TexasBrit

Sorry if this had been discussed previously, I searched for it and nothing came up. So, does Disney offer OBC for shareholders of Disney Company, like Carnival and RC do? If so, what is the rate? Thanks

Many of those first timers may have been on cruises with other companies before. I understand that Princess was undercutting Carnival and RC prices for the Galveston cruises in order to get people on board, as this is their first time back in Texas after many years. This may have tempted people who may have taken a cruise from Galveston anyway to select Princess this time, as well as totally new cruisers who suddenly could afford the prices being offered by Princess but Carnival and RC were out of their price range. This may have been particularly true for those cruises during the Spring Break weeks that were fully booked and had hundreds of children aboard. It is a pity that everyone had bad luck with the weather situation on this particular cruise. I think that people who were on many of the previous weeks cruises on Ruby were very pleased with their experience.

This Captain has been bringing his ship into port at Roatan every week for a few months. Do you really think that you know better than he does regarding docking his ship under various conditions? Are you aware of the years of training and experience a person has to have before being appointed as a Captain of a huge passenger ship? He is aware how disappointed the passengers would be about the missed port they have looked forward to visiting. I am quite certain he did NOT take this decision lightly and certainly not did give up too soon!

When the Caribbean Princess did a TA a few years ago and called in at Liverpool, they brought on Pete Best of all people!

Thank you. We are driving to IAH and leaving the car there, so it will be there when we fly back from SF. So we won't be on any flight schedule going in. We will have the parking lot shuttle bus take us to Terminal C as mentioned above.

Does anyone know what is the location to board the Princess transfer bus at Houston Bush (IAH)? There are several separate terminals there.

I was told that not all types of OBC can be used for casino play. Specifically excluded was the shareholder OBC and maybe the military OBC. Any further input would be appreciated.

Short for April 2023, just like all the other dates on there, month/year 🤣

Thank you. This was the Saturday that was the last full day of the cruise, right? So from Sunday to Friday the food was served by the crew? Maybe cubfan63 did just not go there on Saturday or Sunday morning. We are booked on Ruby next month which is why I am very interested to get as much correct info as possible. 😇

Why are there two totally different comments about this? Which one is correct?

As mentioned in some earlier posts, it is the 65% alcohol sanitizer that is not effective against Norovirus. The 85% alcohol sanitizer is effective. It is available in some stores and online. Also Norovirus is not spread by the airborne route as COVID is, so masks would be no good anyway.

It is the common 65% ethyl alcohol sanitizer that is ineffective. But the 85% ethyl alcohol sanitizer that Purell sells is effective. It is hard to find but Walgreen's had some, see my earlier post. I see you are in UK, so I don't know where you can get it there. But I expect someplace will sell it, perhaps Boots?

FYI, Walgreen's (and maybe other retailers) have the 85% sanitizer. It's called Purell PRIME DEFENSE. I just picked up the last 4 oz bottle at my local store and will be looking for another one when they restock.

There were no outbreaks on my 4 cruises that I knew about or heard about. I am sure if there had been a substantial number of cases we would have known about it and would have seen some precautions put in place. By contrast there were almost 300 people hit on the Ruby 2/26-3/5, which brought about the introduction of precautions and also a deep cleaning before the next cruise, which does makes it unique in that regard. I am guessing you wrote unknown for this cruise because the actual causative agent has not been conclusively identified so far, but it doesn't take a Nobel prize winner to figure out what caused it. Lower passenger density so far since restart is one contributing factor to the lower numbers compared to 2019, although two of the cruises I was on were almost at capacity, but also probably due to the extra care passengers were taking with precautions, including hand washing, in order to prevent COVID. And also we are barely into the third month of 2023, so who knows what the entire year will look like. I know that masks and the standard 65% ETOH hand sanitizer are ineffective against Norovirus. I suspect that now the worry about COVID has substantially lessened, so has the vigilance to stay safe.

Yes Norovirus has been on the ships often in the past. What is new, and news, is the recent large outbreak on one particular ship. I have been on 4 cruises since the restart and did not see or hear about any cases of Norovirus on those ships. There were none of the precautions that I had seen previously when there had been some outbreaks, such as the frequent cleaning of surfaces, and plates being handed out in the buffets as you enter, rather than picking them up off the large stack, etc. which we are now hearing about on Ruby. Of course people were more concerned with COVID precautions, some of which may have helped the Norovirus situation as well. Complacency is one of the problems that lead to these outbreaks.