ludde

All cruises in Northern Europe with Voyager have disappeared from Royal's website. Strangely the sailings with Wonder from Barcelona are also gone, so could just be some bug.

Edit: They're still there if I filter by ship name Voyager but not if I filter by departure port.

4 hours ago, cpicker4 said:

Hello! Sailing on the 21st from Rome and had a couple questions 🙂 

 

I know we can't use the app - how do we go about booking dining, shows, etc.? Since there will already be a lot of people on board from Barcelona, will there still be enough spots available for us to book...? I'm a little worried, especially as the numbers on the boat are going up. 

 

Also, are they still testing before excursions in Italy? I know we'll be tested before we get on the boat, but we visit La Spezia toward the end of the trip, so it will be more than 72 hours after the initial test.

 

We were originally planning on trying to do both Pompeii and Herculaneum in Naples because the timing seemed to work and my soon-to-be husband (getting married this Saturday!) is a big history buff, but I worry that with COVID protocols, it isn't going to be possible to do back-to-back excursions like that. Any thoughts?

 

From a logistics standpoint, do we need to do a second EU form for returning to Italy? Is that something I should do ahead of time? I'm a little lost in the paperwork between flying into Portugal, visiting Rome before the cruise, cruising through Italy/Spain, and flying back to the US via Portugal again...

 

Thanks for all of your help! 🙂

Some of the shows were already fully booked before I came on board in Barcelona, so I assumed they were booked by Rome passengers. As the Royal app doesn't work for passengers that boarded in Rome, I'm not sure how to book the shows then.

If you are vaccinated (as you need to be if you're an adult) they will not perform an additional test in Italy, but you need to fill in a form (that's how it worked with the EU covid certificate).

There's a piano player called Vasi on this cruise in Schooner Bar.

On 10/11/2021 at 8:19 PM, Preziosa said:

Ludde......Do They arrange excursions where  We Can talk a walk as a group from the ship or where you Can Take a trip with a wheelchair,

have a wonderful Cruise.

There were no wheelchair accessible excursions available online and you're not allowed to leave the ship in Italy without one, so I'm staying on the ship. However, guest services said they could somehow arrange a private tour but it was more than 2x as expensive as the regular one.

I'm on board the ship right now. Some staff told me there are around 2500 people on the ship right now. 1900 or so joined in Barcelona. It's a lot more crowded compared to September when they only had 1200 people on board.

If you have any questions feel free to ask.
 

If you're on the ship please come by and say hello, I'm using a blue Permobil M400 motorized wheelchair with a joystick.

5 hours ago, sugarny123 said:

Thank you for your concern!

 

We all got Pfizer vaccine. Booster would help for sure. Good luck to you guys!

Was your husband fully vaccinated with at least 2 doses?

1 minute ago, Biker19 said:

Self assist is usually about 30min-1hr after scheduled arrival.

What about Covid tests? I think they need to perform a Covid test before I'm allowed to leave. How much time does that take?

How early are you allowed to depart the ship now that additional Covid measures are in place? I need to catch a flight. The ship arrives in Barcelona at 5:00 AM.

1 hour ago, smokeybandit said:

No bartender cares who the drink is for (short of ordering shots for your 4 year old)

They do care about it if you buy with the drink package, so I didn't know if that also applied to the diamond drinks.

Are you allowed to order one of the 4 daily diamond drinks and give it to someone else?

Does RCCL clarify this on their web page somewhere?

24 minutes ago, firefly333 said:

My travel agent keeps saying solos cannot boom gtys. Try booking it as a solo and you should get a error. 

On the Harmony 10th of October cruise from Barcelona it's not possible to book a balcony solo gty, but it's possible on other dates. So perhaps they only allow a low number of solo gtys per sailing.

8 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

The posters' pricing in Euros indicates an out of the US booking which may not have that restriction.

I was able to book it.

The pricing for solo reservations doesn't make sense on the Harmony 24th of October cruise from Barcelona (on the Spanish website).

1 balcony guarantee room for 2 persons: €649 per person, €1298 in total.

2 balcony guarantee rooms for 1 person each : €549 per person, €1098 in total.

How can 2 rooms be cheaper than 1 room? Am I missing something?

Edited: wrong date

The birth country Yugoslavia is missing from the list for 'Country of birth' during online checkin.

That country has split up into a number of countries; one of them Kosovo, which too is missing.

So what do people that were born in Yugoslavia / Kosovo fill in?

This has been the way it has been for years. If it was not legal, I'm sure it would have been rectified long ago. Live with it. It's the way it is!

It's the way it is with every line!

Maybe no one raised their voice enough.

If you even thought you had a chance in court you wouldn't be posting here.

