UKstages

my experience, as a manhattan resident, has been very different. what you describe used to be true, up until the 1970s or thereabouts, when many cabbies owned their medallion and their car… but now, most cab drivers rent their vehicles on a shift basis, many cab drivers get lost, have no idea where major landmarks are located, have little conception of the overall geography of the city (or even the borough they’re driving in) and have only been driving for a few months… or an even shorter time.

think again… you could very well get a redeye… just one that arrives a day earlier. as far as price is concerned, NCL is booking consolidator fares in bulk on unused inventory… there is likely little to no difference in price in the remaindered inventory they are offered by various airlines.

the food is very good at the indulge food hall and breakfast is the one time when seats are readily available… you can “grab and stay” if you like. the bagel and lox “platter” at indulge on the prima, however, is not “grab and go.” it has to be requested. in my experience, there is typically nobody behind the counter to assist, so it’s more of a “wait around and go.” once somebody shows up, it’s a total schmoo… a whole production. they have to take a prepared pre-portioned plate out of the fridge, on which sits two extraordinarily thin slices of smoked salmon - just two - plus lettuce, onion and tomato, as well as a ramekin with a thimbleful of cream cheese, barely sufficient to be spread on one half of a bagel. no lemon is available. the bagels are kept separately and have to be located, which often takes a visit to the kitchen. only plain bagels are available and they are essentially flavorless circles of white bread with a hole in them. (even when you’ve just sailed from new york, the bagels look like they’ve come from kansas.) then comes the toasting negotiation, during which you invariably reject the first pass through the toaster because the bagel has not been browned at all. you ask for another trip through the conveyer belt of doom, and the second pass returns a perfectly toasted bagel… or a burnt inedible disk ill-suited for playing frisbee. (it depends largely on whether they’ve adjusted the toaster settings for the second pass.) bottom line: not enough cream cheese, not enough salmon (though it’s of good quality), inedible bagel. but, since you’re assembling it yourself, you can leave off the lettuce that the MDR inexplicably insists on adding to their version of this breakfast favorite. pro tips: bring along a bottle of “everything” seasoning to sprinkle on your bagel… it will liven things up considerably. order two of these, so you have enough cream cheese and lox for one bagel. use the second bagel as a door stop or place on hangers to separate them and stop them from rattling incessantly throughout the night.

typically, this is just a dessert privilege. i suppose you could have any leftover sent to your room, but i’ve never seen it done, nor have i ever done it myself. but i’m sure some do indeed request this.

there seems to be some sort of corporate mandate from NCL that you can’t take food to go. I recently dined at onda on the prima and had more than a half a pizza leftover. i said i wanted to take it back to my cabin, and they told me they had no boxes, that they're not allowed to have any boxes. so they told me to put the pizza on a plate and gave me a couple of napkins to cover the pizza.

so, reading between the lines, is the intent for the two under 21s to share a stateroom once boarded? if so, there are two potential challenges with this, just so you’re aware. the first doesn’t sound like it’d be a problem per se, but it might be an inconvenience… each passenger can only charge things to their registered cabin. the second is that norwegian prohibits minors and young adults from occupying a stateroom by themselves, unless it’s a connecting or adjoining stateroom with the cabin of a parent or legal guardian.

this seems a little thin, frankly. comps depend on a number of factors, including your ADT and the hold of the games you played (VP vs. slots vs. table games). also, unlike most land-based casinos, NCL seems to take into account a player’s loss more significantly than their action. an overall loss for the cruise usually generates more in OBC, whereas - in a “real” casino - they’re just interested in your action, independent of loss. so, it’s very hard to take your experience as a general rule… my most recent experience generated comps at more than double the rate you quoted… more than $600 per 10K points earned.

there is no direct relationship between drinks consumed and gratuities to those who serve those drinks. gratuities and onboard service charges go into a pool, a general fund, so to speak. and then NCL decides how to distribute those funds and to whom, both front and back of the house. it is widely speculated that much of the money collected for gratuities does not go directly to individuals, but is used to fund employee incentive programs. technically, NCL can use the money for anything it wants… they can paint an employee rec room, throw a pizza party for employees who win a contest, fund days off or bonuses, and, yes, they can even give some of it directly to employees. it’s anybody’s guess as to whether they actually do. as for tapping a card for soft drinks… some bartenders do, some don’t. presumably they would charge you if you didn’t have a drink package, but essentially it’s a very low cost item and NCL bean counters don’t seem too terribly concerned with accounting for every soda pour.

well, the continental USA only has four (some might argue five) time zones. so listen carefully to that trivia question before you answer.

The FAQ also says that “prices are subject to change,” so - technically - the FAQ is not wrong… it’s out of date.

