Royal Caribbean is committing $1 million to Dorian disaster relief

[Pratique]

11 minutes ago, ReneeFLL said:

Thanks for the info. I know it's legal, but just another way RC tries to get out of paying taxes to the US where a lot of their customers are from. By not paying these taxes it's just another way that RC takes from us. I'm just saying. 🤨

As I wrote earlier, write your congressman. They make the laws.

[AlanF65]

2 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Retired

 

No income

No mortgage 

No Schedule A

 

Priceless

 

I am close to retired; may take another 2 years; owning the business I can't just leave until we get staff for absentee ownership.

 

I will have SS income, 401K min withdrawals; long term notes with P&I,  and interest income accountant tells me to plan on 32% state and fed taxes.

 

Will probably pay off my mortgage when I retire, I was going to get a HELOC  (mortgage had 2 payments left) a few years ago for  list of things I want to do around my house before I retire  but did a cash out refinance so I wouldn't have to worry about being able to borrow if the economy went in the toilet. I have done about half the things I wanted to and cash out has grown to close to what I owe.

 

Probably won't have a schedule "A" when I retire.

 

Congrats on worry free cost of living!

Edited September 6, 2019 by AlanF65

[ReneeFLL]

2 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Just curious, does this $500K, or the Donations by us count towards the promised 1 million, or is this extra?

 

Does the 1 million include value of both cash, equipment, meals, supplies, and transportation from Freeport to Nassau?

 

Mariner is collecting cash onboard today

John, that's a very good question. I would be curious to find out, but of course we never will. RC would never admit to it if that's what they would do. 

 

As for the others that think I'm hostile that's what you get for ASSUMING and reading into something that isn't there. I'm very happy that RC and other cruise lines are helping out. It would be so great and helpful to the Bahamians if the cruise lines could leave 1 ship each there or rotate between them every month or so to keep a roof over their heads while they start to rebuild. They could house so many in such a small space. No I'm not expecting them to do this at all because that would be expecting to much. I'm just saying it would be nice but so would a lot of other things. I wonder if the military has a spare ship that could house some people. They could use tenders if the ship was to big to fit in their ports.

[Clarea]

18 minutes ago, AlanF65 said:

 ...  and interest income accountant tells me to plan on 32% state and fed taxes. ...

 

You need to move to a state with no income tax!

[ONECRUISER]

2 hours ago, JennyB1977 said:

 

"...Million dollars AND Matching every Dollar of Guests and Employee Donations"  Also answers some other Questions. As said before knew some this take time. Cant just Donate not knowing what is needed and where it's going, don't need bunch stuff extra stuff shipped there and in wrong order. Waste of Resources. Just glad everyone including Royal, other Lines and US is doing their part to help. In past some my Family lost everything in 2 Floods so can relate

Edited September 6, 2019 by ONECRUISER

[AlanF65]

2 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

You need to move to a state with no income tax!

I contemplate it; my nieces and nephews are in CA as are most all my relatives. I think about  northern Nevada but all the new homes I looked at were long and narrow (I want a single story) and most are setup for a separate apartment at the front if you want.

 

I have also thought about Flagstaff AZ.  Don't like Florida (humidity,worked there on a couple of projects and have visited)

Don't like flying much anymore. I am trying to figure out how to get to Australia on a  cruise ship both directions.

 

I have solar on my home and high efficiency A/C so the last month when were in the 90s and 100 well into the night I had a $50 power bill which came off of excess credit. If I trim my trees about 10' I will get about 40% more "free" power which is my plan when I retire.

 

I guess it all depends on how much exit money I get. I have a friend building in Costa Rica which is intriguing.

 

Going to my 50th HS reunion tomorrow night, will see a lot of people living out of state that I can ask about different states.

[AlanF65]

2 minutes ago, ONECRUISER said:

"...Million dollars AND Matching every Dollar of Guests and Employee Donations"  Also answers some other Questions. As said before knew some this take time. Cant just Donate not knowing what is needed and where it's going, don't need bunch stuff extra stuff shipped there and in wrong order. Waste of Resources. Just glad everyone including Royal, other Lines and US is doing their part to help. In past some my Family lost everything in 2 Floods so can relate

That would mean the .5M match is a cap on how much they will match per donation.

[Pratique]

Reconstruction will take a very, very long time. Housing people on a ship may be a (very) short term solution but long term they will likely need to relocate to another island.

[ReneeFLL]

42 minutes ago, mayleeman said:

@John&LaLa Someone else answered the question of whether the up-to-$500K match is in addition to the RC pledge of $1 million. It is.

 

As to how their donations are broken down, I think $1 million represents the total pledge of RC's stuff altogether--food, supplies, medical supplies, money, etc. But I see no way that all the things RC is doing could be a mere million. I suspect they are not accounting precisely with plans to cut off aid when the counter goes "Ding!" at 1 million. 

 

There are other things, like repatriating some Bahamians and evacuating others to medical facilities, that cannot be accurately counted.

 

Anyone griping that RC needs to suffer more needs a lot of valium. I hope any such people decide to donate a lot of money!

 

If everyone just reading the posts in the RC forum in CC would donate $100 (cost of one excursion to beach; less than the beverage package + grats for 2 people for 1 day).... 

I'm not sure what you call a lot, but so far we have donated $500.00. That doesn't include all the stuff we bought at Costco and will continue to do so. This will be an on going situation for many, many months to come. Probably even +years. 

