sford75

7 hours ago, cruisingguy007 said:

 

Where? Specific food location would be helpful and appreciated. I've seen one other report of this but it was a specific type of dish and I don't want to spread FUD. I'm sure many of us would love for you to extrapolate on circumstances. No covid is a positive metric. 

Odyssey DID NOT have Noro. It was a 24 hour stomach virus. I actually got it and missed the 5th day (sea day). But was well enough to enjoy CocoCay. I didn't have to isolate because I didn't seek medical attention. Others who did were isolated for 24 hours (but not other cabin members).

It was not fun, but it also wasn't Noro. No idea where I got it. I always washed my hands, but hand sanitizer was minimal on the ship and often were empty. Only thing I can think of is the day I got it, I did eat a salad at lunch. Got sick at 1am.

On 3/25/2022 at 1:08 PM, colliece said:

Just got off the Odyssey on Sunday, we sailed at 92% capacity, this weeks sailing is over 100%.  I am going to be honest and some may disagree, but it was not as great an experience.  I know the lines need larger capacities to make a profit, but their were not enough deck chairs or activities on board for that many people.  Long lines for or reservations required, never did get to to iFly or the Zone Zero. 

 

Got spoiled with 50% capacity on our last few cruises.  I would personally pay more to have fewer passengers on board, but we may be in the minority. 

 

On an unrelated note, I wish the "Chair Hogs" would have to walk the plank.  I would be up early to go to the fitness center and at 7am there was plenty of chairs, but at 8:30 after my workout and before breakfast, every chair was "claimed" with a towel/boo/etc.  They they would be unoccupied for hours.   

Just got off today and I could not agree more. It's not being at 100%, its that the ship is either 1. not staffed at full capacity or 2. not prepared for 100%. We didn't mind the lines, etc, we were mentally prepared for that. But ordering a Diet Coke 3xs at dinner and never receiving it and dinner taking 90 minutes and walking out before dessert because it's been 20 minutes since anyone said a word to you is not acceptable. The crew were trying, but were overwhelmed. I can't speak for other ships, but Odyssey was not ready for 100% capacity.

1 hour ago, resetjet said:

On symphony last week, I went and asked this exact question.  They said you CAN come to see if an upgrade is possible and that royal up is not your only option.  I think royal up to close to departure would cause too many issues, so I believe that whatever your cabin says when your standing outside the terminal is all you are gonna get from royal up.  Going from an inside to a balcony is probably pretty easy right now.  Going to a suite is probably very hard.

Right now on Odyssey, RoyalUp is your only option. If you go to Guest Services, they give you a card telling you how to bid on RoyalUp.

37 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

We have reports of folks upgrading on the ship without Royal Up - some ships may not participate and give that blanket no.

Odyssey is no longer doing that and that is the ship I am on. They are using RoyalUp for these, which is why I am asking. My assumption is that it's unlikely. Just curious if others have actually been upgraded through RoyaUp after boarding.

30 minutes ago, RobInMN said:

On our recent Odyssey, we were in a JS, and had Royal ups on all the upper level suites, all still pending. Being a "suite", we were boarded almost right away, and based on even recent posts here, went directly to Guest Services to check on on-board upgrades once everyone had boarded. I was told by the "line screener" and a someone at the desk that they don't do that anymore, that all upgrades are handled by Royal Up even for last minute no-shows or cancellations (COVID positive?). They even handed me a business card on how to Royal Up to make my bids right then. Said I would be notified by about 6:00 PM (I think all aboard was 4:30?) if we got it.

In my case, still no luck. Looser emails came late that night.

 

Yep, that's what I have heard. We are sailing on Odyssey this Sunday. just curious if anyone has actually won a bid day of and had to move

I know the process for RoyalUp has changed on some ships and upgrades can be awarded the day on embarkation. I just wanted to see if there are any reports of this actually happening?

50 minutes ago, Dan83 said:

Sailing on 3/20. For the past 2 days all my bids except 1 have said expired. With the one bid pending and unable to modify. I had read that this was a good sign. But it’s been like that for 2 days with no upgrade. I don’t like that they won’t let me cancel or change bids with 10 days to go. What if I want to just forget the whole thing and cancel all the bids. Booked in a grand suite and I put in minimum/low bids for most options. 

When this happened to me, it took 4 days before the upgrade did come through. This likely means it's happening. 

What ship? which one is pending and which ones are expired?

2 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

The denial email should arrive the night before sailing.

