Gregoryfo

We have 100 shares just to get the benis. We purchased just after the Saudi's so we have gotten as much OBC as we paid for the stocks a couple of years back. I think you are correct that chapter 11 would not be good for public relations and future bookings, but I think disappointing the shareholder/customers is only a small part of that. I think more so it would be how many customers would be alienated who would not purchase future cruises. Many people do not understand the differences in bankruptcy and might be cautious to give a company going through bankruptcy thousands of dollars for a cruise that is one to two years away. I remember one of the Mississippi river boat companies running into financial trouble about ten years back and they needed to put the deposits in escrow so customers would not worry about losing their deposits. That has to be a difficult way to run your company, not being able to tap into those funds until the cruise actually sails.

Thanks for the sage advice all! I will give the C&A department a call to hopefully get it straightened out. We got back from the cruise and I was swamped with work so I thought, mistakenly, that email would be the quicker fix. Now I know better. Orville: We have two kids in school and we both work for the schools so it is hard to be loyal to any one cruise line. When we find a good itinerary on a date that works we book it, regardless on the line. This has ended up with us having mid level status on Carnival, Royal, NCL, and MSC. Therefore, from what I understand we should be eligible for the double points promotion. I am sure others though thought they were getting double and did not for the reason you pointed out.

We have been cruising a time or two most years for the past 15 plus years. We have been lucky that I have never needed to contact customer service after a cruise. We booked a Royal cruise on 9/6/2021 for a sailing this past June. The cruise was ok, or at least nothing worth complaining about. However, when we returned we did not get the double points that was on the website when we booked. A couple of things about our booking. We did not change rooms, we did not do Royal up, we did not touch the reservations in any way, the reservation was completely paid off on 9/18/21. A few weeks after we returned I emailed guest relations with the following thinking it would be a quick fix: I recently returned on a Bermuda cruise. The reservations # was XXXXXXXX. When I booked it said I would receive double c&a points but only single points were rewarded, can you look into this for us? I got an immediate canned response about future cruise credits, which I am sure it a large part of their email load right now. After two weeks of hearing nothing else I did a follow up email. A couple of weeks later sent an additional follow up email. Couple of weeks go by and another additional follow up with the executive offices cced on the email (mbayley@rccl.com). On August 11, almost two months after my cruise I got the following response: "Hello Gregory,Thank you for contacting Royal Caribbean International. We apologize for the extended delay in our response. We have been experiencing a higher than usual volume of correspondence which has resulted in increased turnaround time for replies.We are pleased you chose to sail with us and participate in our Crown and Anchor Society loyalty program. We have reviewed your most recent sailing onboard Enchantment of the Seas, reservation number XXXXX, and determined that it does not qualify for double points, which applies to bookings made before September 30, 2021, or when you purchase a suite. We are very sorry for any disappointment this may cause.As a reminder, you can earn one Cruise Point for every cruise night you sail with us, and double the points when you purchase a suite. For instance, if you complete a 7-night cruise, you'll earn 7 Cruise Points, and when you purchase a suite, you'll earn 14 Cruise Points. Further terms and conditions apply. Points are not recorded or applied until after you complete your sailing. For example, if you are graduating from Gold to Platinum tier level on your current sailing, you will not receive Platinum level benefits until your next sailing. For a complete list of the membership levels and benefits of the Crown and Anchor Society, please visit https://www.royalcaribbean.com/crown-anchor-society. If we can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out.We appreciate you taking the time to follow up with us and look forward to having you onboard one of our ships again soon. In the meantime, please stay healthy and safe.Best regards,Sentia DorseyRoyal Guest Experience Management I responded that the cruise was booked on September 6 2021 on the 11th and got the same canned response. After two months of waiting it is apparent to me that Ms. Dorsey did not even bother to look at the booking. To me, this is unacceptable. Part of this post is obviously a rant, but honest question, has Royal customer service always been this poor and I have just been lucky to not have to deal with them? Are the other lines equally as poor?

Absolutely out of both Baltimore and New York

This has been my experience as well. It also depends somewhat on what percentage of the excursion you had to prepay in advance. If you are paying in full on the island or only had to prepay a small deposit, trust me they will wait for the $$ to get there before leaving.

Just got back last month. One of the large New York ships got there about an hour before us. Plenty of room on the island for everyone. HOWEVER, that hour head start got them ahead of us on the water slides in the park. Lines were long for the first few hours and then calmed down. My suggestion would be if your ship is second to head to the beach, pool, or wave pool for a couple of hours before going to the water slides in the park.

