tetleytea

Except the mob. I would hope....

I should say the wait staff will be lax inasmuch as they can get away with it, and shorts for men is not always something they can get away with. Anything grey-area will usually go in your favor. Over on the Princess board, it seems the men have not been allowed to wear shorts into the MDR on most days, while the women can. Weird. Some people have taken issue with that (including me).

That could be your action item for your next transatlantic cruise. Stateroom TV.

Wishing you the best.

Maybe if the rock talks back to you, then it is not a rock. Why did you leave out the theoretical/projected loss on your $1.2 million bankroll? 80% slots payout. You put $1.2 million in those slots. You do understand that I know why your actual loss (-$52k) does not match that, right?

No, your computation pretty much exactly matches the computation I did using jezebel's data. Your $1.2 million bankroll is a useful data point, though.

I thought everybody wanted to put this to rest? Do we, or don't we?

The only reason I would ever pack a suit on a cruise near the tropics is because the DW gets a kick out of date nights when we dress up all fancy. I've got a pair of black jeans, and black sneakers with black soles that I pack for this purpose. Another observation I had is that most of the time on the mainstream cruise lines, the restaurant hosts tend to err on the side of lax. They know it's your vacation, and they know you pay gratuities.

I'd like kids on board if there weren't these unspoken socioeconomic barriers between the kids and the older adults. I barely ever talk to them. The kids will talk to each other even if they're strangers, and the adults will talk to each other even if they're strangers. But how do you get the two to relate with each other? At least on a surface level? I guess maybe the adults are more interested than the kids are. The cruise directors would have the power to do something about that in the Atrium events (e.g. "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" the gameshow).

This reminds me of a behavior from a timeshare company I dealt with. They said I had 2 weeks to pull out of a contract...but then gave me the runaround and would never give me the means to notify them I wanted to pull out. And if I tried to call or talk to the right people, they would only try and talk me out of it--but they would never be "notified". I wasn't putting up with that nonsense. In the end, I found a "Contact Us" link on their website, told them in writing I was pulling out, and if they had any questions THEY could call this phone number I was given. Then I went to the Mastercard and disputed the charge. There's no law or contract provision which says I have to notify only certain people within the company whom they want. They agreed not to contest the dispute.

I've got a pretty good idea of how these comps actually work, just as I also have a feel for how you SAY comps work (the two don't necessarily match, BTW). I also don't necessarily view heavy gamblers as the experts on gambling--I consider more the statisticians, insurance actuaries, and the people who actually made the machines the experts (just as I consider the rehab doctors the experts on drug use--not the drug users). So I will go there on my own time, as I see fit. But thanks for the invite.

It happens. Over on the Premier Plus drink package thread, people are talking about the price of oil. I'm pretty sure they don't intend to drink the oil. No harm, no argument intended.

IMHO, the call is interstate. What does the U.S. Constitution say? Federal law has jurisdiction. I brought up Florida and Washington because that's where the Norwegian phone numbers always seem to be from. Although California (Princess) and Las Vegas occasionally come up.

I am treading a thin line not to be construed as giving legal advice, but basically I agree with scooter. You can Google "recording interstate phone calls", and while there are licensed attorneys basically saying what Heronymous is saying (i.e. Heronymous is not wrong), the maze of laws in effect seem to net-result that the more stringent of the two states' laws apply.

No argument there.

Likewise. You may head there as well if you're interested in how it works. And if you want the gambling topic dropped here, no cheap shots or ad hominem attacks.

Balconies depend on the itinerary. I used to be in the "I'm never in the cabin anyway; might as well get an inside cabin" crowd, but then I did an Alaska on a balcony. ...but then I did a Caribbean on a balcony, and was never there. Vibe would have made more sense.

Someone else on another thread here said they already initiated legal action for a similar reason, so if there is a consistent behavior on NCL's part that does not stand up to legal scrutiny, you guys could go in together on it. It's the last thing I would want for any of you, but I will give this much: if NCL gets served papers, you will get the supervisor and higher-up contact you were looking for. Definitely that. About telephone recording, Washington and Florida both are two-party consent states. You are not allowed to record them without their permission, but neither are they allowed to record you without yours. If you get some automated message along the lines of, "this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes," then they just consented to the call being recorded.

To simplify; a) comps are based on points. Obviously.... b) So you are saying the $20k is in losses, on probably a $100k "bankroll", or sum total of all bets combined (which is an assumption...theoretical...estimated...average...etc. etc.) c) You believe the end result is, that person would probably get comped more than $5k--or more than 25% on those $20k in losses/$100k in bankroll. d) You are saying 1 point is deposited for every $5 you bankroll. Which means you would get 20k points on that $100k bankroll. And those 20k points should translate into more than $5k in rewards. I would actually agree--NCL should comp back significantly more than 25% in free cruises. e) If you get comped back 100% of your spending (which is defined to be your gambling losses), then what is the problem? To which my answer to e) is, that simply does not happen, on average. We seem to be in agreement that you get comped back more than 25%, but still much less than 100%. I'm not going to apologize for not "giving it a rest" until we get to the bottom of some really basic questions. You guys can't tell me to "give it a rest" *AND* say I am not interested in "understanding" it. You can't have it both ways.

