Drew B 58

A friend of mine is on your sailing. I will be poring over any pictures with people in the background to see if I can spot her! 😀

To be clear, it isn’t JUST about the garnishes. They use a vegetable-infused vodka that makes the whole drink taste better.

If you are sailing on a Vista class ship, the Bloody Mary at the Pig and Anchor bar!

I called it 53 is the new 20 on my last cruise because, alas, forty is long gone…. 😔

Thank you!

I understand leaving a different card in the slot to keep the power on. However, it sounds like having ANY card in there will keep your steward from cleaning the cabin.

So does that mean if you want to have your cabin serviced, you take the card out, but that means your cabin has no power, meaning no device charging? And if you want to charge your device(s), you have to leave your card IN, which means no cabin service? I don’t think I’d like that…

She was my first cruise back in 2000…

The deli should be open, even if the buffet is closed.

Thank you. Not many pics of new menu items, but the first one(s) I’ve seen!

So, the new menus started two months ago, first on Dream, then expanded to other ships. Tens of thousands of passengers must have sampled them by now, but I haven’t seen any commentary or visual aids about the actual dishes. Why do you suppose that is? Or am I just looking in the wrong places?

I’d take the MDR over the buffet with either the old or the new menus. Not a fan of the buffet…

Shoot! I cruise on Venezia on 11/30 and it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting the new menus. 😔

How much you “put through” the casino isn’t indicative of how much money you have or how you value it. Theoretically, one could put in a $20 bill and “run through” $82,500 without ever putting in another nickel…

Is the actual physical setup of the buffet on Venezia different from her Vista-class sisters, the Vista, the Horizon & The Panorama?

I’m not much of a drinker and don’t ever purchase a drink package. When I looked at what “free” drinks would cost me on NCL, it came out to as much or more than I typically spend on drinks if I buy them a la carte. I understand from reading your live threads that you get MUCH more benefit than I ever could…. 😉

From what I understand, with NCL’s “Free at Sea”, you still get charged for the gratuities on the drink package. And they aren’t optional (meaning you can choose to leave something each time or not). They charge you upfront what the tip amount (not sure if it’s 18% or some other number) would be if you PAID for the given drink package…

The deli is a separate line, but it isn’t open during breakfast hours. I believe the deli hours are 11:00-11:00. On most ships (not sure about Venezia), they use that area as an omelette station during breakfast hours. If that’s the case, it will have a separate line - albeit often a LONG one - as well…

I have absolutely no way to know if people removing tips accounts for 50% of the people in line on the last 2 days or 5% or 95%. And neither do you. and I’m not sure why you seem to think that the only two reasons to visit guest services would be a billing error or removal of tips. There are many other possibilities. The most common reason I would go on the last two days would be to pay down/off my account with cash I won (or at least did not lose) in the casino so I don’t have a huge credit card bill. But I’ve even gone just to ask for a print out of my folio because I find it much easier to go through it on paper than on my phone screen. I don’t tend to do this, but people could be visiting GS to complain about any possible problem they’ve had. Or they could be trying to get a problem resolved. It could be that they are trying to locate a belonging that has been lost since GS would serve as a lost and found. Guest services doesn’t only exist to deal with your folio account…

I’ve paid a visit to guest services on the last day or two of probably at least half of my cruises. I’ve never reduced/removed tips. I find it bizarre that you assume that is the reason for the lines when there are literally hundreds of other possible explanations!

Just a guess, but I would bet that it has next to nothing to do with the port agent and their mood and everything to do with how backed up they happen to be at that moment. If there’s a line, it would be unfair to the folks who are there at their proper appointment time to make them wait for someone who isn’t. If there’s no appreciable line, then there would be no good reason not to let people in outside of their appointed slot. Getting them in now would mean less crowding later, which benefits everyone…

Completely disagree! So many things have been ADDED to the experience (restaurants, attractions, features, etc…) that millions of cruisers love! You can’t say that all changes have been bad…

It doesn’t. The old buffets were fancy and gorgeous. The current ones put out some mediocre late-night snacks (tortilla chips, chicken tenders, pizza, cookies…).

Well, this IS the Carnival forum…

There are PLENTY of complaints out there about RCCL MDR dinners. Particularly with the new menus…