nbsjcruiser

Ahhh, yes. The IBM approach. Get the app to a point where its barely usable, dump it in the laps of your employees and let them fend for themselves.

They're already getting their "tips" with the crew appreciation so there is no expectation that they will get additional tips. Having said that, I will tip extra in extraordinary circumstances when someone goes above and beyond, i.e. our room Stewart has really done a splendid job or if we get good service in one of the specialty restaurants. If the service meets expectations or is sub-par in those circumstances, I just figure they already got their tip and wont add extra.

Yes, just noticed that. Yum!

Been almost 3 years since we cruised RCI and our upcoming cruise is only a few weeks away. This morning I see I can check in and its suggested I use the app to check in. While we are Diamond and do have a fair amount of cruising experience on Royal Caribbean, we've been doing mainly Princess cruises lately and their Medallion app is integrated well with the medallion that you use on board instead of a card and it does speed up the check in process but for RCI I'm not so sure. Is there any benefit to using the app on RCI or will checking in online accomplish the same thing?

We're in the "Green Lane" on the app so we're good to go with our check in status. Our cruise departs Nov 26 (61 days) so I'm curious when we'll be able to select our arrival group. What's everyone's experience with this?

Officially gone as of Sept 30 https://www.thestar.com/politics/2022/09/22/cp-newsalert-pm-trudeau-backs-lifting-some-covid-19-travel-rules.html

Thanks for the responses folks.

We've been cruising mainly Princess for a few years (pre-covid) but in November we'll be on our first RCI ship in almost 3 years. The last time we cruised RCI we were able to take advantage of our Diamond status and had a few drinks in the lounge and used our drink coupons for outside the lounge. Have they changed this to where you can only use your coupons in the Diamond Lounge? I'm a bit confused on how this works now. tks in advance

Yep, and this is why we longer use a TA. We've missed out on more than one drop in price on a cruise because a TA couldn't or wouldn't return a call in time

Gawd, that must have been awful.

We were on a cruise on the Adventure of the Seas and disembarked in FLL in late February - 23rd or 24th I think. Anyway, when we got to our hotel our son came down with something. We figured it was a really bad cold or even pneumonia. I remember trying to convince him to go to hospital in FLL but he just wanted to go home. He said at the time he felt like someone was sitting on his chest making it hard to breathe. Our daughter and her husband got married on the cruise and they were sick when they got home. It wasn't until we got home that we started putting 2 and 2 together as the world began shutting down. I'm convinced all 3 had Covid and with our son staying in our room all week and in the hotel with us, I'm also convinced we were asymptomatic - we had to be being that close. I found out later here on CC that the next cruise on the same ship had loads of sick people on it. And yes, as the world began shutting down there was a feeling of finality. We thought at the time we may never travel for many years. Luckily we pressed ahead and traveled in late 2021 and even hopped on a cruise ship. You can only live in a cocoon for so long.

Exactly. Cruise ships were an ideal target for the media to beat to death. We were on a cruise 2 weeks prior to the world shutting down and I remember a neighbor asking me if I was worried. What? Me worry? Nope. Had I known what was coming I would have had a different point of view but at that time nobody knew what was going on. It took the US months to get their crap together, why would we think a cruise ship could do it in the early stages of this thing?

Never again will I use a TA. I've had 3 cracks at different TAs and its always the same. You call, leave a message and maybe get a return call a week later. We've missed out on 2 price drops this way. No more of that.

I ran into similar issues. We've got 7 or 8 Princess cruises amongst our 30+ cruises so we're not rookies at this. A few weeks ago I got an email from a Princess cruise planner detailing all these great options and a booking bonus if I booked with her. My wife and I were looking at booking something for the fall of 2023 so I figured, what the hell, give her a call and see what these deals are. I called, left a vmail with my cell number. Nothing. Called back the next day and left another vmail. This time she returned my call to my home number but we weren't home. I called back and explicitly left my cell number again, instructing her to call my cell because I'm not always home. Next day, she calls our home number again. Not to be undeterred, I called back again and this time I got through. The price she gave me was exactly the same price and deal I could get from the website. When I asked about the casino discount, she had no idea what I was talking about but if I didn't book right away I'd lose the $100 deposit sale they had on. I declined, told her I'd keep looking. The very next day, while on the Princess site, what do I see? $50 deposit sale. My wife calls in to the 800 number, gets the first agent available and gets the casino discount. I wont be trying to use a planner again. I'll stick to the tried and true method of calling in on the 800 number and taking the first person who answers the phone.

