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Posts
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About Me
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Location
Tucson, AZ
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Interests
Computers, Table Tennis, Pickleball, Music, Chess, Games
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Favorite Cruise Line(s)
RCCL, Celebrity
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Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
Everwhere
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eel's Achievements
3,000+ Club (3/15)
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Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
I wonder if they might replace a few cruises with revenue cruises around Africa to Dubai like the Serenade is doing this year? -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
If your cruise left on a Sunday (as most do from Galveston) where did you drop off the car? All the car rental companies in Galveston seem to be closed on Sundays. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
21 nights?! Our April 2024 TP cruise on Ovation is only 18 nights. Must be the addition of Picton and Wellington to the itinerary. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
Great memories for sure. Hopefully our paths will cross on a cruise again before too long! I think the extra 10 days they talk about is not how long it takes to go around Africa. It is the additional time that going around Africa adds to a trip to Northern Europe or North America. Even with no port stops it takes about 25 days at 23 knots to go from Dubai to Athens around Africa. It only takes about 8 days to go from Dubai to Athens via the Suez with no port stops at the same speed. There are a couple of websites that will calculate port to port times based on ship speed. In any case it will be interesting to see what happens. Hopefully they don’t have to change anything but that is looking less likely as each day passes. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
I am also engaging in speculation here. The UWC gets to Singapore on April 24. If they decide to skip all of the Middle East and most of the Eastern Med, they could start a new itinerary from Singapore and resume the original itinerary in Italy (probably Venice) on June 19th. That would give them 56 days to get from Singapore to Venice going around Africa. I saw scheduled cruises by other companies that go from Singapore to Cape Town that last 32 days including many port stops. A cruise from Cape Town to Lisbon is about 24 days also with many stops. By cutting a few ports and not stopping in Lisbon, they could probably make it to Venice in 56 days. The biggest difficulty would be Royal's total lack of any relationships at the new ports. Just arranging shore excursions would be a major undertaking for Royal not to mention resupply and fueling. Not sure if Royal can pull it off or not. This would be an amazing alternate itinerary though. People on segments would need to pick up the ship at different ports such as Cape Town. The plus is that although it is a major disruption, it does not cause an interruption of the UWC. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
We are booked on both Anthem cruises. They should be moved into my TA's groups in January. My TA (same as MuyBueno's) seems confident there will be group pricing for both legs. Even if they are pulled back for one leg, we are booked at the prevailing refundable price in a cabin we want which should be OK. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
In this case, the refundable deposit fares through my TA are a few hundred dollars less per cabin than the nonrefundable deposit fares available from Royal for the same balcony category. If you booked refundable deposit fares directly through Royal, you can always transfer your bookings into a TA's group as long as they still have group space in the category you booked. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
We will book the Anthem B2B as soon as my TA gets their group pricing straightened out! -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
For those who are interested in Celebrity deployments, there is a CC thread here: Not nearly as good as this thread! 😁 -
eel started following New deployment schedule 2025-2026
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Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
Ok, thanks for the information. Perhaps it is only my TAs policy? -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
1) the booking must be refundable to move it into a group. 2) if outside the 30 day window you can cancel and rebook in the group. -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
Interesting because Voyager's already released schedule has it in Rome until Nov. 3rd, 2025. Could it be repositioning to Australia via the Suez Canal? -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
When will the EB Panama Canal cruises be released for Fall 2025? -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
We are also booked on the 4/8/25 Millennium cruise but would jump ship in an instant if a suitable sequence of Anthem cruises came out that get us back to North America! Fingers crossed! 🤞 -
Deployment 2025-26 booking season begins
eel replied to SummmerInKefalonia's topic in Royal Caribbean International
On the President’s Cruise in the Q&A session, Michael Bayley was asked if they ever might have some sort of private island where cruises from Galveston could stop. In response, he gave a knowing smile and said “Very Interesting, what a great idea!” Of course that means something is in the works. Later in the cruise we had Royal Day which was a port takeover party in Costa Maya. The scuttlebut is that Royal is working some sort of deal with Costa Maya to create a Labadee like facility. Watch this space. This could certainly make Galveston sailings more popular, especially for families and would help justify keeping larger ships sailing from there.