Of course I would. Taking this to court when I live in Sweden and the cruise line operates in the US is both costly and complicated. This does not mean I don't think I'm right.

NO where does that sentence say that people requiring an accessible cabin should be provided the GTY pricing option. THAT is where you are wrong and being illogical about it.

 

It simply says you have to be provided an accessible cabin at the same rate as a non accessible cabin. Which you are. Like I said, you are just unhappy that you could not get the cheapest rate possible. LOL

 

Thank you for the laugh, because no matter how many people have explained the EXACT same thing to you, you fail to acknowledge that the cruise lines have in fact complied.

I don't understand your interpretation at all...

It says : "passengers requiring an accessible cabin should be provided the same pricing options available to passengers who do not require an accessible cabin"

This means that if a normal passenger can get the pricing option GTY, then a disabled passenger should also get the pricing option GTY. Otherwise the cruise line is not giving disabled passengers the same pricing options.

GTY is a pricing option where the passenger agrees to accept ANY room provided to them by the cruise line in their booked class or above.

 

You have specifically stated that you are not willing to accept ANY room and as such do not qualify for the terms of that discount.

If their terms say one thing and the law says another. Which one do you think wins in court?

"passengers requiring an accessible cabin should be provided the same pricing options available to passengers who do not require an accessible cabin"

They are . . . you are just not happy that it is not the cheapest price possible. Again, illogical. LOL

What do you mean? GTY is a pricing option. This sentence says that passengers requiring an accessible cabin should also be provided the GTY pricing option.

You keep saying any person can buy the room cheaper than you can and that is not true. Guarantee rates aren't for solo cruisers and very rarely are for cruisers with more than two in the cabin.

 

You claim you booked in May, why book if you can't get the rate you want? If I don't see a rate I like, I will skip that sailing and book another. You booked, accepting the fare that was on your invoice and paid final payment, if you didn't agree with the fare, you shouldn't make the booking.

Eh?

If I want to buy the room as a solo cruiser I also have to pay a higher price just like you. I don't understand that comparison.

You keep saying any person can buy the room cheaper than you can and that is not true. Guarantee rates aren't for solo cruisers and very rarely are for cruisers with more than two in the cabin.

 

You claim you booked in May, why book if you can't get the rate you want? If I don't see a rate I like, I will skip that sailing and book another. You booked, accepting the fare that was on your invoice and paid final payment, if you didn't agree with the fare, you shouldn't make the booking.

I booked it because I wanted to go on the cruise. That does not mean I think their pricing is fair.

Again, the DoT rules say:

"passengers requiring an accessible cabin should be provided the same pricing options available to passengers who do not require an accessible cabin"

To me it's clear that a passenger that requires a wheelchair room should be provided the same pricing option (i.e. GTY) - and it's also obvious that this means that they should give out a room that can actually fit a wheelchair.

Most people in this thread seems to agree that them giving the passenger a non-accessible room counts as "them providing a room" even though the room is obviously not going to work for the passenger. It's the year 2018 and it's sad to hear how many people that still have so much ignorance and incompetence in this matter.

You realize that what you are saying is totally illogical don't you? You complain that you can not book the GTY rate and get an accessible cabin and blame it on the cruise line??? That would require the cruise line to make ALL cabins accessible which would place an undue hardship on the cruise line. I am sure in all your wonderful quoting of the Disability Laws the word "Reasonable" came up, did it not?

 

Personally I think you are lucky to get accessible cabins with only 6 months booking.

I never said they should make all rooms accessible. Of course that's unreasonable. I said that they decided not to make all rooms accessible, and to compensate for that, they need to modify the pricing of the accessible rooms to match that of the non-accessible categories (such as the GTY category).

By the way here's an interesting article on a similar matter. Not exactly the same because it's not about cruises, but the thinking is similar.

https://wheelchairtravel.org/disability-tax-ada-accessible-hotel-rooms/

"Charging more for an accessible hotel room is illegal."

"If you are asked to pay more for an accessible hotel room than its non-accessible equivalent, I encourage you to file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice."

"By setting a higher price for a room solely on the basis that it is wheelchair accessible, the hotels referenced here have committed both price and disability discrimination in violation of 28 C.F.R. § 36.301©"

SO, this all boils down to you wanting a GTY rate for a cruise that is on the Going, Going, Gone sale? Those rates are for new bookings only, they wouldn't allow any other booking to get the rate, why would an accessible cabin get the lower rate and refund after final payment?

No, this is not about Going Going Sale. This is a regular booking. Any person can buy the room cheaper than I can at the GTY rate, because they decided not to make all rooms wheelchair accessible. A reasonable compromise is that they sell the wheelchair accessible rooms at the same price they offer regular people.