people that you may have not have if you were confined at home. hospitals are packed, doctors and nurses are swamped there are really ill people out there besides the coronavirus people. hopefully with the national emergency there will be resources for companies that are affected. 

now that it's a national state of emergency they will get support

the other lines have.

about time, I cannot imagine continuing to do business at half capacity how they will continue to stay afloat.no pun intended :) 

but seriously i know they are hurting if they cancel but to run operations with ships half full i think it makes more sense to cancel right now and not have lawsuits/ claims etc. there's more to the picture long termand most people will need a vacation after this and want to rescheduled. 

I have not read every page on this thread but I have read enough of everyone flaming OP. Witch is typical for CC people. I totally agree with OP Royal needs to cancel Sept 10 cruise nobody needs to go to Florida unless they are going to volunteer or bring supplies. Who knows if airports will be fully operational, if cabs will running and if their will be gas for people that maybe driving to port. Who knows if roads will be open to the public for driving to the port. Everyone is so quick to mention insurance I have never bought insurance and have sailed at least 8x in hurricane season and I have never been close to point that I would need to use insurance. Everyone also so quick to mention it's a risk you take sailing in hurricane season it's also a risk Royal takes sailing in hurricane they should cancel cruise take the loss refund money it's a risk they take offering cruises during hurricane season.

The problem with this Sue is that everyone expects something when things happen, . I know this is a major storm , different from others but I've lost days at port due to bad weather and never got compensated.. I feel bad for everyone on the ship, people who are ready to travel, and those that are at in fear of losing their homes etc.. it's really hard to judge or say royals wrong, or the passenger is wrong in wanting something. My response was to have a safer guarantee buy insurance -that would be best bet so u are not relying on a corporations decision on what to do.. there's always going to be people that aren't happy no matter what they decide to (give incentives, cancel, refunds, future booking deals etc)

Just cya get insurance ( often times I haven't and trust me I'm on pins and needles those times ) and not all insurances are equal, but I never would travel this time of year. Just mho. I feel bad for all out there and wish there was a simple answer to make it every one happy.

Set to sail on the Allure September 10th. IRMA, not going to happen, RC chooses not to cancel the cruise but to delay departure till Wednesday the 13th and shorten duration to 4 day's instead of 7. A 50% refundable on-board credit to whom choose to sail on the 13th along with an additional 50% credit for a future booking. The above is gracious and in my opinion more than fair. Unfortunately, if you CANNOT cruise on the 13th there will be no refund, no future incentive, just your fare credit applied to a future cruise with Royal.

 

situation just seems flat out wrong and possibly dangerous for some. Anyone else out there feel the same?

So why not use your fare credit and go another time? If you have no insurance this is your best bet, except if you have air you will lose that. But it's not Rcs fault, and that's why there is insurance, not to repeat what others said but mho as well as this is always a risky time to cruise due to weather. I have hit bad weather in June lost days at port we still went but had to run around in rain or stay back. I've never gotten any refunds, weather is weather and we take the risk when traveling.. I'd cancel and go at a better time.

I'm on the ship and I don't want this to come off as not caring about the current terrible event going on. But, we booked Eastern. Switched to Western. Totally okay with that. Cancelled Labadee. No choice. Extended no charge. My flight was cancelled so no charge to rebook. 2 Cozumel stops. 1 costa maya. It's a Mexico cruise. I don't know what should be offered because I haven't been in this situation before but it should be something. Our beverage packages aren't being extended for the additional days unless we pay at 50% off. I feel like that should have been a given. Just my 2 cents.

 

 

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Shame on u and yes beat me up for mho.. there are thousands plus people that had to evacuate Florida, a mess still in Houston, an earthquake in Mexico and you are traveling during a high risk time for cruises (hurricane season) the. Raise ship has played it safe rerouted you, not dropped you off in Florida to fight everyone else getting out of there, kept you safe, extended your trip for free offering deals off drinks, lost money on the people that are paying guests for the trip they had to cancel so u could be safe and u want more? I'd be grateful I'm alive, be grateful they are keeping you out of harms way and still allowing you free time on The ship. It's a huge risk traveling this time of year there's never a guarantee u won't hit weather even when I went in June we hit bad rainstorms in Bahamas and our day was ruined they still went there but should I have gotten a new day somewhere else since the rain blew my day no it happens .. I'm sorry you are stuck on a beautiful ship versus at work, or in the middle of Irma. There are many people suffering right now. Maybe you should turn on the tv so u can appreciate what royal has done for u..

