Cozumel Parrot

I was thinking about booking an RC cruise for next year, sometimes around September 2021. Does anyone know what the RC refund policy is right now, if that time rolls around and the cruise cannot sail because of the virus?

Thanks!

 

I think they are still on leave. We got off Liberty two weeks ago and while waiting for Galveston Limo to pick us up we saw them leaving, getting on the Royal Caribbean employee bus. I yelled over to them that they did a good job. He said thank you and then came over to us and shook my hand and gave my boys high five. He asked where we're from and then asked who our favorite teams were. I thought it showed a lot of class. As for him as CD and his wife as AD my wife and I agree we thought they did a fabulous job. Maybe not the best we've ever had but they were awesome. Again as others say a CD and AD don't make or break a cruise for us.

 

Thank you for the reply, "Sky"! :):):)I was looking forward to them, but I am sure the cruise will be awesome! :)

We had John and Katrina on Liberty of the Seas last year and LOVED their personal energy and the shows they put on.

 

Am on the same cruise tomorrow and hope they are onboard with us again! 👍

Sorry about the Iphone. :(

Just got off the Liberty at 8:30 am. The internet was sketchy. I'll probably save my money the next time.

 

 

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I was on the same 6/18 - 6/25 cruise and bought the "surf only" package and was pleasantly surprised. The RC/Voom reps told me that with surf-only I would only be able to do the most rudimentary internet and I should upgrade to "surf and stream", for about $50 more of course!

 

Well, turns out I was able to do more than that, e.g., I was able to upload photos from my phone to Facebook and Instagram and send photos by FB messenger, all of which they said I wouldn't be able to with just "surf".

 

Sure, at some times of the day the internet really lagged, I guess tons of people were trying to use it at the same time. But overall, it did well by me.

Thank you! And I'm hoping for a dry, smooth & sunny week long adventure...wherever we may travel!

 

 

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Hey CCC3! We got lucky, didn't we? Except for a slight bit of choppy seas Monday night, and some pouring rain for an hour or two on Cozumel, the threatened storm didn't bother us and the cruise was pretty spectacular! The captain did a GREAT job of decision making (no cancelled ports) and navigating (we had GREAT weather all 4 "sea days").

 

I had a wonderful time on this cruise, enjoyed all the ports and the great on-deck weather, and was blown away by the shows (the Ice Show, the Cirque du Soleil duplicate, and the Saturday Night Fever show were spectacular!) and the activity on the Promenade.

 

Yes, RC relentlessly tries to charge for and upsell everything, but I ignored that and the cruise was amazing.

 

Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! :D:D:D

It's 4:45 AM Galveston time and I haven't received any updates from RC either ... Have a 5-hour drive to get to Galveston so loading up the car. Fingers crossed ... :)

I'm trying to stay positive. Our first cruise rained at some point or another every day.

 

 

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Your are setting a good example! :D

 

I sure wouldn't mind rain *at some point* every day, as long as there are other times during the day when it's sunny. What I fear is what I got on my only other cruise - blanket of clouds/rain all day long.

Any cruise ship is going to avoid sailing into a tropical storm or hurricane, but that does not mean that you will have either a smooth or dry cruise. The entire Gulf of Mexico could be one big tropical downpour next week. A little too early to tell the areas of main concern, but anywhere in the GoM, and later the eastern Caribbean, is at risk.

 

I am on the same cruise as the OP, and this would be SO hugely disappointing. I've only been on one cruise, in January 2014, and a big cold front barreled down from the north and made it all the way to the Caribbean, upshot was it was cloudy, cold and rainy for 6 of the 7 days. Cozumel and Belize were drenched, and they canceled Roatan because of choppy seas.

 

Everyone had encouraged me to go on a cruise because of all the fun in the sun, and I got none of it, $4,000 flushed down the drain and you don't get any kind of refund even though you had no fun and the same cruise the week before had perfect weather and a far better experience.

 

I was told then that it was just terrible luck, that a front like that happens once every five years, and not to get discouraged about cruising. I'm not worried about the captain sailing us into a hurricane, I know that won't happen, nor do i mind flash thunderstorms that drench you for an hour or two then clear up, but if the storm creates a blanket of never ending clouds and rain on our cruise route, it is going to be just the worst. What will they tell, me, you got ungodly bad luck twice? :(

We were on the Spirit when she made the trip from Hawaii to Australia. It was an amazing 17 day event! When we entered Sydney Harbor news helicopters circled close to the ship, fireboats sprayed a welcome, etc. If you'd like to see the entry----start at picture 366 (if you're really bored you are welcome to click on the link below and check out the entire album of Fiji, Bora Bora, Tahiti, etc). The Aussies (about 70% of the passengers) were the friendliest, nicest group of people we've met on cruises--BUT one thing, as the restaurant manager stated, "I've been on ships for over 20 years and this is the first time I've seen her run out of beer less than half way through!"

