MrsMuffin

16 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

Sorry OP but with news of sending crew members home. Carnival ships used as hospital beds etc  I think your cruise and mine wouldnt happen.

 

Rcl wouldnt be sending crew members home if they expected those ships to sail soon. 

 

 

Unfortunately, I totally agree.  I am hopeful that we can go in August instead!  I will be waiting for Royal to cancel though so that we can get the best refund or FCC possible.  

Amusingly, Royal assigned our stateroom number last night.  Looks like they are keeping up appearances that we are still cruising in 31 days. 

I have my eye on a replacement cruise in August....  

25 minutes ago, cublet said:

Hello,

 

From the RCI website@

 

COVID-19 presents the most serious health risks to older individuals, the immunocompromised, and those with serious, underlying medical conditions.  Therefore, effective Monday, March 16:

a.  Boarding will be denied to any person age 70 or older, unless the guest provides written verification from a qualified treating physician that certifies the person has no severe, chronic medical condition and is fit to travel.

b. Boarding will be denied to any person with a severe, chronic medical condition, including those specified by the CDC. Guests of all ages will be screened prior to boarding, regarding underlying health issues that may prevent them from sailing, i.e.  chronic heart, lung, liver, or kidney disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, or cancer.

 

Regards,

 

Cublet

So obviously they have your age and can monitor if you are over 70, but wouldn't it be easy to just lie (not saying I would) if you are under 70 and have one of the conditions listed?  I guess at that point a passenger would not be able to blame the cruise line if they get sick due to an underlying condition because they had falsified information.  It just seems impossible for the cruise lines to manage all of this.  

Still have my fingers crossed that we will be in a better place and my April 19th sailing will be good to go! 

20 hours ago, stompy said:

I called in and upgraded our room and canceled the bids for the cabins below the status of the new cabin.

 

On another RoyalUP post they said the upgrades would be re-rated but so far I still see all the same #s and it says I'm in the original cabin on the RoyalUp page.

 

Does anyone have any experience or advice?  I did email the royal up folks but haven't heard anything back

I just looked and my RoyalUP rates have been re-rated to lower prices for the April 19th sailing on Liberty.  

My cousin is currently on this cruise and it looks like they are having a great time!  They have made all of their ports and it appears to be business as usual.  I refuse to stop being excited about this trip unless it ends up completely cancelled.  

RCCL emailed cruise documents last night.  Our stateroom still says GTY but it does indicate that we are on deck 8 and our muster station is A03.  I wish I could figure out how to decipher this info and find out if we might still luck in to a promenade view room!  

We cruise in 37 days and I am ready! 

Dining question - what is the best way to request a table for 2 for our late seating in the MDR? I know that we will have the same table and waiters each evening and really think our preference would be to eat by ourselves. 

2 minutes ago, godawgs227 said:

Promenade rooms on Liberty are great. Have had 4 on our 9 Liberty cruises. We try to get deck 6 (6309, 6311, 6313) looking out at the Promenade Cafe. FYI, your bottle of rum that you "might" purchase on board to enjoy during the cruise will be delivered to your room the night before you disembark. Enjoy your cruise. We'll be on Liberty for a B2B in Aug/Sept. Got a great deal on a hump balcony.

I am hoping that we do get to upgrade to the promenade room, I put in the Royal Up bid!  

I am not talking about the duty-free liquor that I know they do not let you have during the cruise, I am talking about the smaller bottles that you can have delivered to your stateroom through "Royal Gifts" on the website.  

I hope you enjoy your cruise as well.  A B2B is sounds wonderful!  

1 hour ago, Lucyonthesea said:

We just cancelled our Liberty sailing for this year, were due to leave on May 30th.  Myself and my husband may have risked going but our son and D.i.l were concerned that if the ship was quarantined they would be stuck for two weeks in a cabin with a five and a six year old... The stuff of nightmares.

I have cancelled our day at Nachi Cochim.    (Highly recomend it!)  and our stingray sailing adventure.  I feel really sorry for those small operators. In her reply Michele at Stngray told me I was the 67th person to cancel in two days!!!

