BruceMuzz

Yesterday I flew Barcelona - Doha - Tokyo on 2 different Emirates A380-800s in Business Class. 19 hours in the air. Great food, outstanding service. Great seats. Slept most of the way. Almost sorry the flight ended so soon. Had a great sleep back on the ground last night, and just woke up a few minutes ago feeling great.

Your credit card issue happened because the ship transmits the credit card charges in a “batch” at the end of the cruise. The bank that issued the card initially approved the charge as standard procedure. Then they realized the card was overdrawn and sent a message to the cruise line that the charge was not approved. This happens quite often on the mass market cruise lines. On mass market ships, an average of 10% of passengers cannot pay their bill at the end of the cruise. That is why the cruise lines want a card imprint at the beginning. They place a credit hold on your card so that they can be sure to receive at least the bulk of what you owe.

Your mobile telephone screen can be used for more than video games. It will display the name of the mobile telephone service provider. When a cruise ship is within shore-based mobile service, the ship’s system must legally be shut down. As soon as you are far enough at sea to lose the shore-based service, the ship’s system goers back online. This usually happens seamlessly, so it may switch over in the middle of a call.

The cruise lines already moved to other countries for that very reason.

If by “travel card” you are talking about the pre-paid smart cards for subways, trains, buses, taxis, ferries, and convenience stores, it is far easier to buy a travel card. If you are carrying cash and do not mind dealing with vending machines every time you go somewhere, that’s OK too.

There are plenty taxis available just outside the cruise terminal in Kushiro. How are your Japanese language skills? Taxi drivers will speak very little English. If you do your homework and print out maps in Japanese, print out - from Google Translate - Japanese requests to go to certain locations ( and back again) you can make it work.

Star Legend was re-built with an ice hull when it started as Royal Viking Queen with Royal Viking Line.

1. Fly Business or First Class 2. Do not fly a US Flag airline 3. Choose your airplane carefully. A380 is best 4. Choose your seat carefully. Forward and away from toilets and galleys. 5. Adjust your body clock a few days in advance with diet and sleep changes. 6. Lay off the free champagne during the flight

Where did you get the idea about what “cruise ships generally do”? For the 34 ships on 13 different cruise lines, I have had to clear on over 1,500 voyages, during the past 47 years, we have not “generally done that”. Which cruise lines have you been working for?

It also strokes his sense of entitlement. This is a very strong issue in North America today.

The fact that you don’t know why 2 different US Ports enforce US Fede

Imperial Hotel in Hibiya or Palace Hotel in Otemachi

There is an easier and faster way to go from Nihon-Odori Station in Yokohama to Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Stay on the Minatomirai line until Shibuya Station. If you study the Minatomirai schedule, plan to take the Express. The cost is the same. Nihon-Odori to Shibuya Station takes 29 minutes on the Express. There, it is a very short walk to the Ginza Line. Take the Ginza Line to Ginza Station. From Ginza Station, Imperial Hotel is a 10 minute walk or a 5 minute Taxi ride.

For the first half of your 30-year career, there were far more smokers than we see today. It is only logical that there were more smoking related fires at that time. In recent years the reduced number of smokers has resulted in reduced instances of smoking-related fires. For the second half of your 30-year career, most cruise lines had stopped the traditional Baked Alaska Parades, and instead used safer means of generating the “sparkle”. By that point in time, most propane burners had also been banned for cooking in Guest Areas, and most table-side cooking had been moved back to the galleys. What little public area cooking was done primarily on induction equipment, removing open flames and unnecessary high heat.These developments significantly reduced hotel-related fire events onboard ships. Yes, many fires still occur today on passenger ships; primarily in galleys, laundries, incinerators, and engine spaces. But to answer the original question, many of the Public Area fires we experienced in “the good old days” no longer happen due to increased restrictions on Baked Alaska Parades and tableside cooking, and decreasing numbers of smokers, along with further restrictions on where one can smoke on ships today.