Rancher Dave
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Posts posted by Rancher Dave
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3 hours ago, not-enough-cruising said:
That’s awesome!!
That is the first revenue sailing, correct?
I assume they have boarding that early
since there is no traditional “turn around” that day.
That’s what happened with Indy then after that noon or one became first group.
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On 9/10/2021 at 6:42 AM, mauraoel said:
LOL, I think that's why they aren't using 48 or 72 hour it would probably give the port agents heart palpitations calculating time zones.
When we checked in a couple weeks ago they looked only at dates not times so I’d probably not try the time zone game.
also, If one of the travelers was a vaccine test study it messes them up cuz they are looking for early 2021 or very late 2020 vaccine dates. By next sailing two of us will even have boosters…maybe 4/5 of us will.
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13 hours ago, duca1222 said:
Now with 2 days before our cruise I’ve gotten an option to bid on bigger and better suites. And now the bid can be accepted up to 3hrs before sailing. Seems like royal is really trying to get every dollar they can for these rooms. Which I understand but come on! The anticipation is killing me and my whole family.
Also I’m begging to think I didn’t get the 2BR GS. ;(
I saw that 3 hour note. Interesting that the FAQs talk about 48 hours. So within 48 hours now it appears your bids are locked in and you can't cancel...but you could be in an early boarding group and find out afterwards that you were upgraded?
It might be good for RC to update the FAQs so they reflect how they are conducting the program.
Anyone know the 48 hour window, is that literally 48 hours from sailaway, or for a Sunday sailing would it by 1201am Friday morning?
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2 hours ago, irishgal432 said:
Add the set sail pass to your apple wallet and there will be a number on it.
I tried that and it is interesting how it shows more in the Apple Wallet than in the RCCL app. First time using the App here...and when I went in just now all of the sudden there were 4 set sail passes, 2x for each the DW and me. Both appear to be identical, and no credit card alert for the charge to Royal Up my rezzie. Thanks for the tip on loading it to Apple Wallet to find any missing cabin #s. As we are right now, we have a nice balcony that was assigned within 48 hours of booking, perhaps around the 24 hour mark.
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With Unlimited Dining Plan you should be able to get multiple entree's at any given dinner, but of course you can go back as often as you want as well.
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7 hours ago, exm said:
Some of you might know from the AOS 8/21 topic, but my party of 6 did the eMed tests and will be using those to board tomorrow in Nassau (will probably be one of the first ones with these, I am curious if they are aware of this in Nassau). Here’s the process:
- Buy a 6-pack on eMed. We bought 2 (12) for “just in case” which was smart since one of the test kits was faulty. We have 5 left if everyone is interested (I can work out a good deal, shipping end of the month)
- After you purchase them, eMed will provide a digital doctor prescription to have the tests approved for shipment
- They will ship FedEx overnight
- When you are ready to test, make sure to:
* download the Navica App and setup an account
* have a device like a phone positioned on the table so they can see your face and the test kit
* Do NOT open the test kit until instructed
* Have your ID (passport?) ready
- Open a browser, log into eMed and start the test
- The proctor will walk you through the entire test and tells you when to open the test kit
- After you are done with the process, you will need to wait 15 minutes. You can move around but can’t touch the test kit.
- After 15 minutes are up, you press a button on your screen and another proctor will reconnect to validate the results
- The result will be available immediately in the Navica App (you will also receive an email
Tomorrow after check-in I might start a different topic just for this test and my experiences. Let me know if you have any questions.
So will the Bahamas accept that test for entry into the Country? That would be a good piece of info to know. Sounds like timing for when you can send off the spares to someone doesn't match when we need our tests or I'd have been quite interested. I plan to go for a PCR with an antigen test back-up so we don't run into issue being able to sail.
