publicpersona

Let me preface this by saying there is no real indication whatsoever that the 25 Sep sailing of Voyager has been cancelled. There is nothing at https://www.royalcaribbean.com/cruise-ships/itinerary-updates of the sort and I have not received any notification of it. But .. persistently on the Royal app, when I bring up this cruise it says Voyage cancelled. If I click to see more information, it just tells me how to get to the port and says see you at my check-in time. I've signed out and signed in and no change. I've removed the app entirely and reinstalled, signed in again. No change.

When we took our first Celebrity cruise close to 20 years ago, we thought the clientele was too old and people move too slow. In the last several years, though, I've noticed they were now our age and move about the same as us. 🙂

Entertainment is something that is important to me. I think the production shows from both RC and X are very dependent on how old the shows are. The big production "Broadway" style shows on RC's big ships are probably the best, but the rest of RC's fleet has either tired old shows that have been running for many years, or newer shows with canned music and no discernable theme. Celebrity, unfortunately, is trending more towards canned music as well. Whether RC or X, I give major thumbs up to any show where real musicians are performing (even if highly augmented).

It may be the case that the Canada/NE region has few, less capable satellites. Carnival just sent an email refunding anyone who had purchased their premium Internet service for Canada/NE saying that there really wasn't any premium up there.

Previous comments have been spot on. If you find yourself thinking "I'd gladly give up a climbing wall, Flowrider, ice skating and pool games for a little bit of peace and quiet in a wonderfully ethereal solarium and MDR food so good I really don't need specialty restaurants", then Celebrity is worth a try. Oh yeah .. if you like bingo announcements blaring and don't mind being carded just to get a pool towel, then maybe Royal is better for you.

[deleted by poster]

The CDC does not have any record of your being vaccinated or not. They do track vaccinations by various demographics, but do not have any record that is associated with someone's personally identifiable information. At least they aren't supposed to. (Let's not theorize here)

You are correct that was OP's question and the context of many of the responses. I'm just pointing out that although OP was misinterpreting the benefit, they weren't totally imagining things as there is ostensibly a benefit related to disembarkation morning. Late cabin check-out disembarkation.

The Diamond benefit being discussed isn't late disembarkation. It is that you can request to stay in your stateroom beyond the requested time (7 AM). Not noon. But perhaps 8 AM. I've never done it, nor would I see much value in it, but my point is that it is legit a listed benefit of being Diamond.

So far, it has been nearly two months for me. They say to expect 60 days which is not coincidentally the limit on how far back most credit cards will allow chargeback. interestingly, when I called to cancel after testing positive, the agent said “They say 60 days but it usually takes just a week or so.” Merchants frequently imply that the credit card processors are responsible for the delay, as “billing cycles” implies, but that’s nonsense. A credit would show as pending instantly after the merchant put the transaction through. But MSC mails refunds in the form of a check, regardless of payment method, don’t they?

Late cabin checkout on disembarkation is absolutely one of the listed benefits of diamond. If you want to say as a practical matter it doesn’t really work that way, fine. But I call foul on implying that the person that asked the question was imagining things.

I saw tents there a couple weeks ago.

I used to enjoy dressing up in my tux a couple nights on a cruise. I did. But two things have all but killed formal night: 1) The airlines started charging for checked baggage and usurious penalties for > 50 lbs. 2) My Time dining and a trend towards “table for two.” Back in the day when you shared an eight top with the same folks every dinner, there was an incentive to dress to impress so that Moselle and Roger from Louisville, Fred and Warren from NYC, and Doris and Ray from the UK could see that you actually wash up pretty good. The bottom line is to wear what you want to wear (within reason) despite the dress suggestion, and don’t give a rat’s tail what anyone else thinks about it.

I don't think I've seen it lately, but there used to a be a sign reading "This sailing is fully booked. No upgrades available." steadfastly and permanently bolted to the countertop at Guest Services.

I made this comment in another thread, but the comments here are regarding cruises out of the U.S, without stops in Canada or Bermuda. If your cruise includes stops in either, you have different requirements that are out of RC’s control.

