detilliondl

Here is a link to an article posted online at USAToday.com

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2022/01/06/royal-caribbean-moving-covid-positive-crew-vision-rhapsody-ships/9115818002/

I found the U-Tube video by searching U-tube with the title in bold below.

Here's a copy of the post I read earlier:

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There is a video that was uploaded to YouTube on 1/5/22 by Siegle Media

“Royal Caribbean Shuttles Covid Positive Crew to Quarantine Ship in the middle of the night”.

They have viewed this first hand as of yesterday evening and their blog was recorded at midnight and they are docked at St Martin.

They are on the Allure of the seas and are docked across from the Symphony.

So if the Symphony has nothing to hide why are they doing this in the middle of the night?

These bloggers have counted well over 100 crew members get off. They have seen multiple bus loads of crew get off the Symphony.

They will update as the film more.

Not sure what the 1/8/2022 Symphony cruise will be like.

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If you look at page 21 of "Symphony - Terrible, No Shows - Covid?" there is a person on board giving live updates.  If fact if you search on U-Tube (info is on page 21) you will see a video of what is going on with the crew outbreak this week.  Have to warn you, not good news.

We are on the apex now. First day of cruise it was announced that there were 1,644 passengers on board. Said they will not go above 60%. Said the 1,644 was just above 50 percent for the Apex 

Head waiter said they break even at 30%. It is noticeably nicer with fewer people. We love it!

Got to head to the sun deck now. No problem getting chairs and no wait lines for anything. Catch you later. 

Just boarded the Apex at 12:30 pm. Completed all checkin thru the app. Very easy. Ws onboard before 1 pm. No masks for passengers. Everything is wonderful…doesn’t seem crowded…only saw 2 kiddos so far. 
 

A spa staff member said they were expecting 1900 plus this sailing (about 2/3 capacity) but would probably be less than expected due to flight cancellations and delays. We are staying in Ft Lauderdale late for those who do make it this evening. Not sure what time we are sailing but the information displayed on the route board indicated a 9 pm departure for Ft Lauderdale. 
 

I don’t have wifi onboard with the exception of 1 day. I will update when we decide what day that will be. 
 

lunch was wonderful with no crowds. No need for show reservations. We usually cruise with Royal Caribbean (40 plus cruises) but I have to say this ship is amazing and really looking forward to this cruise. No issues so far. 

Also if a prime member cancels or does a "no show" at the port, the other friend traveling will not be able to keep the cabin.  The prime member must travel and stay in the cabin.  We recently had to cancel due to a family emergency and this was how it was handled. Hope this helps. 

To Sunshine3601:   We also booked 2 cabins using both our annual prime freebies...for Reservation #1 I put in my name and a friend.  For Reservation #2 we put DH name and another friend.  I was told that we should not offically switch cabins.  The casino can charge one up to the full price for the room not occupied by the prime recipent if we switched after boarding at quest services.  We did have cabins side by side and unofficially switched rooms.  We were able to get extra sea pass cards for both rooms that did not have charge capabilities...just room entry access.

I would not take a chance on paying for the room in full.  Just my humble opinion.

I too received the email with a free cruise offer.  There was a link to a form where you could list a 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice of sailings which I completed and sent to Celebrity.  The form says they will call you back within 72 hrs.  

I do have a question for those whom have taken offers before...when I completed the form, iI notices t had spaces for up to 4 people in the cabin.  Nowhere could I find if there is a charge for the 3rd & 4th person in cabin.  I know they pay the port fees and taxes but what additional costs is required?  I called the Blue Chip number and have been on hold for over an hour.  

Thanks.

Update:  On April 19th Royal stated they had sent our port fees and taxes for 2 cabins back to our credit card for the May 29th sailing (I cancelled this sailing on February 22nd).  They indicted it could take up to 5 days to be posted to our card.  On May 24th (Friday - 5 days later) I checked our card statement online and sure enough the charges were credited back.  Our March 14th cruise which was cancelled by Royal was processed as a FCC erroneously (as stated previously) and had to resent back to accounting for reprocessing.  Royal said we should see that credit posted to our credit card sometime around the end of April or the first week in May. 

So glad they are responding to our refund requests and hoping they survive this crisis.  Stay safe and hang in there...hopefully everyone will see their FCCs/Refunds soon.  

I received my refund on 4/24 (Friday) for a May 29th cruise we cancelled on February 22nd.  I was told it was processed to our credit card on 4/19.  She said to give it 5 days to post to our credit card and sure enough she was correct.  So glad to see Royal is finally returning our money.  

I called Royal today and told them I had not received our port fees and taxes back for two sailings (Symphony March 14 which Royal cancelled and Anthem May 29 which I cancelled; also 2 cabins for each sailing).  Since thirty days had passed I should have received the credit back to our credit cards.  She said the first sailing was reprocessed due to an error and would require an addition 30 business days (not calendar days) and the second sailing had been credited back to our credit card on April 10th.  I had already called our bank to see if there were any pending credits and they said no.  They also indicated they post all credits within 24 hrs. of receiving them.  I called Royal back and they tried to blame our bank.  Several times the representative said it would be up to my bank to find the credit.  So what now?  After 20 plus cruises, I am disappointed in Royal Caribbean to say the least.  I plan on waiting till next week and see if the credit shows up on our card.  If not, I will be calling them back.  

I too am waiting on a refund of ports fees & taxes on a comped cruise that was cancelled due to port closures.  Our cruise was March 14th on Symphony.  I was told at that time our refund would show up on our credit card in 7 to 10 days.  After 10 business days I called back and was told 30 days.  A week ago we received an email with a FCC that was completely wrong.  They had credit us $775 per passenger (which was a mistake as the cruise was comped) but no refund of port fees and taxes.  I called and it was corrected and was told we should see the refund for port fees and taxes in about 7 to 10 days.  In total, it has now been around 30 plus days and I plan to call Royal on Thursday again.  

We also cancelled a sailing for May 29th on the Anthem that was to sail from Southampton.  Cancelled over a month ago and have not received any refund as of yet.  I am very disappointed in Royal Caribbean.  We have had other travel arrangements that we had to cancel associated with the May 29th cruise and all hotels and airlines were refunded to our credit card within 7 days.  There is absolutely no excuse for Royal Caribbean keeping passengers money and stringing them along.  We were very loyal Royal passengers sailing more than 20 times but this experience is beyond reasonable.  Royal Caribbean needs to act responsibly and refund money in a timely manner.  I will post when I receive a refund but I'm not holding my breath.