tunafish

what was the price of the inside back than?

been on both - huge difference. Zoo vs art museum vibe. both have fun things to do, but unless you are into going through waterslides or surf thing all the time - Edge is mighty better

I think I saw Hendrick's and Bombay Sapphire on a top shelf there. Rest would be your liver cirrhosis well special. I think your best bet is to watch and direct your drink prep for several reasons. Bartenders are Asia therefore it is not their drink of choice personally and would be similar to American understanding the Chinese plum wine grades. They only have small spanish pimento filled olives. very often beat up and dried so juice can be an issue. no other variety. With drink packages going crazy the culinary value of each drink went down and I see lots of inconsistency with repeat orders even from the same bar same evening. I guess they think one can always get another one if one does not like the drink. When you pay for them per drink - upsetting

What do you guys think about the subject? There is so little information regarding the excursion in the printed materials or cabin TV ads. I also noted that asking excursions desk directly does not produce more info also. Why do you think is that? Of course some excursions are clear but things like "city tour" or particular specifics about exact place/places to be visited, time allowed on site is as blurry as possible sometimes. Do they afraid of giving false promises?

you are 100% correct and I am sure they have an awesome legal team to make them 100% correct and they indeed may end up paying this money. they collect from us, apply them to payroll and give it to crew. all fair and square. but this is not the money ABOVE your paycheck as one would think of tips. and yes, they agree on a salary and they are getting it. no matter what is the source of the funds. All I was trying to say that the sentiment of tips in a form of auto gratuity or even worse prepaid tips is fundamentally flawed. All we do is support the revenue of the company. They are also NOT a US corporation and there is a reason they sail under flag of convenience. Crew definitely does not file taxes in US. Their docs are not licensed in US or Canada (unless they come from there), their medicine is not regulated by USDA. They ARE certified by US Coast Guard and CDC as they operate in US ports. Coming back to tips there is a reason regarding companies are not transparent about them. I am sure huge part of it and another reason one can remove the tips is taxation of this revenue. Taxes on that chunck of cash must be much lower, since this revenue is NOT guaranteed.

you are correct. All of them told me "we just get a paycheck", last interaction was with an asst waiter who is on her first contract and learning how to navigate the system. nothing in their paycheck states "gratuity" just the paycheck. if you put $20 in her pocket - this is her money above and beyond her salary. plain and simple. Pax feedback and survey marks adds to intradepartment recognition and earn them crew perks. I am always surprised people think otherwise.

two days ago I saw a guy giving $5 to a customer service officer after asking her is she saw a hat he lost at the pool... they did not have his hat

the boss would ask them if there is a constant complaining about full garbage bin and poor survey marks with a certain consistency pattern. You really do not know how this type of business works. please equally egocentric about themselves and their time on the ship. For crew it is just another week and even if you have a "Karen" who is always not happy she would be gone in a week. For you it is big surgery day and you are anxious for two weeks, for surgeon and a nurse it is just another case in a day between coffee and lunch.

cruise lines do not. people on the boards do. 15 years ago the same sentiment was for calling cards or some other trinkets pax were giving to the crew thinking this is the only way one can call home to get in touch with family

no one gets any fraction of the tips. They get salary and they get some perks from good reviews and personal mentioning their names in a form of points that you accumulate and redden for perks from money to time off and such. Typical corporation. I am originally from the country where some food and beverage and occasional housekeeping crew is from and had this convo multiple times. Everyone is happy to get an extra buck and they get it a lot because americans love to spray people with money on vacations

where do you guys get this concept? It goes to his/her pocket and stays there. just like anywhere else where you put money in somebody's hand and not in a common jar or something

hal has retractable roof over main pool that is simply awesome

We sailed HAL much more than X, but for what it worth just got of Edge from a 11 day cruise and while we liked X, I think you get more bang for your buck on Holland. I think X prices are overinflated for the services provided. The food is better on HAL. You have more ship to yourself. We are also in the 40s. I do not think you can draw big picture from people traveling in grand suits ;-)

That's why you took the time to write an empty post here. Ultimately it doesn't matter, for each its own. you can put your waiters in your will for all I care

Is there any equivalent of CK dining venue for Junior suite pax on Explorer that is included. Or it is MDR only. Thanks

it is a crew visa, nothing to do with us work visa. crew visas usually obtained by company in a batch process and really a formality (in comparison to US working visa that allow immigration intent)

Looked like a western expat trying to support the lifestyle off the tourists from the outside when we stopped by last week. Fake and expensive. Shop is selling the honey in fancy jars. I bought mexican honey from pineapple farmland off costa maya before and it tasted better. Obviously take it lightly as people like different things but it looked very touristy and nothing felt "local or authentic" about that place.

We decided to branch out and try RCCL last year and so far finished 3 cruises all on Oasis class. What was really surprising are the things being constantly closed to the point of frustration. On cocoa cay day - towel station next to gangway closed at 11am. The ship is docked till 5pm. Please go the pool deck towel exchange when you are ready to go ashore. Same towel station may randomly close during the day - go find another one. One side of climbing wall was never open. Pool close at 7 - please get out and go to another one. All attractions that they push in their commercials - all have limited hours: carousel, Abyss etc. Why they can not open things all day? I can not believe it is manpower. There was a useless function of the person before the security point to tell people where to go or 3 people waving "have a good day" just outside, but no one to man the towel station. Only two people operate climbing wall or abyss, one for the carousel. What gives?

HAL sailings are often cheaper than RCCL, I was therefore surprised to find the difference in food quality

We had it 3 times due to oversight at booking and being new to RCCL and it was a nightmare to say the least. While everything on RRCL has lines of some sort I have never seen wait that long for a regular dining. tails go around the corner each night. We were unable to arrange for anything constant on all 3 cruises. Main concern is of course the waste of time. Last cruise we were in JS so had access to Coastal Kitchen, unable to secure MDR reservation we ended up dining there for all 7 days, but even there we had to make a new reservation every day in person and availability varied every day. Basically we had to build plans around dinner time and not the other way around. I find it a huge "con" for RCCL. I get it you may not be able to show up and get a table right away but now being able to reserve a table at a given time a day or two in advance is just weird for an included dining option and not a specialty restaurant

what was the wager?

ON RCCL you will get kids free with your comped room IF this category allow 3-4 pax capacity in the same category. My example: free junior suite but on spectrum there are two categories of these and the regular JS are only doubles. in order to fit 3 pax you need a bigger suite in a different category that comes with an upcharge. you can downgrade for free. As a contrast JS on symphony does not have this issue, balcony and below would not have this issue I think. Never see kids free on celelbrity

$10 for 3 bags....only in 'Merica. Bags should arrive on the ship with $0 tip

They are frigging waterproof nowadays

Just returned from 7 day carib cruise and experienced this issue almost daily. People bringing their speakers with them to venues like sorrento's and just blasting their music. One family brought huge setup to labadee beach and were playing reggaeton music during entire stay at the beach. worst thing was cabana next to us on Coco Cay was blasting hiphop with tons of profanity. Question is not the type of music or lyrics - question is the fact that these devices are allowed in public venues. Clearly you can not reason with there "DJ"s as a group next to us in coco just said that we paid a lot of money for this cabana and want to have a good time with our favorite tunes. The fact that we wanted to hear the sound of waves crashing on the sand was not their concern. I know that crew and beach staff will do everything to avoid any type of confrontation and for us anything further would mean physical stand off. I really wish I had a speaker to put some country music facing their way.