rmedistro

We did a 10 day on this ship over last Christmas/New Year. Had a great time. The New Years Eve party on the pool deck was a lot of fun for all. First time I've seen midnight in awhile. MDR food was good, buffet good. Rooms a bit dated, but public spaces on point. Service was great. We did have fog on the disembark/arrival day in Tampa. Had to stay anchored outside of the bay, until Noon or so. Wasn't a big deal for us, as we live on the Space Coast and drove over to Tampa. But a lot of others were fretting plane reservations.

We did a 10 day out of Tampa on the Constellation last Christmas/New Years. I thought the boat had character, and a great group of cruisers. My wife thought the ship was dated, and needed a renovation. Food was good, service in both MDR/Pool deck good. Had a wonderful New Year's Eve party on pool deck. But, we're on Ascent in 13 days. Guess you can figure out who makes the ship selections now.

We're on the 12/10 Ascent sailing. Always put in move up bids, but never get accepted, as I always bid close to the minimum. Was surprised to get a Sky Suite move up confirmation email today at $100 over the minimum. Going to surprise the wife, and let her find out when we board. We have never booked anything in Suite or AQ, always veranda cabins. With 3 days at sea on this 7 day sailing the Retreat areas will be a nice perk.

I totally agree, that both smoking and vaping should never be allowed indoors, in public places. Casinos in the US have gotten away with allowing smoking for over 20 years since municipalities have banned it in the US. They pay huge sums of money for the privilege, knowing that it is one of the few public spaces that consumers can smoke openly. If you keep them at the tables/slots, they lose more money, in a shorter period of time.

1. RCOP research resulted in citing 90% harm reduction. Which is quite substantial. 2. Not sure where you come up with "More Regulated". I have been a business owner in the US for the last 12 years in this industry. We were among the first companies to export to the UK in 2014, to the largest UK chain EcigWizard. So, those so called more regulated products were produced by my Company! 🙂 3. You simply quote something you read online (Everything on the Interweb is true, right?) And what does Cannabis have to do with nicotine vapor products? Please, just stop! You know zero about our industry, regulation, advocacy, or harm reduction, other than what media tells you!

Vaping goes against who's medical advice? You live in the UK, which is the most progressive County in the world, when it comes to vaping. It's allowed in hospitals, products even sold in hospitals. The UK has done a good job in research with the Royal College of Physicians, compared to the US and the FDA. 2nd hand vapor, is nothing but water vapor. Completely harmless. Just as primary vaping is 95% harm reduction compared to combustible tobacco products.

Not all of the loyal customers will defect. X had a percentage that don't care about cookiegate, canapes, and higher costs, or even less options in MDR. X will retain whatever percentage that is, because they fill a niche in the cruising travel segment. For every drop out due to recent changes, there will be those that won't stop cruising X, because those changes aren't significant to them.. For some reason human nature dictates, I'm not satisfied, so everyone else shouldn't be satisfied either. And if they are, they're wrong, not informed, or just not as experienced in the cruise travel circles. 🙂

Nah, I speak with my wallet to Corporates, not venting online in forums. I'll quietly move on to something else for holiday travel. While my wife and I enjoy cruises, most of our friends prefer resort destinations. We don't live to cruise, though it's a pleasant distraction for down time currently. I used to attend every Chiefs home NFL game. Now, prefer to watch at home vs fighting the crowds for parking, beers, and restrooms. Our life continues to evolve, and I suspect cruising is just another phase for us.

Maybe the Doctor, Dentist, and Lawyer have them, just better planning at a young age on placement 🙂

You do realize tatts are kind of a permanent thing, and they stick with you into middle age and older? 🙂 Depends how those bits are holding up also!

Canapes, canopies = either way, nobody else cares. Hold my beer

But they can. And they will still fill sailings to capacity. The small group of dissenters here think they are representing what the rest think. They aren't. There's a poster that has mentioned canopies a dozen times. 90% couldn't care less about canopies. We're the next generation of X. The stuffy over expecting last generation will move on. We're going to divide our cruises between VV and X. No or few kids, and fewer stuffy oldies every x cruise going forward. I've met some great people on X, they are too busy living to waste reading the drive here. I'm joining them, not you. I thought CC would be informational. Nope, just drama.

X understands their customers. They also understand customer churn when implementing changes. The newer E class ships are designed to attract new customer segments. There is a big niche between NCL/RCL type ships and high end ships. X will continue to run near capacity on E class sailings. I imagine the next class will be similar to E, continuing to expand the upper middle class offerings to 40+ couples that don't want floating amusement water parks.

Do you really think cruise lines just blindly make business decisions that directly affect passengers?

We're trying an IV on 12/7 Ascent. Neither wife or I are sunbathing types, so the IV was intriguing to us. Not worried about the noise, or A/C as we both get up same time, and not heat sensitive.

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Now, we'll suffer from 100+ replies of people that didn't get selected, or didn't check their inbox thinking they didn't get selected. Life is tooooooooooooooooo short for the self inflicted mental anguish people generate! 🙂

Supply and Demand is the economics of business. I walk that fine line in my business also. The only metric that would cause X to revert any of these recent decisions is decreased number of paid passengers. Time will tell.

They did mention they are evaluating the number of IV cabins for Edge #5 based on feedback.

Requests vs Responses are two different metrics. Maybe very few Zenith responded, even though they are the most loyal segment. They obviously selected questions that both fit their agenda, and addressed some of the chatter online. Whether they skewed the presentation on the answers is up for debate. I've personally never had an issue on any cruise I've been on. HAL/NCL/X There's always something to dig at, if you are looking. But, I focus on enjoying the time away from my business, and not caught get caught up in worrying about how many times potatoes are served in the MDR. 🙂

Drinks are more like manufacturer prices. Highest return of any consumable item.

Just watched the most recent Captain's Club webinar. Hit my inbox an hour ago. They mentioned monitoring online cruise forums multiple times during the Q&A.

Most of the X critics here just like to piss on everything. It must be a sad walk of life to endure for sure!

$600 in premium drinks per cabin on sailings of at least 7 nights $300 in premium drinks per cabin on sailings up to 6 nights The offer mentioned Europe sailings only, but we had the offer on a Caribbean itinerary we were looking at also.

Don't have to worry about bumping into you on a VV or X cruise