island lady

My post was just to point out that hurricanes are common in July, as it is right now. Thanks, I do know OP was talking about 2025, so hurricane season for next year. 😉 It comes around once each year for some reason. BTW....I grew up in Grand Haven, graduated from Grand Haven High School. No hurricanes up there. 😄

I have bid on so called sold out cruises before. RCI was still taking bids even though it showed sold out. I won a bid on one of them. (Cancellations, no shows, etc.) But this one, won't even let me try to bid. When I emailed the WC desk, she told me due to over sold condition they were not even putting the bid system out there. Soooo...it indeed it DOES have something to do with it in my case.

Great deal....but two words: Hurricane season. 😮 Would not want to be down there right now either! Here comes Beryl!

For me, I can totally see my next cruise as sold out...not just due to online...but I cannot even submit an upgrade bid. 😞

And is the reason, we (even with Pinnacle benefits) are moving away from RCI. They only want the young families now...no longer care about we "old fart" loyal customers. Will be on our first X cruise end of this year with more to come. But if we find the same thing with X....we will be moving away from that sister line as well. We loved Viking last year, and now have 5 longer cruises booked with them.

Yes, thank you for correcting my statement. Bottom line...is I can use my phone.

I hear ya' there. Sooo frustrating as we do not live in a rural area. Our community alone has 1600 homesites. AT&T is the only cell service that has that problem here. And it did for the 4 weeks we were just south of Portland...same situation.

Our signal service out at our community (1600 homesites) is non exist with AT&T. Have called them many times to complain. We are not out in nowhere land!! 😡 Finally found one rep with AT&T that told me he had the same issue. He connects to home WIFI, then turns on WIFI calling. I did that a year ago, and have great phone service from then on. Funny thing is .....I don't turn on Airplane mode...but it still works.

I am now even more happy that our NW passage on Octantis to Greenland will not be until August. 🙂

Pisco Sours with that foam were pretty good on our cruise along Peru!! 😄

Thanks! Have most of our med cabinet loaded in a duffle bag already...and all the toiletries and a foam topper. 😄 Aww...bummer on the continuing radiation. Hope all is healed up and done with all that stuff soon! Will be booking the Apex "Birthday Boy" cruise when we board Serenade in a week. Looking forward to that one!

We liked staying in Lahaina too. Left just 2 weeks before the devastating fire. So sad.

We are just "forced" to rejoin RCI world cruise on Serenade out of Barcelona in just over a week. I think that view will be on our horizon. 😉

At some point...hopefully in the future...we will sail with the two of you again! 🥰

We are booked for that early next year. Thanks!

OP...I would definitely send your bored friends over to the new "mega theme park" ships on RCI. We are headed to Viking and Celebrity to get away from that party crowd. Not our thing.

I tried to do that...nothing available at all. I am just happy it is done now and am already enjoying the wonderful perk. 🙂

Totally agree there! Make the most of that long flight. Yikes! We are leaving to rejoin the RCI world cruise on the 8th. Spent the first quarter with them (63 nights) and then hopped off for a few months, back on in Barcelona to finish last quarter (62 nights). We are slowly moving away from RCI, having 5 Viking cruises booked now. Tossing in some Celebrity, due to loyalty perk matching and local embarkation ports.

Ironically I do now. Needed to adjust our plan (didn't need tethering any longer). The new plan the rep today set me up with assured me I had the unlimited plan. And a bonus discount for AARP. 🙂

Thanks...indeed looking forward to it. Also loved, loved our 3 week river cruise with you last year. Really sold me on Viking. 🥰

Indeed confusing when you think your plan covers it, then I verified the plan when we entered Canada last year with the AT&T rep on the phone. He assured me I was covered with my international plan. Apparently he was wrong. Weird as I am covered in Mexico. I was charged the 10.00 a day when in Canada...that is what they had to reverse for giving me wrong information. Will just use WIFI calling from now on, during the rare times we would be back to Canada from now on.

We visit Alaska quite often. Being a U.S. state, local AT&T is covered as in any state, and yes...Hawaii also. 😉 Also, covered: Puerto Rico and St. Thomas, that are part of US.

Be careful with using that plan in Canada. I was told by AT&T rep on the phone that I had local (like we do in Mexico) in Canada. We got charged 120 buck extra. When I called back, the 2nd rep told me the first rep was mistaken. They found where I had called that rep, then refunded the charge. But was warned it is not covered there.

The difference from Express or general lines are minimal/minutes apart at the most. Simple to just stay together in the general line. And if you arrive later, the lines are moving in quite quickly and boarding may have already begun anyway.

Indeed, I am on one. Paid off and ready to go. B2B on Octantis out of Milwaukee on July 8, 2025. Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway, several bounces along Greenland, and the NW passage. 🙂