Gregoryfo

Thanks for the sage advice all!  I will give the C&A department a call to hopefully get it straightened out.  We got back from the cruise and I was swamped with work so I thought, mistakenly, that email would be the quicker fix.  Now I know better.  

Orville:  We have two kids in school and we both work for the schools so it is hard to be loyal to any one cruise line. When we find a good itinerary on a date that works we book it, regardless on the line.  This has ended up with us having mid level status on Carnival, Royal, NCL, and MSC.  Therefore, from what I understand we should be eligible for the double points promotion.  I am sure others though thought they were getting double and did not for the reason you pointed out.     

We have been cruising a time or two most years for the past 15 plus years.  We have been lucky that I have never needed to contact customer service after a cruise.  We booked a Royal cruise on 9/6/2021 for a sailing this past June.  The cruise was ok, or at least nothing worth complaining about.  However, when we returned we did not get the double points that was on the website when we booked.  A couple of things about our booking.  We did not change rooms, we did not do Royal up, we did not touch the reservations in any way, the reservation was completely paid off on 9/18/21.  A few weeks after we returned I emailed guest relations with the following thinking it would be a quick fix:

I recently returned on a Bermuda cruise.  The reservations # was XXXXXXXX.  When I booked it said I would receive double c&a points but only single points were rewarded, can you look into this for us?

I got an immediate canned response about future cruise credits, which I am sure it a large part of their email load right now.  After two weeks of hearing nothing else I did a follow up email.  A couple of weeks later sent an additional follow up email.  Couple of weeks go by and another additional follow up with the executive offices cced on the email (mbayley@rccl.com).

On August 11, almost two months after my cruise I got the following response:

"Hello Gregory,

Thank you for contacting Royal Caribbean International. We apologize for the extended delay in our response. We have been experiencing a higher than usual volume of correspondence which has resulted in increased turnaround time for replies.

We are pleased you chose to sail with us and participate in our Crown and Anchor Society loyalty program. We have reviewed your most recent sailing onboard Enchantment of the Seas, reservation number XXXXX, and determined that it does not qualify for double points, which applies to bookings made before September 30, 2021, or when you purchase a suite. We are very sorry for any disappointment this may cause.

As a reminder, you can earn one Cruise Point for every cruise night you sail with us, and double the points when you purchase a suite. For instance, if you complete a 7-night cruise, you'll earn 7 Cruise Points, and when you purchase a suite, you'll earn 14 Cruise Points. Further terms and conditions apply. Points are not recorded or applied until after you complete your sailing. For example, if you are graduating from Gold to Platinum tier level on your current sailing, you will not receive Platinum level benefits until your next sailing. For a complete list of the membership levels and benefits of the Crown and Anchor Society, please visit https://www.royalcaribbean.com/crown-anchor-society. If we can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out.

We appreciate you taking the time to follow up with us and look forward to having you onboard one of our ships again soon. In the meantime, please stay healthy and safe.

Best regards,

Sentia Dorsey
Royal Guest Experience Management  

I responded that the cruise was booked on September 6 2021 on the 11th and got the same canned response.  After two months of waiting it is apparent to me that Ms. Dorsey did not even bother to look at the booking.  To me, this is unacceptable.  Part of this post is obviously a rant, but honest question, has Royal customer service always been this poor and I have just been lucky to not have to deal with them?  Are the other lines equally as poor?

3 hours ago, mz-s said:

 

Do they even do 5-day cruises to Bermuda?

Absolutely out of both Baltimore and New York

14 hours ago, MisterOJ2 said:

 

For the most part, independent excursion operators know when your ship gets in and have reasonable expectations when it comes to leaving on the excursion. We've been right there on time with several of them, but the operators do their best to wait and not leave anyone. So, it's actually very rare to leave right when they say you will. 

 

My advice to people wanting to hurry off the ship to make a private excursion is to not dawdle, but also don't break your neck and worry yourself to death trying to be the first ones off. If you do try to be the very first ones off, chances are very high you'll just be waiting around with the tour operator while you wait for others to get off the ship.

This has been my experience as well.  It also depends somewhat on what percentage of the excursion you had to prepay in advance.  If you are paying in full on the island or only had to prepay a small deposit, trust me they will wait for the $$ to get there before leaving.

Just got back last month.  One of the large New York ships got there about an hour before us.  Plenty of room on the island for everyone.  HOWEVER, that hour head start got them ahead of us on the water slides in the park.  Lines were long for the first few hours and then calmed down.  My suggestion would be if your ship is second to head to the beach, pool, or wave pool for a couple of hours before going to the water slides in the park.  