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4 hours ago, Jaz52002 said:
Slightly odd topic - I'm finding it very diffuclt to pay for my cruise!! Tried online to pay with my Mastercard but it just kept saying error. Phoned up and waited over an hour for it to be declined! Phoned the bank - no issues with my card but told to tell RCL that there is something wrong with thier security with Mastercard transactions. I tried to explain this to the young lady at RCL but it was a bit pointless, I just paid with my Visa debit online (that didnt work over the phione though!).
Just tried to use Mastercard for the drinks packages. and agaiun it just says error.
It it just me??
I had an error at submit payment when I added UDP...ended up talking to call center to get it thru. Definitely a tech issue.
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So we sail in 2 weeks. I went to look at latest check in window to guess when we are actually sailling. 4-430 is last check-in window in Galveston and I don't know when first window is. Pretty sure we will sail at 6pm from Galveston now as well.
When I booked and checked in the other day we got the 2pm slot which is now gone. I wonder how far any of the other slots are from being "sold out" as well. If more don't close out I can probably safely assume that we are going to sail with fewer pax than could be accomodated under the reduced sailing protocol.
Thinking thru what is possibly the max allowed on our sailing, I am guessing that each window of check-ins is limited to around 200-250 pax or 100-125 cabins more or less. If my guess is correct on that, and they have plenty of check-in stations open I'd think it should be pretty simple to get aboard. If only debark will go as smoothly.
Wish I knew when first slot was to estimate how many folks will be onboard when we board, so I can figure if I need to run full speed to Chops et al to book my tables at the specialty dining venues.
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16 hours ago, xxHadleyxx said:
Going on news, etc trying to force a cruise line to give you compensation for something that's your own fault is, imo, a reasonable reason for a line to not want them on their product in the future. Yes
I'd put some blame on the media for even covering something that really isn't newsworthy. The family made a big mistake and are upset nobody is taking care of it for them. Happens all the time, happens with life and death choices that have far more serious consequences all of which never makes the news.
I am glad Texas is all vaccinated other than kids not eligible...and most of those kids should be back in school when we cruise. My wife is even already part of an ongoing trial for the booster after being a trial subject for one of the vaccines so she had hers far earlier than we got ours, and I went as soon as I was eligible.
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2 hours ago, Jimbo said:
Not a bad gig huh ?..........the agent will get paid 3 times if it sails in April 2022 for the same paid cruise.
If TAs didn't get paid anything except for what sailed, many who are still holding on would have gone under, likely without helping pax get issues on cancelled rez worked out. Hard to expect a group of folks trying to make a living to work for free doing way more work than they did to get paid when cruises were sailing. Likewise the cruise lines who aren't protecting commissions are pissing off agents who likely won't recommend those lines in the future, so deciding to not pay agents effectively reduces the sales force for that line.
As others have commented a lot of the cancelled cruises have happened before final payment was due, so no payout on those cruises. In those cases if the pax takes a full refund, the agent did all of their work for no compensation...multiply that times too many transactions and that agent is at the food bank asking for help feeding their family.
Some agents having to do a lot of extra work on cancelled cruises are enforcing their fees associated with such work as it becomes their limited source of income. TAs don't fall into the same category as airline workers who got government funded paychecks when they weren't needed to fly.
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9 hours ago, airbusdrvr said:
Good point! We may have one adult beverage in the DL and many times dw drinks water and I will have a diet soda. To us the DL is more about socializing with fellow cruisers than getting a drink. We have met several friends that we keep in contact with after the cruise. To us the DL is the major perk, not the "free" drinks.
It is definitely nice to meet up with other folks who have cruised enough to earn the status. Almost always managed to learn some interesting fact about travel that way. Enjoying the drinks has always been a nice touch as well. On some of our recent sailings we also made a meal more or less out of the snacks served with the drinks.
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7 minutes ago, kwokpot said:
It's been previously mentioned by all the cruiselines that Check-In times will be strictly enforced. If you have seen the Carnival board they had prematurely released all their protocols and one of them was strict adherence to schedule check in times. What one does, all of them do.
