cindivan

Thanks everyone!  We decided to book two balcony rooms and find something else to splurge on!

21 minutes ago, Husky1987 said:

 

If you're not concerned about double C&A points, a bathtub, or a larger closet (all nice, but not absolutely necessary for a fun time)....I'd say go for the balconies and use the extra money on other fun stuff 🙂 

I doubt I will love long enough to make it to the next CA level so that makes a lot of sense. Hmmm. Now to find some splurge items besides our room. 😂

Thanks!!  That’s what I’m thinking a well. Now considering just regular balcony rooms if we don’t really get any suite benefits from the JS and we each have our own room so we don’t need a lot of space. 
 

I have never had my own room on a cruise!  Kind of exciting!

My sister and I are going on the Adventure in November. We don’t mind sharing a room, but we wanted to get a nice room. We were looking at the grand suites, but they are right below the pool deck and we are both light sleepers.  And the next suite up is almost twice the price of a GS. It’s actually cheaper to get two junior suites than one GS. 
 

The question is are the suite benefits worth it on the adventure?  We will be getting the drink package and probably the UDP, so I’m thinking outside of the special deck area for suite guests it makes more sense to do two junior suites. 
 

Any thoughts on this?

Awesome!  So fun to hear success stories. Have a great cruise!

Are you me?  Lol. 
 

We are also a minority in my spouses side for being vaxxed. Last year we opted out of all their get-togethers. This year a little harder with the fact that we are vaxxed and boosted. 
 

However, my answer is that if my spouse or kids wouldn’t be mad I would opt out. I’m so tired of appeasing others who don’t have the same level of concern as me. 

Would it worth missing a cruise for one night of people who think very differently?  For me, it wouldn’t be. 

From what we saw on the allure in October, they are also definitely enforcing this. There was a family with young children ahead of us in line trying to get off in Saint Martin, and they wouldn’t let them off because the kids weren’t vaxxed. The family seemed surprised. I’m not sure if they had no idea, or if they thought it wouldn’t be enforced. But they were not allowed off the ship. 

We have spent several fun new years on cruises.   At dinner they might provide little hats or the little blow out things. We prefer to bring our own accessories. Light up Tiaras and necklaces and rings, various other New Year’s celebration’s items. 
 

not sure where all the big party will be post Covid, but we always like to be in the royal promenade and would send part of our group down there early to stake out seats. Several places down there, like the bars, will let you reserve a table for a crazy amount of money and a cheap bottle of champagne. We prefer not to do that, and just take our chances and if we end up standing that’s OK.

although if I had to wear a mask on the Royal promenade, we would probably find an outdoor venue

Years and years ago we were on a cruise and seated with three other couples on an eight top.  Maybe the third or fourth night one of the guys shows off his new ring at dinner. We asked if he got it on the island, he replied he found it in the safe.  We thought he was joking, and when we suggested he turn it in (because someone obviously left it by accident on a previous cruise) he scoffed and said  “losers weepers” or something equally stupid and mean. 
 

This was way before we could afford to eat in specialty dining, so I think we ate there one more night but couldn’t take it after another night when he started saying loudly “f the cops” and other random rants.
 

We ended up eating at the buffet the rest of the week because we could not get reseated without fear of running into them at dinner. 
 

we love meeting new people, but this was an eye-opener for us about making a commitment for seven nights with strangers.

If you want to do the small venue comedy club sign up for that right away. And mama Mia. Both of those were the most crowded venues with limited capacity we saw on the oct 31 sailing. 

3 hours ago, BND said:

450 out of how many that have actually sailed?  And, how many of them had a temp or ever developed one?  Those are important stats in defending taking temperatures.  Also, stating 10% of hospitalized people were vaccinated is an incomplete stat.  How many have underlying conditions?  From everything I've read almost all of the vaccinated and hospitalized had other major health problems.  450 people testing positive only means they tested that way, it doesn't mean they were sick enough to even have symptoms.  Statistics can be used to show anything you want them to.  Does NCL have any data to show that doing the temp checks makes any difference?  Are they finding more people who are positive?

Totally agree the same stat can be twisted to support a myriad of opinions. As Ron Burgundy says, 60% of the time, it works every time

A guy behind us (allure oct 31) had said yes to being more than however many weeks pregnant. Not sure if he did it by accident or to be funny, but last we saw as we were heading inside he was being pulled to the side with his whole group.    They take any yes seriously.   As they should. 

