Baron Barracuda

A number of years ago came down flu on Christmas day. Good news was medical gave me Tamiflu, some nebulizer sessions and other treatments which had me fully recovered in three days. Bad news was $1100 charge to my sea pass account. That was the last time we sailed without travel insurance. A few years later dw took one into Solarium on Explorer and went down hard on wet floor breaking her foot. Everyone was very concerned and medical took good care of her. A number of security folks stopped by asking to see the bottom of her sneakers which had good tread. Didn't receive a bill. When we returned home we wrote to Royal about covering her follow-up Orthopedist bills. Received a check in the mail for our out of pocket costs plus a credit for a free cruise.

Only sports betting I recall seeing on Royal was horse racing many years ago on pool deck.

Have to believe FCC's have had a sizable impact on price. When sailing resumed they provided a solid base of bookings which allowed X to jack up price on remaining cabins. Now that most FCC's have been used or expired would expect pricing to stabilize and potentially moderate.

Excuse me, but LLP has done nothing but cut for quite a few years, even before covid. Most recently she's the one who implemented the charge for room service and gutted the Ocean View dinner service. A few years ago she tried to switch the Mast Grill to extra charge. Now we have the degradation in the MDR. She significantly reduced staff, most noticeably in housekeeping where stewards went from working in teams to solo. She took production of the main theater shows in house. Most are now very similar and hard to watch. She implemented the suite program which is wonderful for the 12% of passengers who sail in suites but the rest of us must contend with less common space and are shoehorned into a smaller MDR. All in all it's been death by 1,000 cuts. I began sailing with X in '93 but now am more drawn to Viking. It's a little pricier but they have held the line on service quality.

It's hard to draw meaningful conclusions on price trends just by referring back to historical bookings on non-identical itineraries. Consider that some itineraries are inherently more expensive and seasonality affects pricing. Even for a single sailing refundable deposits are pricier than nrd and fares can gyrate wildly in the months leading up to departure. For example the inaugural Mardi Gras cruise on Equinox in 2017 was a hot ticket. We booked cc class when the itinerary was announced for $200pppd and then watched the price more than double over the next year before falling off a cliff after final payment date. There is also the very small chance that the X sale you took advantage of was truly a sale.

The last two times we paid Viking Air deviation fee (not including the one I discussed above) the air rep got us the seats we wanted at time of booking. This was many months before tickets were actually paid for.

As someone else suggested call "Insure my trip". They're travel insurance pros who work with dozens of insurers. They would know if anyone has a product that can help you out.

Not looking for an argument but take a look at post 4 and you'll see I clearly mentioned November 10 of this year and business class.

Apparently not for 11/9 - 12/12 per 3 Viking reps. Or maybe just not for Business Class. Anyway discovered Viking was not significantly cheaper than booking on my own. Viking was charging me $1700pp while last week I could have directly booked UAL Premium Economy going and Business returning for $1865. Lots of seats available so waiting to see if I can do better.

Booked the Hawaii and South Pacific 11/10/23 sailing a couple of weeks ago which included free air. Paid for air+ and upgraded to business class. Figured NY - LA, flights leave pretty much hourly so getting a convenient mid day nonstop should be a breeze. Well, Viking put us on a 6;30AM flight with a 3 hour layover in Minneapolis. Web site gave no other options to switch to. Spent an hour on the phone with air+ but they said they had nothing else, maybe check back in a month or two. Called my VO sales rep who has years of air experience. She put us on hold a dozen times while she spoke with air. Finally came back and said Viking has no contracts with United, American or Jet Blue for NY-LA nonstops so they can't accommodate us at all. She apologized and refunded our air money including the $100 air+ charge. Now sitting here with my fingers crossed checking airline prices daily.

Future pricing will be influenced by supply and demand. Over the next few years there are 28 larger new builds (2500+ passengers) scheduled for delivery plus another dozen smaller ones from premium outfits like Oceania, Virgin, Viking and Explora. That's a lot of capacity needing to be absorbed. Pre-covid there were rumblings about how overcrowded Caribbean market was becoming especially in the winter. Additional capacity coming on line may well lead to weaker pricing.

Take a look at the cash flow statement and you'll see most of that positive operating cash flow came from a huge rise in customer deposits from $4B to over $5B. With all ships back in service expect deposit balances to plateau. And occupancy for the quarter was 102%, not far below the good old days.

We're in our 60's and began sailing with X 30 years ago but now prefer Viking. VO's prices are higher than an X balcony, somewhere around that of a JS. There are lots of inclusions like free beer & wine with meals (bev pkg is $25 per day), FREE SELF SERVE LAUNDRY including soap, free shore excursions, free wifi, free specialty restaurants and IMO food quality on par with where X was 10 years ago. Love having sushi and crab legs at the buffet nightly. No kids under 16 allowed. One downside is entertainment where the theater is small featuring a small ensemble group of singers. There is also no casino.

Just booked Viking Ocean 32 night LA-Hawaii-Bora Bora-Moorea-Tahiti-Marquesas Isles-SD-LA. Originally looked at Jan '24 sailing but Memorial Day sale prompted us to switch to 11/10/23. Promo code is MDS23 and includes price break + stateroom upgrade + free air + bev pkg.

Just booked Nov. 10th sailing of Grand Hawaii and Polynesia using the Memorial Day sale. Would have preferred the Jan '24 sailing but sale made Nov. $3k pp cheaper plus received free air & SSBP. Only disappointment is despite being listed as a benefit we weren't permitted a 1 category bump. Didn't expect they would give me a PS3 for price of a PV1 but wouldn't even give me a PV2 for price of PV3. Rep said promo only included category upgrades within DV's. Anyone run into this before?

RCG has not stated that the new Paradise Island beach club will be exclusively for RCI passengers.

If they are opening doors at 4:30 then those window tables should begin to turn over around 6pm. So if you really want one just go for cocktails and stop back at 6:15.

My ta's web site has 8 pages of SF departures. Most are longer sailings across a variety of brands but Carnival Miracle shows a number of shorter itineraries. We did a 23 night Panama Canal sailing on X's Infinity from SF a few years back. Remember boarding was a breeze.

The largest X ships are just under 3k passengers. Aside from a couple of stops by little Serenade sailing from Tampa every Royal ship visiting Coco Cay carries 4k - 5k+. Makes sense to allocate limited dock space to larger vessels.

Princess Cays isn't exclusively Princess. Several Carnival ships call there as well.

If you think X is being neglected now how about the six year period from Reflection (2012) to Edge (2018) where X received no new ships while Royal and TUI received four each. Regarding private islands, remember X only has one lonely ship in the Caribbean this summer (Equinox) while Royal has 12. Next summer Royal will have 14 vs just Reflection for X. Still, have been to Labadee on X in the past and haven't seen anything saying the new Nassau beach club will be Royal only.

Read the actual earnings release and you'll see that "profit" is on an adjusted basis where they exclude pesky things like interest expense. The full year profit they are projecting for '23 is also only on an "adjusted" basis.

Yet despite running at full occupancy they are still losing money

Be interesting to see how they handle Royal vs X when the Paradise Island beach club opens.

When Q class debuted there was a lot of discussion on these boards about obstructed cabins. Some are only minimally obstructed while the view from others is significantly compromised. A couple of folks created and posted deck plans showing the level of obstruction for each cabin on deck 6. Not sure if these still work for newer Q class ships but worth a search. Otherwise as others recommend pictures of many cabins are available through google.