KPI refers to “key performance indicators,” standard business metrics by which an employee is judged. kindly see post #10 for examples for contact center employees.

on the prima in may and june, they had breakfast pastries and cookies in the casino, but only in the VIP room, which most people don't even know exists, tucked away as it is behind the penrose bar without a proper sign. also, they weren't replenished. so, i'm pretty sure if there was anything left at 10 or 11 pm, it was placed there twelve or fourteen hours earlier. i looked at if a few times and passed.

i've had a number of different folks at NCL handle my cruises over the years. i've asked all of them, including one today who has worked there 15 years. they all say they do not work on commission. i book through CAS and i asked if it were a paid cruise whether it would make any difference. and they have all said no. "getting credit" is very different than earning commission. they do get credit for booking a cruise... it's in those KPIs i spoke of in a previous post. high proficiency in hitting goals and maintaining KPIs can lead to a better performance review, which may, in turn, lead to a bigger raise or a promotion.

norwegian cruise consultants do not earn commission on bookings. their KPIs are looked at, however, on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis… number of calls answered, talk time, hold time, insurance and drink packages booked, etc.

many thanks, but i didn’t have a question… it was a retort to point out the irrelevance and straw man nature of a previous post. and I have indeed been to the “floating hotel” presentation on several ships. thanks again.

that’s all well and good… but the issue was: why are buffet hours being reduced?

that’s fine, but you do realize, don’t you, that you’ve just cut out one of the primary entertainment options on the prima class ships? you may wish to reconsider.

i’ve had the so-called lobster ravioli… it’s not bad, but this is “lobster” ravioli in the same sense that the southhampton port is “london.”

🤔 i agree that there are staffing issues. but I’m pretty sure that the people working in the buffet at 9:30 am can also be working at 10 am. in fact, i’m confident in saying that those same people will break down the breakfast buffet and set up the lunch buffet. are you suggesting that fewer people means a longer turnover time is required, so therefore they must reduce operating hours? it just seems to me that if you are open fewer hours, you can serve fewer people and less food is consumed and you thereby reduce costs. and that’s likely NCL’s angle here. but maybe i’m just a cynic.

why not save time by sharing the hot tub with lobsters? my experience has been that if you slip the attendants twenty bucks* at just the right moment, they will happily fill the tub with drawn butter. i like to think this is much more humane than dropping the lobsters into boiling water. they get to enjoy a bit of a holiday, just like us, before making the ultimate sacrifice. ———— *yes, I know… tipping is a highly personal matter. some might tip only a fiver for this service, some might tip fifty, some might not tip at all. i’ve had the best success with a discreet twenty. anything less, i find they take shortcuts and you might wind up with a hot tub filled with margarine.

what’s interesting about the change to breakfast buffet hours is that they could just as easily have adjusted the opening time. instead of opening at 5:30 AM, they could decide to open at 6 AM instead and keep the buffet operating till 10 AM. it seems like the somewhat late risers are taking one for the team, whereas the very early risers are not. if seven people onboard really need eggs that badly at 5:30 am, they can go to the local or o’sheehan’s. that’s my story and i’m stickin’ to it. i would think that the buffet would be much busier from 9:30 am to 10 am than it would be from 5:30 am to 6 am. heck, you could probably make the same change to the dinner hours, especially since some other venues are open at 5 pm. open the buffet at 5:30 pm, but close at 10 pm. #MakeItHappenNCL

regardless of physical placement on the bar shelf, some might argue that considering beefeater anything other than “crap from the well” might actually be the scam.

well, again, i don’t think the problem is determining if it’s a canceled cruise or a new itinerary or an itinerary change… it’s the justification for making the change. NCL insists that it’s due to ireland prohibiting tenders or some such… and that may be true. it also may not be. nobody, it seems, has been able to find any publicly available information supporting that.

it didn’t come out of nowhere. it was appropriate for this discussion. the link to that other thread was nostalgic and referential. it was a very funny way of saying, “hey, while we’re talking about pizza on NCL… remember this outlandish incident? here it is again, in case you missed it. please, for the love of god, whatever you do in your pursuit of a pie, don’t do this, folks!” it wasn’t mocking anybody in this thread, it wasn’t criticizing anybody in this thread… it was funny and playful and absolutely on topic. i loved it and appreciated it. the poster should be applauded, not repeatedly chastised for an honest and worthwhile contribution to this discussion.

sadly, I tend to overpack… I gotta do better at this. I take the full-size and the carryon. i give the full size to a porter and take the carryon and the briefcase onboard myself. the carryon holds mostly electronics, camera equipment and other valuables. to be fair, my last cruise was a 21-day B2B, with a 5-day land holiday at the end… so, it was 26 days in all. plus, we sailed through three separate climates, so I kind of needed a bunch of stuff. and I typically need room in my suitcase for a bottle of duty free whatever plus a few tchotchkes picked up along the way. still, i overpacked, especially considering I had access to three free laundry bags during the cruise. for those unfamiliar with briggs and riley and wondering why we’re such fans… they are incredible quality-made bags with lots of special features, including expanding compression technology to give you that extra bit of room at the last minute, as well as a lifetime guarantee… a genuine lifetime guarantee… wheels, zippers, mechanical faults… you take the bag into an authorized repair center or ship it back to them for repair. or you can order wheel replacement kits online. briggs and riley are what tumi used to be twenty years ago… before tumi was bought by samsonite.