joepeka

Just two things, in addition to the great info posted above:

1. When you're doing check-in ~45 days from sailing, you will be selecting a terminal arrival time, not a boarding time. 
2. I've read on this board that if you're wanting a specific (early maybe?) arrival time, use the mobile app as it allows you to select your arrival time without going through all the prior check-in steps. Then when you have a bit more time, you can complete the rest of the check-in requirements either on the app or on your computer.

7 hours ago, JHawk63 said:

IF everything went well & you did self departure, you could *probably* make it. Personally, I would be a nervous wreck. We've sailed several times out of Galveston, & twice have been delayed getting into port because of fog. One trip on Carnival, we didn't get off the ship until after 3 pm! You just never know what the weather will do. I'd go for a later flight.

 

Just curious, we've only sailed from Galveston once (early July) and the only weather problem we had was thunderstorms on departure. On reading these board and viewing the Galveston web cam, it seems most of fog delay related problems are in the cooler months (i.e. November-March). Was that your experience?

15 hours ago, joepeka said:

We added this offer to DW's card and made the $1500 payment on 12/12 but haven't seen the bonus points yet. The fine print does state the points will be awarded within 90 days after 12/31 but I've never seen one of these offers from Amex (either account credit or bonus points) take more than a week.

Of course, since I mentioned yesterday that I had not yet received the bonus points, I checked my Amex account this morning and the 25,000 are now there.  🤐

On 12/15/2023 at 10:03 AM, blackjackz said:

FYI, canceled our deluxe beverage packages for our group of 4, and rebought them using this offer.   The charge hit my account on Dec 7 and the 25,000 points were in my account by Dec 11.

We added this offer to DW's card and made the $1500 payment on 12/12 but haven't seen the bonus points yet. The fine print does state the points will be awarded within 90 days after 12/31 but I've never seen one of these offers from Amex (either account credit or bonus points) take more than a week.

1 hour ago, merinski said:

We are thinking of booking with them for the Fun n Sun tour, goes to the sloth, monkey's, and a beach after with some sites on the way. Has anyone done this one resently?

From another thread on the Roatan board: 

As others mention, thank you for the detailed review of your excursion with Bodden. We are seriously considering him for our RCI cruise next year. You do mention that you were a bit surprised that there were only the three of you on the tour - in reading Victor's web site and exchanging emails with him, when you book a private tour it's exactly that, private. That aspect certainly appeals to us and it seems it worked well for you as well.

4 minutes ago, jimdalva said:

Never Ever take a FCC! Even with the 125%! It just Not worth the Hoops they make you jump thru!

Agree but unfortunately, our bookings were non-refundable (another mistake, I know, we'll never do that again) and our only option was FCC's under the Covid-19 policy in effect at the time.

Our daughter has a weird situation with FCC's and I'm glad a suggestion was made to call C&A versus the regular RCI reps, I'll suggest she do that.

Her situation is that she cancelled a booking for next month (via her TA) which included herself, her husband and two children and was eligible for FCC's. RCI told the TA they don't send out written FCC confirmations or certificate numbers but assured the TA the FCC's were "in their system." Oddly, a few weeks later, our daughter received an email from RCI with a certificate number for just herself but nothing for her husband and children. So the TA asked RCI about the remaining three FCC's and was told they don't issue the certificates on a total booking basis but on a person by person basis and that the remaining three FCC's should arrive within a week or two (I know personally this is bogus because DW and I were on the same sailing, different booking, which we also cancelled and received an email for FCC's for both of us in the same email). After another three weeks of waiting, nothing from RCI so my daughter is going to call and try to get some answers. As I mention, thanks for the C&A suggestion.

On 3/11/2022 at 12:41 PM, mac_tlc said:

Regardless of when you cancel, under CWC, there is no $100 penalty.

 

Cancel before final payment and get your deposit as FCC.

 

Make final payment and then cancel, get all $$$ as FCC.

 

Just be aware of the FCC expiration date. I just cancelled a June 2022 cruise under CWC and the issued FCC had an expiration date of one year after the sailing date of the cruise that was cancelled, i.e. June 2023. Has to be applied and sailed by that date. 

 

mac_tlc

 

True, at least in our case. We cancelled a June 2022 cruise this past week (booked NRD, prior to final payment) due to Covid protocols and were granted FCC for our deposit. Our TA worked very hard for a week trying to get RCI to extend the expiration to 24 months because there really is no way we can book and sail a replacement before June 2023 but the TA got nothing but slamming doors in her face. We understand that policy is policy but RCI has had our $500 deposit for a year as free money and will continue to have it as FCC for another year; we definitely will cruise again in 2024 so why jeopardize 6-7 times that $500 amount in a new booking by saying "no" to a 12 month extension?

25 minutes ago, cltnccruisers said:

I don't think they are taking the boarding groups too seriously.  We got in a day early and had a 12:30 boarding time.  Due to the hotel shuttle schedule we got to the port at 11:20.  Nobody seemed to care.  We were in our cabin by 11:45.  

That is good to hear. I have read other posts on this board of similar nature but being kind of an anal type, I like to have everything planned out and in sync to eliminate/mitigate hiccups. 😉

9 hours ago, PacnGoNow said:

There’s no boarding pass on cruise personalizer anymore.  It tells you when you click checkin on the personalizer.

You can print your luggage tags and travel summary at 75 days out.

 

Then between 45-30 days out…you go to the app…click on boarding groups…select your time and when that is confirmed, you will see a green box with a QR code at the top of the screen as shown above.

