theroos17

Nonsense.

A one word response from somebody as verbose as you. I am very disappointed.

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I made clear how it does pertain to what we're discussing: Some posters are callously dismissing the possibility that there are legitimate needs for emotional support animals that should be granted and honored. They are wrong. How could they be wrong? The same way people have been wrong about their marginalization of the legitimate needs of others throughout time.

 

There is nothing more political about demonstrating how the marginalization is wrong as there was about the original posts where people marginalized legitimate use of emotional support animals. Perhaps your own personal bias, in favor of that marginalization or otherwise, makes it difficult for you to see that.

 

The bottom line is what I said as the summary of the message you quoted: "The fact that some people engage in deception to insinuate for themselves advantages that they do not actually need does not nullify the reality that other people have genuine needs." We share the cruise ships we cruise together on. Considering and respecting other people rather than marginalizing their needs, even though you have different values from them, is appropriate and proper. We're supposed to be helping each other have better cruises - not making excuses for undercutting the experience of cruisers with whom we don't see eye to eye by fostering negative impressions of them.

First, I clearly did not marginalize the legitimate use of service animals. Also, your own bias doesn't allow for you to acknowledge the politicization of your post by adding the term, "white privilege". The examples you gave were legitimate and demonstrated your point very well. There was no need to accentuate your point with that term.

Second, properly trained service animals are taught to sit, quietly, by the side of the person they are attached to. When people bring UNTRAINED animals onto the cruise ship(ones that bark or howl, approach other people or defecate in inappropriate areas of the ship), does that not undercut the enjoyment of the cruise for others? It has nothing to do with "seeing eye to eye" with the people with animals. It is the need to weed out the abuse of the illegitimate use of so called "service animals" as opposed to those that have real and legitimate needs for them.

It is very easy for fully functional, non-disabled people to marginalize the reality that more functionally-challenged people face. It's the same kind of scenario as when men marginalized the reality that women in society faced; and the same kind of scenario as when people with white privilege marginalized the reality that racial, religious and ethic minorities face. The only difference is that in those situations exploitation through deception was not as readily possible. The fact that some people engage in deception to insinuate for themselves advantages that they do not actually need does not nullify the reality that other people have genuine needs.

 

This post may have been entered by voice recognition. Please excuse any typographical errors.

Really, we are debating the abuse of the system by some people, bringing their "pets" on board using the ruse of it being a "service animal" versus the use of legitimate trained service animals and you bring up "white privilege"? Has nothing to do with the topic at hand. How about you save that for your political post.

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As someone who dedicates A LOT of time an energy raising Guide Dogs for the Blind on a volunteer basis, I absolutely hate when people carry tiny dogs around and claim them to be for "emotional support". Something needs to give with this ridiculous practice. There are people (PTSD for example) who really do suffer and thrive with the use of a TRAIND AND CERTIFIED animal. Unfortunately, we have not gotten to the point where we have created a standard for the real guid/service animals so people take advantage of it far too much.

 

"I get sad if my yorkie isn't always with me" is not a real reason. Not saying that is the case here however I expect it is. Service animals should not be carried around in purses.

That is exactly the point. You can often tell when a dog is actually trained as a service animal. They tend not to bark or make sounds and they don't move from the side of the person the animal is servicing.

I have several friends who have retired from the Armed Forces who suffer from PTSD and a couple of them have the dogs and they work wonders. It makes my blood boil that these dirtbags out there are taking advantage of the situation just so they can have their stupid dog with them.

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How do you know it was not important? It would be naive and ignorant to automatically assume it was frivolous activity. My wife is an international tax attorney. She deals with clients who also live overseas. Bedtime for you, mid work day for them. Business never sleeps. Neither does international commerce.

 

For some, a vacation does not mean a cutoff from work.

Since we don’t know what this person was actually doing with said laptop. Presenting that as rude, is unfounded and in itself rude.

 

 

 

 

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There's a time and place for work and the main dining room is NEITHER!!

So True!

 

 

 

So...? What's your point? That 25% (fictional, no source) of international passengers aren't enough to consider RC business as international?

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I'm still hoping that MSC clears up what seems to be staffing problems on the ship (their ratio of crew to passengers is worse than other cruise lines running out of American ports). I'll keep watching these posts for the next several months for the yea' s and nay's. We are booked on the Seaside in the Aurora suite at the back of ship in November of this year, but I still have a booking with NCL on the Escape (an extended balcony mini-suite) as well. I'm hedging my bets and not canceling anything until we see how things shake out on the Seaside.

I can tell you there loyalty level match program was a great marketing tool (our NCL level got us the black level on MSC). It's the only reason I am giving them a shot to begin with. You kind of get married to your cruise line once you start moving up in the loyalty tiers and the perks that come with it.