(Carnival procedures)Embarkation — By Appointment Only
Only booked guests will be permitted to enter the terminal and boarding area. All guests must complete their online check-in and select an arrival appointment time no later than midnight (Eastern time) prior to their sailing date. Guests must arrive within their selected time to facilitate physical distancing during the check-in and boarding process. Arriving early or late will result in a wait.
totally agree! Where I see some problems popping up, and hopefully the corporate offices are considering these kinds of issues; some folks are at hotels ahead of sailing and have to check out by the earlies boarding windows which they may not be able to book, thus I suspect there will be groups gathering at the departure port outside the terminal. These folks may end up unable to socially distance which would likely violate CDC guidelines. Kind of a tough situation for all involved. Not as big of an issue where most of the pax drive to the port themselves and can more easily regulate their arrival times to meet selected windows.
Also, not that you made a comment on it, but I also see where as a cruiser who doesn't take your temp before heading to the port and fails the temp/health check and re-check, it would be wise to have pictures of the bags you just handed over unless the temp check is done before you can hand bags over to the porters. That way if you are for health reasons told you can't sail, you can make it easier to ident your bags and get them back so they don't go on a cruise.
I am certain a lot of planning is going on in the war rooms at the corporate offices and folks there are anxious to get some test cruises going to see if the plans work as well as planned and resolve any unexpected pinch points. I expect the first round of test cruises to bring about some modifications to next test cruises before it is perfected to make it as safe as possible to cruise...in fact probably safer than most land vacations.
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4 hours ago, chengkp75 said:
Crews are required to have a drill of some description (fire, abandon ship, collision, pollution, enclosed space entry, etc) at least once a week. There must be a fire drill and an abandon ship drill at least monthly.
I couldn't recall the weekly interval...it's only been 28-32 years since I did that work. I helped run them on the floating rig, and those can get interesting...could be a simulated fire in the galley up to an uncontrolled kick on the rig floor. In those drills often the lifeboats were even launched....nothing better than seeing how small you look in a lifeboat bobbing in the GOM driving away from the rig. Rig looks small from a helicopter...at least we had neighbors about 10-12 miles away.
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18 hours ago, Daniel A said:
They probably still need to do lifeboat/firefighting drills as there are still a lot of souls aboard.
yes regular drills are required by SOLAS for all ships, so with no passengers they are like a tanker or container ship with all the same SOLAS requirements and drills. Just may not happen only while docked now.
My first crew drill (small ship in oil industry) was conducted half way between Virginia and Bermuda, and it included donning a survival suit, firefighting air pack, going over how to launch the life raft, etc...never hurts to know how to launch a life raft as it is generally the same for those giant white container held life rafts on the cruise ships.
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On 5/6/2020 at 7:45 PM, cruzsnooze said:
I didn't book under any sale. I booked full price with a big box TA who gives the OBC. It has nothing to do with the cruiseline. My thought was the big box TA should issue a gift card for costco since they are getting their commission. Why should they keep my portion that they had no intention of keeping.
if you have been made whole, why do you believe you are owed a profit from the cancelled cruise? As someone else said the TA is doing a lot more work than they would have for the cruise anyhow.
As for TAs getting paid, if the cruise lines said you have to continue to help with these cruises and pay back commission already paid, shops would close up leaving a huge issue for the pax and cruise lines to sort out. Also, many other tour operators aren't giving TAs anything for tours the operator cancelled, so the TA gets to deal with the client to sort out the cancellation while not getting paid anything. Do you go to work for nothing because a vendor said you have to?
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The average day is get up, eat, work, research stuff for the ranch or business opportunities, work, eat, sleep. It gets kind of boring. I do spend more time cooking and probably eating healthier than when things were the old normal where I ate out 5-7 nights a week because of how work, school (my dd is in college nearby), and wife's work had us all so busy all the time.
Thankfully a couple times a week I put go to the ranch and tend the herd into the mix. I then get to keep check on progress of interstate highway 3rd lane construction, births of calves, how the wildflowers look, get in more exercise thru walking, and the other day pipe lifting, and other chores that give me a workout.