Not true on several counts. In fact I could say the same about a number of people here: a disinterest in the facts. And would be right. However, breaking off the gambling thread into its own thread--I don't think that is controversial. Does anyone here really disagree with that?

How do you perceive that as misread? Yes, of course it was their money (prior to spending it, of course). That's what spending is. But you said that if they spent $20k, then they would have gotten a lot more than $5k in comps. By "spent", do you mean gambling losses, or they bet a sum total of $20k? I am not making any assumptions: I am asking you. How much do you estimate they would have gotten comped? On that $20k they lost? Or bet? "I think if these people he was talking to, are Elite status, and get comps, they really don't need his help figuring out how much the Casino will give them. A non gambler, telling someone how the Casino comps work, is like a civilian telling a fire fighter how to put out fires. I think a fire fighter would know more about how to put out fires; more then a stranger he just met on the street." Not exactly. Gambling is a potentially addictive behavior. It's more like a non-drug user telling a drug user how drugs work (which has been done to me before, by the way. I was told I was in no position to talk about drugs unless I did them. Which obviously I summarily rejected that idea). "But when I look at the points on my Casino card, on the last day of a cruise, I can pretty much figure what kind of comped Cruise I can get next time. Also, we plan how much money we are going to spend based on how much the cruise would have cost if we paid outright. If we are in a suite that would have cost $10,000 for two people, and we don't go over that amount, then it's a wash. If we spend more then $10,000 of OUR money, then, yes, we lost." That. That data. How many points on your casino card? What did you net? What is your estimated total amount of bets (I say "estimated", because more often than not gamblers don't know the exact sum total of their own bets, either). I respect that it is YOUR money to lose, spend, whatever...and indeed, it helps me anyway. After all, the more money the casino pulls in, the lower my own cruise fare. But a few things: 1) If you have family members who are not on board with it, that is not victimless behavior. And they are not necessarily here, on CC, to defend themselves. And.... 2) We all know that, indeed, the casinos are making money, and we know where they are making it from: from you. And that means there is no way the total of all the comps they give out exceeds people's average losses. My issue is that these comps are being marketed as somehow exceeding people's losses when we know that cannot be true, and then other people go off and spend THEIR money on that non-truth. The variance aspect of people's individual results only serves to further obfuscate that fact. If I meet you, a stranger in a cruise bar, I don't know whether you are a victim of that marketing, a perpetrator, know and don't care, or...what.... That's why I ask the question.

jezebel, we have not talked before. Instead of promptly leaving, you could offer up your set of data for the rest of us? Your experience in the casino is useful information (the other guy's feedback is useful too, though). You believe they would have received comps much more than $5k on that $20k. By "spent" that hypothetical $20k, do you mean they bet a total of $20k over the course of their gambling visit, or lost $20k? We can calculate the percentages of the comps vs. gambling losses very easily from there; but first we have to have people speak openly and honestly about their results. That's why we have 5 pages of discourse on this thread. Actually we do have an idea of how much you wagered and lost, because we have other reports of how much it takes to achieve an elite tier. We might not know the exact numbers for any one person's losses, but we have an idea. And to achieve elite status, you have to place a lot of bets, so we know your projected losses vs. actual losses are not going to be terribly far off from each other. It's not intended as condescending--they were probably just trying to help. At the very least, they were just trying to figure out exactly why you see it differently. Can you see that we all reasonably believe the casino will offer you free stuff to try and incentivize you to lose more--and that the value of the free stuff will normally be less than what you lost? We all expect that. That is nothing personal towards you.

Board: pay attention at what is being claimed. According to this particular comp calculator (which is not NCL's, but it is claimed it is a good gauge and an industry standard), casinos pay back 30% of projected losses back as free cruises and such. This is admitted. Meanwhile, it is asserted that there is "confusion" as to what constitutes projected losses vs. the sum total of all your bets (or "bankroll", as it has been called). If you read higher up, CCL gave back $5k in freebies in exchange for gambling $20k. That's 25%. The "industry standard" is supposed to be 30%. That was called "bad"--and indeed 25% is, after all, less than 30%. But that is supposing the $20k is your losses. Suppose the $20k is your bankroll. Now suppose you don't lose everything you bet, but that CCL pays back 50% of your bets in winnings (we can adjust that 50% up or down later). If you wager $20k, then you win back 50% of that, or $10k. That means the $5k in freebies you got is in fact *50%* of your losses--NOT 25%. How is 50% payback "poor", when you just got done saying 30% is "standard"? Moreso, NCL allegedly pays back even more than that. Let's tweak the payouts upward, to 90%. You bankroll $20k, you win back $18k. CCL is now comping you $5k on $2k losses. Do you truly believe CCL is really giving away more than double what you lost? Regularly? Come on. And that is what is being called "bad'. So what, then, is Norwegian paying back in free cruises and such? Triple?? Keep in mind, these are the same people saying that paying back 30% of losses in the form of freebies is standard. Now we have them paying back even more than twice what you lose, and that is considered "bad".

What a long port stop for Icy Strait! Seems like they should offer some small boat Glacier Bay excursions if they're going to stay that long.

Some aspects of the Club I thought were worth it; others not. I liked the laundry and the bundled in Free at Sea. Getting the cabin dead in the middle of the ship, okay. The multiple shower heads, not so much. I would definitely not book a Club outright again, but would upgrade bid on it.