HappyTexan44

ETA: I wonder if they are limiting the number sold on each cruise? For example, if most people have priority boarding then there isn't really priority boarding. Also, my sailing is Feb 2024 and the fine print said it was only offered for 2023 sailings. I hope they'll let me keep it.

I saw that and came straight here to see what you guys thought. I'd been pondering upgrading one soda package to Voom plus Soda. For our cruise that would make the internet cost $14/day or $70 total. I wonder if by adding two people I was actually buying two packages? Maybe the package is a plus-one situation? So it is whoever is on the package, plus another person with them. That would be nice. As it is, since our group is two adults and two kids we couldn't use the embarkation and debarkation. Unless maybe we sent one adult on ahead to secure a nice WJ table. I expect we'll get the first regular boarding time since I plan on using my Disney-skills. So the rest wouldn't be far behind.

I could see two tender ports would make the Key much more worthwhile, particularly at $20.

For our cruise in a year it is $43/pp for the Key and streaming internet is $18/day/device. That is a big price difference. I'll be using my Disney World skills to get the first boarding. I'd rather keep my carry-on with me (even if we had the Key). I think I'll find a quiet corner and enjoy a book until the room is ready and keep everyone's carry-on piled around me. Knowing me I'll probably want some "We made it! and now I can relax time."

I've been thinking about this. I'm not there yet. But I remember reading an article about a woman that travelled the world renting an apartment in different places for six months at a time. She was in Rome at the time of the article. She didn't have a home, just a storage unit near her grandkids. Since she didn't have a permanent home it wasn't that much more expensive that having a permanent home and taking a couple of trips a year. I could see this cruise fitting in well with that lifestyle.

Since you have to pay for two people anyway, couldn't you make the second person a friend of yours who just never shows up? Then you could bring your friend's wine on board also.

Yes, I'd seen that. For someone living in an apartment and either retired or able to be completely remote it would be amazing.

For toddler juices, couldn't you bring some for the first day and then take some juice back to your room from breakfast every day? Then you could just bring some toddler cups.

I used to work with a guy who married a woman from the Phillipines(?) I think. They do that. They modified the existing house so that the cooking was done in the garage. Last I talked to him they were divorcing and selling the house. Buyers kept commenting on how pristine the kitchen was. DH can be extreme with his spices. One time I fussed at him about his cooking smells and that he needed to put on the exhaust fan. The smell was a little worse than normal. Fortunately he hadn't been cooking anything because then we figured out the smell was our dog who had just been skunked. Since then he has been good about using the exhaust fan.

That is a question. Are you allowed to leave after you check-in? For example, what if you forgot something in your car? Like that other bottle of wine : ) With my friend's allotment, I'll still get four bottles which should be plenty of a 5 night cruise. But if I could not bother them, that would be nice.

Same reason that you pay more for English speakers at the Day Labor Center. The supply of workers is less.

They always had Indian food, it was for the crew. They added it to the menu to plump out the offerings. So, having it on the menu doesn't mean that there is the demand for it. Maybe it is awesome a ton of people are ordering it. But, just having it on the menu doesn't mean anything.

I love Indian food, but the Indian dishes on the new menus aren't ones that I'd order. They are the ones cheapest to make. Which makes sense because it is crew food. A guy at work used to manage an apartment complex. He said that the smell was harder to remove than cigarette smoke.

I don't think many people would wait tables for minimum wage. You work your butt off, and are compensated for it. It is the ONE job I can think of where you immediately get more money for doing a better job. Only reason I stopped was because my RLS was keeping me awake all night and waiting tables made it worse. If I'd known about Potassium back then, I'd have done it longer and lots of other things in my life would have been different. Maybe better, maybe worse.

Well, bummer. I was planning on four bottles. Two cabins, two adults and two children. We have some friends that decided to join us and they aren't big drinkers so I can probably have them carry a couple through security. Or we make sure and go through security at the same time.

I think it is more that he lived as a bachelor without a roommate until we married at around 40. Early on it was a problem mainly because he didn't appreciate when I did his laundry. Some of the clothes left around were meant to be worn again and his mind it was annoying that they were moved to some unknown place. I don't understand that, I think clothes must be washed after they are worn. Period. Then I stopped doing his laundry. Any clothing left on a chair or table are knocked onto the floor and walked on. Even then now at home we rarely have his clothes around. In a bathroom remodel, a PAX wardrobe has some baskets for his dirties, and hooks for his still-clean.

They I said earlier, I've stayed in hotels and now that I think on it, one ship. For many years I travelled for work, around 180 hotel nights and around 30 round trips each year. So I'm extremely familiar with hotels. But I recognize that a cruise is hopefully better. Nobody has discussed the shocking stuff that they found between the sheets on the first day, so it has to be better. If they actually vacuum, I'll need to make sure that our stuff stays off the floor. If they wipe down the bathroom sink counter space I'll need to make sure we put our hygiene stuff up. etc. My one vacation on a ship was a week-long scuba live-aboard and they never entered my room, nor did I expect them too. But then live-aboard trips are unique.

I've been watching mine. In precisely a year, I'll be on the cruise. I hope to book stuff as soon as they become available since this inflation will only get worse. At first there was one excursion at one port, and then an after-the-cruise excursion was added. Nothing else. I added a note to my outlook calendar for every few weeks to check.

I agree with you. I also want to add that the waste of government resources (i.e. my money) happened when they lost the application. Someone wouldn't have had to go searching for it if it had been handled to minimum standards to begin with.

That would have been with the twice-a-day service. Someone reported that it does happen on Carnival since they changed to once-a-day. When the plan is for once-a-day, they can do the big clean when they come through again.

The problem with the Do Not Disturb sign is that your room could be moved to the end of the list and possibly not get done at all. With twice a day it wouldn't be a big deal because they could do the big clean on the second clean.

My evil grandparents were worse. They usually didn't tip at all! I didn't notice this until I was a teen and waiting tables myself. I suspect that they ate a lot of spit since they went to the same places all the time.

Bartenders get tipped based on the alcohol sold, whoever cleans the tables get tipped based on food sold. When I waited tables the standard was 15%. You passed on 15% of that 15%. Cooks, dishwashers etc. weren't tipped. I'd also worked as a dishwasher and I wasn't tipped, nor did I expect one.

I am very pro-tipping, but this bugs me. Tipping should be for customer-facing jobs where what they do isn't pass-fail. For example, washing sheets is pass-fail. They either do their job, or they don't. The sheets are clean or they aren't. There isn't a super-sparkly clean on sheets. But room stewards, it is possible to do a minimal job and it is possible to do a super-sparkly job. For waiters, it is possible to do more than minimal.

One idea would be bring cash for the auto-gratuity amount. Then ask the steward who will be left out. For example, the steward probably knows who in the windjammer could be trusted to spread out a lump sum tip.