The cc posting police are out in full force. Im travelling on Carnival next and not Princess... should I have even read the story? [emoji23] Thanks for the info. The people complaing are those people in society who clearly have nothing better to do than look for something to complain about. Move along complainers.

 

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Lol.... If you are traveling on carnival then why are you even hear reading on royals board. Lol. Joking.

But fir others The whole point is we all scroll and go to other boards etc and may not have gone to the princess board at this time. It was helpful for itheres to read and if not don't open it

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I appreciate it was posted. I actually just saw it on the world news and came here and saw it and wanted to read about it. It's very sad but was also interesting to me. And this is a cruise forum so what if it's on rccl

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Can you tell me what nights the formal nights were?

Day 2 and day 5

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I booked it and just did it over a week ago. It was great. Sean was our guide. We did blue hole river tubing and scotchies. He took great care of us. As well as u meet "superman" Riley at the blue hole and he guides you. My 9, 14 yr old my old as&"@ (48) and my 54 yr old husband did it. [emoji12]Granted we are all in great health only a few slippery area and they tell u where, and definitely get some water shoes. Highly recommend this tour my kids loved it. My 9 yr old jumped 3 times from the 30 ft cliff. The tubing was fun too. And jerk chicken sooo incredible

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Anthem has a beautiful Solarium, but very hot and humid.

Oh really? Bummer! It looks very nice

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I am not sure why you would call the Allure Solarium pool a "bird bath". We did a 13 day TA on the Allure and were in the solarium pool every day. It is about waist high and on some days it was heated and on some days not. It was always a cool respite from the hottish solarium air. True you can't swim laps in it but you can't do that too easily in the other pools either.

 

 

 

It was our favorite spot on the ship with the attached Bistro open for breakfast and lunch. It would be very hard to get us on the Harmony without it. Our next TA is on the Brilliance and the Solarium is always our first stop

We loved it too. But I thought the bird bath comment was hysterical [emoji24]

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What about anthem it appears to have a nicer solarium?

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A long island maybe?

It was their special for the day. I believe similar to a Long Island ice tea but also with champagne. It was potent and me personally didn't like.

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Frozen mojito became my husbands new favorite

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We never hit over the 12 except one night I wanted a glass of prosecco and it was 13. The only othrr time was I ordered an ice tea drink and after they served me they told me. It was their fault and she didn't charge me overall i was glad we got the package. I tried things, ordered specialty coffees and also after dinner coffee with liquor .. not really sure how much I drank but it was worth not worrying. Sometimes I had a fofoo drink and other days beer or wine.

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After she gets the job offer and accepts and she's given a start day if it conflicts advise them that this trip has been planned awhile and will lose money etc and like to be sure she can have that week off. Most reasonable employees will allow it with or without pay(using vaca days in advance. ) if they are unreasonable I'd rethink working for them.

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Wow. Big bummer for us. What about symphony? We used the solarium almost every sea day from 2-5 we'd drop our son at kids club , teen was roaming with friends. So we'd get cocktails go in pool (even tho esther small it was nice break from on kids) it would get crowded around 3:30-5. We'd met some pretty nice folks there as well. About the only time we could connect with others and not have kids in tow of loud noises distractions. That was just one of our highlights. Without the pool I can't say on a hot day I'd want a hot tub. Even the pool got warm on hot days and with lots of bodies.

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We've been on Royal, NCL, and Carnival and have enjoyed all three thoroughly. We're a late 20's couple with no kids from Canada. Great food quality, plenty of entertainment, and pool time = awesome trip for us. We don't concern ourselves too much with the other details. Breakdown of the pros and cons of each from my perspective:

 

Carnival:

- Best for our taste in entertainment. We're not really into musicals and singing/dancing type shows nor do we find ourselves entertained sitting at a bar. Give us comedians and guest game shows (think Quest, Love and Marriage, etc.) and we're happy. You can expect hours upon hours of comedy acts every single night so we were always entertained.

