smplybcause

4 hours ago, binro01 said:

If you try to influence a change of policy, some good people who need the money get hurt.

If you actually want to influence a change in policy you need to only patronize cruise lines that include gratuities. Continuing to patronize cruise lines that have a gratuity pay structure while not paying gratuities will change nothing except the pay of the workers who made your vacation what it is. 

So they say they refund if someone tests positive. I highly doubt they'd refund one fare so my guess is it's whole cabin. 

If the rest in the cabin haven't been around the one that tests positive they could just no show and the other 3 go on. You'd only get port fees and taxes back. 

So let's say the drink package is $60. If you drink 5 $13 drinks the drink package is cheaper. So with your free D+ drinks you'd need to drink 10 $13 drinks a day for it to make sense. Because if you only buy 4 on top of your free 5 it's $52 so cheaper to pay as you go. 

If you drink non alcoholic it gets a bit more hard to calculate because the refreshment package is an option. Like if you drink enough non alcoholic drinks that you know the refreshment package is worth it then it's just down to the difference between them. So if refreshment is $30, then you'd need to only drink 3 $13 drinks (plus your free 5) to make the deluxe worth it. 

9 hours ago, bobmacliberty said:

 

Ditto.

 

I'm more impressed that Buffett is further expanding his empire.  He started with music, then books, then restaurants, then resorts/casinos.  He recently added retirement communities and now getting into cruise ships.  He definitely knows how to sell a lifestyle.  His reported net worth is somewhere between $600M and $900M. Not bad for a singer.

He used to have his restaurants on several NCL ships but the contract ran out before covid. Wonder if that was them testing them out. I miss their margaritas on board. 😔

16 hours ago, topnole said:

Exactly.  And all just to show Royal apparently. So screw the little guy to make a point to the fat corporate cats (Royal Corp).  As if that makes any sense.  
 

And if he had them follow his logic they would pay more and raise base cruise fare by about the amount of the tips.  So he would then pay what he should’ve paid before, essentially costing himself more money.  

I never quite gotten that argument myself...

I don't like how little this corporation is paying their employees...so in protest I'm going to continue to patronize said crappy corporation and give them my money, but I won't give their employees any tips because that will show the corporation!

It's rewarding what you don't like yet penalizing the people you say you're standing up for. 

I went on the Grand Celebration years ago when my friend got a discount for us for $75 per person.

We overpaid. 

I've definitely seen a generic Balcony Guarantee recently. For Oasis class it used to be that you'd click on balcony and then get choices - CP, BW, OV - and then after you picked one you got the we pick or you pick. Now when you select balcony it goes right to we/you pick. And if you select we pick it goes right to the passenger info with it saying Balcony Guarantee. Without paying a deposit I didn't see anything but Balcony Guarantee - the website doesn't show the booking code. 

For the random sailing I selected the guarantee balc was 1300, CP 1800, BW almost 1900, and OV started at 2100. 

With the change I have a feeling that it's just a generic balcony guarantee now so you could be stuck in CP/BW. 

Ok, I just went to the travel agent website I use and for the same sailing, if I select the guaranteed balcony rate that's the same price - when I click through their site it says XN. If I wanted XB it was $200 more. 

10 minutes ago, dcgrumpy said:

 

Are Lava Flow's on Royal and Miami Vice on Carnival similar?

 

On Royal my first drink is usually a frozen mojito. 

A lava flow (anywhere that does it right) is a Pina colada with strawberry syrup. 

A Miami vice is half Pina colada half strawberry daiquiri. 

Similar, but a daiquiri has lime in it - so a lava flow is missing the lime. Also I think because the Miami vice is frozen it doesn't have a strong of a strawberry flavor as a lava flow, but maybe that's just the lime making it not as strong? 

On carnival best I could tell was they only had strawberry daiquiri syrup and not just strawberry syrup so their lava flow was just a Miami vice heavy on the Pina colada because they just added strawberry daiquiri syrup instead of frozen strawberry daiquiri. It was not a lava flow and I never ordered it again for the rest of the cruise. To be fair the bartender said she could make me something close to a lava flow not a lava flow.

BTW there are some places/bartenders that think they're they same, but they're just making a Miami vice and calling it was lava flow. 

1 hour ago, gcelkk said:

I've never purchased a drink package, but thought it automatically added a 18% tip for the server/bartender.  So if you do the math on a diamond $13 drink the tip should be $2.34 (18%).  If on the other hand you tip one dollar on a $13 drink that would be less than 8%.  Seems like a $5 bill laid on the tray or bar would be appropriate for a couple of drinks.  What am I missing here?

I think a lot that tip with cash for a drink have a drink package. When I don't have it I usually don't tip beyond the automatic 18%. And when I have the drink package cash tips usually go to the waiters wandering around. Mostly because I've noticed when I give them $1 a drink I'm not waiting for a drink. The last time I was at coco cay once the waiters we knew on ship found is us they were coming so frequently we were turning down offers for drinks. And I definitely saw others that were waiting for someone to order a drink way longer that we ever did. 

