rcrabb1513

I might venture an answer if I knew what FTTF was.

Thanks for all the replies. I had considered just booking a new cruise and cancelling the current booking as 2 separate operations. Since you have to cancel over the phone I figured if I had to be on hold for a long while (based on previous personal experience) I would do both operations at the same time. Hence the question of a possible additional fee.

I bet they were testing that the message was sent and sent out "live" instead of a test ID

Thanks! We still want to cruise, just not on the one we booked.

We booked an RCL cruise with a refundable deposit and have changed our minds. We are outside of any financial penalty dates. If we cancel it and choose a different one do we incur a change fee?

I had the same question about a year ago and the answer remains no. It should be added!

I should have mentioned looking at a 5 night cruise. I 'll some math.....

Topic covers it. Never cruised VV before, always bought the drink package on other cruise lines.

While I have embraced email I resist learning the texting lingo/emojis/etc.

We used GoPort once so far and it was a good experience. We received an email a day before arrival moving up our pickup time by 30 minutes (11:30 to 11:00am). The day of pickup we received a text they were waiting in the lobby 10 minutes early. We went down and a representative met us in the lobby, another guy took our luggage and a third person escorted us to the bus. The ride from our Hotel (DoubleTree by the Airport) was a little over an hour I think but I really didn't time it. The only con I have was the walk from the drop off to the terminal was a bit long complicated by schlepping luggage. Pickup was in the same general area as the drop off. I noticed the GoPort kiosk in the shuttle drop off/pickup area when we got off the bus a week earlier so I had a good idea where we were going upon disembarkation. We using them again this March.

I printed selected pages to PDF (on PC choose printer: Microsoft to PDF) as a single document, printed it then physically redacted the account number using masking tape and a sharpie (sharpie alone didn't really work). I then scanned the 2 pages as new PDF document and emailed them. Turnaround was less than 24 hours!

Royal Caribbean Group has been able to upgrade their ships "on the fly" without needing drydock

We are probably in the minority but we are done with cruising. Increasing prices with cutbacks in service has chased us away.

We feel the same way. We are also in the Midwest and have to fly to cruise ports. We will add additional $400 for hotel, meals and transportation to and from the cruise port (we fly in the day before the departure) and then $75 per day for 2 dogs boarded. A 7 day cruise costs over $5K before we board the dang ship. Book a suite? No Way!! We can do several 4 day road trips for that.

You missed my point. I was trying to highlight the motivation causing cruise line leaders to increase margins, not discussing investment strategies.

Stock analysts ("The Street") do not see it that way. Why else are shares of RCL are down in the mid $50's and not rebounding back to pre-pandemic levels? We aren't seeing a strong buy recommendation from any analyst for cruise corporation stocks in general. The managers are rewarded for strong financial performance so it becomes a priority to increase margins and reduce debt. RCL lost $43B during the pandemic shutdown and borrowed heavily to cover it. They have inflation woes like us for fuel and food and increased wages to lure the needed staff to resume full operations. I think (IMHO) the strong pent up demand from regular cruisers like us has emboldened the cruise lines to raise revenue and cut costs knowing most will whine and cry but pay it anyway. First time cruisers will not have the knowledge of the way it was and book cruises. This behavior is not unique and land based vacation outlets are doing the same. Until the time the vacation and recreation venues reach the price point and service cuts that hurt demand we can expect more of the same.

We did our first B2B to Alaska this past August. We were away 15 nights including pre cruise hotel stay. We have dogs and we missed them terribly. We felt guilty being away from them that long and worried about their psyche. We were ready to go home after 10 or so days. I know some are going to think we are nuts worried over pets like this. We are empty nesters and they are 2nd time around "kids!"

Keep in mind, their laundry is geared to hot water washing like towels, sheets, dining room linens. Do not give them anything delicate to wash.

If it is anything like Royal Caribbean (same parent company) we were able to easily fit 5 days worth of jockey's, panties, my white tees and ankle socks for both of us.

What prompted my question is all the other ports of call do have excursions offered via cruise planner.

We are sailing in March, 2024 on a 10 day Southern Caribbean itinerary on Silhouette. All ports but St. Vincent have excursions offered. One caveat, we stop at St Vincent on Easter Sunday, 2024. We are curious if there are none offered because of how far out the cruise is or does Easter have anything to do with it?

We saw the same thing for a cruise in March, 2024! We will make switching the dining time a priority on embarkation day.

The call (after 40 minutes of hold time) got things fixed. Our updated invoice shows the original OBC, the additional OBC, as well as all the offers we received when we originally booked the cruise. Yea!!

Thanks, time for another call......

Does your updated invoice show the OBC? Ours shows none, not even the additional OBC. We were told our original $800 OBC would be honored and an additional $400 OBC would be added for the "inconvenience", However the 2nd person I spoke with said the additional $400 OBC was part of the Black Friday special.