So if you do go get in touch and take that catamaran tour, it gets excellent reviews.  We hope they are still in business as we have re-booked the exact same cruise for 2021!

https://stingraysailing.com/...

I hate that you had to cancel your cruise, but would not want to be stuck in a cabin with a five and six year old, no matter how well behaved they were or how much I loved them!  We are mindful of the risks, and will re-asses if necessary as we get closer, but for now we are being positive and looking forward to the trip.  

I have heard a lot of good things about Nachi Cochim (although I would totally feel comfortable just walking off the ship in Cozumel and not having something specific lined up) and will definitely checkout the link you included for the stingray sailing adventure.  

Thanks! 

You guys about have me talked in to Stingray City! 

And the Hilton Rose Hall resort looks amazing!  It has actually been on my radar as a place to vacation for a year or so.  We are in decent enough shape to do Dunns River Falls, but really don't have a desire to do that on this trip.  We will probably either do a resort or beach drop off here.  We have also considered just going to the Margaritaville there at the port.  

8 hours ago, ONECRUISER said:

Policy is carry on of one 12 pack per cabin water or soda, 17oz max of bottles or cans.... Myself, take 12ct 16.9oz BOTTLES of soda pop

Why did I think I had read that you could not take bottles, only cans?  Maybe that is another cruise line....  

11 hours ago, IonImplantTech said:

Also here's a thought.  I'm a solo traveler and since i'm not far from san marcos (live in S Austin) ya'll can pack up in my truck.  You can find a hotel to stay in (I can drop you off)and I can also pick you up on the day of the cruise since i'm already paid for parking.  I'm assuming your cruise is 7 days like mine.  If so I can bring you back to san marcos or you can leave your vehicle at my apt complex.  

 

I appreciate the offer, but we will not return to home through San Marcos/Austin.  

Thanks Firefly! I think you are right about parking near the cruise terminal instead of doing a hotel stay/park. And I think I will try to bid on the promenade view room -it sounds nice! 

My husband (50) and I (45) had been kicking around the idea of a cruise for just the 2 of us sometime this spring.  Finally last week we went for it and booked the April 19^th sailing on Liberty of the Seas out of Galveston.  This will be my 3^rd cruise and my husband’s 2^nd.  I cruised on the SS Norway (NCL) back in the early 90s, and we took our 2 boys on the Carnival Triumph about 6 years ago.  I am a planner and researcher, although I like to think I can go with the flow for the most part.  I have found so much great information on CC, so I thought starting a thread would help me find some answers and help me make some decisions, and hopefully help others out along the way as well.

Travel/Parking: We live about 5 hours from Galveston, but will be doing a college visit with our youngest at Texas State University in San Marcos on Saturday the 18^th (where our middle son currently goes to school) so we will either get a hotel room in San Marcos and drive from there on Sunday morning, or look at a hotel in Galveston where we can stay & park. I am undecided on that and need to do some more research – feel free to chime in with your experiences and recommendations! Either way the youngest son will stay with big brother on Saturday night and drive himself home on Sunday morning.  

Stateroom: After looking at different options 100 times, we ultimately decided to book an interior guarantee.  We may come to regret not picking our room, and not having a balcony like we did on the Triumph. Even though our budget would allow for an ocean view or balcony, the savings were significant enough to make us pick the interior.  I think we will be fine!  But, now we have an email about the Royal Up program and a promenade view interior really intrigues me.  The minimum bid is $55/person, which does not seem like much at all.  Tell me what you know about these rooms – are they worth a little extra?  Am I getting excited over nothing because we won’t get it at the minimum bid anyway?  

Dining: With booking so close to sailing, our only dining option was the late seating.  We are usually more like “my time dining” people, but we will make the best of it.  I would much prefer late seating to early and we know that there are a lot of options for a late afternoon snack to tide us over.  I have Celiac disease and must eat a gluten free diet.  I have emailed the special needs department, and am still waiting for a reply, but have read enough reviews of gluten free eating on Royal ships to know that I will have plenty of choices.  If anyone has gluten free experience on the Liberty, and/or have any tips or must-eats, I am all ears!