Mine was like 5 days, but my card info was all printed stickers nothing hand written on it. 

On 12/3/2021 at 9:33 AM, geckobabe said:

Mystery solved! I was poking around on the web and this site has the exact excursion listed https://alaskashoreexcursions.com/skagway/wildlife-safari-and-bear-viewing-tour with a note on the description that it is only offered July - September. We will be there in May. So, it shouldn't have been offered in the first place. On a good note, the refund has already gone onto my credit card. Now to decide on what to do in Skagway.  

This was one of my favorite excursions ever. I did it in May 2019 so hopefully timing wouldn't be an issue. It is a bit more on the adventurous side, but it was just as amazing as watching a baby humpback play in the water for over an hour in Juneau. 

https://www.oceanraftalaska.com/

I was in port long enough that I did a van tour in the morning that sorta took you the same way the train did. Then had the raft tour in the afternoon. 

Lava flow is always my first drink. Well except on carnival they don't know what it is/can't make it. But it's first on royal, ncl, and msc.

The only port unvaccinated are allowed off of without a royal shore excursion is coco cay. Well labadee too but who knows when someone will actually stop there. 

10 hours ago, luckybecky said:

I am so confused! 

 

So we are on a Radiance class ship. I just looked that up because I had no idea it mattered. I'm not sure what to do with that information. 

 

I've been on a few cruises. Including two since covid. And we just walked into the theater on every one of them and took a seat. We have always been able to get a good seat if we arrived a little before showtime. I go to the nightly show pretty much every single night on every cruise I've ever been on, and never had to worry about it. 

 

I'm not sure I'm liking this about RC. So I have to reserve the shows in advance? Am I reserving a specific seat? One of the things I like about cruising is the flexibility -- the option to choose our activities. So maybe I'll go to the early show, or maybe the late one. Depends on what else we are doing that day/evening. Never had to worry about it before... we just show up to whatever activity we want. 

 

It is beginning to sound like between the dining reservations and show reservations, our evenings are going to be very structured and inflexible. I guess it is good to know that we need to plan all of this ahead of time, and forget about winging it. And I am actually a big planner. But this is feeling a little too structured even for me. I'm not sure this is going to work well for us. 

 

Any thoughts or advice?

It's not a specific seat. It's just a spot in the theater. It might not be needed, but as the up capacity on the ships but still keep distancing in the theater there will not be enough seats in the theaters for everyone to see the shows. You might be on a sailing where not many want to see a show, but you might be on one that a lot want to see it. You won't know until you show up at the door.

I personally like it better than other ships where you have to wait in long lines otherwise they might not let you in. Give me a reservation over waiting 20+ minutes in line. I never made it to a comedy show on another ship because the line to get in started 30+ minutes before. No desire to spend that much time standing in a line. 

You could always cancel your dining package if you don't like structure. That's actually what's going to be the most inflexible part. Specialty dining venues have such limited capacity just wining it doesn't work. There's only two main show times a night anyways and a very small window where you could eat dinner and maybe choose which show you want to go to that night. 

I believe Harmony has the touch locks on the cabin so they won't punch the card. 

4 hours ago, AustinCruise said:

They would be wise to not allow purchases before someone checks in at the muster station!

I believe they cut you off at a certain point if you haven't gone? But I could be confusing them with carnival that I went on recently. 

It's a bit relative. As someone said it's about due east off Miami/Ft Lauderdale so it gets close to the same temperature it is there. The islands are obviously surrounded by water so if the ocean hasn't cooled off that much so it might be a bit warmer than in Florida.

But even then it's relative. I've had friends from up north come down and hang out in the pool while my butt was in the lounge chair in the sun covered from head to toe. 

Yes. You can only walk off in coco cay if it's a stop.

Reservations for non Oasis or quantum class is a new since covid thing. Due to protocols the theaters are at lower capacity so you need to book a reservation to make sure you can get in. 

Whether this system is here to stay or just until full capacity/covid protocols are done is anyone's guess.

It's not the wifi they have to turn off - it's their own cell tower (to simplify it). Each ship has its own cell tower - that's how your cellular at sea plan works. But once it is within a few miles of shore they have to turn it off. 

So actually the rep is really wrong because once the ship turns off its cell tower your phone would be picking up towers on shore and you would be billed however your plan handles Mexico.

Yes. Included or complimentary is what they like to say if there's no extra charge. 

If you want private or semi private time on the flowrider you have to pay. Otherwise in the posted times anyone can go wait in line for your turn. 

Use or lose by midnight.

4 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

Yea and maybe they should leave the insulin on board too 🙄 Guest relations will work with them regardless.  BTW nice shiny deputy badge and whistle officer.

There's really nothing to work with if the country's rule is only manufacturer sealed food is allowed off the ship. Nothing guest services can do to change that.

As others stated, not all Royal discounts are combinable with other Royal discounts.