fshagan

I read up on the laws and regulations from the FTC a few years back, and you would think it is illegal. Here's what a legal resource company says about it: The FTC's Guides Against Deceptive Pricing generally require that a seller offer an item at a price for a reasonable, substantial period of time in good faith, and in the regular course of business, before advertising that price as the former or regular price (16 C.F.R. § 233.1). The FTC considers it deceptive to offer an item for sale at a higher price for a short period of time in order to support a claim that an item is discounted when the price is then lowered. This practice is prohibited. Additionally, most states have consumer protection statutes that prohibit sellers from making false or misleading statements of fact concerning the reasons for, existence of, or amount of a price reduction (for example, Cal. Civ. Code § 1770(a)(13)). Several states also expressly regulate the length of time an item must be offered at a regular price and amount of time it is on sale (for more information, see Practice Notes, Promotional Pricing: Specific State Laws and "Up To" Discounting Law and Practice: Promotional Pricing: State-by-State Requirements). From: this legal article. While they cite several retailers who lost suits including Penny's, Justice stores, Ann Taylor and Loft outlet stores, they don't list a case with any company outside of retail. I suspect cruise lines get away with it because of the nature of their inventory. A blouse is a blouse, but a cabin on a cruise ship has many variables (length of cruise, ports visited, time of year, etc.) It might be harder to prove what normal pricing is when you bring the suit.

Yes, they have been using deceptive pricing since the beginning. Salesmen have also been lying since the beginning too. The length of time they have been lying doesn't matter.

I had read that this is illegal in the UK - you have to have the rates at a certain level, being sold actively, for a certain time period before you can publish a sale that is a percentage off. I'm surprised to hear it isn't illegal in the EU. Because of the weak way our laws in the states are structured they can get away with lying like this. The whole pricing scheme is deceptive, starting with quoting a fare for one person but requiring double occupancy. They should have to quote the price to actually use the product, including taxes, fees and gratuities. The only line I know that does that is Virgin (unless they have changed recently).

That is a good tip, but I have to wait a lot longer than 30 minutes for all the chlorine taste to be gone! I've never timed it to pinpoint when I can no longer taste it, but I know 2 hours isn't enough. Overnight is enough. I may be more sensitive to it than others because my municipality doesn't use chlorine, so I'm not used to it at all.

The water in your cabin still has the chlorine in it, so it's good if you don't mind the taste of chlorinated water. It's the same type of chlorination most municipal water systems use to sanitize water, and nothing special or exotic. We get our water from the buffet, where it's filtered and doesn't have a chlorine taste. You just use a glass to transfer the water from the dispenser to your water bottle (you can't fill your water bottles directly from the dispenser).

We always buy coverage that includes evacuation and repatriation of remains. I don't think either would be covered under the Medigap Plan G's foreign travel emergency medical amount, which is $50k lifetime. All Medigap Plans C, D, F, G, M and N provide foreign travel emergency health care coverage, but I only know about the amount limitation on Plan G. Not sure how much the other plans cover.

It probably would be the best scenario to prevent this historic ship from going to the scrapyard.

The seafarers union was very happy with the increase in wages they negotiated with NCL in 2021 in their new 9 year contract, with unanimous approval of the members: "The contract includes a completely new wage schedule with increased rates effective Oct. 1, 2021, providing average boosts between two and four percent to base wage rates (depending on rating) and an adjusted overtime rate schedule equivalent to a 30 percent increase. The agreement also includes across-the-board increases of three percent for all wages effective April 1, 2022 and each anniversary thereafter." I don't believe NCL will change their pricing model any time soon. It works too well and their ships are full. Most cruisers accept the gratuity as a cost of cruising and don't complain about it.

Thanks! I thought I had it right for the Edge class ships, which is why we're trying Celebrity a second time. We didn't like the dining set up at all on the Infinity back in 2017 on our first X cruise. We usually cruise Disney, NCL or Princess (but have to replace Princess due to their awful app).

This is what we had heard. We love true any time dining. Do you still have to make reservations on the Edge class ships for any time dining?

On Android, the apps ask for permission to use each feature, like Contacts, the camera, etc. Princess requires access to all features for their app. I haven't installed Celebrity's app so I don't know if it does or not. Encryption and phone locks have zero to do with security of installed apps that can access all of your phone's features. The app is already inside the security bubble. (You are right about credit cards; the app won't have access to the card directly, but probably communicates with the Celebrity servers set up for credit card number storage and transactions). I'm not OCD, but I have a very low tolerance for crappy apps.

