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Just to keep the information all in one handy place, we asked for a stepstool on our NCL cruise because of our 3-year old and they brought one like it was a common request.

I couldn't care less whether someone is a tourist or a traveler. You don't realize how cruise passengers can behave in a small town. It's a manners thing. Actually walking into people's homes to see how locals live. Demanding seating at restaurants ahead of locals who were already waiting because they are on a time limit. Trying to haggle at pharmacies.

It only has to be one bad egg per ship to get overwhelming. Up to five ships per day. All summer.

That does remind me though of a diner in a tiny SE community that was popular with other Alaskans for a weekend away. Super small town. You had a dining room in the only hotel and the one diner and those were your only food options. Besides the one grocery store. But any time someone walked into the diner with shiny new Patagonia gear and a general big city (if sincerely Earth-friendly) tourist look, she'd tell them she was closed. Despite other people at tables eating. And repeat it until they left.

Tourism dollars are a bonus, not a necessity.

Sorry, you think it is a bad attitude, but since I love to visit a few towns during my road trips, I really want to be in one that would appreciate me as a visitors. Being retired, I'm able to rent houses and stay for a week or more at a time in most of the towns I visit, which gives me time to find out about the local culture, try their restaurants, visit their interesting landmarks, etc.

One day or one week, that's a "Bow down before my largesse" attitude that no SE community is desperate for.

You won't want Ketchikan or Sitka either then.

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In the Outer Banks of NC locals call visitors "tourons". I wonder if these ports have similar nicknames for cruisers?

As a matter of fact, I grew up in Juneau and that's what we called them too.

At least once a week during the season, there are literally more cruise ship passengers in town than the local population. But it really is a blip economically. Especially considering how many of the shop owners and employees aren't local either.

How far north are you going? Because Alaska is where you get qiviut.

What?? Where is this? Is it on breakaway?

It was on the Star.

I wish I'd known there was a sangria bar in the buffet during dinner, instead of stumbling across it on the last night.

Typos and other errors in an ad are much more significant than in a post. This was an ad for services. It gives people an idea of the quality they can expect from the provider.

The latest in the Alvirah and Willy Meehan mystery series by Mary Higgins Clark is set on a cruise ship.

All By Myself, Alone

Fleeing the humiliating arrest of her husband-to-be on the eve of their wedding, Celia Kilbride, a gems and jewelry expert, hopes to escape from public attention by lecturing on a brand-new cruise ship, the Queen Charlotte. On board she meets eighty-six-year-old Lady Emily Haywood, “Lady Em,” as she is known throughout the world. Immensely wealthy, Lady Em is the owner of a priceless emerald necklace that she intends to leave to the Smithsonian after the cruise. Three days out to sea Lady Em is found dead—and the necklace is missing. Is it the work of her apparently devoted assistant, Brenda Martin, or her lawyer-executor, Roger Pearson, and his wife, Yvonne, both of whom she had invited to join them on the cruise? Or is it Professor Henry Longworth, an acclaimed Shakespeare scholar who is lecturing on board? Or Alan Davidson, a guest on the ship who is planning to spread his wife’s ashes at sea? The list of suspects is large and growing. Celia, with the help of her new friends Willy and Alvirah Meehan, who are celebrating their forty-fifth wedding anniversary, sets out to find the killer, not realizing that she has put herself in mortal danger before the ship reaches its final destination.

Our then-3-year old loved NCL and the kids club in 2015. And we were really impressed with all the activities. I do regularly see posts about how it's impossible to predict whether your own children will want to be in the club. But there were a lot of family activities outside of the club as well.

Since you are kid free you have no idea about the instinct to protect your children when something happens to them. It is an instinctual response to do WHATEVER it takes to protect them from whatever the threat is. And yes. If someone lays their hands on my child. They are going down. Period.

My protective parental instincts don't go anywhere near wishing violence on someone simply making a joke.

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Our 3-year old loved the Star as well. Especially the kids club. And it wasn't overwhelming.

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We had Moet waiting in an iced bucket waiting in our suite. Didn't know about it until we got there. GF liked it. I didn't care one way or the other.

We found exactly that in our suite on the second day. It turned out that family had ordered it as a gift but there was no note. We were assuming it was a random treat from the ship until they actually mentioned it.

In Alaska, you want King Crab!

You do. You really do.

On Celebrity, they let you take the champagne to dinner and give it to the sommelier and turn it in for a wine credit, and then pick a wine and pay the difference, if any.

 

Don't kn ow if NCL allows this?

 

I suspect they will allow you swap champagnes in your room for a comparable alternative and/or pay the difference?

People have definitely had success making this swap via their butler, without bringing the bottle anywhere, but it may depend on who you get.

You'll find it really depends on what unexpected things you use them for and the level of service you receive. We budgeted based on a general average we saw here but our room steward actually ended up with quite a bit of the butler's tip. Because he deserved it more.

It's true not everyone has a use for the snacks. We had them originally and then we requested they cease. They do come automatically unless you say something.

On port days that you want to get an early start, breakfast in your room, pre-ordered the night before, really is a huge convenience. That automatically goes through your butler if you're in a suite, not through room service.

But yes, if you don't use them, you don't use them. I certainly wouldn't give someone $10/person per day for refilling the coffee.

Rumpole of The Bailey. Its a UK thing.

It has run for decades on PBS in the states too. She Who Must Be Obeyed...

If you are a Platinum member sailing in a suite (penthouse, not Haven), do you get two bottles of the sparkling wine on embarkation?

My in-laws don't care for anything sparkling but they've successfully exchanged their platinum and suite wines for reds.

were you also in one of the more expensive suites, os, dos or gv?

 

 

 

In the cheaper suites it's not real champagne.

dos

I hope they didn't gave you that instead of Champagne! I did a quick search, since I haven't heared of it, and that cost around $3-4!!!

 

That is not what they shall give you as your "suitechampagne" in a DOS!

 

Are you platinum? Can it be the sparkling wine for that?

It was our first cruise, so definitely not platinum. That's what was waiting for us instead of champagne, yes.

We received Duc de Paris Brut Vin Mousseux in our DOS on the Star last year.

I photographed everything.

Our first cruise was 7 days and even that felt short. Not in the sense that we were having too much fun to stop but that we were just starting to get the hang of everything. DH also wished it had been a smaller ship to begin with, but we were on a ship about the size of the Conquest. Not one of the giant ones.

We just booked our first NCL cruise and booked a suite. Do people really ask their Butler to unpack for them?? Eh?? Kinda strange to me but what do I know?? LOL.

Think about how many elderly people are on cruise ships. Physically, unpacking can be very difficult for some of them.