 

Australian cruise

 

Chocolate, Hawaii to Australia must be the best cruise in the world! Thanks for sharing your experience via the pics! :)

Wow!!

 

I was down in Sydney in July 2013, and I too saw her docked in the port. I didn't think to put it up on CC, but it's an amazing sight to see. I loved Australia, especially northern Australia, and I can't wait to go back one day, but this time, take a crusie to New Zealand or the South Pacific Islands. That'll be too much fun! :D

 

Hope you enjoyed your trip!

 

Thanks! Hope you get to go on those cruises soon!

Nice pics! Thanks for sharing.

 

PS. Cruise Critic is launching an Australian site soon :)

 

Louise Goldsbury

Cruise Critic

Australia Editor

 

Glad you liked the pics! Can't wait for the Aussie site. :)

Carnival Spirit docked at Sydney Harbour, Australia. January 6, 2015. I was visiting the famous Opera House and saw the ship docked, so snapped pictures.

 

This ship is supposed to embark on a 12-day cruise with stops in New Caledonia, Fiji, and Vanautu.

 

 

[quote=Cruisin' Chick;42347729]
But buying an app that's about how often a port would be missed would not be beneficial to me (and it sounds like to many others) because it's a statistical anomaly whether a port would be missed or not in many cases. I know that with Caribbean cruises between June and October, one should consider that hurricanes do happen, but there's no way to predict even a month before one's cruise whether one would pop up for your itinerary. Just that the possibility is there. And you don't need an app to learn this. While on the other hand, if you book an Alaskan cruise during the same months, odds are you won't have an itinerary changed due to a hurricane. You don't need an app for that.
[/quote]

Not all apps are sold. You can make money off of free (to the end user) apps and many companies do.

IMO, weather is certainly a factor that impacts on missed ports, but there are probably others as well, such as the mechanical condition of boats, port logistics, and port policies. Plus, these can interact with each other to impact miss rates. E.g., on a cruise I went on in January, we missed the Roatan port because of weather, but not just weather, we missed it because the particular docking conditions at that port make it more sensitive to weather. I was told by a crew member that had we been stopping at Belize that day we would have been able to disembark in that weather, but not so at Roatan.

So in that case, just knowing the weather would be useful but knowing specific miss-rates for ports would provide value-added beyond it.

[quote name='chengkp75']I wouldn't be "hostile" to this app, I just don't think it would make that much difference to most folks. I think more people choose a line or itinerary based on, in no particular preference: time frame, cost, demographics, the shipboard experience from past cruises or reviews, the amenities or service onboard, and the ports of call. [B] So, the ports are only one factor in choosing, and the percentage of missed ports would be a small factor of that one factor.[/B][/quote]

I understand where you are coming from. Obviously, like with any app, the perceived value would vary from person to person.

Objectively, it would seem that ports are pretty important, because cruise companies feature them quite prominently in their advertising. Yes, they are one factor among several, but probably a pretty important one for many. So I imagine that, independent of how valuable any given person would find this app, quite a few would like to have this information.

[quote name='Pam in CA']I respectfully disagree to a certain extent. I think those who think this would be a good tool are more likely to be less-experienced cruisers who probably aren't as aware that missing a port is very common. If you book a cruise a year or two in advance, the data would be essentially useless. The only thing that matters is what the conditions are the day the ship arrives in port. [/quote]

Your post prompted me to think of two things:

1) About being less or more experienced ... maybe it is the case that if one has lots of cruises under the belt and have seen everything that can go wrong, including weather, there is a tendency to "roll with the punches" about it, be more positive, but I don't think it's because of knowledge about missed ports. I'm very inexperienced but still fully realized that ports can be missed. So maybe the difference is that missing a port might not matter to the experienced cruiser as much because they have been on many cruises and will probably be on many others, such that if you miss Belize due to bad weather on this particular cruise, you can take solace in the fact that you've been there before and likely will be on a cruise to there again.

In contrast, inexperienced cruisers might not have the financial wherewithal to cruise frequently. For them maybe the cruise is a once-a-lifetime thing that they won't get to do again so a missed port looms larger in their felt experience of a cruise even though they knew it was a possibility going in.

2) I'm not sure an app like this would lack value even if you book a cruise a year or two in advance. If the pattern of hits and misses is based on a large amount of data, it can still give useful information about what is likely. E.g., If I am booking a trip to Paris for Spring 2016, sure, nobody knows what the weather will be like on April 2, 2016. But historical weather data will show that it is much less likely to snow that day than on say February 2, so that data is useful for planning if for whatever reason the chance of snow in Paris will matter to me on that day.

