drhall

Less than a year to go!

Checking in!

Checking in!

If you book...say hello! I'm subscribed so i'll pop over here :)

My husband played the quarter slots and turned $.25 into $65... TWICE. On the same cruise!

I lost my $20, but he made $120. What's his is mine :)

Other that that, no luck or differences I've ever experienced.

We booked!

Who's with me?

We went on a riverboat cruise in our city for our wedding anniversary this evening.

Although it was incredibly fun, it just made us hungry for Brilliance OTS even more! 68 days to go!

Thank you! We will be flying out late that evening around 10:00 PM. We are staying by the airport when we arrive. :)

Nice! We are flying out around noon. Going to hang out in Tampa that evening. Hopefully we can find something to get into!

75 days to go!

Glad to have you both aboard! We're flying out of Atlanta the day before the sailing.

Summarizing a long story, we booked a cruise on-board another, but I didn't want to use the same TA. I wasn't aware that, by default, it goes to the one we used before unless you tell the NextCruise desk not to do that.

I booked our friend's cruise (same sailing this winter) with this same TA to guarantee pricing, but then I found a TA that I preferred and requested that my travel agent drop our booking so we could book elsewhere. He refused. We bumped heads a little, and I decided to pick/choose my battles and sail with them this time--and I will ensure that this isn't an issue next sailing.

Since then, he's been very quiet. I talked to him once about upgrading rooms and things were fine. I contacted him twice about making payments over a few month period on our friend's account and he never responded to me either time. I logged into RCI's page today and my booking says "CompanyName/DifferentCompanyName". My friend's booking says "CompanyName/TA'sName"

It's weird to me that our sailings are with the same person, but don't reflect that way on RCI's site.

I'm not necessarily hoping/wishing that he released our booking, but it's almost time to make the final payments and I need to have confidence that I can reach somebody. Do I have any recourse to figure out where he is? Does he still have our booking?

Thanks in advance!

I think you're clear to book reservations no earlier than 90 days from sailaway. Someone, correct me if i'm wrong.

I couldn't change my dining time before my sailing on Independence (ironically, it was a WPT poker cruise). I got on the ship on the first day, went to the dining room and politely asked if our time could be changed so we could eat with friends. They said they weren't sure if there was room, but would see if there was an opening and would give me a call.

An hour later, I had a message saying it was confirmed.

Patience, and humility is key. Not assuming anybody got angry, but human nature is to empathize with people we can relate to. People threatening to cancel or being standoff'ish make it hard to fight for. Just FYI.

Good luck, and happy cruising!

Congratulations!

I've been on 1 vacation since my honeymoon cruise last year, but that sailing has so many special memories that no vacation before/after compares to. I hope that yours is the same. Best part? No more wedding planning!!!!

The roll calls on here literally MADE my vacation. Having a familiar face (and now, new lifelong friends) to have dinner with, see shows, and tour countries with, changed my entire experience. I couldn't imagine cruising without it now.

Sailing on Brilliance this winter. Booked it on our honeymoon, actually! Looking forward to your posts.

19 weeks to go and there's no "family" onboard. I guess this means more pool chairs for me!

No kids, so I can't fully relate, but I would make your night out be the same night as the Love & Marriage show. Great excuse to get on stage, make a memory, and really stretch your comforts, too!

As everyone else has said... my husband and I wear dress shirts, slacks, and ties. Didn't even pack a jacket. Both formal nights were fine, and we fit in just like anyone else.

Some people break out the tuxedos. Some wear khakis. Either way, the cruise line won't bat an eye unless you're in swimwear.

I wear mine on the plane since they are heaviest footwear.

I do this too. Saves 1lb from my checked bag (and sometimes...every pound matters).

I take tennis shoes for walking around the ship when I know I won't be getting into the pool (buffet, shows, etc...), also a guaranteed choice if I am doing an excursion that involves physical exertion and not beach lounging. Flip flops are only fun on cement for about 15 minutes, and with some ports... you never quite know what type of terrain or environment you're going to encounter.

I don't usually do things like the rock wall or zipline, but I am sure that they require secure footwear to be used, like the second reply mentioned, and understandably so.

Happy travels!

Less than 200 days! Looks like I am sailing totally alone!

Not sure of the OP's intent, but here I am commenting anyway. So... there you have it.

The Friends of Dorothy / LGBT meetings are becoming more and more irrelevant as the tides continue to change and acceptance becomes widespread. 10, 20, 30 years ago... it was a big deal, as any group of people who were willing to instantly accept your orientation or identity was a very rare thing, and if you encountered a naysayer, complaining or making bad press for them didn't accomplish anything--because you didn't have the support of the masses anyway.

With that being said, I don't have any friends who are transgender, but I imagine that this sub-set of LGBT would find these meetings more beneficial than me...even though LGBT meetings as a whole are usually a "boy's club" anyway.

"Bedroom behavior" has nothing to do with it, and is a very outdated and uneducated way to view LGBT individuals. Heterosexuality comprises under 80% of the population. They are still the majority by a wiiiiiide margin. Until they live ostracized by employers, friends, family, politics, strangers, and the general population...they won't need a "Straights Gathering" group. Basically everywhere they go, worldwide, is an accepted gathering.

