Blackduck59

I'm with the "If you don't like the price, don't use the service" comparing the price of ship board spa services to that on shore is ridiculous. The price ashore varies dramatically by which spa you go to. I just bought gift certificates for my wife to have 2 special pedicures to help with diabetic neuropathy. They cost $85.00 each at her favourite spa. There are at least 2 other spas here where they would cost upwards of $150.00 each. After my wife's one and only spa experience on board a cruise ship (Celebrity) the work done was so shoddy and the pressure to spend even more money (to fix their earlier bad work) we decided that spa services at sea were not in our future.

Happy New Year everyone. I trust you all had your own celebrations last night and I hope a good time was had by all. Perhaps you will have a nice brunch or afternoon tea to mark today. We will be having a very low key evening tonight and maybe do a nice brunch tomorrow. So a Happy and Healthy New Year to all, full of great adventures and happy homecomings. Cheers, Lyle & Lynn

I think the key words are "No Host", that is a rather universal phrase. There will be many events, weddings, funerals, banquets etc. that will have a notation on the bottom "No Host Bar", that means you're paying for your own drinks.

La Fourchette Vevey Switzerland.

Best wishes for a happy New Year Les and all our other CC friends. Of course we are a day behind so we will look to the New Year tomorrow. We will ring it in, in our dreams because we will be long asleep at midnight. Cheers from Lyle & Lynn in the other Victoria.

Quick answer yes. The signature beverage package (which is usually the one in HIA) is $11.00 max per drink and a total of 15 drinks a day (alcohol and non alcohol combined). The elite package that is sometimes part of an enhanced HIA has a per drink limit of $15.00 and the limit is 15 alcoholic drinks and unlimited soft drinks including specialty coffees. Apparently there have been some recent price increases on beverages that take them over the current HIA price cap. There has been some speculation that the price cap will be raised to cover the drinks that were under the cap but aren't now.

There are several things that are well bellow the price cap on either package that are not included in the package. Items like the larger water cans with the screw caps, I don't think the 1 litre glass bottles of mineral water and several other things don't seem to be included either. Luckily for most these exclusions aren't a problem. Clearly for some it may be.

I never saw one of those at sea but one of our local grocery stores had one. It was fascinating to watch, with that one the oranges went in whole and came out the back mushed. The resulting juice was bottled and displayed on a bed of crushed ice. As I mentioned it an earlier post I tried the "fresh squeezed" orange juice once and didn't really like it so that was that.

I'll take you up on that Neil, as time gets closer we will be planning the road trip and we already had plans to accept your offer to visit your part of Oz. We will be looking for recommendations for a hotel in your area.

That is interesting Mic, most Canadian beers seem to be about 5% with some is higher up to 8%

Fact is I've not been unfortunate enough to encounter the rude, got to take my pet everywhere person on a cruise yet. I'm not sure I ever will. Odds are I never will there is all sorts of clueless but "take my pet an a cruise" is a special group that must be very small.

Not really. Passenger nob walks by yappy dog in tow...they get a snarky call out. Dog in dining room anywhere near me...there will be a scene. And the door knocking? If they're on the same deck as me, a knock on the door on the way to breakfast at 0700 hrs thanking them for bringing their yappy dogs and keeping me awake. If everyone on board treated these passengers like the arrogant nobs they are, perhaps they won't do that again. That being said there will inevitably be the clueless few who will coo and fawn over the puppies "oh aren't they cute", until the dog lays a loaf on the deck by their lounge chair or takes a leak on the stern view pool deck.

@mr walker A very stylish can there Neil. I couldn't help but notice that it has a rather "American" alcohol content. On the upside the party would last longer. 😉

Some would suggest a bribe (I mean tip) up front will buy you good service. Others will suggest a bribe (was that my out loud voice again) using a specific uncommon denomination will get you noticed. I would suggest asking politely and treating the servers with respect will get you noticed, make a point of getting their names and mention the servers by name in the Navigator app.