Similarly, if say 20 years of data shows that Belize is more likely to be missed the last two weeks in March compared to the last two weeks in May, then if making Belize is important to me in booking a cruise, that will be helpful knowledge even if the cruise is being booked 2 years from now, as the pattern is still likely to hold.

Seems to me that some around here have a strange cruising "ideology" such that they would be hostile to this type of app even if it was proved beyond any doubt that it was indeed a useful, valid planning tool. That's mystifying to me. :confused:

[quote name='Roatanfans']It is interesting to see how many people think this would be great and how many people think this would be a waste of time. I guess if you are someone who almost exclusively sails on one cruise line this information isn't very important, after all you probably judge things like favorite ships, crews, room availability and price as equally important to itinerary. If, on the other hand your booking decisions are mostly about itinerary then this tool would become more important (just as a tool to show you probabilities- maybe a smaller class of ship has a higher docking rate or a certain time of year better for a certain port) Its just a planning tool, much like most of the information here on CC- after all, I still read posts about menus and onboard activities even though they may change when I'm onboard- but it does give me an idea of things I may expect.[/quote]

Excellent post. I think you have a good idea about how to fit something like this in to your thinking about a cruise, depending on the type of cruiser you are. :)

[quote name='Cauzneffct']I think you're overestimating the miss-rate for the ports and thus overestimating the utility of the data. In order for the data to be useful, there'd have to be enough of a variance to influence your decision (ie a large drop off in miss-rate shown over a long period off time), and the bases for the misses would have to have some sort of predictive value. For me, I don't think that ports are missed often enough (with a few exceptions) for sufficiently predictable reasons to make the data that informative.

Feel free to assemble the data and prove me wrong.[/quote]

I agree that for the information to be useful there has to be meaningful variance in miss rates. If the miss rate for Roatan is 5% in January and 3% in July, well, that's not enough of a difference to affect one's decision making.

But your belief that the variance is too narrow to matter would be much more rational if we had the data that you want me to gather to back it up. That would largely be the point of calculating these miss rates - to see whether they meaningfully matter for particular ports, cruises, times of year, etc.

E.g., there seems to be the common belief around here that storms are more likely to cause a Caribbean port miss in the summer than the winter, and many people seem to have planned cruises in the past at least in part on that basis. But, is this really true, and even if true, is it true by a large enough margin to matter? And do they matter for different cruise companies sailing the same routes?

Those are the kinds of useful questions that compiling this kind of data would answer.

[quote name='Iamcruzin']The idea is good but in theory it wouldn't be an accurate measure with all of the given variables and all of the cruise lines. For instance if you are planing a trip to Bermuda and Princess who at one time made a one day port stop during the summer months out of NY and you compare it to Royal Caribbean, Celebrity or NCL who make regular stops there that are 5 to 7 day itineraries also out of the NY and NJ, your results will be off when comparing how many times that port is missed just based on the length of the itinerary. Most likely Princess will have a poor result since it is more likely that they will miss the port altogether because it is one stop on an itinerary of many ports. The other lines who travel there for the entire itinerary may be late or miss a day but they are more likely to get there.[/quote]

Agreed, which is why you would make apple to apple comparisons. You could compare data in lots of ways: A within-cruise comparison (e.g., is Princess's western caribbean cruise more likely to make Roatan in July or December?) and across-cruise comparisons (e.g., is Princess's 7-day cruise out of Houston more likely to miss Roatan than RC's 7-day cruise out of New Orleans at the same time?). This seems like really useful information to have.

[quote]
I don't think any one person or company is willing to invest all the time and effort to track all this information unless it was really profitable and someone could predict the weather spot on. I wouldn't invest or purchase such an App.[/quote]

You're saying such an app wouldn't be worth the $1.99 investment it would probably cost?

There really isn't all that much information to collect, and once a few year's back data is collected, updating it real time would be pretty easy. Clearly though, since it hasn't been done before, nobody has yet thought doing so would be worth it. Which is why i inquired in the first place. I'm new to all this. :)

[quote]
The cruise lines do a good job of scheduling itineraries when the weather in the area is most favorable. [/quote]

IIRC, some cruises run year-round, like the Princess western Caribbean. That runs 52 weeks, I believe.

[quote name='Iamcruzin']
Think about all of the reasons for missing ports.


[LIST=1]
[*]weather
[*]mechanical problems
[*]passenger falls overboard and the ship losses time searching
[*]Passenger is ill and has to be evacuated.
[*]Political issues at port that start up in the middle of the cruise or before you leave and the cruise line doesn't feel it's safe to call on that port.
[/LIST]
I'm sure that I have missed many more reasons but don't expect any help from the cruise line. They want to fill ships not discourage passengers from booking.[/quote]

No question. But surely you would agree that such information would be very useful to the cruiser?

