prmssk

Reconsider cruising because she might need a scooter? Do you know how many people successfully use scooters on cruises and have a great vacation? There are even companies that specialize in renting scooters for use on cruise ships.

So which room did you get? Did you lose your original room in addition to not getting any you bid on?

No, a balcony is never a "must" in my opinion. Sometimes we book rooms with balconies. Sometimes we book interior rooms. It all depends what is in the budget and what we are looking to get out of the cruise. One thing I have noticed though is that when we don't have a balcony, we really get to know the ship a lot better and spend a lot more time people watching. I'm also more likely to go find the sunrise instead of sleeping in on days I expect it not to be on our side of the ship. So there can be really good things about booking an interior.

It almost seems to be a hybrid of my first week in the Caribbean (old pricing) and my second week on the Caribbean Princess (after the price change). Maybe they walked back some of their price increases?

People did push back on the post earlier this week on Facebook where he claims this is a Bahamas requirement and he stuck to his story. John’s Facebook page today says that he is now taking a week vacation and will not be answering any questions over the next week. Of course he deserves vacations like any of us, but the timing is a bit interesting.

Thanks for sharing! Glad you had a good time! We will be on her in a few weeks. Do you recall what time the first walk-off group could get off on disembarkation day?

Did they say why? It’s less than 5 nights and appears to only go to Mexico (and California).

Carnival also has quite a few short cruises that go just to Mexico out of smaller ports like Mobile, New Orleans, and Tampa plus a couple out of Miami.

I wonder what they did show at booking. The only time I ever saw deck plans on NCL's website (before this week) was when I booked and saw the plan for the location of the room I was considering. Although I picked an oddly shaped room not exactly knowing how it would be configured (it just showed the normal floor plan for my category - I'm in a corner M2).

Could it be that cruisedeckplans is wrong on what decks the slides go through? NCL does show slides going through decks 11 and deck 14 (and they land on 8 I believe). I would imagine they don't actually wrap through the balconies on every single floor.

That is true but it didn't matter how long ago your booster was so I'm not sure how relevant that is. My booster was in December and I still tested 3 days ahead for a Princess cruise more than six months later in June (and got COVID during that cruise). My husband's booster was about 8 months old.

If you booked on your own, there should be an option when you log in on the website and manage your reservation. If you booked through a TA, your TA may have to be the one to do it. But it is very easy to fix on the first day, if it isn't right (and they do seem to default to together).

The exact date likely had more to do with when they had sailings starting. And Royal came out with the announcement of their date first. A date that happens to match MSC which is making the same change as Royal. It was Carnival that picked an earlier date.

A 3 day test has been common on the Carnival Corp brands for quite some time now. I'm not sure 2 days vs 3 days makes one bit of difference. The test is still usually taken before people get on planes, eat in restaurants, drink at bars, stay in hotels, etc. all in the embarkation port city. And honestly, anyone who tests positive on a 3 day test might not be contagious anymore by the time they would have embarked.

Royal just released their detailed protocols in the 60 minutes. They have had time to see Carnival revise their policy and the confusion it has caused. I doubt they would want to repeat that themselves.

If that weren't the case they wouldn't let vaccinated passengers not test on other five night itineraries. In Mobile, New Orleans, and other ports with short cruises to Mexico they will have to check test results for the unvaccinated but not for the vaccinated. They would have just kept testing across the board. I can't find anything that Carnival has drastically reduced their unvaccinated guest percentages. Virgin Voyages says they are at 90% vaccinated. Royal/Celebrity are talking about 80% vaccinated although I'm not sure they have implemented that yet. Carnival's website just says they are still doing vaccinated cruises and I can't find a percentage. But maybe they are dropping that percentage faster than the others.

Yes, MSC, Royal, Celebrity, and Carnival all are making changes to their testing policy for certain cruises that are 5 nights or less. Margaritaville At Sea only has 2 night cruises. Virgin Voyages eliminated testing for vaccinated passengers for all sailings but the majority of their sailings are 5 nights or less.

The change in the first post of this thread does not apply to itineraries that include Canada.

Royal just posted their updated protocols and their short cruises to the Bahamas do not require testing for vaccinated passengers. The only countries excepted from the new no testing policy are Bermuda and Canada. I wonder what makes Carnival different.

Royal has not published their policies which don't start until August 8 so we really don't know if they will have the same Bahamas requirement. So that just leaves Virgin Voyages (1 ship) and Margaritaville at Sea (1 ship). It is possible there is something different about those two ships we don't know. Carnival has absolutely nothing to gain by requiring testing for Bahamas short cruises but not other short cruises and a lot to lose in customer confidence and confusion. So I really think there is something we don't know. I keep watching Royal's page to see what their protocols for short cruises will actually be, hoping it will give us some clues.

Even when you consider the pool area down on the Ocean Boulevard? That combined with the upper decks seemed like quite a bit of outdoor space but it’s hard to truly know just from deck plans.

If this is the same bird watching tour I took last November on a Celebrity cruise that stopped in Belize, you aren’t missing anything. It was basically walking around the city peering into people’s backyards over barbed wire fences looking for birds. We saw a couple neat ones but so many of my photos are of birds perched on barbed wire. It was the strangest tour I ever took and not something I would want to repeat. But I do agree that an age limit for that tour doesn’t make any sense.

This has been a helpful thread. We booked a deck 7 promenade on the Adventure. Our reasoning was wanting cabins above and below us but still wanting a decent view of the promenade. I made sure we are not above or across from any bars/pub. Based on comments here, I think we picked okay.

Is it Tulum alone or combined with some other activity? Princess did not have an age limit when we took an excursion that was just Tulum in June. It involves a ferry ride, a fairly long bus ride, and then some walking on gravel that is mostly flat, nothing strenuous.

A promenade interior so an easy category to transfer over with still a lot of rooms available for booking.