Allure October 31 originally were told 3600. Later we heard more in the 3200-3300 range. 
 

The crew that we asked really didn’t have an idea of how full they would be in the coming weeks. Only that they have been told it will continue to increase.

We have done the “free diamond plus” bag twice since becoming diamond plus. Both times they charged us and I had to go to customer service to get it taken of.    On the plus side, on the Allure a couple weeks ago the clothes didn’t seem as beat up like they have before. 

21 minutes ago, beachnag said:

We cruise Sunday and were notified Thursday

 

Congrats!

I have submitted Royal-up offers several times and never been successful. (Possibly because I’m just not willing to spend a bunch extra because I usually book a room I’m happy with and feel like I don’t really have a chance anyway).

We are cruising on Sunday and submitted a bid that was a bit more than I might normally bid, hoping that the low capacity might help. 
 

For anyone that has been successful, when did you hear? I realize it might be different for everybody. But just curious to see the differences 

3 hours ago, 3kidsncats said:

I have this same concern — I will hit six months after my booster shot (got it yesterday, and OMG, what a miserable night since I opted not to take any OTC on the off chance that there is a negative effect on the efficacy) about a week after we leave for a month of travel to Europe.  Since I seem to have a strong reaction each time I’ve gotten the vaccine, I really don’t want to get another 6 month booster concurrent with my trip.  But who knows by then if the countries we will be visiting will require it.  If I had been thinking, I would have put off the booster for a month 😜

No one no knows for sure because it’s real-time research. I just do what I can right now to protect myself and others, and we will all figure it out as we go along. No need to stress about some thing we can’t control and something no one knows right now

6 minutes ago, mpdog42 said:

So the ones offered by Sam's Club are not good for RCL??.Just saw them priced at Sam's for around $18.00 for 2....

Unless they come with the telehealth portion RC won't accept them.  From what others have said I think the telehealth ones are only available via mail order.

On 10/25/2021 at 1:13 PM, not-enough-cruising said:

Vaccines have zero effect on Antijen tests 

Second this!

it’s hard to separate fact from fiction with so much miss information out there. But there are four of us cruising on Sunday, we have all gotten our boosters within the last two weeks, All have negative rapid test

On 10/28/2021 at 7:43 AM, bajathree said:

That would make more sense. I completed our Allure check-in last week and nowhere was there anything about uploading your vaccine card. 

I don’t think it does when you do it on the computer. When you download the Royal Caribbean app and go to check in on that, the option to upload your vaccine card is there.   Very strange that the check in process is different via the app versus a browser, but RC is known for its software idiosyncrasies.

Someone on the allure this week said that they were told their capacity was 2900. Max is 5400, but it would hardly get to that because that’s if every room is maxed out with every bed full. But still more than half

I think this is the exception rather than the rule, but we had a test scheduled at CVS today for our cruise on Sunday. And they canceled it last night at 9 PM.
 

We had a back up plan with the binax now at telehealth card, otherwise we would’ve been scrambling two days before our cruise to figure it out. It probably would be worth your time and to have less stress do you have a back up plan, either an appointment or knowledge of somewhere else you could get it.

10 minutes ago, WindinmySails said:

Where can you get these and are they monitored, as the cruise line needs that.

RC policy:  https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/is-there-a-telemedicine-option-for-pre-cruise-covid-19-test

link to order testing kit: https://store.optum.com/royal-caribbean/

Yes, they are monitored.  The links I provided are straight from the RC site.

Both my husband and I (Charlotte, NC) received a canceled appointment notification last night 9pm - we were scheduled for today.  Thankfully we had the Binax Now Ag card which I just completed and am negative so Allure here we come!

If anyone is in the (north) Charlotte area and had the same thing happen (10/29) PM me if you need an Binax Now Ag card test.  I have a couple extras you could buy for what I paid for them - about $28.  

So glad we had the backup of the Binax!  Not sure what we would have done otherwise.

For those of you who are relying on local places to test, you might want to consider a backup.  I have read several others have the same experience.

I can’t remember which ship I was on, but I do remember during the day we could go in and get waters and sodas and there was no waiter in there to help you.