It is nice to get out to the country with wide open space around so my social distance boundary increases to about 1/2 a mile at a minimum from humans...much closer to the cattle, but they apparently don't yet get this strain of coronavirus, but get vaccinated for other strains. I am also self teaching welding skills out at the ranch and am about to embark on a few week long pipe fence install project.
I will be glad sometime next year when it is safe to cruise again, ports are open, and we can book time to get away.
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On 4/22/2020 at 11:07 AM, bobmacliberty said:
I've been purchasing gift certificates for local businesses/restaurants where possible. They are often sold at a discounted rate. If enough people do this, it may keep enough cash flow going to keep some of these businesses afloat. And yes, they can go out of business and my gift certificates become worthless. I can afford it...they can't.
It is a great thing to do for places you want to use in the future. Today I saw 2 specials offered up to places we go but that are unlikely to survive given they were both nearly dead already. There are a lot of local mom and pop places that I would get gift cards to in order to help them now and they give me good food/service later when they can sit me at a table. One has been doing small specials every week and we have been there probably on average every other week since the virus hit.
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45 minutes ago, zonacruiser25 said:
I may be missing something but I see this article as speculation with no actual statement from Royal. Maybe wishful thinking, maybe sensationalism or possibly false. It could just be someone looking at the cruise schedule in place before the shutdown and just publishing the cruising old schedule starting the day after Royals announced no sail dates. Can't see anything with this story to get excited or hopeful about. Wouldn't it be great if it could be this simple!
It's a site that needs clicks to make money, so why not put something out that sounds good, isn't absolutely false and gets clicks. But when folks use a critical eye as you have and point out it isn't an official RCCL statement it becomes clear it's someone interpreting where they are with cancellations. As many have said and makes good sense cancelled cruises are coming in blocks to make it manageable for the company, both in terms of time to process, and of course cash-flow. If everyone would take a critical eye to all news, and a lot of health related studies (not CV19 related specifically) we would all be better off.
58 minutes ago, Joseph2017China said:CDC says you can sail in June. RCCL is a business, and they are planning a start up process in June because that is the info they have. Like all business, they follow the various orders and are hoping all will be well. There is no conspiracy to take your money.
I've not seen anywhere where CDC has given a green light to sail in June. In fact their most recent update would hold cruises from US ports until late July. More likely with exteded border closings around the world, even late July may be a bit early for when we really see sailings again.
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I'd expect there to be a lot more crew cleaning and serving food in the buffet. As already mentioned it may help cut down on noro outbreaks as well.
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34 minutes ago, ONECRUISER said:
Really like the idea, (in room Video)possible. Though with the Costa accident and way it changed everything feel they'd still want passengers to report to Station
A key to the drill is knowing where to muster, because it varies by line/ship (I've met in theaters, dining rooms, and out on the deck below hanging lifeboats) and it is also a great idea for those who've never experienced it to see what it is like to muster and be counted as present. (When I worked offshore every Summer in college, we were a few days into the first voyage to Bermuda to take supplies before I was ever put thru a muster drill, and one of the deck officers thought it would be smart to have me put on an immersion suit, which in an emergency would have been critical, so I can speak from the crew side of a ship and say it is important to know where, what, why, and how.) Those who are heavily experienced cruisers may have a good idea of what to expect and needs to be done, but each ship can be different and processes get updated at times, so that's why everyone had to muster every cruise.
Only exception I've experienced was a 14 day RT sailing from Vancouver to Whittier and back, on the back side, since we were booked as 14 day pax, we didn't have to be back in time for or participate in the muster. We did get back though ahead of it, just because we caught the end of the prior tunnel opening. Our cabin attendant just told us if we didn't want to gather to stay in our cabin until everyone was released, which was not big deal. Also, missed main muster on our Baltic Sea sailing, but as the last bus from the airport they knew we were missing muster and had an alternate planned for soon after we were aboard in a lounge where we were counted and all put on a life vest.