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Not correct. You're comparing the double occupancy CARNIVAL VISTA with the total occupancy of MSC SEASIDE. That is not an apples to apples comparison.

 

In actuality, CARNIVAL VISTA carries 3936 pax double occupancy and MSC SEASIDE carries 4134 pax double occupancy, but of course MSC SEASIDE is the larger ship by gross tonnage giving her the higher space ratio.

 

Having sailed on CARNIVAL BREEZE (sister to VISTA), I found the ship extremely crowded especially the tiny pool areas, with not enough pools and bottlenecks throughout. A very high density ship. I'll be sailing on SEASIDE in a few weeks so I'll be comparing the speciousness.

 

I'm not taking these early reports as typical because one the ship is still very new and going through teething pains, and two because so far the only cruises have been holiday cruises, which tend to have the ship at max capacity, are loaded with kids, taxes the crew to the limit. This is true on any line. I avoid holiday cruises on any cruise line like the plague. I'll be more interested in reviews once the ship has settled in a bit and it's not a holiday cruise.

 

Regarding the buffet being used as a dining room assignment, no I don't agree with it one bit, and MSC has done this for years. It's done on DIVINA on cruises filled to capacity (holiday cruises). On regular cruises it's not an issue. I will say if MSC does this, they should be VERY clear about it in brochures and websites, that if you book this certain cabin category you may be assigned the buffet. That is only fair.

There's a big difference in terms of reaching the capacity between Carnival and MSC. We are experiencing it ourselves. On Carnival, or any of the other cruise line for that matter, you can book any room you want even if you're only one person (of course paying for double occupancy).We booked the Aurora suite at the back of the ship (four people in the cabin) My in-laws booked the same suite and there's only two of them staying in their room. They have been told that they could be bumped from that room in order to give it to people with four persons in their party. You can easily check this by using their website and varying the amount of passengers in each class and you'll see that you won't get the same room coming up. MSC is doing what they can to get to that capacity.

Made me laugh. When I started cruising in 1976, there were inside or outside (porthole) cabins (no such thing as a balcony). Dining was early or late. You ate every meal with your assigned tablemates. There was no buffet choice, no extra cost dining. Yes, there was a midnight buffet (it was set up on a couple of folding tables), except for the gala midnight buffet, which was mostly for show.

 

Entertainment was usually the Cruise Director who also sang, or passenger participation, every once in a while a guest performer...much more low key.

 

So, yes, things have changed drastically since my early days on Sitmar (also Italian). Some for the better, some not, but cruising is still the biggest bargain in travel, IMHO.

 

Oh, and BTY, these ships were 20 to 25 thousand GRT.

 

Stan

You can have an Italian or European experience while offering competitive service and dining options. These are not the same thing. I think the design, the bespoke entertainment, the decor represent "differences" that can be positive. But poor service and making it difficult for guests to have an enjoyable dining experience isn't endearing. Service will improve, you could insert any recent ship name in there for that, new ships with poor service but it works better after a few sailings; but it does seem like maybe there's an Achilles heel for dining<?>

In another thread, someone who was on the ship said that the alternative menu is available every night. It seems odd to me that there are conflicting reports on this. The few menus I've seen posted do have the alternative choices on them. Also, there is a post of a video of the buffet on deck 16 and I'm quite surprised how big it is and how many choices were offered. It was at lunch time but I can't imagine it being scaled back that much at dinner. I certainly wouldn't consider it a "kiddy buffet". With that said I don't think they should be forcing people to dine in the deck 8 buffet. Instead, if they really need that space for overflow I'd make it an "anytime" dining room so those who wish to have that option can go there.

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It will be interesting to see how NCL handles it in the next few weeks. Back in 2005, when the Dawn got stuck in a nor'easter and got hit by the rogue wave we were compensated very well for what happened. We got half back immediately for that cruise and got the equivalent amount of money for our next cruise booking with NCL. Even with the bad cruise experience, it was the actions of NCL after the fact that kept us cruising with them.

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If anyone watches the weather they will see that this storm really came out of nowhere. I live in SC and last weekend there was no snow forecasted for the coast.

 

 

The storm didn't come out of nowhere. They were talking about it 5 days in advance. The only question was the track of the storm in relation to the east coast and how close it would get to the coast.

 

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Are these drinks ALL includ Ed d under the UBP? I thought any drink over $10 wasn't included and some of these sou b d expensive.

The limit is $15. And you can still get drinks over 15 you just have to pay the difference, i e $18 drink you would pay $3.

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Free should be free with no extra charge

Unfortunately, with all the "cheap" people out there, they need to take the gratuities ahead of time. Having cruised during the time of the "tip envelopes", it was disgusting to see how many people would simply not give anything to the employees, which is where most of their income comes from.

I don't determine it. A doctor does. From your description, your husband should be medically designated handicapped.

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