There's a few small casinos on Front Street, right behind the beach at the port.

I emailed him from another account and got a reply. Gmail is rather funky lately I find.

Agree 100%. I have a good friend who basically hasn't left the house in 2 years. No travel, restaurants, meeting people outside his family, no gym etc. While I think he's nuts, he's decided this is the best thing to do at this point. I reached the "time to get on with life" point when despite all my precautions, I got Covid anyway. I wore an N95 everywhere, stopped going to the gym, didn't eat out - all the stuff I was supposed to do. When I got it anyway I decided, it was time to move on and get back to normal. For me it was a really bad cold for about 3-4 days. Nothing I haven't dealt with a hundred times in my life.

Like many, I too was quite happy to see this. We have 2 cruises planned this fall and on both cruises we'll be travelling with one of our children. While we'll be Florida for the month anyway, I was a bit nervous for my kids who will be flying down to meet us for the cruises. It takes a big pile of uncertainty off my shoulders and in truth, its time. People are going to ball games, hockey games, movies, restaurants, hotels, all-inclusives and so on. There's little point in singling out the cruise industry at this point.

We always head to Miguel's hot beach spot for chair and umbrella rentals when in St. Maarten at Great Bay. Does anyone know if he's still there? I sent a note to his email address to reserve but no response. Its been almost 3 years since we've been there. Maybe his contact info has changed? Hopefully he's still there.

I suppose the at sea days will be the busiest too. I just don't want to waste an entire week on the Enclave when I wont be in there at least 5 of those days. Thanks for the response.

Don't want to spend the money for an entire week when I know I wont use it unless we're at sea. Is it possible to get a day pass?

Meh. We always book inside cabins. I suppose I might throw out a hail Mary bid but understand that I'll never get it. Guess I'm ok with this. We book early (already booked through to the Fall of 2023) so we can usually get a price we're quite happy with. If this program means they'll be able to keep prices down, I'm fine with it.

Canadian here. Many orgs and people in Canada are pushing the government to get rid of many of the rules they have in place that are now obviously useless or causing more grief. ArriveCan is one of the targets. As far as travel on a cruise ship is concerned, Covid is EVERYWHERE not just on a cruise ship that, fwiw, might be one of the cleanest places you could possibly be at this time. It was not so long ago that Canadians in major cities were sitting with 18,000+ of their fellow hockey fans watching NHL games, maskless. Our provinces have moved on but our Federal government has not. Insisting that someone have 2 vaccines that were administered over a year ago before entering Canada is now a laughable joke. It makes no sense whatsoever to warn about travelling with 2-3K people while doing a massive shoulder shrug as thousands of people gather, maskless, to watch hockey games, baseball games, NBA, Football, gather at concerts, go to the movies and so on. I don't want to get political, but the rules our leader at the Federal level still insists on, are purely based on political science and he's single handedly destroying the tourism industry in our country. US visitors to Canada are down near 50% from 2019 while people like me have decided its easier to drive to the US to fly to my port of embarkation rather than put my dollars into Canadian airlines. I live in a city that relies on cruise ship travel for millions in travel dollars every year and the Federal government has invested tens of millions of dollars in harbour infrastructure and improvements and the waterfront is going to be a beautiful place and something to be proud of in the coming years but if they continue to get in the way of tourism, it will all be for naught. In truth, I find it embarrassing that this country can't get it together at rhe Federal level.

Just booked a fall 2023 cruise on the Caribbean Princess. For our last few cruises we've added the drinks/tips and wifi to our cruise because the difference in price really was worth it. For this cruise the difference was $900 CAD or $450pp CAD. Once I did the math it was far cheaper for us to pay the cheapest price + tips + pay for our own drinks. Tips for the 7 days is $225. No way we'd drink anywhere near $675 for the week but our previous cruises the difference was close enough to what we'd normally drink that it was worth doing it, if only for the wifi. Has it gone up or is it just me?

Been to Amber Cove a few times and we're thinking about going on the Caribbean Princess in 2023 to there but instead of hanging around the pool area for the day we're considering a cab to Puerto Plata and spending the day there on our own. Anyone know what a cab ride would be for 4 down town from Amber Cove and how would a day in Puerto Plata sound like walking around on our own? Safe? Lots to see?