We took a Carnival cruise to Costa Rica and the Panama Canal.  Based on reviews here instead of doing a Carnival excursion in Costa Rica we went with Jorge Ramirez.  It was everything we like in a tour; a guide that communicates well, is passionate and knowledgeable about his city, is safe and dependable, and charges a reasonable price.  There were several options but we went with the Tortuguero Canal along with sight seeings and a few stops for fruit and shopping.  For the canal tour we had the boat to ourselves.  We saw monkeys and sloths.  He also took us to a really cool banana plantation that a friend of his is starting and we walked around there for about thirty minutes.  We mentioned that we worked for the public schools in the US and he pointed out a few of the schools and colleges that we passed as we drove around.  We got back to the ship in plenty of time.  Overall it was a great tour and next time we are in Port Limon we will definitely use Jorge again. 

We sail and enjoy both lines.  I agree with several of the things OP mentioned about Royal.  My two main complaints with Royal is how uninformative the app/communication is.  There is either no communication or they spam you to death.  There is nowhere on the app or website to say what you purchased outside of excursions.  We cruised to Bermuda and I would get multiple texts and emails a day to say I needed the Bermuda travel authorization.  It never gave me the option to reply and say it was already taken care of. 

The other things is, how hard is it to make a burger?  Good Lord their burgers and hot dogs suck.  Partner with five guys or smashburger or someone and have some decent lunch food options.

We do like the main dining room in royal.  We do not cruise to watch TV but it is also nice to have ESPN in the room.  Overall competition is great for everyone.  Lets hope the cruise environment continues to improve and all the lines pay down the debt and keep sailing.    

We used OnPoint last week and it worked fine.  The person at the port checking us in did initially question the 'Test Results TBD' in the middle of the print out, but when we pointed out the negative result they waived us right through.  If testing is still needed in August we will probably use them again.  We used CVS in the past but none of the ones around us have rapids anymore.   

20 hours ago, Liljo22 said:

How were you able to book 4 time slots.  I purchased 4 virtual tests for my cruise on Sunday and it only let me book one time.  It says that 2 people can test per a window but I am unable to book another time.  The only options I have are to cancel or reschedule.  

We had no problem booking all the appointments at the same time. Did you register with the healthtrax place?  That might be needed to book the additional appointments as we did that prior to making appointments. 

No problem using the OnPoint results at the peer.  She did initially say that the results seemed to say 'to be determined' (TBD) but I showed her at the bottom that it said negative and she waived us right through.  I will report back if I get an EOB from my insurance company.  

4 hours ago, Coralc said:

@Gregoryfo Thank you! That is very interesting. There are all these other things they don't tell you, like signing up for the Health Trackrx portal. And I can't see any reason why they would need your booking number! 

 

We all just want the negative test results with the least amount of inconvenience. Apparently OnPoint has physical pop up test locations here as well. They advertise, "Bring your own test". 

 

Thanks for the procedure summary.  And Bon Voyage! Have a great cruise. 

Thank you for the well wishes!

I looked back through my EOBs and it looks like CVS charged $39 for the collection fee back in April, blue cross paid $19.44.  Blue cross also paid a lab fee of $100 to process the PCR test for my wife.  Oddly I did not see an EOB on the blue cross site for my test.  It will be interesting to see what is charged from OnPoint to the insurance.  I wish they would have disclosed that the insurance would be billed, but it is like the wifey said it would be hard for them to survive on $9.99 per test.    

Verifly is an app that Carnival uses where everything is in one place on the app so no phone fumbling.  You submit your vac card and negative test in advance, it is verified and it gives you a check for each needed piece of data.  We used it for our April cruise and it was great.  Camden there is unfortunately not a RC equivalent.  

On 6/14/2022 at 9:40 PM, Leosmom said:

Thank you so much for offering to report back.

 

I think I read someone said they had problems making an appointment they wanted.  How many days prior to the day you wanted the test did you purchase it?  I’m thinking to purchase a few days before.  Wondering since rapidtestandtrace gives you a preview calendar of test availability whereas Onpoint doesn’t.

I had no problem making an appointment, and I looked for appointments just four days after purchasing.  Their customer service leaves a bit to be desired, but the process went smoothly.  I made a dedicated thread to give a detailed account of my OnPoint expereince and uploaded a copy of the letter they emailed me. 

Here are the CVS and OnPoint negative test letters for comparison.  

Since OnPoint are the cheapest guys in town currently I thought I would make a thread to share my experience with them.  They are currently charging $9.99 for the telemed visit.  You need to use one of the home tests and it must be sealed at the time of the appointment.  We used the ones our local library is handing out  or maybe it was the ones the government sent in the mail.  It was iHealth.  So far we have purchased four tests for myself, my spouse, and our two children, have registered, did the testing, and received our results letter. 

It was easy to make the purchase, it was $13.99 per telemed visit at the time of purchase, but has since dropped to $9.99.  They gave me $5 off for signing up for their email notifications.  The sign up process was very easy.  However, you are required to register for HealthTraxRX patient portal.  I have never used a proctored test before, so perhaps this is typical, but they ask for your health insurance information (including a scan of your card) and a scan of your driver's license.  I tried to chat with OnPoint to see if there would be any additional charge apart from the $13.99 that I already paid.  After waiting about twenty minutes a message came on the chat that said to put in your email and they would get back to me later.  I put in my email and got a canned response that they got my message and would get back to me in 24 hours but I never got a response.   

