hawkeyetlse

They cost $125 on board if you buy two or more, so if that’s how you would normally buy them, you’re losing $25 by purchasing one at a time from your PCC. 

I have never heard of a PCC selling these, but if it’s their personal stash, then I guess they’re doing it for the $25 each time. 

The time limit is 60 minutes. You'd have to watch the chair for 60 minutes continuously (I guess from a nearby lounger?), or ask the strangers sitting around there, who are totally untrustworthy (they may see what you're planning to do and not want to get involved, they may actually prefer to have empty seats around them instead of having to look at you, they may actively want to see you get into a fight, they may be too drunk to have any short term memory, …)

But there are actually people who hang out on the pool deck watching everything, for hours at time. Because they are NCL employees whose job it is to monitor the pool deck. Those are the people who should be keeping track of and clearing the empty chairs.

12 minutes ago, Beer Belly said:

I'm guessing they tag chairs with a time that they notice it's empty, then run the clock ?

I'm guessing they made those 3 Powerpoint slides, and that's it.

If they have FAS minutes then they should see upgrade offers right above these plans. The price should be $100 less (and there should only be two offers, "upgrade to unlimited" and "upgrade to unlimited premium", and not this strange 3rd option with the longer name).

Depends on the ship, but the other venues with the 4-item rule are sushi bar, tapas bar, raw bar. I don't think 8 items for 4 people will fill you up at those places, but no one says you can't go eat somewhere else before/after.

3 minutes ago, Scotto97 said:

Or will bartenders allow you to receive unopened beers to stock up?

Yes. Not all of them, because it's probably prohibited/discouraged officially, but ask around and you won't have a problem.

I have that, too. It must be an error, because unlimited premium cannot be $3 cheaper (or 49¢ less per day) than the non-streaming unlimited. Maybe an old price that they haven't deleted everywhere?

If I were you, I would try to purchase it, and see if they honor it on board. The worst that can happen is they refund you, or they give you the non-streaming package instead (and you're still $3 ahead!)

I'm not doing it myself because I'm planning to get the FAS+ upgrade, with unlimited wifi bundled in.

I don’t have a lot of experience with booking more than 2 in a cabin, but I think you’ll find that your guests 3 and 4 would pay the exact same low cruise fare in every other category, too! Even in a Haven suite! Basically guests 1 and 2 do all the heavy lifting. 

1 hour ago, Panhandle Couple said:

And 35 posts later the OP has not responded.  And never stated which ship they were boarding on a Monday.

Looking at post history it was the Spirit out of Auckland. But it’s quite clear it was not a serious cry for “help” from someone having a sudden champagne emergency. Just an exuberant pre-boarding “happy dance” post. AKA a waste of our time. But the discussion has taken on a life of its own. 

1 hour ago, ERNLYN said:

Appreciate your reply, in our case which is an inside room for 4, only one of the four of us fly's free, the other 3 of us are paying airfare thru NCL

But what is the cruise fare for guests 3 and 4? You should see a breakdown of the total cost of the cabin somewhere. Putting 4 people in a room typically does not double the price (if it did, no one would book it that way, they would just book 2 cabins). But if you don't pay double, why would you expect double the perks? You pay less because guests 3 and 4 get no perks.

Even though (or perhaps because) I live in France, I have no particular fascination with champagne. We basically bathe in the stuff, or we would, if only we ever bathed… 😎 But Moët and VC are not everyday brands, so I guess I can see the appeal of being able to drink as much as you want. And the crazy prices on NCL's drink lists, that no one is actually paying, should make them taste even better.

But why make the servers' life hell? Just ask them to please keep your glasses filled, and they'll pretty much have to bring the bottle to your table. You can go through several bottles of champagne this way, and you won't even have used your one bottle allowance for that dinner. Champagne emergency averted!

The $50 is not meant to be the cost of a meal, it's (supposedly) the retail price of a 1-meal specialty dining package. And it's normal that when you buy a package, you save money compared to purchasing everything separately. Except of course there's no such thing as a 1-meal package. They just made up this number so they could explain the $10 gratuity. (Less than two years ago they said the retail price was $44.95, and before that, $25!)

Guest 1 and guest 2 each get one specialty dining meal with Free at Sea. They consider this to have a retail value of $50 per person, which you do not pay, but they do charge you the 20% gratuity, so $10 per person. During your cruise, you eat this meal, you don't pay for it, and you have already paid a $10 gratuity. So you don't pay anything further on board.

Guests 3 and 4 in the same cabin get nothing.

It's the kind of thing an AI could do pretty easily (once you pay someone to program it). It could also shoot lasers.

22 minutes ago, ngrund said:

I'd would not even mind having to pay a bit to reserve a chair by the pool-

It surprises me that this isn't already a thing. Yes, it will incense the "nickle" and diming crowd, but it's something that a lot of people value, evidently.

But this is the opposite of a solution to chair hogging. It's letting people pay for the right to hog. People will reserve the chairs for themselves all day long and only come use them when they feel like it. I.e. exactly what they're doing already, only now you can't even say they're doing anything wrong, since they've paid for it.

26 minutes ago, happy cruzer said:

So would we not be able to do that using a dining credit?  Could one use the credit and the other order a la carte?

The official policy is: "2 guests cannot share 1 SDP meal". You can always ask. Obviously not at Moderno, but all the other restaurants offer you a limited amount of food for one credit, so they shouldn't care that much. It is extra work for the wait staff, so consider tipping accordingly.

One person using a credit and the other person paying à la carte is absolutely fine, and if you're lucky they will put some of the à la carte items on the first person's bill and the final total will be lower than it should be.

And charge people for abandoning their towels. As long as I can remember, they threaten people with $20 or $30 if they misplace their beach towel, but I have never heard of anyone ever actually being charged. (Unfortunately the person responsible for reporting the missing the towels would be the cabin attendant, and people will just take it out on them and remove their gratuities.)

For people who save chairs with books and bags and hats or whatever, just throw that stuff in the incinerator. (Kidding, of course, but give it to the crew or donate it at the next port. When the guest comes asking, say "Sorry, no one has seen your stuff. You didn't happen to leave it unattended in a public area for several hours, did you?")

No, it's more like booking excursions (except it's free). It displays the people in your cabin and you check them off to reserve. Other people in your group have to make their own reservations from their own accounts.

It's all open seating, so if you want to sit together, meet at the theater 15-20 minutes early, find seats together, and have some drinks before the show starts.

15 minutes ago, Seafan22 said:

I am trying Royal Caribbean for my next cruise, because of the itinerary.  They have just started this strategy for addressing the chair hog issue, and apparently staff have been told to enforce it fleet-wide on a daily basis, and they are doing it.

What are they doing exactly? Because that whole row of chairs in your photo is still reserved. Is the pink thing like a 30 minute warning?

Wow, someone emptied out the whole cabinet 😝 Those of you complaining about no prizes left by the time you went to redeem, you now know who took them all!

Nice to see some new (to me) items here.

That's a good point, I forgot to consider that. Definitely do it that way if it works out cheaper. Or save the second person's minutes for a 3rd device, if that makes sense for you.

On 3/24/2023 at 8:12 PM, casofilia said:

In the old days there used to be Great Prizes.

What were these great prizes in the past? For as long as I can remember the top prize has been the coffee mug or a t-shirt.

When is your cruise? I don't recall if the extra packages are listed online, but they will appear in your e-documents. I wouldn't worry about it until you receive those, closer to your departure date. In the meantime, yes, it is normal for them to keep encouraging you to buy things that you already have.

The menu also has ham and cheese platters, and some good desserts! (and non-shellfish fish, of course)