navybankerteacher

They might - if you happened to check in late in the evening and wanted to get some sleep.

A truly stupid challenge. What you have or have not experienced is strictly limited by your travels In any event, I do not believe anyone on this tread has ever made such a claim: regarding a hotel that today keeps a guest's passport for the duration of their stay. You seem to want to defend your absolute right to never let your passport out of your possession. -- to the point of bringing up absurd questions like your most recent post. I think I am done with this matter.

That is not what anyone here has been talking about -- that "entire stay" bit you added is ridiculous. And the "hour or so" you acknowledge frequently means overnight. The point is: you do not always have the right to remain in possession of your passport at all times as you initially claimed. If you continue to experience new countries you are likely to continue to learn.

You always should have a plan - after researching the area, deciding whether to go on foot or local transport. If you want to do more than just ride up and down the cliff, you can do Santorini without thinking how to get to Io or the archeological sites. Mykonos you probably can do it on a walk-about. Naples is huge - if you only want a pizza you can wing it in Naples - but there is a lot else: Pompeii, Ischia or Capri, for example. If you just want to see the worlds first shopping galleria you can do it on your own - but not without a map Istanbul is a fantastic city but Sicily is a large island - will you be in Messina or Palermo? Utterly different approaches called for. With a bit of planning, you can get a lot out or Rome on your own - train from Civita Vecchia, then a couple of Metro rides can give you the Vatican, Coloseum , Forum, etc. - you name it- but just pick one or two. A drive-by on a bus will let you say you’ve “done” Rome, but better to pick one or two favorites. Getting to Ephesus and seeing the area may well call for a tour. Athens you can do on your own - WITH A PLAN. Perhaps just the Acropolis and the Plaka. But like Rome, you need to be selective and limit your targets. Read up on your ports - get tour books for each from your library so you can visualize what there is to see/do. —- and then pick your own plan; trying to see too many things in any place means not really seeing any on thing. Decide on your favorite two or three “targets” at each port, then figure out how to hit them and enjoy your trip.

Perhaps you should travel more widely. Their country, their rules.

In some areas, the hotels are effectively acting as the agents of the local “authorities” and will hold and inspect passports in compliance with local regulations — and you are, indeed, required to surrender your passport. Would you prefer to have to go to the local immigration control office as part of your hotel check in?

Find a website which lists upcoming cruises -- sorted by departure port and date, indicating prices -- there are a couple, which of course may not be named here. Use your imagination and just keep stabbing around.. You can get a lot of information with a one-stop site.

They certainly used to (at least in Italy, Spain and France) until about 20 years ago -- but not so much these days.

Basic grown-up clothing - at least a jacket and tie for a man, and the kind of dress a woman's mother would have thought was good for company. Why try to test the limits?

Today was reparations for the bitter cold around Christmas -- bright sun, temp in mid 50's; walking outside I could actually feel the warmth of the sun on the back of my neck. Tomorrow night, after a good supper, we will let the new year come in, as it is clearly able to do without our hand-holding, and probably be asleep shortly after ten PM.

Poor is a relative term -- but cruising on mass market lines has become the least expensive vacation activity (outside of staying home). To the extent "poor people" take vacations away from home at all, it is likely to be on a mass market cruise ship. Someone who elects to travel outside of the US without a passport primarily because getting a passport would make the cruise unaffordable might not be considered wealthy.

It is sort of like wanting to feed a thousand people with a hundred servings of soup: if you keep adding water, you will always have enough. Anyone who sailed HAL, Celebrity or Princess before they joined the downward spiral of competition with Carnival and NCL will see that HAL, Celebrity and Princess are more than a little bit different from how they were twenty years ago.

There is a Wyeth Museum, as in N. C. (of Treasure Island), Andrew (of that haunted girl in the meadow) and the latest, Jamie, very good portraitist (of JFK, I believe), which should be worth an hour or more.

In this context, why not consider "Surge"?

Of course not -- the piece you buy at a shipboard "art" auction is the lure --- just the best copy of the hundreds (thousands?) ; and they want to keep it on board so they can keep selling it. I hope you did not really think that you had any chance of buying a true "original" at one of those auctions.

The only thing you are doing wrong is completely believing the pitch that lures you in. "Free" appears in many cruise line ads.

So you won?

It is possible that experts also tend to share their expertise -- in a somewhat similar manner as fatuous fulminators insist on sharing their blather. As a side question: do you really believe that cruise ship management, once advised by their customers of perceptions of unsatisfactory service, would fail to react in any practical fashion?

To the extent management wants to manage, it is reasonable for there to be some reporting to the staff of passenger satisfaction. On another point: raising the irrelevant question concerning whether others on the ship are aware of your tipping practices is simply another plunge into fatuosity -- unless you refer strictly to other passengers. When it comes it comes to the staff being aware you are dead wrong. Certainly whoever you told to remove service charges has a damn good idea of your tipping practices -- and thinking that those people would treat that information with the confidentiality of the confessional does not even rise to the level of being fatuous,

Benny Hill certainly had his "thing" --- but "good"? I've seen dozens of comedians on ships - and generally enjoyed them, but not enough to be able to recall any names

Reality being what it is, I suspect that very many bucket list items, once checked off, leave the list-maker wondering why he ever put it in the list in the first place.

Of course, a cash tip personally handed to an individual leaves no audit trail, while I am inclined to think that a tip charged to your account would be tracked by the line’s bean counters - perhaps to claim credit for the compensation, and possibly making it taxable for the recipient.

Why would you assume that? When someone is smart enough to advise of significant limitations the intelligent thing is to assume that they mean what they say.

How fatuous can you get? Of course some history makes the word “segregate” politically and socially unacceptable , but the sort of separation it reflects does in fact make it a valid word. like it or not - being a tipper or a non-tipper (certainly in the context of this thread) is a totally valid distinction. And sailing on a ship on which those who serve you must depend upon tips for reasonable compensation makes you part of the equation: tipping on ships sailing in the “tipping culture” DOES impose a requirement on you . Your being able to afford your cruise depends, at least in part, on the “tipping culture”, If you want to take a moral position against the way they do business, refusing to business with them should be one of your first steps.

We have hopes of reaching the freezing point (32F) tomorrow after a couple of mornings at 0 F. At least no snow (here in SW Connecticut) unlike much of the rest of the US.