It was a perfectly reasonable question to ask, although it should have been obvious that Guest Services wouldn't be able to handle it. But I've seen on another cruise line where you can check your carry-ons with someone on the pool deck who puts it in a roped off area. It is an incredibly convenient and customer pleasing service so one doesn't have to schlep carry-ons around in the buffet and touring the ship before rooms are available. And it can all be handled by one crew member for about a 3-4 hours period and a roll of tickets.

I believe people have reported having it in their baggage. My possibly wanting to do this is to ensure a particular type of water is available to us, not to simply avoid buying it on the ship.

Is that per person or per stateroom? I've seen those numbers posted before (on a blog site) so don't doubt you, but I was unable to find this in any RC FAQ. Do you have a link?

That is certainly worth a try without regard to timeframe. However, many times a credit issuer will refuse to allow you to dispute a charge that is more than 60 days old. It's pretty obvious why cruise lines will tell you not to expect anything for 60 days. They are trying to run out the clock.

That's a much more sophisticated answer than the one I gave to my spouse. I told her it was Mr. Potato Head.

It depends on the card. A typical foreign transaction fee might be 3% of the transaction amount. It gets you nothing, so best avoided by using a card that doesn't charge it. Arguably the more expensive scenario, though, is if the merchant asks if you want a purchase made in foreign currency converted to USD on their side. Those conversion fees can be really high. A conversion done by your bank/card is at reasonable rates. But you do want to avoid the foreign transaction fee by using a card that doesn't charge one.

I don't know how I would tell what bank processed the charge, but the merchant description actually says Geneva, not Paris.

I still haven't figured out whether I like choosing the destination floor before boarding. It didn't seem to expedite the process much, and the chime for a car that means not that it has arrived, but that someone just selected a deck it was going to, was annoying. On the plus side, it was delightful to go a whole cruise without experiencing that idiot that gets on an elevator not going in his direction while chuckling, "Well, it has to go up/down eventually!" Or in other words, "I just figured out how to make the elevators extra crowded without servicing anyone's needs."

I've heard people say that they want to hear the ocean sounds, which I can understand in theory (I listen to *recorded* white noise when I sleep). But doesn't the A/C shut off when the door is left open? It does on Royal/Celebrity ships, and I swear I saw the contact sensor when I opened my balcony door on Seashore.

This isn't news but worth mentioning again for those that enjoy their wine who may be cruising MSC for the first time and considering a package. If you like a wide variety of pool drinks and cocktails, the drinks packages are an excellent bargain. Easy Plus gets you a long list of contemporary classics cocktails and mocktails. Even the Easy package gets a Long Island Iced Tea or similar. There is much more labor involved with these drinks than pouring a glass from a bottle, so I don't understand the discrepancy. For someone that enjoys wine, the packages don't offer much if any variety. The Easy package consists of the bulk table wines that they get for about $2-$3 in quantity. No specific wineries here .. just something to pass as a table wine in a few popular varietals. One would think the Easy Plus package would have some choices to make. Yes, these are $7-$11 grocery stores wines but still can be interesting to compare and contrast. But here you generally only have one choice per varietal, and not a wide range either. At the Cocktail Bar for example, they have 14 wines by the glass to choose from. But how many of these are available on Easy Plus? Zero. A selling point of Easy Plus over Easy is ability to use the package in specialty restaurants. But wait .. how does that do you any good when Butcher's Cut's only wine by the glass for Easy Plus is a Pinot Grigio. There are no red wines on the menu at the steak specialty restaurant that falls into Easy Plus. In both cases, though, I was able to get a Robert Mondavi chardonnay and a cab sauv, but unless you question about the menu, you won't know they might do that. The Wine Cellar on Seashore appears to be mostly for decoration. There aren't any wines served there except from a vending machine. No one working in there, nor any draw for guests to gather. Strangely, the best wines I had all week were at a $22 for six decent pours wine tasting, but that was held in MDR. There were other wine tastings in the $200 price range. What's the takeaway then? Well, if you really want a drinks package and you're primarily a wine drinker, you might have to consider the top tier premium package. If not, you almost can be as happy with Easy as Easy Plus. The boredom of drinking the same table wines all week can not be much different from having just a very limited palette to choose from.