Within 24 hours of sailing, revisit the

app health questionnaire.  DONE!

The one thing that has bothered me about the window for choosing a boarding group is trying to coordinate that with airline reservations. If you're flying to the embarkation city the day of sailing (as we are), we do not want to wait until 30-45 days out to make those reservations; we prefer to arrive at the port as early as possible and would normally time our airline plans accordingly. However, if we make airline bookings before getting a boarding group, we may arrive far earlier than our boarding group and end up cooling our heels in the terminal. No es bueno.

22 hours ago, mek said:

But had the protocols been published yet for your cruise? 

No.

22 hours ago, Mapleleafforever said:

Were the protocols for your specific sailing out yet? If too far in advance can't get a refund for protocol reasons we've been told. 

There were no problematic protocols announced/in effect at the time of the booking.

18 minutes ago, Mapleleafforever said:

Not what my TA has told us. Refunds are available if you don't agree with protocols. 

Yes, that's the context in which I asked our TA and in which she asked RCI - cancelling due to unacceptable, changed protocols.

22 hours ago, RosieRoo said:

When I inquired about this I was told only FCC, not cash refund. This was just my experience. I didn’t end up cancelling so I didn’t pursue it any further. Others may have had different experiences. 

I asked our TA to check into this for us about a month ago. After speaking with her contact at RCI, she was told the same thing: FCC only and in the full amount of the deposit (if prior to final payment).

Unless I've overlooked it, RCI has not updated the Healthy Sail area of the web site to include the PCR-only requirement (starting 12/17) for unvaccinated children. It's still showing antigen or PCR within three days of sailing (but not on day of sailing).

1 minute ago, PacnGoNow said:

I heard MAYBE by the end of the year!

That figures.....

2 minutes ago, cabogal said:

Is the app compatible with Samsung Galaxy 10 phones? I am not able to enter info, scan my passport or anything. It did let me order the medallions - yippee!

The app supports Android 8 and above so if your Galaxy S10 is running at least that level (my S7 runs 8.0), the app should "work." Note the quotes in the word work. 😉

2 minutes ago, cr8tiv1 said:

Eagerly awaiting web based registration.  Any update on when this will happen?

As are we. It was reported to be available this month but nothing since.

On 11/8/2021 at 5:38 PM, smplybcause said:

 

They haven't posted it anywhere official. Likely because they don't want to. An executive mentioned it on a travel agent conference call a few months back and the news spread. For the most part I've seen people able to get refunds, but it being unofficial is probably so they can yank it when they want and so that if you don't know you just get FCC.

FWIW, I asked our TA to check into this for us and RCI told her that if a booking that was made prior to the protocols being established, and the booking was then changed/cancelled due to reluctance to comply with the protocols, the deposit will be held as FCC and not partially or totally forfeited (i.e. if booked non-refundable). 

53 minutes ago, poocher said:

Perhaps the site that can’t be mentioned had it wrong.  And Royal has been providing refunds to those who booked BEFORE protocols for their particular cruise were announced and are unable or unwilling to comply once the protocols were issued.  I would think your TA would know that.

If you could please, point me to a link on the RCI web site regarding this refund policy? I could not find it but admittedly did not spend a tremendous amount of time searching. TIA!

9 minutes ago, Lou33 said:

 

I have a question for you.  You will need to complete a heath questionnaire just before you board the ship.  I expect the that one of the  questions is something like:   Did you test positive for any COVID test in the last XX days?  Considering your scenario above, how would you answer that?

 

I don't know.  Maybe RCI would let you board with two different results.  I would think that they would want to at least administer a 3rd test themselves.  

Unless someone that has completed the health questionnaire recently can tell us for sure, the question you surmise about a positive test in the last xx days is just supposition - somewhat logical but still just supposition without evidence.

2 minutes ago, Lou33 said:

You would have to ask RCI, but I would think that they would not let you sail.  How do you know that the negative result (whether anitigen or PCR) was not a false negative?  

 

If you think about this statistically, there is almost zero chance that you could be impacted by a false positive.  Somebody has no symptoms and they take a test for travel.  You would hope that less than 1/1,000 people would have "any" kind of positive result.  And if they do test positive, there is less than a 1/200 chance that it was a false positive.  So that means that only 1 out of 200,000 people would be wrongly impacted by a false positive.  It is a non-issue.  

I realize it's a cruise line (RCI in this case) call but as you note, statistically the odds of someone being impacted by a false positive are remote so why would it be an issue for RCI? I know, it's their call and they will err on the extreme side of caution. 😉

12 minutes ago, Lou33 said:

If you do a proctored rapid antigen test, the results will go into a database.  Also, I'm assuming that RCI will ask you at check-in if you've had "any" positive test results in the last few days.  I don't know if they will allow a second PCR test as a backup, but I'm not going to lie to them.  

Then what happens if a person gets a positive rapid test 48 hours ahead of sailing and a negative rapid test 24 hours ahead of sailing? Or a negative rapid test on the day of embarkation? 

This idea occurred to us recently - get a PCR test (which can take 48-72 hours to return results in our area) AND a rapid test (results in an hour or so). False positives with the rapid test are a concern for us and were hoping we could use the PCR test (assuming it was negative) in place of the rapid regardless of it's results, if the PCR results were returned within the 2 day window. Cannot answer your question really but I'm not sure what "branded" could be applied if you showed a negative PCR test result taken in the 2 day window.