 

Something else I have been "donating" is some boxes and pallets. Yes, I know it sounds weird, but they can really use them. People are dropping supplies off in shopping bags and it's hard to ship them that way. Supplies are put into boxes and then loaded onto pallets and plastic wrapped.  I say "donating"  because I'm going around and asking for them from Costco and Home Depot so far. If you have any spare pallets or know someone call your local fire department or some other staging area where they are collecting supplies and loading them onto boats or planes. Being in S. Florida we have a lot of small boat and plane companies that are taking the supplies directly over there. Don't forget boxes either. This will be an ongoing project so don't forget about it when the news dies down.

 

Ok, back to the original thread of how RC is donating.

[ReneeFLL]

Deleted duplicate.

Edited September 6, 2019 by ReneeFLL

[ReneeFLL]

Deleted duplicate.

Edited September 6, 2019 by ReneeFLL

[ReneeFLL]

Depleted duplicate.

Edited September 6, 2019 by ReneeFLL

[ReneeFLL]

 

Wow, not sure what happened.

Edited September 6, 2019 by ReneeFLL

[ONECRUISER]

20 minutes ago, AlanF65 said:

That would mean the .5M match is a cap on how much they will match per donation.

Read it again. Million "AND" Match other donations... 

[John&LaLa]

Mariner is charging donations to cabin

[ReneeFLL]

5 hours ago, tullers said:

Exactly how much is this "costing" you or any other passenger?  Unless you're unemployed and without any income you also "get it back" from your employer/investments/pension etc.

Ugh, people are always looking for something to ***** about.

Definitely not unemployed. When hubby retires we will have AA retirement, military retirement as a Navy Captain 06, social security and that doesn't even begin to include properties or investments. So definitely not broke.

[ReneeFLL]

3 hours ago, John&LaLa said:

 

Retired

 

No income

No mortgage 

No Schedule A

 

Priceless

Nice. 👍🥂   

[mayleeman]

51 minutes ago, ONECRUISER said:

Read it again. Million "AND" Match other donations... 

The RC donation solicitation specifically says they will match up to $500K of passengers' donations. Not "per" donation. 

[tullers]

5 hours ago, Pratique said:

According to their SEC filings (Form 10-K), parent company "Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., was incorporated on July 23, 1985 in the Republic of Liberia under the Business Corporation Act of Liberia."

 

As far as U.S. taxation: "We believe that most of our income and the income of our ship-owning subsidiaries is derived from or incidental to the international operation of a ship or ships and, therefore, is exempt from taxation under Section 883."

 

FWIW.

I stand corrected, thank you!

[ONECRUISER]

21 minutes ago, mayleeman said:

The RC donation solicitation specifically says they will match up to $500K of passengers' donations. Not "per" donation. 

I never said per... As it reads above:

"..."Royal Caribbean is committing $1 Million to Dorian disaster relief Million dollars AND Matching every Dollar of Guests and Employee Donations"  

[BNBR]

For what it's worth, the US President has asked cruise ship companies to do more.  To help with housing.  I don't find it unreasonable considering companies like Royal have nearly all of their US market vessels flagged in the Bahamas, have private Islands in the Bahamas, and rely heavily on The Bahamas for their businesses.  $1M is not even a drop in the bucket.  It's not enough and kind of ridiculous, actually.  I hope they do a LOT more.

 

Their "matching" is up to $500k,  by the way. It's not enough.  Not even close.

Edited September 7, 2019 by BNBR

[mayleeman]

1 hour ago, ONECRUISER said:

I never said per... As it reads above:

"..."Royal Caribbean is committing $1 Million to Dorian disaster relief Million dollars AND Matching every Dollar of Guests and Employee Donations"  

The "per" was in the comment you replied to. I should have clarified!

[Big_G]

Tough crowd.

[tullers]

1 hour ago, BNBR said:

For what it's worth, the US President has asked cruise ship companies to do more.  To help with housing.  I don't find it unreasonable considering companies like Royal have nearly all of their US market vessels flagged in the Bahamas, have private Islands in the Bahamas, and rely heavily on The Bahamas for their businesses.  $1M is not even a drop in the bucket.  It's not enough and kind of ridiculous, actually.  I hope they do a LOT more.

 

Their "matching" is up to $500k,  by the way. It's not enough.  Not even close.

There's always the option of doing nothing.  1) the damage has yet to be assessed, they have jumped in with immediate needs and more will come.  2) I would NEVER want my cruise ship used as emergency housing.  That was done with hurricane Katrina and the people virtually destroyed the ships' interiors.  3) Taking a ship out of service is a massive hit financially and would put large numbers of ship board personnel out of work.  4) If the president is so worried about the people of The Bahamas, he can open up all of his resorts to those that are in need of shelter. 5)  There are plenty of hotel rooms throughout The Bahamas that can house a large number of the people from Abaco and Grand Bahama.

The cruise lines most certainly do not "rely heavily on The Bahamas for their businesses."  The Bahamas happen to be convenient, not necessary.  Once Havana is fully accessible, the cruise lines will drop Nassau and Freeport.  They've been working on that for decades.  The Bahamas are far more reliant on the cruise lines.

[Ashland]

Just saw on the news RCI ship (may have been Symphony) preparing meals to serve in the Bahamas.