Empress of The Seas

[Agavegirl1]

Booked on 4/25 but with the Key West election info, I will likely cancel.  Booked in a Junior Suite (balcony room on this ship).  Booked it last year with a refundable deposit.  No, I am not a psychic and had not idea about Covid.

[Roger88]

4 minutes ago, Agavegirl1 said:

Booked on 4/25 but with the Key West election info, I will likely cancel.  Booked in a Junior Suite (balcony room on this ship).  Booked it last year with a refundable deposit.  No, I am not a psychic and had not idea about Covid.

My friend, trust me, there are many more  people like you who didnt expect such drastic changes and limitations in the industry. Well, I can only with you luck and patience. 

[Another_Critic]

12 hours ago, twangster said:

Find a sleeping groundhog.  Pull it from it's home.  Does it see its shadow?

 

If it's sees its shadow then L&S might be extended.

 

12 hours ago, wikoffclan said:

LOL! Being Pennsylvania born and raised, I love your analogy.

 

I have them all over my property.  Burrowed in the back bank, under the shed, under multiple brush piles.

[NancyIL]

There are no Empress cruises out of Montreal showing up on RCI's web site right now. My online travel agency's web site gives the same "Error" message for our September Empress cruise as for our October Odyssey Transatlantic.

[twangster]

2 minutes ago, NancyIL said:

There are no Empress cruises out of Montreal showing up on RCI's web site right now. My online travel agency's web site gives the same "Error" message for our September Empress cruise as for our October Odyssey Transatlantic.

 

The CDC has banned cruise lines from offering cruises longer than 7 days.  Initially Royal still listed the long cruises on the website but you would get an "Oops" message if you tried to book it.  Now they have removed them all together.  Some cruise tours in Alaska still appear but they'll likely pull those soon.    The CSO expires Nov. of 2021 so long cruises after that may appear. 

[NancyIL]

2 minutes ago, twangster said:

 

The CDC has banned cruise lines from offering cruises longer than 7 days.  Initially Royal still listed the long cruises on the website but you would get an "Oops" message if you tried to book it.  Now they have removed them all together.  Some cruise tours in Alaska still appear but they'll likely pull those soon.    The CSO expires Nov. of 2021 so long cruises after that may appear. 

 

Our Empress Canada cruise out of Montreal is 11 nights, but it has no US ports. I have been expecting it to get cancelled - just because it's on Empress. However, there are four 7-night Canada/NE cruises on Empress out of Cape Liberty that are still bookable.

[twangster]

5 minutes ago, NancyIL said:

 

Our Empress Canada cruise out of Montreal is 11 nights, but it has no US ports. I have been expecting it to get cancelled - just because it's on Empress. However, there are four 7-night Canada/NE cruises on Empress out of Cape Liberty that are still bookable.

 

The CDC appears to consider "ships in or near US waters" as within their oversight.  Since the ship does have some US based cruises intermingled with the Montreal based cruise I suspect they don't want to play chicken with the CDC and argue over one or two cruises while getting the ship on the banned list.  

[packercruising]

19 minutes ago, NancyIL said:

 

Our Empress Canada cruise out of Montreal is 11 nights, but it has no US ports. I have been expecting it to get cancelled - just because it's on Empress. However, there are four 7-night Canada/NE cruises on Empress out of Cape Liberty that are still bookable.

Our 10 day out of Montreal in Sept is not listed, but there is a 15 day one in October listed.

[NancyIL]

1 hour ago, packercruising said:

Our 10 day out of Montreal in Sept is not listed, but there is a 15 day one in October listed.

 

It will soon be unavailable to book.

Edited November 13, 2020 by NancyIL

[Another_Critic]

 

15 hours ago, twangster said:

Find a sleeping groundhog.  Pull it from it's home.  Does it see its shadow?

 

If it's sees its shadow then L&S might be extended.

 

This guy is looking for his shadow.

 

[twangster]

Just now, Another_Critic said:

This guy is looking for his shadow.

 

So are a lot of CC users (if seeing his shadow means L&S is extended).

[Ken at the beach]

2 hours ago, packercruising said:

Our 10 day out of Montreal in Sept is not listed, but there is a 15 day one in October listed.

It may be showing but you cannot book it.  It was closed for bookings Wednesday.

