Jon-A

By "O class" do you mean Oasis Class? Does RCL do this often? One more double double points cruise and we would be Diamond.

Ok, thanks to the tips from firefly333 and twangster, I figured out how I got the extra Crown and Anchor status even though my own double points weren't reported on my account. When we booked in September, RCL, in addition to offering double points, was also not charging a single supplement (probably because the ship was already sailing at reduced capacity due to Covid). We have 2 minor children and 2 adult children (six total in our group). Since there was no cost difference and we thought our adult children would appreciate it, we booked our adult children in their own two cabins (we got four cabins for the price of three that we had originally planned to book based on double occupancy). My wife had a solo cabin as well, as I was officially booked into a triple with our two minor kids (since the only adjacent cabin (cat 1D) to the other three was a triple, and RCL strangely would not let us book it as a double). Once we got on the ship, I got an extra key card for the room with my wife but never actually officially switched rooms in the system. My adult children got quadruple points from being singles, my wife got quadruple points for her single room (her C&A actually lists 28 points for the 7 day sailing). And my minor kids and I inherited my wife's status as being part of the family group (even though the points on our accounts only list 14 points for the 7 day sailing). Thanks again to firefly333 and twangster for pointing out the bonus for single travelers! Now it all makes sense. We didn't plan it this was but it worked out nicely.

This was a Christmas cruise and I was really surprised when we saw it was offered with no single supplement. Has RCL offered the no single supplement option in the past? Our adult children were thrilled to have their own rooms and bathrooms and we were able to get adjacent balconies with the partitions opened so all the rooms became "connecting" on the outside.

We were in a category 2D balcony. Nothing super special.

So we recently got back from the Dec 23, 2021 sailing on Allure. At booking, Royal Caribbean was offering double Crown and Anchor points. Just checked my account and everyone in my group got 28 points for the 7 day sailing. Double double points! Wondering if this is an error or perhaps compensation for the two port cancellations. My sailing history only shows 14 points for that sailing, but I knew how many points I had 3 weeks ago and there are definitely 28 more points. There are definitely 14 more points in my account than I should have based on my cruise history. Any ideas?

The only OBC we got was for the missed St Thomas stop. Coco cay was traded for St Kitts, and while I was extremely disappointed, my entire family had a really nice time at Coco Cay. The prices were very high for the few activities that were available, but the free food was decent and all of the staff working the island were excellent. It would be really nice if RCL does something by way of refunds, but I’m not holding my breath.

The official Covid count is 24 passengers (two days ago) but staff keep going missing. At dinner one of my children told me that only one of the two flow riders was running today because some of the staff trained to run it were sick. Don’t know if that is the reason, but the fact that Mama Mia was cancelled for “technical reasons” seems a bit far fetched. Just my opinion, but the sense chatting with the other passengers is that the number is much larger and that RCL doesn’t want to know because that would really be a problem. The fact that deck 3 is now being used for quarantine isn’t a good sign. Honestly, the ship seems really short staffed and the excuses aren’t adding up. I really hope this passes quickly.

Day 7 update:

Coco Cay was actually really terrific. Independence was the other ship with 2000 passengers on a 4 day itinerary (Nassau and Coco Cay). Passengers said there were zero cases on the Independence and that the ship seemed to be 75% full.

independence left an hour before us and Vision (which was out of service) pulled into the empty berth. The captain said it was to transfer crew off Allure and bring new crew to Allure. Read between the lines on that one.

Then at about 6pm, the cruise director announced that the 7pm Mama Mia production had been cancelled “for technical reasons.” I hope they solve their “technical” problems for the next sailing. The Mama Mia production (we saw two days ago) was excellent. Really a pity.

I’m not sure how I feel about the excuses they are making. My waiter didn’t “hurt his knee” and “technical reasons” just don’t seem credible.

Good luck to the next sailing!

Seems like it really was only two passengers with medical problems. The two came off on gurneys into two awaiting ambulances and it seems like one passenger was accompanied by a co-traveler. Hopefully they are OK. Captain said it was not Covid related. Given the large number of Covid positive passengers on board, for sure those passengers did not debark. We are already underway to Coco Cay now.

