no1talks

This is not uncommon for short cruises on MSC and other low-cost lines. Typically, a better experience would be found on a 7-day (or longer) cruise. The "weekend warriors" are less likely to participate.

I'm not in a position to watch the video at this time, but I do hope you were able to have for cabin properly cleaned shortly after you arrived.

But in the US and Canada, you're sweet potatoes.

When I feel the onset of malaprop, I just drink more gin and tonic. 🦟

And that's irrelephant. If I were you I'd elemonade that post.

I think you mean, "Fits me to two pair of t's," because he said, "pretty snotty." 🧐

Sometimes the best stuff on this board is the off-topic stuff. 😁

Ah, but one should never underestimate the motivational power within the simple gesture of arranging a surprise, scented bubble bath for one's significant other. (Especially when including a favored adult beverage.) 😉

Color me intrigued. This could pull some YCers to the MDR on sea days, especially if weather has closed YC's pool deck buffet.

Very helpful, indeed. My first QM2 cruise is on the books for next year. Thank you very much.

Is that the cart-served loose tea? Not bagged tea dust? If so, I have another reason to eagerly anticipate the time we shall branch out to European port YC cruises.

This is one of the bullet points on the printed request sheet we give our butlers. Please let your butler know early in your cruise. We select our excursions with an eye on being back on the ship for afternoon tea in YC so we can have tea service every day. •You will have multiple bagged teas from which to choose. •The butler will serve a three-tiered assortment of available YC bites. •Scones are only baked for the big afternoon tea, which should happen on the last sea day.

Fortunately, we have no dietary restrictions requiring, as you say, repeated explanation to a dining room server. If we did, I would add such a necessity to the printed requests we prepare for each cruise. In the case of YC, both butlers, the maître d' & assistant, the sommelier, both server teams (breakfast and dinner), and the concierge desk receive the printed requests applicable to their specific billets before the first dinner. Of course, the most comprehensive research and preparation can still fail to prevent miscues. Cruises, regardless of the line or ship, whether they cost three, four, or five figures per week, can have disappointments. Incorrectly provisioned. Inadequately staffed. Marginal entertainment. The list of things that can be less-than-ideal on a cruise is indeed long. Regardless of the most thorough preparations, any cruise can go a little (or a lot) sideways. Ultimately, we all are playing the percentages.

I'm a traditionalist and only consider a bathroom to be full if it has both tub & shower with the sink and toilet. Of course, other traditionalists might correctly point out that "three-quarters" more correctly describes the lower bathroom of a YC duplex suite. I would agree, but still not use the term for two reasons: • The use of "three-quarters" in the description of a bathroom leaves open the question of whether the tub or shower is omitted. • A good many people would scratch their heads over the unfamiliar use of "three-quarters" bathroom. So, I use one-and-a-half baths colloquially to convey a meaning of one bathroom being full and the other less-than.

I wonder what Samuel Taylor Coleridge would have said about this. 🤔 (IYKYK.)

This depends entirely on what one might want from one's butler. Dining in one's cabin, if they happen to have a proper table, is rather curtailed in YC. Only a few of the YC cabins even have a suitable table, and even then the official policy is for the whole meal to be brought in one trip, not course-by-course. If you order ice cream for dessert, you will need to eat it first or drink it last. On top of all that, the in-room dining must come from the room service menu. Official policy allows ordering from the restaurant menu only when the passengers are confined to their cabin. This is one factor that dissuades me from getting a top suite in YC. (Only one bathroom is another, but at least some YC's have the one-and-half-bath duplex suites.) Meanwhile, Regent allows in-room dining from either the room service menu or the main dining room menu during the hours of its operation. Course-by-course service is provided upon request. While I enjoy YC a great deal, I fully understand there are many niceties enjoyed by cruisers of luxury lines that MSC cannot deliver at the YC price point. That's just their business model. I also fully understand that luxury services and amenities widely provided by the likes of Regent, Seabourn, and others may mean zip to some cruisers. This is perfectly okay. We should all be informed cruisers and use due diligence in selecting accommodations that suit us at a price with which we're comfortable. After all, luxurious cruising to one group may be entirely unsatisfactory to another.

"Jack, I want you to draw me like one of your Bella Guarantee girls." - Rose DeWitt Bukater

Their student loan debt is also very high. Their retirement savings is also rather low when compared to the traditional bench marks of 1x annual income by age 30 and 3x by age 40. I see too little black ink to offset the red in the overall cohort. Millenials are unlikely to keep luxury cruising from undergoing some amount of contraction (fewer lines and/or fewer ships) once too many of the Boomers have disembarked for last time.

But are they? Or, are they putting on a bougie lifestyle as the Potemkin village of their generation? https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/25/affluent-millennials-more-likely-to-exaggerate-finances-to-appear-wealthy.html

The upcoming cohort is Gen-X and there are far fewer of them than the cohorts that supported luxury cruising these many years. Also, if the financial projections are even somewhat accurate, Gen-X will have significantly less disposable income in their golden years than their predecessors.

@morpheusofthesea can comment on that topic. He and his wife return home with all their bottles, if I recall correctly.

Meraviglia and ships of the same class have duplex suites well outside the YC perimeter on decks 9 and 10. As I understand it, these were originally Aurea suites, but they were "annexed" into YC. The duplices are back in the World ships and they look even better. Compare the videos. Here is video of the earlier version. https://youtu.be/WwDbjk4TDRg Here is a duplex on World Europa, now inside the YC on decks 16 and 18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coOjBChiCWs

An aspect that I suspect will be even more diminished on World America. 😟

There's always the ships with the YC duplex suites, having a full bath on the upper level and half on the lower. It's worth mentioning the duplex suites are back on World Europa (and presumably on World America) and the rooms look much nicer and have more outside space. Lastly, even though they are Aurea and not YC, MSC offers two-bedroom grand suites with both a full and half-bath.

I would be quite happy to comply with your proposed dress code revision. However, if Security won't permit the wearing of a rapier, I don't see a reason to bother with the rest. 😆