Not anymore. They now arrive after you set sail

12 minutes ago, royaltocruising said:

We are 3 days out from our sailing and all 6 of my bids are still pending. All of these cabin categories are sold out on the website though and most people in our FB sailing group have heard if they won their bids. I'm not sure why mine still show pending not expired but I assume I'm out of luck and didn't win any since these cabin categories no longer show availability?

If you look at your bids, it says you can modify up until 3 hours before departure. The new process is notifying people after they set sail that bids were unsuccessful. This is to account for any last minute availability. No more going to Guest Services to try for an upgrade. They will instruct you to RoyalUp. 
 

but yes, I’d say, you likely aren’t getting an upgrade. I’m in the same boat for 3/20. Not expecting it to happen. 

2 hours ago, DukeASUGirl said:

Do you have to wear rentals, or can you bring your own skates? My daughter's a figure skater and my son plays hockey, and they are appalled by the thought of rentals.

 

I hear a rumor that everyone must wear a helmet. Is this true? If so, can the hockey player bring his own? And also if so, I'm guessing my daughter will refuse to participate. LOL

I have a vlog on YouTube where we skated on Freedom last month. I think it's titled Last Night on Freedom or something like that.

I was able to bring my own skates. No problem. Yes, everyone had to wear a helmet. We also had to wear masks at the time, but I believe that is now gone. They have both figure skates and hockey skates to rent. Skates looked to be in good shape too.

5 hours ago, Nabalab said:

Just got Royal'd Up for Wonder this Friday 3/11.  D2 (OV Balcony) to JS. 

 

As of last night, everything I bid on (JS, GS, OS) was still pending and able to be modified. 

 

When I won a JS bid in the Fall, the JS was pending (with no option to modify) for a few weeks.

Curious to know if JS were showing available or not before you won?

21 minutes ago, mandream said:

We're leaving on the Oasis 2 weeks from today.  We are all fully vaccinated, including my 10 and 11 year olds.

 

I completed online checking several weeks ago, including uploading proof of vaccination for everyone.  This went through the review, and was eventually marked with the green checkmark.

 

Last week I received a survey about our vaccination status.  I completed that for all of us indicating we were all fully vaccinated and willing to provide proof (which I thought was weird since we already had).

 

I just now received an email titled "Unvaccinated Guests: Register for your boarding day Antigen test today!" which says: "However, you may have received this email because you'll need to register the guest below as they are between the ages of 2 to 11 and are unvaccinated."  Both kids received this.  Seriously?  I am now on hold with customer service - but how can they be getting this so wrong?  How many times do we need to tell them?  Is this common, or is this just an issue for us?

 

Mike

I have sailed twice this year and anyone sailing with kids 5-11 get that email. It's so they don't miss anyone. Easier for them to just send it out to everyone with kids 11 and under, then try and have a computer system determine who gets it and who doesn't. Easier to miss someone that way.

On 3/5/2022 at 8:48 AM, CruisingTeacher19 said:

I have an interior and was originally only allowed to bid up to ocean view. When the 50% sale happened last week I was able to then big ask the way up to a 2 bedroom. I bid on a GS and an currently in a promenade interior. I highly doubt I will get it but was able to bid. I’m on symphony at the end of March. 

We have a balcony sailing on 3/20. Just checked and no additional categories added. Oh well. Nothing is available anyway.

I did the fire & ice mani/pedi once just before shutdown. It was pricey but incredible. I truly felt pampered.

3 hours ago, Mabel the Great..Dane said:

Has anyone on the 3/20 Odyssey sailing heard if their bid was accepted?  

There were a bunch of balconies awarded. 1 report of a JS, but that is it. Given that there are no suites available, I don't expect many others

38 minutes ago, thecanimal said:

Thanks you are correct, last cruise in December I was on my balcony five minutes total the whole trip. But my wife likes to sit on the balcony and have me bring her coffee in the morning , And it just makes the cabin seem larger when you have a larger balcony.

I would bring any original documentation you have with your original category, stateroom etc. and go straight to Guest Services. The same thing happened to a friend recently, they went to guest services. They had to wait until that evening, but they upgraded them to a Jr. Suite. Now this was on Independence and wasn't the inaugural sailing, so you may be out of luck. But I think it's worth a try. At the very least, they may be able to give you some onboard credit.  Also, Michael Bayley will likely be on that sailing, so I think emailing his office was a good move.

