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Quantum class is not my first choice for cruises, but we did Ovation in August from Seattle and the ship was perfect for that itinerary. Still felt like a special cruise where the focus is on the ports, the excursions are there regardless of ship, but there's more to keep the kids occupied when you are not in port. The indoor pool also comes in handy when the weather is wet/cold.

Three cruises this year on Navigator and we did UDP for all of them. Regardless of the length of the cruise it was always about $30pp/day. With the Diamond+ vouchers I don't need a drink package so this ends up being the only onboard spending we do other than the casino. It's the "other" restaurants that make it worth it. We had lunch almost every day at Playmakers, and rotated through Chops, Jamie's, Izumi and Hooked for Dinner. Then we went on Ovation last month and after we bought the UDP I asked for a menu in the pub and they informed us that anything outside of Jamie's, Chops, Izumi and Wonderland was not included in UDP. They said on that class of ship UDP is not really UDP. Ended up going to Jamie's for a burger for lunch almost every day. They need to rename it Unlimited Specialties Package on those ships.

I sure hope not. I was already on the elevator and they got on not wearing masks.

I had a Firestick on Ovation last week, and the first day I looked to see if I could stream to the room TV. The TV had a metal contraption on it that made the ports inaccessible, and it even covered the HDMI cable which was plugged into the TV so I couldn't unplug it to plug in the Firestick. I have used Firesticks on other ships, but this was the first time I have seen something like this.

Rode on an elevator last week on Ovation with two guests who had their suitcases and were disembarking in Victoria (cruise ended in Seattle the next morning). Someone from guest services gave them their receipt for the closed-out folio as they got on the elevator. So it looks like they may still allow it for disembarking. Don't know the circumstances, but the the blog post was the first thing I thought of when they got on the elevator.

Loved the short rib last.night.

Been on Ovation this week as well. Enjoyed having temps 50 degrees below the broiler at home. We heard that the MDR was overwhelmed, so we switched to UDP which sounds like the right call. Chops and Wonderland were great, Jamie's was good and Izumi meh. Flowriding has been awesome. 3+ hours by myself day 1 and no more than 3 doing stand-up in any advanced sesions. Couple of sessions cancelled due to the temp, but no complaints here. Glad I brought my full suit. I'm not a Journey fan, but the DW liked DSB. Sorry I missed the non-Journey set. They seem too talented to waste it on Journey 😀. I preferred Switched On Band. Going to see them tonight as well. This cruise had the first decent pub singer (Craig Elliott) we've had in quite awhile.

How bad could it get? Both my wife and I tested positive in Copenhagen before our Voyager cruise last month. Instead of hopping in the car and driving home (or better yet, testing before we left), we were stuck in one of the most expensive cities in the world with Covid, nowhere to stay, and a plane ticket home in 12 days. Now THAT was stressful.

When my kids were still in school their fall break fell on Halloween almost every year, so this was our preferred cruise week. And yes, fall break is a thing now in a lot of schools where it wasn't when we were kids, but my kids started school in August where I always started after Labor Day. So that's why you may find yourself asking "why are there so many kids on-board?" in October. One year our cruise ended on Halloween, and they did not do any decoration or events for adults, but they did do a trick or treat for the kids in Adventure Ocean. They were putting up the Halloween decorations as we were sitting on the Promenade waiting to get off the ship. Although the kids always took their costumes, I never dressed up, but it was always fun to sit at the pub and watch the parade, mainly for the "how did they get THAT packed in a suitcase?" question. Gives a different flavor to the cruise, but not so much where you would feel excluded if you are not in a costume Also participation seems to get bigger and bigger every year. We saw it grow from a couple dozen adults in costumes to a mini Comic-con on Oasis class ships. Some Cruise Directors do a better job than others. We would go to the costume party in Studio B after the parade, and we would just sit in the seats and watch as sometimes they had the Cruise Director and staff doing the Thriller dance in costume.

We bought 3rd party insurance as well since I had a bad feeling about going to Europe this summer. Filed the claim last week and waiting to hear what they come back with. Because we got a refund from Royal, I'm dreading the insurance company trying to offset our quarantine costs against that. Sitting in a hotel room in Malmo Sweden for 5 days (couldn't find a room for that long in Copenhagen last minute) is definitely not the same as being on a cruise ship.

Haven't looked at the RCI website but I think the Cruise with Confidence program, where you could cancel for any reason, is what is no longer valid. If you test positive I would assume they would still give you your refund since this is their rule and they are denying boarding.

I got all the way from the US to Copenhagen for our Voyager cruise and tested positive. The only way I'm cruising until we are past all of this is if I can take the test to get me on the ship before I leave my house (within 48 hours). It's one thing to test positive before you leave, but a whole different story to get to the port (in a foreign country, no less) and then test positive. As for the refund, we got most of it back within a week. They messed up and kept our deposit in the first refund, but that is now supposed to show up after 30 days.

