Snaefell3

Early? If there was a table available, maîtres d' have seated us -- they're glad for the flexibility later of having us gone. If not? "No harm, no foul", but also a polite "Please don't be hovering or underfoot". Late? You made a commitment and didn't keep it. Maybe for good reason, but you didn't.

::nods:: The highlight of the day was dinner delivery. They wheeled up with a cart, set up one of those folding waiters stands, slid a huge tray over onto it, then played ding-dong-ditch, taking the cart with them. The tray needed to be huge: it had everything from the standard bowl of bread to desert ice cream piled up. It needed to go sideways to fit through the doorway making it too heavy until you took half the dishes off. Finding a flat space to set that tray down after filling up everyplace handy with the dishes we'd taken off it was always a puzzle. 🤔 Yeah, we ate the desert ice cream first. 😋

They are not allowed to. Ship's WiFi, by IEEE 802.11 standards, is short ranged: not more than 100m from the closest shipboard antenna, and in practice generally less.

"WiFi calling" is a current selectable option on both Android and Apple phones. For shipboard WiFi calling to work, • Your cellphone provider has to allow it. - AFAIK, all US providers do - Last I looked, Australian providers were forbidden by law from doing so • You must be logged onto the ship's WiFi with audio-grade internet available. • Your cellphone has to be new enough to have the option (last 10 years?) • Your cellphone must have "WiFi Calling" enabled • Your phone must be in Airplane mode or have "roaming priority is by WiFi" selected Whether voicemail or texting works is up to your cellphone provider. Ask them. PS: We've gotten spam calls at 5am Hawaiian Standard Time, 8am PDT. 😒

You pay attention to puffery [n: exaggerated praise, especially when used in publicity]? That being said, Ember is Applebee's ...but raised a few notches (check upthread about "mystery fish" vs "sea bass" Fish & Chips). Having had the misfortune to be quarantined and having to order in, but in a PH cabin so it could be from any kitchen on the ship, our answer each evening was "Ember".

I've eaten Applebee's (mystery fish) and Ember's (sea bass) Fish & Chips. Ain't the same dish. Tip: Even more so if you substitute out ordinary Chips for "Potato Dippers" -- kind of midway between a french fry and a potato chip.

Lots of folks are moving up from "premium" to "small ship luxury" as all the categories move down a half-category to repay for the shutdown. ::raises hand::

It was worse than that. We'd spent all our US$ currency and the ATM only dispensed BM$. I refuse to picture a NYC cabbie at the end of a trip being offered only BM$. 😲

There were plenty (50%) of available loungers on Vista, Mar 16-27. Plenty of good weather, too, on a MIA - Bahamas - Bermuda - Charleston - Port Canaveral - MIA.

I've enjoyed in Toscana (even if it is a somewhat dissonant note), pre-Giada.

It was back when cabs didn't take credit cards. We were planning ahead -- New York cabs don't take BM$ 😉 We wouldn't have been surprised by a hotel with US$ coins, but an official agency of the Bermudian government handing out US$ coins made us blink.

Sometimes it was a kludge. Once upon a time in Bermuda (1990s?), I needed US$. The procedure was to go to the ATM outside the Bermudian bank for BM$ (pegged 1:1 to the US$), bring them into the bank, who exchanged the BM$ bills 1:1 for US$ bills without charging a fee. There was an ATM fee, but nary a currency conversion fee. ::ponders:: Even more amazingly, we bought stamps (postcards were still a thing) at an official Bermudian Post Office with US$ bills and got US$ coins for change.

Is Regatta still using a refrigerated cargo container up on Deck 11 as a make-do, awaiting repairs?

I think you missed my (too subtle? 😉 ) point. She's wasn't really hired to do food, but to contribute her name to advertising.

My 2¢: There is no one-size-fits-all-occasions answer. My answer changes according to how likely a tour is to be late or get stranded, if it's our first time at a port-of-call, if we are on the first day of an overnight port-of-call, how stable the "politics" are, do we speak the local language, do we feel unlucky, if it's an "ehh" port of call but we need to burn SM credits, ...

Let's check: • Average O passenger says, "Oh! I've heard of her." * Sufficient credentials. </snark> * Which was becoming JP's problem.

It's easier to say, "Chefs act like chefs". 😞

What was that boilerplate caveat that I keep seeing? "Past performance is no guarantee of future results". 🤷‍♂️ But as I said upthread... Now that we have a terrible example, *nobody* is going to be making *that* mistake any time soon.

Cheerleading is one thing, but claiming O is not subject to human error is another.

It was human error/negligence; it could as easily been O. ...except now that it's happened, ain't NOBODY going to fail that way again for a long while. 😲

That was a one-off (I looked last November when it happened and couldn't find another case of folks being left on the dock). Like an airline with an overbooked flight, cruise lines make better and better move up/down/over offers to balance butts and seats, err, beds -- except the cruise lines do it in the weeks before a cruise while folks are still at home instead of at the airport minutes before a flight. For Quantum of the Seas last November, it appears that "somehow" RCI didn't run the totals and realize they needed to act, so folks -- some of the guarantees -- were left on the dock.

Will you need to clear customs with those bags? Will customs be awake at 4am?

Uhh... Starlink? 🙂 Both Vista's standard and premium internet share the same uplink (and speed) -- upgrading simply moves you from a router that blocks known streaming sites to one that doesn't. Sometimes, local regulations can affect bandwidth, too: with her departure delayed because the Port Canaveral channel was closed for a launch of more Starlink satellites last month, Vista's internet speed was glacial -- more like 2004 than 2024.

One thing to realize about the Culinary Classes is that, though booked through Destination Services, booking/cancelling, waiving because you are sick, etc., are under the control of each different chef instructor, and "chefs act like chefs". YMMV. Uhhh... make that YMWV.

That's a different topic. I simply answered @jonthomas's question on why O's management is not hurrying to lessen any of SM's revenue-enhancing effects. (If you do want my opinion on that topic, it is that NCLH is going to get extra profit for debt reduction one way or another -- otherwise it won't survive. So are all of the other lines. Pick the line with the ways least painful to you or vacation some other way.)