2 hours ago, mermaidgal said:

I sail March 4th and I made two bids, a Jr suite and a Grand Suite, today I looked at my bids, the GS bid says expired and the JS says pending, am I to assume I’m getting the JS? It can’t be modified so I’m thinking that’s the case? Any ideas on this ? Thx…

Yep, you likely got the JS

31 minutes ago, exm said:

 

You'll be fine. I haven't heard of a single case where RC kicked passengers off their ships due to capacity issues. If anything, they'll stop bookings.

the new policy starts tomorrow. While I don't think they should be worried, it is a possibility that a sailing could have capacity issues for unvaccinated. I think that's why they are asking people to verify vaccination status on upcoming sailings.

6 minutes ago, alwaysflyin said:

I am nervous about this because I am taking an unvaccinated 10 year-old on a cruise on 3/13.  I've been worried that they would tell us that she couldn't cruise.  However, I've now decided that that would create such terrible PR that they can't do it at this late of a date.  Fingers crossed anyway.

Have you gotten an email asking you to verify vaccination status? If not, check your junk in case it's there. 

So we were upgraded on a recent Freedom sailing. Won it within days of bidding and 3.5 weeks before we sailed. Never offered to bid again. I checked several times just to see, and it always just said UPGRADED. Others reported the same.

7 hours ago, landerslp said:

We just got an email to update vaccination status due to highly vaccinated policy.  They already have our info so guessing it is generic email to pick up kids. My two grandkids are not vaccinated- can they be kicked off their cruise scheduled to leave in three weeks? How would they decide?

 

Joyce

I got the same email for our sailing in 3 weeks. From the FB group, it appears only people with kids 5-11 in their stateroom got them email. People with adult only parties did not. 

I think this is to ensure that they are under the 5% before the sailing. I, personally, was uneasy that there was no procedure in place to state your child is unvaccinated and needs to be counted towards the 5%. I called twice and was just told, it wasn't a concern, that they were already sailing at 97-98% vaccinated. I know other parents felt the same way.

It appears that most, if not all, sailing in March have limited their bookings to 2 adults. I think they are just trying to get a handle on how to count the unvaccinated going forward. Just my guess. But now that I've submitted my son's information, I feel more comfortable that I'm not going to get to the port and be told, oh sorry, we have too many unvaccinated kids, you can't sail. 

2 minutes ago, redsox1584 said:

No, I had booked a guarantee balcony, and the room that I was assigned is a regular balcony room

That is odd. I upgraded my stateroom and it took 5-6 days for plus grade to get my new information. I would clear your cookies and check tomorrow 

1 hour ago, redsox1584 said:

I booked a balcony guarantee on the 3/11 Freedom sailing. I got an email about a month ago about the Royal Up upgrades. I went ahead and put in bids. 
 

Last night, my balcony room was assigned and today I got an email that my Royal up bids were cancelled due to a change in my reservation. I went on to the Royal Up site and my bids were no longer there so I tried to put in new bids. After I put in all my payment information and submitted, a message came up saying they were unable to process my request and to try again in 24 hours. 
 

Has anyone experienced this? I’m guessing it cancelled my bids because the room was assigned?

Were you upgraded by chance? 

12 minutes ago, moonltnite said:

We are currently in an OV Large Balcony on Oasis for 3/6.  I had set up bids for a JS, GS and OS.  They were still pending today.   However, I check prices via mock bookings every other day or so.  Today - I noticed the price difference to upgrade to a JS from our OV Large Balcony was just $136 more than what my bid on a JS would cost if accepted. They also had a JS with the full size balcony on deck 8 (our favorite deck, and where we currently had the OV Large Balcony). So I called and upgraded us to a Junior Suite.  I love the extra space in the room and the larger balcony with a table and 2 chairs - plus 2 lounge chairs.  So I cancelled my current JS bid.  I'll leave the ones for a GS or OS.  But now I'm really happy having the Jr Suite on deck 8 with Central Park.  We love Vintages - Trellis Bar - and visit the specialty restaurants - so it's handy for us! 

Check in a few days and your minimums for those staterooms should be lower. It took mine 5 days to be updated, but I upgraded on a Friday night

1 hour ago, Russ Lomas said:

I am not sure who you spoke to.  Often the people answering the phones will have no clue as to things such as that.  That said, they could very well know something that we are not privy to.  I will be over the moon to cruise in March at 50-60% capacity.

I've been told by several reliable sources, they are selling at 75% capacity now. Usually, they don't hit that, so that sail at less, but that's the "sell out" point.