Russ Lomas

Are you talking about the paid sessions or the free ones? In regard to the free sessions, since the restart "after" Covid, you cannot book them until you board the ship.

We disembarked the Explorer back on August 14th. 5 out of the 8 of our family and 2 out of 4 in the family we were travelling with ended up with Covid. 3 of the 7 tested positive while on the cruise, the other 4 tested positive the day after disembarking. It is out there. 4 in my family drove to Florida from Canada, and the other 4 flew from Detroit. All 4 who flew ended up with Covid. The other one who caught it who drove, stayed in the cabin with her twin sister, and likely caught it from her. Therefore, I am guessing that the flight was where they picked it up, but there is no way to be sure. What I do intend to post shortly, is another post that covers exactly how RCCL handled our situation of having multiple children in our family test positive during the cruise, just so others know what to expect if you test positive while on the cruise. I also want people to be aware of how the reimbursement process from RCCL went, because I know many people who have symptoms on the ship and then refuse to report to medical for a test. By no means was RCCL's handling of our situation perfect, but overall, I have been quite impressed with their response and reimbursement process. There was an error in our refunds from our receipt submission, but they are in the process of correcting it currently.

Agreed. Their product is good, and we find good prices with them (if you look hard enough). There are definitely things they could improve upon (as could all cruise lines) to be better, though. We continue to book and travel with them as well. Frustrating though that they cut 20% of your cruise off (1 out of 5 days) and they do not cut 20% of the price you booked at. I had heard that if a port is missed, usually they put a few dollars OBC on your account (though it is usually very small)

from the RCCL website, it appears you can book private excursions in both of those ports currently Requirements for Guests Departing on Round-Trip Cruises from all U.S. home ports, including San Juan, Puerto Rico Currently there are no restrictions or required tours for any guest that is going ashore at public ports of call, or at our private destinations, regardless of vaccination status. https://www.royalcaribbean.com/faq/questions/what-are-the-requirements-for-guests-to-go-ashore-in-ports-of-call

We may have been on the same sailing. We were on the 8-day cruise on August 6th. Tried it up til day 3 or 4 and gave up on it after that for the rest of the cruise and stuck to the sauna (which worked well and was free 🙂

Our upcoming cruise was cut from 5 days to only 4 days. We were offered a $50 OBC per cabin only. The OP got $100 OBC and still got the original number of days they originally paid for (albeit, not missing the port they really wanted). Both situations suck, but I think the OP got a better offer than we got.

Barbados - Since you mentioned diving, Roger's Scuba shack on Carlisle Bay was great. I have dove with Roger several times, and he did 2 dives with two of my daughters when they were getting certified. They have great wrecks right in the bay. I see you mentioned the Boatyard, which is very close to Roger's. St. Maarten - another vote here for Bernard's tours - amazing - done it twice - best way to experience the island. Similar for St. Lucia - done Cosol tours twice - absolutely amazing way to experience the entire island. St. Thomas - my daughters did 2 other training dives there with Coki Divers at Coki Beach. Great because they are shore dives and great to do for new divers. The rest of the group can enjoy the beach there.

Yes, they were still free and available for use in August on the Explorer. The men's steam room was not really working well. I was told it was not working at all previously, but it was not functioning properly during my week. Made me wonder if they are planning on removing it in the dry dock, so they do not bother to fully fix it now. Sure hope not

I had a couple left over a few days on our cruise a couple weeks ago. I never thought about cashing them in to get a couple bottles or cans to put in my fridge. This is why I read CruiseCritic forums. Thanks for the idea. I will know better for next time now.

Unfortunately, the steam room was barely working on the Explorer again last week. It was a warm room, but never saw any steam come out in 15 minutes, like it did on the other ships. You saw 10 in there once. Never seen that many in there ever, and it is a HUGE waste of space, makes poor drinks, and worst of all...has no character at all - love the personalities of the bar staff, and the robot has no personality. While at it, put glass doors on the Casino to keep the smoke in the casino as long as RCCL intends to permit smoking in casinos. The smoke smell on the Voyager class ships in the Schooner bar is disgusting.

I definitely agree that the loss of the sauna/steam room/shower area that seems to be happening now during Amping is a loss that I wish would not happen. No idea if it will happen on the Explorer, but I expect it will be removed for extra cabins. Here's hoping that does not happen though.

We just disembarked the Explorer last weekend. Staff said that the Explorer is going in for Amplification (they mentioned the moving the mini golf to deck 13 forward and the addition of waterslides, amongst other things) in early 2023. Looking at the schedule, Explorer seems to be missing from January 29th til March 12, so I expect that the dry dock will take place then. No official word on what will be done yet, though. Independence is in dry dock January 6 - February 16th. I know this because we got an email cutting our Mariner of the Seas sailing short so that the Mariner could take over the January 6th sailing of the Independence and continue taking over the Independence sailings through February 16th, effectively cancelling all the previously scheduled Mariner sailings during this span. Mariner of the Seas disappears from sailings from February 18th until April 1st. Once again, a planned dry dock from what I hear. All three of these ships are out for dry dock for about 6 six weeks, so a fairly lengthy time. No word officially yet on what updates the ship will receive though.

Perfectly said and explained. MTD was a good thing, but RCCL has managed to screw it up, so now more and more of us are switching to early seating instead (I emailed our travel agent tonight to move my groups (usually about 20 people) from MTD to early seating for our next two cruises based on our experience last week on the Explorer. MTD worked great last August at half capacity (the Odyssey was at 17% capacity when we were on it), but now that ships are at 100% capacity again, MTD is really messed up.