- Worst for food. Food is so subjective and we've only been on one Carnival ship so take this as you will. In our experience sometimes they tried to make food really "fun" at the expense of quality. Think cereal-covered french toast that just turned into a soggy mess.

 

NCL:

- Best for food. The quality was amazing and tons of different options. I definitely recommend going on a ship with O'Sheehans (most do), it was our favourite place to hang out. I would say the MDR and buffet was about the same quality and offerings as RCCL but O'Sheehans really set it apart for those in-between-meals or late night snacks. Most lines will offer somewhat-lacking pizza, pastries, salads, and sandwiches as snacks whereas O'Sheehans offered wings, nachos, spinach dip, fajitas, etc. Anything you would expect from a good pub restaurant back home.

- As mentioned above, the Free at Sea promo is great. While you still end up paying a little, it's still a great deal

- Worst for entertainment. If you enjoy broadway style musicals you will love it. On Breakaway specifically they have a comedy club where they performed one or two improv shows per night. We didn't find it that funny and the shows were repeated throughout the week. We found ourselves walking through the ship aimlessly in the evenings on multiple occasions.

 

RCCL:

- Well rounded and somewhere in the middle when it comes to food and entertainment. Always something going on for every taste.

- The thing that really puts RCCL ahead of the rest for us is their indoor solariums. It's something that has really set RCCL apart from the rest for us as very few other ships offer this while combined with the rest of our interests. We're from Canada so all of our travel costs plus the weak dollar make it considerably more expensive for us than the average cruiser and limits us to one cruise per year (I know, first world problems lol). With that in mind we try to avoid too many risks and go with ships that we know will deliver great food, we will be entertained, and we'll be guaranteed plenty of pool time (indoor solarium). We're already spending thousands of dollars just to get to the port, what's a couple extra hundred dollars at that point then to go with RCCL which does well across the board. You may not be in that situation so take this as you will.

 

Hopefully that helps. I think sometimes people will throw out their opinions about things without specifying what "good" means to them. What we look for may be similar or completely opposite but you should be able to recognize that fairly quickly here.

This is exactly what I've always thought. Good response. I'm in my late 40s. My step kids have done carnival with their mom and we've taken them on oasis and allure. My daughter preferred carnival but her reason was more for her age things to do (teen) but we've done bigger ships better itineraries. So I guess it's an age thing as well. We feel that rccl has the most for all ages type of people. With my kids ages 17-14-9 we think Royal is a good package. We also love the solarium and the kidsclub. We think the food is good in mdr but in specialty restaurants really good entertainment well rounded. I've wanted to try carnival but just haven't been decided. It'd have to be a newer larger ship. For now we stick to rccl

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Mass produced vs. Made to order. HUGE difference!!!!

If you're not a foodie and think the MDR meals are excellent...then save your money. We do the pay restaurants at least 3 times per sailing because we think there's a big difference.

 

 

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100%agree with this!

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Hi guys, looking at photos of the junior suite on harmony, excited for the first balcony cabin (and suite) ever on my upcoming harmony of the seas cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would like someone's opinion who has been in this type of stateroom class. I realize I'm probably researching this too much and I'm already miffed that there is no solarium pool. But was looking forward to a bathtub and now it looks like it's basically just a few inches to step in.

What ???? No solarium pool that was our fav from. 3-5 when kid was at kids club????? Not true is this??

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We have been on Carnival, NCL and Royal. We just did a Carnival cruise a few months ago because Royal did not go to a few islands we wanted to see. The itinery Carnival had was nice. The Carnival ship we were on did not have a lot to do. Their Lido deck buffet for dinner was terrible. The dining room was good. Their Prime Steakhouse was excellent. Our NCL cruise was years ago. We had fun. Maybe in the near future we will cruise them again. For now though we will stick with Royal.

I've been wanting to to try carnival as some the newer ships look nice and they have some different itineraries. But I love oasis class!!

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Amber theater was freezing. I always bring a shawl or sweater with me

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