Things will be different for the near future and possibly forever after this virus settles down and goes away. Getting to that point will probably be painful for some and for the cruise lines but is going to just be part of the process.
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7 hours ago, keesar said:
If the cruise season in Europe is cancelled, we can always head down to Orlando and visit Epcot. Let's see, there is Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, ...😀
Still hoping for real Europe but not looking good.😪
Yeah, that's an idea....doubt we will be getting to WDW this Summer. I do wonder when DL & WDW will really open back up. Zero social distancing there.
As for Summer cruising, even if the ships are there some of the airlines are already cutting flights to Europe for part if not all of the Summer season, so getting there could become very difficult and far more expensive, at least for those not already ticketed. Then there is the issue of what level of exposure might exist in some of the port cities, leading to modified sailings that folks aren't happy about.
As for paying final payments, one can always call in and see if they will extend final payment dates a bit so you don't tie up more money before they cancel your sailing. It might be worth a try.
Hope all here stay safe!
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2 hours ago, marieps said:
The lines must work in concert to combine resources and present a unified plan. There's no way CCL and RCI can have two completely separate solutions, IMHO. CDC will want a single methodology, one that convinces then and the cruising public.
To a large extent I agree. Some specific lines may take it a step beyond what others do to stand out and use as a marketing ploy, but all will have to meet a minimum requirement that would be consistent across the entire CLIA member fleet.
As others have said I would expect the cruise lines to cancel sailings a block at a time so they can handle all the processing. What we may see first is that new bookings on some sailings are blocked before they are more formally cancelled. Eliminates more cancellation work down the road.
I know some international tour operators are cancelling trips for July to Central America and they are likely not just doing so on a whim but based on information that have about when folks will be able to travel to in this case Costa Rica, again, but I would suspect other foreign destinations will be on the same plate soon as well. It will be a while before we globetrot for fun again.
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Based on comments from one cruise line official today, there are a lot of changes being worked out by all kinds of parties affected that will work to ensure a safer cruise ship environment for passengers and crew alike. Sounded like for one the buffet will no longer have kids tasting and putting the cookies back on the serving tray (I actually saw it happen one time in 35 cruises, but saw many folks including numerous adults grab food with hands and sometimes push other food around to grab the one item they wanted, all with bare hands...saw crew immediately trash large platters of food).
The other biggie is that ports have to open to ships and I suspect that may be the bigger delay in a bunch of the sailings.
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On 4/8/2020 at 1:23 AM, the_thunderbird said:
This!
Living in Victoria, where a significant majority of the Continental USA to Alaska ships dock for their Jones Act requirement, that July date is really optimistic. Hopefully this holds true, but we are weathering the storm pretty well here and public opinion is very, very strongly against the industry right now (and somewhat tedious before that to begin with).
Honestly, for a Canadian port it could be tied to whenever there's a vaccine. Or the old school Jones Act gets dumped.
Now we have the new CDC ban on sailings to and from USA for 100 days or until end of Public Health emergency, likely be August or later. In fact for the lines with ships not yet over poised for AK, (and I didn't go look to see where all the ships are) it is quite possible the AK season will be abandoned by many of the ships. Of course redeployment requires that ports be open to cruise ships and many aren't likely to do so until they feel like ships won't have any possibility of bringing the virus to their island/country.
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12/19 Liberty of the Seas Trip Report - mostly positive!
in Royal Caribbean International
Posted
oh yeah!!! Some of the teen groups were quite out of control. I saw one group playing a game near JRs where they were spitting soda all over the deck...oh gosh it must clean itself up... I did like though the sparse population in the Diamond Lounge. There are some folks posting from current cruise on LOTS that their cabin attendant said last cruise had a covid outbreak and as a result one now as well. If true no shock given lack of mast enforcement. Few crew actually seemed to take a stand with guests on wearing maskst.