I purchased on Sunday for Wednesday (today) testing.  There were appointments available in 15 minute increments for what appeared to be the entire day.  The family signed up for 2, 2:15, and 2:30.  I signed up for 6 since I had to work today.  I tried a few other days just out of curiosity and there appeared to be tons of appointments available, which might be why they keep dropping the price. 

My wife went first at 2.  The telemed visit is through zoom.  My wife and I both work for the schools, and we used zoom almost constantly during virtual instruction in 2021 so the format was familiar to us.  Even if you have never used zoom it should be fairly easy.  They send a link when you first choose your time and again on the morning of the appointment.  Click the link, turn on your camera, and wait to be let into the virtual room.  You give the rep the confirmation number from when you signed up for HealthTraxRX.  The rep asked why my wife wanted to be tested and she said because we were traveling by cruise.  They asked for her passport number and the booking number.  Not really sure why they need this much information to give us a covid test.  We were not prepared so the wife had to scramble around and get her passport and pull up the royal confirmation email.  The rep walks you through the testing process and asks to see the result.  They then take a screenshot of the result, which for all of us was thankfully negative. 

My eldest son's appointment was next.  He clicked the link and waited.  The screen said the host will let you in shortly, but the rep never came.  My other son's appointment time came and he logged in on another device.  The rep came right on time and said he would monitor both boys' testing.  Not sure what would happen if you were the only one testing, I guess you just wait.  Same questions and same documentation as for the wife, which we were ready for this time.  All three of their letter's came by email and text about twenty minutes later.            

My appointment at 6 was similar.  The rep came right on time.  Similar questions as the rest of the family, but the rap did not ask for a booking number, she just said ok I will mark down cruise travel.  I did ask her if there would be additional charges and she said a 'lab fee' would be charged to my health insurance but I would not be charged anything additional out of pocket.  I asked if I did not have insurance what would happen and she said the government would cover the charge.  I asked about the lab fee and she said that she would take a screenshot of the results (the stick) and it would be sent to a lab tech who would 'certify' the results and generate the letter.  So my assumption is that the lab tech looks at the stick to make sure there is only one red line and the proctor just walks you through the process and gathers the screenshot.  The insurance covers the lab fee and the $9.99 covers the proctor fee.  

I got my letter about fifteen minutes later.  I looked at my letter from OnPoint and a copy of the cvs letter from my April cruise for comparison.  They look to have the same information so I am hopeful that we will not have any drama tomorrow.  I tried to share a copy, with personal information blacked out, but the download failed repeatedly.  I will update tomorrow after we are, hopefully, on the boat!   

19 hours ago, Coralc said:

Whoever uses OnPoint, please let us know how it goes!  It is stressful, and it would be nice to get some feedback about them before September. 

We test tomorrow using onpoint for out Thursday cruise, I will report back.

1 hour ago, Luckynana said:

I always look forward to the Paella on the first day😁

Soooooo damn good

We cruised on MG last August and the bolt was fun, but it is a one and done for me.  I am sure when we go back this summer the teens will ride it again.  As others have said it is a quick ride, but like nothing I have ever gone on and we have done most of the east coast parks a bunch of times. It was sold out for our last cruise so I think people are interested.  The throttle definately makes a difference.  Quick word of warning the hight limit is 6'5, I am 6'4 and it puts a fair amount of pressure on your back if you are waiting for others to load.  They stop you on the final turn so you are hanging slanted until the next car is loaded. Just wanted to let the other old tall guys know.      

And Nassau for that matter.  Opps acres not aches.  Just give me a pool and a beach and I am good.

I searched but did not see that this was discussed before.  Looks like Carnival broke ground on a new cruise port in Grand Bahamas.  Another article said Carnival purchased 369 aches which should give them plenty of room.

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/cruise/carnival-breaks-ground-on-grand-bahama-island-cruise-port.html

We actually preferred the lunch at both Chibang and the BBQ place much more than the dinners.  Lunches were always supposed to be free right?  Mardi Gras has a huge problem, more good places to eat than there are meal times.  

For people that have used the app more than once.  Will we need in input everything again for the next cruise?  We understand we will need to do the negative test and health attestation, but does the other stuff stay in there from one cruise to another?

We used it on our current cruise out of Tampa.  It was an easy process.

We have a cruise for the first week of August and just noticed that they updated the stockholder form and it is now valid for cruises through July 31, 2023.  Previously it was only through July 31, 2022.  The form is below:

https://www.carnivalcorp.com/static-files/50351a91-4dc0-4f6b-bfec-684647e6129f

On 2/17/2022 at 9:56 AM, AandBmom said:

 

you can't use OBC ahead of time until cruises after either march 15 or april 15, I've heard both. 

Our cruise leaves April 2 and we were able to use it, so maybe March 15 is the cutoff.