We took a Carnival cruise to Costa Rica and the Panama Canal. Based on reviews here instead of doing a Carnival excursion in Costa Rica we went with Jorge Ramirez. It was everything we like in a tour; a guide that communicates well, is passionate and knowledgeable about his city, is safe and dependable, and charges a reasonable price. There were several options but we went with the Tortuguero Canal along with sight seeings and a few stops for fruit and shopping. For the canal tour we had the boat to ourselves. We saw monkeys and sloths. He also took us to a really cool banana plantation that a friend of his is starting and we walked around there for about thirty minutes. We mentioned that we worked for the public schools in the US and he pointed out a few of the schools and colleges that we passed as we drove around. We got back to the ship in plenty of time. Overall it was a great tour and next time we are in Port Limon we will definitely use Jorge again.

Since OnPoint are the cheapest guys in town currently I thought I would make a thread to share my experience with them. They are currently charging $9.99 for the telemed visit. You need to use one of the home tests and it must be sealed at the time of the appointment. We used the ones our local library is handing out or maybe it was the ones the government sent in the mail. It was iHealth. So far we have purchased four tests for myself, my spouse, and our two children, have registered, did the testing, and received our results letter. It was easy to make the purchase, it was $13.99 per telemed visit at the time of purchase, but has since dropped to $9.99. They gave me $5 off for signing up for their email notifications. The sign up process was very easy. However, you are required to register for HealthTraxRX patient portal. I have never used a proctored test before, so perhaps this is typical, but they ask for your health insurance information (including a scan of your card) and a scan of your driver's license. I tried to chat with OnPoint to see if there would be any additional charge apart from the $13.99 that I already paid. After waiting about twenty minutes a message came on the chat that said to put in your email and they would get back to me later. I put in my email and got a canned response that they got my message and would get back to me in 24 hours but I never got a response. I purchased on Sunday for Wednesday (today) testing. There were appointments available in 15 minute increments for what appeared to be the entire day. The family signed up for 2, 2:15, and 2:30. I signed up for 6 since I had to work today. I tried a few other days just out of curiosity and there appeared to be tons of appointments available, which might be why they keep dropping the price. My wife went first at 2. The telemed visit is through zoom. My wife and I both work for the schools, and we used zoom almost constantly during virtual instruction in 2021 so the format was familiar to us. Even if you have never used zoom it should be fairly easy. They send a link when you first choose your time and again on the morning of the appointment. Click the link, turn on your camera, and wait to be let into the virtual room. You give the rep the confirmation number from when you signed up for HealthTraxRX. The rep asked why my wife wanted to be tested and she said because we were traveling by cruise. They asked for her passport number and the booking number. Not really sure why they need this much information to give us a covid test. We were not prepared so the wife had to scramble around and get her passport and pull up the royal confirmation email. The rep walks you through the testing process and asks to see the result. They then take a screenshot of the result, which for all of us was thankfully negative. My eldest son's appointment was next. He clicked the link and waited. The screen said the host will let you in shortly, but the rep never came. My other son's appointment time came and he logged in on another device. The rep came right on time and said he would monitor both boys' testing. Not sure what would happen if you were the only one testing, I guess you just wait. Same questions and same documentation as for the wife, which we were ready for this time. All three of their letter's came by email and text about twenty minutes later. My appointment at 6 was similar. The rep came right on time. Similar questions as the rest of the family, but the rap did not ask for a booking number, she just said ok I will mark down cruise travel. I did ask her if there would be additional charges and she said a 'lab fee' would be charged to my health insurance but I would not be charged anything additional out of pocket. I asked if I did not have insurance what would happen and she said the government would cover the charge. I asked about the lab fee and she said that she would take a screenshot of the results (the stick) and it would be sent to a lab tech who would 'certify' the results and generate the letter. So my assumption is that the lab tech looks at the stick to make sure there is only one red line and the proctor just walks you through the process and gathers the screenshot. The insurance covers the lab fee and the $9.99 covers the proctor fee. I got my letter about fifteen minutes later. I looked at my letter from OnPoint and a copy of the cvs letter from my April cruise for comparison. They look to have the same information so I am hopeful that we will not have any drama tomorrow. I tried to share a copy, with personal information blacked out, but the download failed repeatedly. I will update tomorrow after we are, hopefully, on the boat!