I've been to LGBT / FOD gatherings. I attended with my husband so we would be two more faces in the room to keep attendance going, and possibly make friends. No success yet. My experience has been that the other people present (only men showed up) just sat around people watching and wouldn't really speak back. Even passing them in the elevator or by the pool later in the sailing produced zero interaction... not even those typical icebreaker statements that you make when you bump into others in elevators, at the buffet, in a show, etc.

I have actually made more friends in the rollcalls on CC than in those meetings. But, that's my experience. Your results may vary.

Friends come in all shapes, sizes, and places. Step slightly outside your comforts from time to time and you will be surprised how similar everyone, everywhere, is.

Getting your sailing chartered is unfortunate. It happened to me five months before embarkation for my honeymoon cruise (which was placed tightly between the wedding and our return to work), so flexing our plans to make another cruise wasn't an easy feat.

It makes good business sense to displace and compensate the 100-500 pax who have already booked, rather than pass on a charter (who pays in full for 3000+ pax) and spend the line's own marketing money and efforts on filling a sailing...and always risk it sailing under capacity. Why not take the money up front and guarantee the ship sails full, the bars/restaurants/shops have plenty of customers, and the excursions always sell out? Money talks in this world. RCI listens. Sad truth.

Hopefully it doesn't happen to my December Brilliance sailing, though! Lol!

Happy cruising.

I hear the commercials all the time . The KIA dealership in Northport,fl offers a free cruise on the Brilliance with a car purchase & now with a car lease .

Wow. I bought my car in the wrong state!

Since you understand your contribution to this situation and sounded relatively humane (not irate, placing blame on everybody and every thing around you), I sincerely hope that they're able to help make things right with you, and that you cruise again in the future. It's one thing (psychologically) to be making your way to the pier while seeing the ship sail away, it's another when you are standing within 100 feet of it for an hour and being turned away.

Best of luck in your endeavor with RCI. Truly.

Just like the travel industry, the rental industry changes their prices on the fly. I shop multiple times before my trip (using Costco Travel, USAA discount codes, etc..) and book whomever has the lowest price for the class of vehicle I want.

Once I have reserved a price that i'm willing to pay, I check back every few days to see if someone else is doing a better rate. If they are, I book and cancel the first one. Rinse, repeat, until I hit the floor (nobody else is lettings cars go for that cheap).

I've scored a compact car for $11 a day over a week, and this summer I have a luxury car for $18 a day for a 9 days.

One small, easy-to-do tip. If you are booking the car for pickup on a Friday, book it after 2pm. Rental agencies charge less for weekend vehicles, and their "weekend" time begins then. I consistently see cars going for one price at noon, and $30 less at 2pm on the same day. Also, avoid airports unless that's your only option. There is a surcharge that the airport charges the rental company, which is passd onto the consumer for simply being located at the airport. Locations just outside the terminal don't have this surcharge.

That's my $.02.

Happy travels!

I unpack when I get home.

Father was military and we moved around a lot. He engraved the idea in my head that you will be much more likely to forget something if you unpack everywhere you go.

I hang things in the closet or on visible shelving, but never in the drawers.

Some habits die hard.

I'm just curious why after going through the process to change the entire name (which usually isn't done on a whim but for a specific reason) he would even WANT to keep the passport with the old name on it. I would think he'd want all of his forms of identification to show his proper identity.

 

Or maybe that's how the people I know who have legally changed their names feel about it as they all changed all their forms of id no matter how recently they did it? :confused: :confused: :confused: (One, knowing the wheels were turning for the name changed, opted to let a passport expire when it was within a year of when the name change would take place. He decided it was worth not having it for that small period of time rather than pay double. Again with the fact that name changes are (or should not be) not done on a whim but after thought and planning.)

To answer your question. He had been going by his current name since birth due to an family estrangement issue. Employers, schools, friends, family, etc., all identified him by his current name. So, legally transitioning his name wasn't a monumental moment. He planned to change it much sooner, but decided to wait until marriage (he took my last name) so he only had to endure the name change process once.

The passport isn't the only document that reflects his former name. The deed to our house, and titles to our cars are the same. We could pay to update the name on each, but were advised that it serves no benefit or legal protection because they are covered under an "AKA" clause. Once we sell any of these things and buy another, we will be using his current legal name.

His drivers license, insurance policies, bank accounts, memberships, etc.. and other documents that we come into contact with more often all show is current name. The last time we touched his passport was 5 months before the name change, which was months ago from today anyway. So, paying $100+ to update a document that we weren't planning to use for an indefinite amount of time made it a low priority....until we found excuses to go abroad recently :D

OP just in case he has a fairly new passport....

 

QUOTE: If less than one year has passed since your passport was issued:

 

You will not have to pay any passport or processing fees, unless you request Expedited Service.

Submit Form DS-5504 by mail with your current passport, your original or certified name change document (no photocopies or notarized copies), and a color passport photo. You may:

Use our online guide to fill out and print Form DS-5504; or

Print Form DS-5504 and complete by hand.

This is good info! Thanks! He called the passport office a couple of months ago and they told us that we would have to pay the standard issuing fee. They never mentioned any other options. However, he hasn't had the passport for a full year anyway. He's dangerously close to the deadline now, but he wasn't when we first looked into it.

Time to get this thing in the mail!

I am thinking that we will just pay the cash and have it re-issued with his name next week. The cruise isn't until December, but we are going to Canada in July, so it will be easier for both trips (plus future trips) if it's done.

Thanks for the thorough answers!