Drinks: We have tossed around our options a LOT on this one.  We are not the drinkers we were in our younger days, but do enjoy a couple of drinks from time to time.  Ultimately we have decided that we are going to carry on our 2 12-packs of Coke Zero and 2 bottles of wine and just buy the rest as we go.  I will probably pack some Crystal Lite type packets to liven up some water from time to time, but we don’t feel that we would get our monies worth out of either the soda or the refreshments package. I *might* look in to buying a bottle of rum to be delivered to our room to make a few drinks ourselves, but we will probably just buy a couple of cocktails throughout the day as we want them. 

Ports/Excursions:  Or ports are Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Falmouth and the only one of those we have been to is Cozumel.  Since it is just the 2 of us, we will probably be looking to hang out on a beach with a couple of drinks for the most part and don’t feel the need to book an excursion in each port although we are not opposed to doing so either. Stingray City does peak my interest a little...  Tell me your favorites in these ports! 

Corona Virus:  We are 100% taking a wait-and-see approach on this, but are not worried.  A lot can change in 6 weeks and we have the option to postpone the trip.  We are healthy and our only concern would be getting ourselves in to a situation where we have to be quarantined. 

I feel like I have written a book – thanks for reading this long!  Please share your opinions.  I would love to hear your favorite places to hang out on the ship, shows that you would not want to miss, and overall recommendations.  We like a good mix of go & do, and relax and talk/people watch/read a book.  I think the thing that I am most looking forward to is the option to do both whenever we want to!

I am 45 and DH is 50 - we just booked a cruise leaving April 19th this morning.  No fear here!  

I see it from where I am sitting! :-)

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My friend posted a few moments ago that the fog has lifted and they are on their way in.

Yay! Thank you for the update!

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Just got an update from Carnival that there was still fog in the channel. Next update at12:30.

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I cannot confirm that this is 100% accurate information but I just called the port of galveston and spoke to a woman who said that the pilot boat just went out to get the Triumph so that usually means it will be docking in about one to one and a half hours from now (it's now 11:00CT) She said then they have to disembark and get supplies and turn the ship around so she "Guestimated" that boarding would probably start around 2:00-2:30. She said Carnival is supposed to keep passengers updated with new boarding time but that would be her best guess. I am still trying to reach accurate info from Carnival directly- If I learn anything more I will post there.

Thank you!

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Does anyone know if the Triumph is in port yet? Last notification we got said the port was closed due to fog. Wondering how long we will be delayed departing today. We are coming in to Houston now...

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Delivery method is in cabin,,, but it's actually applied directly to your account.

 

The in cabin only means that you will receive a gift card indicating the cruise cash gift.

Perfect. Thank you!

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Is there a way that I can buy cruise cash and go ahead and apply it to our sign & sale card before the cruise? When I go to check out the only delivery option is "in cabin." I am planning on applying cash to our sign & sale after we board, but I would like to have a little on there in case we want something before we can get the cash applied.

Thanks for your help!

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Yes I did it before. You can go to GS and put money down or use the self service kiosks. Cash will be used first then CC.

Thanks!

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I was thinking about putting down cash with a card as back up on the Triumph next week if I do this, the cash gets used first and the card only gets hit if/when the cash runs out, right?

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We are leaving on the Carnival Triumph next Thursday, and I called this morning and changed us from on OV to a balcony. Then I stumble upon this thread and it makes me even MORE excited about that decision. I have cruised once when I was 16 (24 years ago!) and this will be the first for DH, DS (13) and DS (10).

Thanks, Big Al!

Thank you for this review! I have Celiac and am sailing on the Triumph next week. I am very much looking forward to being catered to so well. You mentioned that you notified them of her dietary needs ahead of time. I think I have seen an email address somewhere - can you tell me how you notified them?