I'm afraid I would be bringing this up with customer service, frankly I would escalate it to a meeting with the Hotel manager. I'm afraid I would also be knocking on the door of the offending cabin at random times day and night. I would also make a point of calling out the fact that pets are not acceptable in a dining room. It's just not on. It would by my mission to make the clueless pet owners feel like the knobs they are. I have extreme respect for actual service animals and welcome them everywhere. I don't buy the "emotional support" story line. If you need the "support" of your untrained critter then stay home. I respect you and all the other cruisers who love their pets but are aware that there is no place for them on a cruise ship.

Thanks Leigh, I think I mentioned it before I realized Warrnambool was that big. I feel a little goofy bringing it up. But it would have been a real small world situation if you did know her.

I like this part of your longer response. I'm not sure "tipping" is a world wide thing. Australians and Kiwis abhor tipping. It's not part of their culture. In those places servers a paid accordingly by the establishment, which sets the menu pricing to reflect that pay. They don't pay poverty wages and expect their patrons to supplement their staff's pay. Tipping has become rampant in North America where the establishment is paying the staff minimum wage, charging $16.00 for $3.00 of ingredients and then shaming the patrons by expecting 20% or more tips for even the worst service.

Ah the smooth operator with the unusual bills, certainly going to get noticed and served "better". I think there are many who have tipping "strategy" to get them to the front of the line. Some pass a $20.00 at the start of at the start of a 28 day voyage and think they bought the front of the line for the duration of the cruise. Others simply ask politely when ordering drinks, say thankyou and maybe treat the servers with respect and kindness.

That's interesting, I'm pretty sure it was covered on our cruise in late August early September. I only ordered it once, I didn't particularly like it. What "fresh squeezed" means is that someone took real oranges and put them in a juice press located on the ship. It doesn't mean they squeezed the juice to order. Imagine how long that would take for say 300 orders of "fresh squeezed" orange juice. You might get your glass just in time for lunch.

Thanks so much for your kind words Linda & Mario, I'm so happy you enjoy this thread. We have come to know so many nice people through this thread and we want to meet as many as we can when we finally get there. Best of the season to everyone, Lynn & I are having "Christmas Dinner" on our Christmas Eve so being a day behind we'll be doing it on Aussie time.😉

I really hate to break it to people but "spring water" isn't just pumped into a truck and bottled. It is pumped into a truck where it goes to a purified, sterilized and then bottled. Just to be clear a "spring" is simply a shallow well and I'll take my tap water (which comes from a large reservoir here in Victoria, it is piped into a processing plant where it "ozonated" and chlorinated to keep it safe while it is in the pipes) over most "spring" water every time. I'm afraid I am unable to grasp the idea of being "allergic" to purified water. I'm guessing if the choice was between purified water or no water the requirement that it be "spring" water would probably drop.

As someone else pointed out the PVSA doesn't just affect cruise ships. It's the law that ensures ferries operating in the US are made in the US, are crewed by American crews and are serviced in American ship yards. British Columbia operates one of the largest passenger ferry lines in the world. For a very long time all the ships were built in Canadian shipyards, mostly in BC. then there were several poor business decisions made. Through political interference a class of ship wholly unsuitable for the job were built and they were a dismal failure and the ships were sold at a loss of over $400,000,000.00 CDN, Since that debacle they have had new ships built overseas and those ships just represent many millions of Canadian Dollars going elsewhere instead of giving jobs to British Columbians. Don't be so quick to dismiss the PVSA as detrimental to US interests, it's not.

You are most welcome. If you are going to explore the island give yourself at least a week. Even if you want to visit Butchart Gardens and also see Victoria then you need to do at least 2 days.

I seem to recall during the pandemic a lot of Americans were going "forget Canada, we don't need them" because our closed ports were affecting their Alaska cruise. Of course we have nothing to do with the protectionist PVSA but somehow we were the villains. There was and is of course many stakeholders in Victoria who are concerned about losing some or all of our cruise ship visits. I think there are a few ships that stop for 6 to 10 hrs and those are good visit for both the visitors and our local businesses. The 3 hr stop from 9 to midnight? Just stay away.

The only thing that is certain is that it was a protectionist act. In recent years it has forced some ships on the Alaska routes to stop in Victoria. Some of these stops are less than 3 hours from say 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm not exactly giving any passengers a chance to see any of Victoria. Frankly those stops are insulting to one of the most beautiful little cities in all of Canada.