[keyboardjunkie]

Been following the thread and would not want anyone to think that their cruise is cancelled. I want to clarify from what I have learned from what other cruise lines are doing and that I expect RCCL will follow.

 

The CDC guidelines states no cruises longer than 7 days.  This is temporary and can be modified (the CDC report indicates some items are 'permanent' - i.e. ventilation system updates - while other requirements are temporary and may be modified by the CDC in the future).  What other cruise lines have done is to suspend selling cruises over 7 days.  They are not, however, cancelling future cruises over 7 days for booked passengers at this time.  So basically, if you are already booked on an 8+ day sailing, you are still booked.  The cruise is not cancelled.  It is just not being sold to additional people at this time until the future of safe cruising is determined. 

 

An example, from Princess Cruises:

 

"Select cruises 8 days and longer put on hold, not cancelled

 

On Wednesday, we communicated the statement below as it pertains to our current cruise deployment ......Please note, the cruises noted below have not been cancelled and there is no action required from you ...at this time. Please read on:     Princess Cruises has reviewed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Framework for Conditional Sailing and is seeking additional clarification to fully understand the requirements. While we await further information, we have (temporarily) stopped selling all cruises eight days and longer which call upon a U.S. port and depart January 1 through November 1, 2021. For those who are currently booked on one of these cruises, we ask for your patience to receive further information from Princess Cruises on whether your cruise is impacted.

Edited November 13, 2020 by keyboardjunkie

[rcclmiami]

The mere fact that Majesty and Empress are not on the list for U.S. sailings lead me to believe their days in U.S. waters are over...

[travelwide]

Will confess I have not read all 39 pages of this thread. Some food for thought. Now that we have a new administration in the U.S. there is the possibility that Cuba will be opened again. The Empress was the ship used for that itinerary . I can see the ship coming back to Miami  for short cruises.

 

Fingers crossed.

[Ken at the beach]

59 minutes ago, rcclmiami said:

The mere fact that Majesty and Empress are not on the list for U.S. sailings lead me to believe their days in U.S. waters are over...

None of the ships that are overseas are on that list including Anthem and Allure and I’m pretty sure Royal is keeping them. 

[wikoffclan]

1 hour ago, rcclmiami said:

The mere fact that Majesty and Empress are not on the list for U.S. sailings lead me to believe their days in U.S. waters are over...

I'm curious. What list?

 

[packercruising]

Looking for cruises is like looking for something on Amazon. Just entering RCI and Empress and there are no listings for September. Enter RCI  Empress for September and it shows up.

[Biker19]

2 hours ago, wikoffclan said:

I'm curious. What list?

 

The list originally set up during the NSO which listed ships which planned to sail in US waters and potentially exchange crews in the US:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/crew-disembarkations-commercial-travel.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Ftravelers%2Fcruise-ship%2Fcruise-ship-member-disembarkations.html

[snaefell]

RCI are very good at changing their itineraries the fact that you book a certain cruise itinerary doesn't mean it will happen that way if at all!

[packercruising]

17 hours ago, travelwide said:

Will confess I have not read all 39 pages of this thread. Some food for thought. Now that we have a new administration in the U.S. there is the possibility that Cuba will be opened again. The Empress was the ship used for that itinerary . I can see the ship coming back to Miami  for short cruises.

 

Fingers crossed.

I really do not want to discuss politics on here, but a new administration is more likely to close everything down than the current one. Also, please note that, under the current regime in Cuba, your tourist dollars do not help the economy. 

[wikoffclan]

14 hours ago, Biker19 said:

The list originally set up during the NSO which listed ships which planned to sail in US waters and potentially exchange crews in the US:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/crew-disembarkations-commercial-travel.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Ftravelers%2Fcruise-ship%2Fcruise-ship-member-disembarkations.html

Interesting. Thank you!

[wikoffclan]

Empress is again running in circles in the Aegean

[SteelMagnolia9]

2 hours ago, packercruising said:

I really do not want to discuss politics on here, but a new administration is more likely to close everything down than the current one. Also, please note that, under the current regime in Cuba, your tourist dollars do not help the economy. 

You are correct. Cruising will not begin from the U.S. until Jan. 2022 at the earliest.

[DonnaMarieNJ]

So ALL cruises are cancelled for 2021 out of US?  (Probably a stupid question given the above post.  I just want to be certain.)  When was Royal going to tell me?  I am booked on a cruise in July (or *was* I should say).