Not quite true. RCCL provides a piece of paper on your bed when you first enter your cabin. The Diamond perks listed for those 18 and under varies a lot from the one provided to those over 18 years of age. They still get benefits, but the benefits are very different (for example, no photos for the kids, they get arcade credit where we do not, we get casino credit where the do not, and the store and food and beverage discounts are quite different as well)

Just off the Explorer this past weekend, and we had MTD booked for 6:45 (the earliest they would let us book MTD) each evening. We asked about this and below is what we were told. They said that early seating dining has become much more popular lately and therefore the level that used to be reserved for MTD now had an early seating (I think the reason early seating is becoming much more popular is that RCCL will not let you book "MTD" prior to 7 pm, which is too late for many with families). We were told that we likely would not be seated even at our 6:45 reservation and likely would have to wait until 7:15 each evening because someone was sitting in the seats we had (we always ask for the same time each evening with the same waiters) because waiters now serve early fixed, then a MTD, then a late seating at the same table. We were not permitted to sit for dinner until the early seating guests finished their coffees, and they reset the tables for us, often not until half an hour after our reservations we set for (or later if the early seating guests start their dinner late). MTD is really now just a 2nd fixed dinner time when you may come to the MDR between 6:45 and 8 pm, but if your preferred time is prior to 6:45 (or later in our case last week), then you are out of luck. Someone else asked if you are booking MTD at 6 pm, why not just book early seating? Two reasons for me - 1 - I do stand up Flowriding and the flowrider session on some ships (like the Explorer or Odyssey is often 5-6 pm and is bodyboard only for most of the day). 2- We stay in some ports late and wish for a later dinner on those days (for example, RCCL cancelled our full day in Curaçao last week, and we did not arrive until 1 pm and all aboard was 7:30 pm. We did not want to have to be back on the ship after a couple of hours to make a 5 pm early dinner seating.

We wore them on formal night for photos on the staircase in the Esplanade on the Odyssey, and then wore them around the ship for the rest of the evening. (We did dress up for dinner prior to the photos though)

We just sailed last week as Diamond members for the first time. Two adults and two 14 year-old daughters, all of who earned their points (no status matching for the kids to their parent status). Each of the 4 of us got one free day of Zoom (not surf) internet. Each ADULT got the free 8x10 photo (kids under 18 do not get that perk, otherwise we would have got 4 photos).

We were there last week. We rented a 4-seat UTV to explore the island. Absolutely the best way to see the island. We stopped and swam at a couple of beaches and if you have not seen the beauty of the desert side of the island (East side), you are missing out.

Favourite is Palm Beach in Aruba (very similar to Eagle, but it has more hotels, restaurants, and facilities). Right now in Curaçao, I would recommend Mambo Beach. We were there last week and went to Grote Knip. It was gorgeous, but we got many stings (likely jellyfish). We looked online afterwards and they say that Curaçao is currently having its worst wave of Portuguese man-of-war that it has ever seen. Possibly that is what got us. Mambo is much more protected.

For myself, I would be all for receiving a paper Cruise Compass daily and putting commercials and advertisements on the APP. I try to disconnect on holidays when possible.

The one time we bid and won our Royal Up, we moved from an interior cabin to a balcony that was the 2nd to last room at the aft of the ship, so I know how you feel about getting moved so far from the elevator without actually getting an aft balcony. We noticed that there were other cabins not assigned in the category we received the upgrade to, so we had our travel agent call in and he got our cabins changed in 10 minutes to one much closer to the aft elevators. I know some people say you cannot do this after you they assign you a cabin, but we were able to do so and I know others who did the same. You may want to ask your travel agent if there are any other JS available currently on your upcoming cruise and try to get it switched now.

RCCL is emailing people affected. If you booked through a travel agent, the travel agent is usually contacted and needs to forward the email to you. I believe this only happened in the past day or two, so your email may be coming soon. From what I read, they are just flipping the Adventure with the Voyager. Something I read gave 3 options, one of them being just keeping your current reservation on the different ship. Don't despair just yet. Seek more info.

I did not realize that you did not have to test for each individual cruise if you are booked B2B. Thanks for clarifying.

You can say that again. I felt great and donated blood and went to an appointment with my optometrist on a Friday afternoon. 9 hours later I had fever and chills and tested positive. It came on very quickly for me (luckily just 3 days of bad symptoms though). And yes, I did contact Canadian Blood Services and my optometrist immediately when I tested positive to inform them. So a guy like Super Mario likely has to test every single week since he lives on ships. Maybe time for him to switch to a ship sailing exclusive cruises of 5 days or less, so he does not need to keep testing weekly. They probably have someone from the company reading this thread right now making note of all the things that posters in here are saying that they never thought of themselves before, like the B2B2B2B short cruisers not needing to test.

Thus far, RCCL just screwed those of us who booked the Explorer to specifically go to Bonaire in June, July, and August. September and October are still listed as going to Bonaire. RCCL told us they decided to move the Explorer to Grand Cayman instead of Bonaire to "offer more choices to their guests". The Mariner is still doing the ABC route through the summer, but they would not let anyone switch to the Mariner unless they paid more money. The Mariner is doing 8-day itineraries September through October, stopping in Bermuda for 3 days from Florida, so I assume that the Explorer will port in Bonaire in those months since the Mariner will not be. Looks like offering the Mariner from Florida to Bermuda was a dumb business decision on RCCL's part. They are offering most of those 8-day cruises for $400 Canadian, so obviously, they are not selling well.