It was mostly people with Android phones on Princess that had horrible problems with it. I finally would get it to run on my phone, do what we had to do, then clear all data and cache as you do with the Celebrity app. I suspect they developed it for iPhones and then attempted to port it over to Android without a lot of testing. If I can, I'll avoid using the Celebrity app. We'll see how far we get!

I sailed through the check in and got a noon boarding time. No app required, which is a relief.

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. I was worried that certain things would require the app to do on board, and to be honest, being on a cruise for me is all about disconnecting from the digital world!

Background: We usually cruise NCL, Princess and Disney. But on our last Princess cruise, the required Princess app was so bad that we will not sail them again. It is that bad. (I may be more sensitive than most due to my work in a software company as a product manager). Now I see the notice "You are required to download the mobile app prior to sailing" at the top of my check in page for my December X cruise. Does the app work for Android phones? What have been your experiences with it? Because I absolutely dread having to fight with my phone every day if the app is anything like the Princess app.

No, you don't, at least not in the US. Doctor's can diagnose without a third party test. They can diagnose over the phone. I called mine, told him I was positive on a home-administered rapid test, and gave him my symptoms. He confirmed I had Covid, the diagnosis was put in my chart, and they had no problem filling out the paperwork from the insurance company when it came a few weeks later.

We didn't notice any smell at all, so I have to give it to the designers; the ventilation in the little Star Trek toilet-transporter room is pretty good. The translucent glass, not so much. The noise of the doors disturb you at night if someone gets up to use the toilet-transporter room. Then you need light to be able to use the sink, which is in the room. I find a separate bathroom more convenient and that's what we book. We only had one trip on Epic. Other than that, it didn't bother my wife and I too much, but it can be a real problem for families with shy kids or unrelated, non-romantic couples. I couldn't find the post with a quick search, but I recall someone taking two cheap plastic shower curtains and using clothes pins or magnets to attach them to the transporters so your family doesn't look like they're in a 1980s soft porn movie on Cinemax.

I assure you, it used to be free, 24/7, for all cabin classes. There was a lot of concern here in this forum when they went to a service charge. They had to backtrack and make "continental breakfast" free of service charge due to the protests from passengers. If I recall correctly, the charge was either 6.95 or 7.95 - something like that. I understand it is more now. But I don't think NCL "nickel and dimes" you any more than any other hospitality business. Taking away something that was free isn't in itself a problem. It's when you book and the change happens when you weren't expecting it.

Not the OP of that comment, but I do recall when room service did not have a delivery charge.

In my case last September, I called my doctor's office and told them I had tested positive on a home test, and gave them my symptoms. One of the doctors called back and we discussed how to handle, when to go to ER, and when to call them back. The illness is then recorded by the doctor on the date you call. My doctor was fine with providing the letter for the insurance company.

Don't go. Cancel with X and contact your travel insurance. Here's what happened last September when we had to cancel for medical reasons: We cancelled with the cruise line first, and they refunded the portion of our payment that was taxes, port fees and pre-paid gratuities. This happened pretty quickly. Our travel insurance gave us forms to have our doctor fill out, verifying we were advised not to travel. We also needed an invoice showing the total we paid for the cruise. The travel insurance paid in about 60 days.

We bought 12 Flow waters for our cabin in March and thought it was good. It's an alkaline water so you can taste that, but we found it tasted great. For us, the filtered water in the buffet or restaurants is fine too, but the chlorine in the tap water in the cabin makes it taste like pool water to us. Since we don't drink alcohol on the ship, we can afford to splurge on water we find pleasing.

I like that X allows you to bring on water. On NCL, we buy their boxed water package. We drink bottled water mostly for the taste. I compare this to those who prefer the taste of one beer over another. It's a taste thing. My understanding is the ship's water is perfectly safe, but it is chlorinated. The water at restaurants and bars is carbon filtered, but the water in the cabin is not, so the chlorine taste is present in it.

Sorry. When you responded about the chlorine taste with "I've never noticed any nasty/odd taste" I thought you were talking about the chlorine taste. I guess what you're saying is that it doesn't bother you to taste chlorine. I think a lot of people are the same way, and don't care if the water has a chlorine taste.

I didn't say they did. I said that bartenders are not part of the DSC pool. Bartenders have a separate system that, unlike the DSC, cannot be skipped.