Full refund. Originally they tried to keep our deposit, but the wife got that cleared up. We had to go across the bridge to Malmo Sweden to quarantine since we couldn't find a hotel room in Copenhagen last minute. Our sons went on the cruise without us since they had Covid while at college weeks before and tested negative, so after our quarantine (and testing negative) we flew to Santorini for 5 days and then flew back to meet them in Stockholm for the original flights back. Booked insurance for the trip since I had a feeling something like this would happen, so we should get reimbursed for the quarantine part of the trip. Our policy also said it would cover changes to the flights, but we decided to salvage a vacation out of the nightmare so didn't need to go down that path. This is the only time I have ever done insurance on a trip in my life, but with this new super-contagious variant and the requirement to test negative to board, it was well worth it.

The short answer is you are on your own. Last month we did a week in Europe prior to our Baltic cruise out of Copenhagen. We tested prior to boarding and both my wife and I were positive. We called Royal to let them know, and they immediately cancelled our cruise, and that was basically it as far as any support from them. We did get our refund within a week, so I think their goal was to cut ties as quickly as possible. If you are expecting support from Royal if you get Covid, the key is to get on the boat before you test positive.

I worked the business days of a B2B on Navigator recently. I bought a portable monitor on Amazon so I had a two screen setup similar to my home office. I worked Eastern time zone hours, so being on Pacific time by mid-afternoon I could be done for the day and go right into cruise mode for the afternoon/evening. I did speed tests a lot and the speed was abysmal, even on Stream, but I was amazed at how well Zoom worked with that little bandwidth, as I could do audio/video/camera almost all of the time. For uploading, downloading and streaming anything else the performance was pretty spotty, so I'm really hoping Starlink is going to improve things. I thought early mornings would be faster since lots of guests are still sleeping, but I think that is a time when the crew sucks up the bandwidth. I worked in the library most mornings so my wife could sleep, but there's no way you can expect it to be quiet at all times. Most of the time it will be quiet in the morning and there may even be a few others working, but you will inevitably get some wanderers, and by late morning you'll get the card/game players. As soon as my wife woke up I would go to the stateroom for the rest of my working time. As twangster mentioned, the announcements are an issue but usually are not very long, but the crew drills on port days were the worst of all since they go on forever. Most of the time I got away with using the mute button, but it was definitely stressful. One day I had to do an early presentation on Zoom so I asked if I could use the Conference Center since it wasn't being used. They let me use it for 2 hours, but it wasn't any better since you still get all the announcements, and there is a door to the crew area in the conference center so there was constant crew traffic.

Spent last week in Santorini. We tested positive for Covid in Copenhagen for our planned Voyager Baltic cruise, so we quarantined in a hotel and then headed off to Santorini to make lemonade from the lemons. Interesting perspective being on the other side of the equation and cursing all of the cruise ship invaders rather than being one of them 😛. We stayed in Oia and I walked the Oia path up and down one day which is much shorter than the Fira path, and I don't recommend the up direction to anyone who is not in decent shape. The donkeys are an option, but be prepared to smell like a donkey for the day. It's already pretty hot and humid so I wouldn't want to add donkey smell on top of that. I can't imagine going up and down that path all day every day so I understand why the donkeys are so grumpy. Walking down isn't bad, but the path is not lit so I wouldn't do it after dark. Just watch your step for dung as it is everywhere. The bus is a great way to get around, but you need to be prepared for chaos. We used the busses as our daily excursions to different parts of the island so we were pros by the end of the week, but the first time was a bit confusing. The bus stop in Fira is the hub so you can get a bus to pretty much everywhere on the island, so there will be a bunch of busses in the lot and not very well marked. The busses are tour busses, not your usual mass transit busses. Some will have a sign showing their route in the front window, but not all of them. Add to that dozens of clueless tourists and you have craziness. The good news is everyone else will be just as clueless, so just ask other people if they know which bus they are getting on, or ask at the office or one of the workers in the lot. The Oia busses are the busiest, especially later in the day as the most popular activity for people staying on the island is to go to Oia for sunset. You will want to try to find which bus is going to Oia before they announce in the waiting area, or you will probably end up standing as the queue at the bus grows quickly once they make the announcement. The cost is 1.80 euro each way, so it is the best deal in Santorini. Busses to Oia generally leave Fira at :00 and :30, and to Fira they generally leave Oia at :20 and :50. Plan to get to the station 10 minutes before that to get your bearings. You buy tickets as you get on the bus, so don't worry about buying anything beforehand. It's cash only. They do make change, just try to have smaller bills. If there is still a water taxi option to go from Fira port to Oia and take the bus back, I would recommend that if the timing works. A local told me last week that they don't do the water taxi anymore, but from previous posts it sounds like it may still be an option. That was what we did when we cruised to Santorini. This picture from last week shows Ammoudi (actual name of the Oia port) at the bottom. The road goes from the dock around the back and right into town. Odyssey last week viewed from Oia.

Bidding on multiple categories may not be the best strategy. Sailed Navigator in March and did a min bid on JS, and $20 over min for GS, thinking the GS bid would get more consideration, and the JS was just a backup. My JS bid was accepted, and another poster on the Roll Call who did not submit a JS bid had his minimum GS bid accepted. When I checked before I bid there were a bunch of JS available and just a few GS. So from an incremental revenue perspective it was better to put me in the JS and him in the GS at min bid, rather than giving me the GS at a higher bid and not getting anything from him.