Hard to believe they would make the trip all the way to Port Everglades just to drop off two passengers rather than sending a helicopter.  Huge fuel consumption to do this. Coco Cay is now delayed tomorrow (Wednesday) by an hour until 8am. We met some people today who confirmed deck three is being used as a Covid floor. We also saw two passengers being swabbed for Covid in our hallway. The “testers” were in full hazmat garb, all the while other passengers were wandering the hallway. Wish we had a picture or we would have posted it. We are now arriving at Coco Cay one hour later tomorrow at 8am. Stay turned!

The line staff on the Allure has been quite candid about the back story on many of the decisions that are being made even if the higher ups haven’t shared the truth. When the announcement was made to cancel the St Kitts stop, they said over the PA system that it was “by mutual agreement of RCL and the local authorities.” The island vaccination requirement totally makes sense now in that context. If this is true, RCL had the choice to dock under tighter rules but chose to screw us. There is no reason why RCL couldn’t have told unvaccinated passengers that they couldn’t depart per order of the local authorities. Most of the age 5-12 kids on the ship are already vaccinated (most have green wrist bands). The ship already has special vaccinated sections (even outside on the pool deck). We visited Atlantis in Nassau and had to show our vaccination cards. RCL has our vaccination status coded to our Seapass cards already and we are already wearing green vaccination wristbands. There is no reason they couldn’t have prevented debarkation of the tiny number of unvaccinated guests. Most are under age 5, and there are barely any under 5 year olds on the ship.

Just visited the Allure excursions desk. The Independence is the other ship that will be at Coco on our day 7. The excursions rep told me that because the Independence was originally scheduled to visit Coco, their passengers bought most of the excursions in advance and that management knew this. Of course they did. The rep said that lines would likely be very long. The rep also said that there was exactly ONE cabana allocated to Allure. I actually feel equally badly for the Independence passengers. I don’t think they’re going to be very pleased when they see us arrive.

We are aboard the Allure right now. Yesterday they announced that excursions for Coco would open at noon today. Well at noon, the entire system crashed. The app, RCL’s excursion desk computer, everything. Really stupid to have everyone log in at the same moment. A rookie mistake. 200 people immediately lined up at the excursions desk. Nice move RCL during Covid. Then they announced 30 minutes later that within an hour, it would be fixed and they would make another announcement. More crashes and then all of the decent (but still overpriced) excursions were gone (even before they became available to book, they showed as sold out). The one thing that RCL is good at is handling things badly when something goes wrong. People willing to cruise during a pandemic are among RCLs most loyal customers. Not pretty at all. They did refund 1/7 of the cruise fare (approximately) for the lost day at St. Thomas. By sticking in Coco in lieu of St Kitts, they avoided a second refund and created a revenue opportunity. I can’t speak for other passengers, but I specifically chose this itinerary because I didn’t want to go to Coco. Based on the Omicron situation, I’m really tempted to buy some put options on this stock. I doubt that most investors know how much badwill is being created right now. Covid isn’t RCLs fault, but how they handle goodwill efforts will determine RCLs recovery. I hope you are reading this RCL! Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say how wonderful the “enlisted” staff have been under very difficult times. They all have to wear KN95 and double masks all day long and still work and be nice. I’ve done that a few times, and it is really hard to breath with an N95 or KN95 on. We are going to be recognizing them with generous cash tips and named recognition in their cruise comments (by name). I will post an update at some point if RCL decides to do the right thing.

Thanks everyone for all of the helpful replies. One more question, is the RCL WiFi a single device service (one device at a time) or one device for the cruise? If it is the former, I could live with that and log in and out as needed. I would use the WiFi for work as needed and let the kids fight it out with each other :) when I don't need it. If the latter, I will be needing my router (even if only for myself).

Thanks in advance for any more replies!

Thanks momo2000 for the heads up.

I know this thread is about a month old, but I will be traveling on the Liberty with my family shortly and my kids want to get wifi and I need to stay in touch with my office so I'm trying to save a few dollars by sharing the connection. Based on your suggestion, I will be bringing a router that has a clonable MAC address on the wireless port (TP Link TL-MR3020). As I understand it, Liberty was not upgraded to VOOM during its most recent drydock. I was told that this will happen in June. Do you happen to know if they throttle the connection or limit the speed of a single connection? Did you by any chance look at the speed of the Internet connection? I'm assuming email and light web surfing will be OK, but not VoIP and certainly not Netflix.

Any advice would be appreciated!

We're sailing on Liberty next Sunday Feb 14th. If anyone knows if VOOM internet is now available and can report back, we'd be mighty appreciative! Thanks!