I know that if such information were available, I'd consult it before booking a cruise. Not that it would be the only information I base my decision on, but it would be a useful factor. I can't see how it wouldn't be for anyone.

[quote name='Pam in CA']That it's a "good idea" is very subjective. IF it were available, my concern is that people wouldn't take the time to understand that the results are the equivalent to a long range forecast: only as good as the day reported, and take the information as an absolute.

I personally don't think it's as good an idea as you do. :([/quote]

I know, but you do think it is a pretty good idea, no? You are wise enough to evaluate the data with the knowledge that, like any forecasting device, it is not a guarantee of how things would actually turn out for you, rather it would provide information about how things likely would turn out for you, allowing you to make an educated guess on what cruise to book when. And that would make it useful to you. Instead of having just your vague, general understanding that "it's more likely that I will miss port X during hurricane season than during the dry season", you would have information on exactly how much more likely that has been, and therefore likely will be.

Personally, I'm more confident that the vast lot of people are capable of doing the same. Heck, all of us have experience with weather forecasts. :rolleyes:

[quote name='Iamcruzin']
Personally I think if a "Missing Port Rate Chart" was useful or could be at all accurate given the many cruise lines and many reasons for missing a port then there would be an App for it by now and someone on CC would be promoting it.[/quote]

Usually, good ideas seem obvious - once someone bothers to implement them. :rolleyes:

[quote name='Pam in CA']Statistics and forecasting are great when the data can predict results. After all, go to any weather website and even with a forecast made the day before, the forecast is often wrong. The value is meaningless unless it's a reasonably accurate predictor, which it wouldn't and can't be.[/quote]

Pam, we all know that weather forecasts can be wrong, so we all take them with a grain of salt. But, just about all of us pay attention to them as well, because they are also right enough for it to be of value in consulting them when something we want to do hinges on the weather.

I don't see why port hit and miss rates wouldn't also be of similar value. Anyone with a brain would know that these hit and miss rates would not guarantee that if one books a particularly cruise that certain ports would be made or missed. All such rates would do is quantify those factors.

For example, you mentioned that if a port is tendered, there is a "greater" chance of missing it. But how much greater? 2%, 5%, 20%, 30%? Surely that would be information worth having.

[quote name='cherylandtk']Because your scenario of 65% vs 95% is a fantasy. The real numbers are probably insignificantly different to warrant anyone's effort to compile them and then publish them. Otherwise, somebody would have done it.[/quote]

Neither of us know whether it is a fantasy or not, because the data has not been compiled or published. It would be very useful to see what the real numbers are, even if they are, as you think, insignificantly different.

[quote name='Pam in CA']When I book a cruise based on itinerary, I always know it's a possibility that a port could be missed because it's happened so many times to me on cruises. The cruise line plans to make those ports but if the ship doesn't for whatever reason, I'm disappointed but it wouldn't occur to me to require a "guarantee" or expect anything back other than port fees. It's a ship on the seas and subject to wind, tides, etc. As Cheryl says, anything would be past experience and there's no way to predict weather, medical emergencies, etc. The cruise line has no control over Mother Nature. If a particular port is that important to you, then a land vacation is probably the best solution. Even then, your flight might be delayed, there might be a hurricane or storm while you're there, a volcanic eruption, etc. Life comes with no guarantees.[/quote]

Pam, I am not suggesting that cruise lines offer port-visit guarantees, which is impossible given that a port can, as you note, be missed for reasons outside the ship's control, or in the form of money-back. That's not the issue here.

But as I explained to Cheryl, just because past experience does not [I]perfectly[/I] predict the future doesn't mean it is not useful information to have. You acknowledged as much when you said the cruiser who is concerned about seeing a port should rely on general season weather patterns, which of course is information about the past.

My approach is better because it would quantify those weather expectations. E.g., your "general weather patterns" approach tells us that if you are worried about missing a Caribbean port because of a storm, it is probably better to not sail during hurricane season. But it doesn't tell us [I]how much[/I] better, whereas a statistical approach does. And this matters, because if the odds of missing a port during hurricane season are 5%, and during other times 3%, then it doesn't make much sense to make sure you book outside hurricane season, because the difference in odds is trivial. But if a given port is missed 20% of the time during hurricane season but only 2% outside of that season, well that's a difference worth taking into consideration.

Frankly, I am surprised that some don't see the obvious value in having statistical information on missed ports. The value to the cruise-planner seems obvious to me. :confused: