mike123abc

Newer ships tend to have better placement of the wifi access points around the ship to give good signal in most locations.  Older ships you may have to hunt down a place with good wifi if you do not have it in your cabin (some cabins are too far from the nearest AP and have poor reception).  Do not expect it to work well in crowds on any ship since the local AP gets overloaded (promenade, theater when full, etc).

You can also just pay your bill in cash before the end of the cruise and your CC will not be charged.  There will be a bunch of holds on it for each day's charges, but they will go away a few days after the cruise.

We had a cruise with a party of 15 that they accomodated.

It is like airline pricing.  The fewer rooms left the higher the price.  It is by category, which can lead to the odd situation you see sometimes where a balcony costs more than a JR suite.

Other categories may have gone down in price if they are not selling well.

I like to book early, if the price goes down the TA can usually get a price adjustment.

I use WiFi calling a lot on ship.  I will also turn off cellular data and connect to the ship cellular regularly since I find that there are some texts (and voice mails) that will for some reason not come through unless on the ship/shore cellular.  There is no charge to receive texts.  Then I will turn off cellular (i.e. airplane mode) to do replies.

My theory is that if the WiFi drops out when the text/voicemail comes in, it will not try again and you have to be on a cell system to get it.  WiFi drops out a lot in crowded areas like the Promenade at night or in shows.

On my Allure sailing last month with the UDP, I was told I could have either the 1/2 or full for my large plates.  I got the full and was not charged extra.

It is hard to compare RCL with NCL pricing on drink packages and wifi.  A la carte RCL is less expensive on both, but NCL has the bundled "Free at Sea".  The drink package is not really free on NCL since you have to pay the gratuities for the "free" package based on the a la carte price.  NCL gives minutes of wifi not an unlimited package unless you pay an upcharge to convert it.  The conversion price is less than the RCL price, so some savings, but not as much as it seems if you want unlimited.

You have to compare the fares for the itineraries for RCL you have to add in the cost of the drink package and wifi, plus whatever allowances for shore excursions and specialty dining.  With NCL you have to add in the drink package gratuities and the cost of converting the WiFi minutes to an unlimited cruise package.

I find some cruises are less with RCL and some with NCL.  If you are not a drinker, RCL probably wins most price comparisons.  Especially once you hit 80 nights and start getting 4 free drinks a day, many will not need a drink package then, just buying a la carte any extras.

I was in a Sky loft last fall on Quantum, it did not come with a Genie.  When the ship first launched it did have Genie service (if you read the press release).  They later changed it not to have a Genie.

If people cancel/no show on boarding day Royal Up can happen on boarding day.  When the ship is fully checked in and all Royal Ups are done they usually send out an email saying your Royal Up was unsuccessful.

Unfortunately not, you will have to pay for a regular cabin with booking a suite (unless over 340 C&A nights where you get the solo traveler discount).

Starlink as a world wide service  probably will not be ready until next spring.  The first group of satellites SpaceX launched requires site of an uplink on land.  The current groups they are launching relay the signal satellite to satellite then to land via lasers.  But, they are not through launching them yet.  At the rate they are going, they should be done launching by the end of the year and a couple of months for the satellites to get to the correct location.  By next spring they should have world wide coverage.  Probably why they say Q1 next year.

18 hours ago, tserface said:

 

We wonder why we have to wear bracelets to demonstrate we are vaccinated. If everyone older than 12 has to be vaccinated (at least when leaving from Seattle) can't they tell we are older than 12?  I can understand this need for ports like Florida where they have political intervention causing them grief.

 

18 hours ago, mauraoel said:

Not anymore at least not for Sept and Oct cruises.

I am on Ovation sailing out of Seattle.  They checked to be sure everyone was vaccinated during boarding and gave out white wristbands.  They did not say what the bands were (the bands say "The Royal Comeback" on them).  I thought it was just that they were promoting the return to sailing.  Then then give you a contact tracing watch like band and tell you to wear it everywhere but the pool since they are not water proof.

So, with all the wrist action I take off the white band and leave it in my room.  Well they denied my entry to the theater since they said I has to be vaccinated.  They then told me the white band was a vaccination status band.  I asked the obvious question is if all adults are vaccinated why are they doing the bands?  Of course the door guys do not have an answer (I know they are just doing what they were told to do).

Again why are they forcing the wearing of 2 bands?  I understand the contact tracing one and they were in multiple colors,  Why not make one color for unvaccinated?  Why not only use bands for those under 18, I doubt many 11 year olds could pass for 18 and try to sneak into vaccinated only parts of the ship.

I am happy to be cruising, and I will put up with 2 plastic bands on my wrists for a week.  Maybe I should start wearing them a week or two before the next cruise to get used to them so they will not be as annoying (well not really annoying, just something different that gets your attention over and over).

Hopefully they will figure out that 2 bands is a waste of money and RCL will make a cutback on plastic waste in the near future and only have the contract tracing one (color coded if needed).

I went to the "Concierge Lounge" on Ovation this evening.  It was empty before 5pm, I was the only one in there.  A few trickled in after 5pm happy hour started.  The waiters asked cabin numbers when taking drinks.  The concierge said it was suite only, pinnacles excluded.

It was quite boring.  I enjoyed chatting with Pinnacles and Diamond Pluses in the past.  Most voyages it never seemed to be an issue with overcrowding.  Just some cruises.

It was dead quiet in there.  I will try it again a few more times this trip, perhaps since it was the first night that people were not coming in.

It seems like it would be better if on a sailing by sailing basis they decided who would be welcome.  If there were too many pinnacles on a sailing exclude.  Empty sailings let in D+ perhaps.

Perhaps the cruise lines will invest in the Abbott Labs 15 minute test.  After check in you will have to report for a test and wait 15 minutes for the results.

I had the cruise insurance through RCL on my next cruise which was just cancelled.

I booked my airfare (non refundable of course) directly with an airline.

Royal cancelled the cruise.  Will the cruise insurance pick up the airfare loss.  It was to Dubai and back from Rome (changed to Greece already), so fairly expensive fare.

The T&Cs talk about being reimbursed for traveler cancellations due illness, and other reasons.  But they do not seem to address what happens if the cruise line cancels.

I would expect all dry docks/refurbishments to be put on hold until the end of the virus problem.  You have to remember this involves a lot of workers at the dock to do the retrofit.  With all the travel being restricted in country after country how are these workers going to get to work?  Plus all the workers would have to work in close quarters...

https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/03/13/feds-announce-flight-restrictions-cruise-ship-ban-amid-covid-19-outbreak/

Canada ports now closed to ships with more than 500 passengers until July 1st.

There goes the AK cruises...

33 minutes ago, orville99 said:

So far they've only gone up ~$100 on average from what we booked. I would expect that once the smoke clears and RCL gets back to a full schedule, they will work to recover their lost revenue both on elevating future cruise prices and on all of the on-board extras.

I have a feeling the price increases are automatic.  People are cancelling their close in cruises and booking future ones.  The computer sees the "brisk" sales of future cruises and automatically raises prices as the ship fills up.  Just like with airlines, the faster the seats sell the more expensive they get.  There are way too many ships, cabins, itineraries, etc to be manually priced.  The base parameters are put in for a cruise and the computer takes care of pricing afterwards.

51 minutes ago, dasmonkey said:

Shutting down temporarily is probably coming.  
All 3 major lines are loath to do that at this point.
They are all leveraged to the hilt and desperate for whatever income flow they can get.
The elephant in the room however is them having to hand cash back to a customer instead of an IOU in the form of a FCC if THEY do the cancelling instead of you. 

RCL had almost 11 billion in revenue last year (page 37 of 10k).   If you calculate about 72% of that from cruise fares (page 14) and the rest in on board spending (that is why they push drink/dining packages so much), it is 7.2 billion in fares.  60 days of fares is 7.92b/365*60 or about 1.3 billion dollars.  ( https://fintel.io/doc/sec-rcl-royal-caribbean-cruises-10k-annual-report-2020-february-25-18317 )

1.3 billion is a lot of cash.  They ended 2019 with $244 million in cash (page F-6).   They just borrowed another 550 million more.  They need a lot of people to take a FCC.

The easiest/best financial thing for RCL (and other cruise lines) to do now is delay.

They all probably have plans now to close up shop for a period of time, but the longer they delay the announcement the more cash they can conserve.  If at this moment they do the Princess/Viking policy, they will start having to refund cash.  But, the phone lines are jammed with people voluntarily taking FCCs instead.

The faster they can process these FCC for customers calling in the more cash they can conserve, plus they are assured of a lot of bookings once the problem clears up.  This also has the added benefit not having to discount as much in the future since people will have to use these credits before they expire.

I know it is a bit cynical thinking this way.  Princess probably had so many cancellations with their bad press that they were probably at the point that cancelling did not cost them much actual cash.  Once the other lines reach the same point of minimal cash outlay for cancelling they will probably make the same announcement.

Viking also cancelled all cruises https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/03/12/coronavirus-viking-cruises-suspends-cruise-operations-until-may-1/5030006002/

What happened on Princess could have happened on any cruise line.  It is only a matter of time if they keep sailing that it will break out on a Royal ship somewhere.

They probably will not have a choice in the matter.  If a bunch of popular cruise destinations close, they may not have enough itineraries to keep a reasonable schedule going.  I do not think people would want to a bunch of cruises to nowhere...

As I understand it once their contract is up they will go home.  But, they have the option of starting a new contract as soon as they desire.  They can start right after the last one ends if they wish.  They can apply to different ships and could be transferred if accepted.

One also has to remember that there is a flu vaccine, so a person with the flu is not as likely to infect as many because a lot of people have been vaccinated.

Unfortunately the flu vaccine makes covid 19 death toll worse.  Essentially all the vulnerable tend to get the flu shot saving their lives, only to face covid 19 which no one has been vaccinated.  Yes, the flu would have killed them if they caught it, but since they had the vaccine they did not get the flu, now they get the corona virus which kills them.  Hence the nursing home problem in Washington State, they probably all had a flu vaccine saving them from the flu only to have the corona virus come along and get them anyways.

Your booking confirmation should show what your GTY is for XB-GTY is for an "external" balcony.