ray98

We have been on the Pride 6 times every time while traveling south we traveled around 17 knots however traveling north we traveled 22 knots. This is due to the ship's schedule.

Not exactly....it very well may be the same standard cruising speed but the currents are doing exactly opposite things one each leg of the trip.

Or people could be paid a living wage and get tips for going above and beyond.

Which completely shifts the performance expectations away from the end consumer which is the entire premise of the tipping system.

When a server is paid by the establishment they have less incentive to go above and beyond than when that payment is coming directly from the consumer. In one instance way they are paid the same either way no matter how attentive they were, in the other their compensation is immediately in jeopardy if they don't perform adequately.

You pay the same either way. Your $15 meal becomes $20 if the establishment pays or it stays $15 and you leave the tip.

I show up....pay the gratuities that have been charged to my account at the end of the cruise and always get well taken care of. Some of the standouts are all given something extra on the last day.

I don't believe in bribery, I also don't tip the server at a land based restaurant when I am seated in the hopes of good service.

This is very conflicting. I don't know exactly why you came in late. But they can in-fact make up time. I was on the pride 2 years ago when we had to MediVac a passenger off. We left Baltimore got to mid South Carolina turned around toward North Carolina. Traveled north for about 2 hours and then sat there as the evacuation took place. Until we got back to where we turned around it was about 4 hours and 45 minutes of lost time. Yet still arrived at our first port only 1 hour and 30 minutes late. So somewhere we made up 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Not necessarily. Very few runs are spaced so that normal cruising speed is required 100% of the way to make it point to point on time. Most of the time the ship dramatically slows overnight or even comes to a standstill as they close in on the destination.

Your delay may have simply cut all of the buffer out of the trip.

Big $$$$ in costs.

Yes....unless they screw up and miss it they will confiscate it because it is a fire hazard.

seems like you'd be happy about that since you don't like carnival anyway.:)

 

Bill

LOL....they guy who does nothing but criticize Carnival every chance he gets dozens of times a day now miraculously had a Carnival cruise booked in a topic where he can criticize them because it was cancelled. ;)

Loads of threads on the topic certainly newer than November of 2016.

Cruise lines work on a pooled tipping system. There are many other servers supporting the servers you have the final interaction with. So, you may be focused on a handful of people which are the end result of that process but there is an entire team who worked to provide that service who are all compensated from those tips.

They system is in place for a reason.

I will be carrying a nice travel fan from this point forward. The last 2 cruises our cabin was just a tad too warm at night and it would have been helped.

Cruise vacations are expensive. If you make your decisions on cruising based on a free cup or some free drink on the last evening your priorities are in the wrong place. You should be looking for the best return on your largest investment, the value of the cruise itself compared to the fare you paid.

They have been in stock for a few weeks.

It is all basic math. Sure....the UBP is a valuable add on but that does not mean it automatically makes the cruise a better deal. There are similar sailings on both lines with similar itineraries where Carnival is several hundred cheaper per person. So, yes NCL is giving you beverages but the base fare is higher and you are still paying a percentage of the package. You have to add everything up, base fare + package cost + gratuities and see what that comes out to....that is the only way to know.

We have taken Carnival cruises where we still came out cheaper even having to purchase Cheers. We have taken NCL cruises which were cheaper overall since the drink package was comped. There is no 100% right answer other than 'it depends'.

And btw. Don't take towels from the pool to bring with you to the beach when in port. They WILL charge you for the towels if you don't bring them back! Maybe a third of the people waiting in line were for Towel charges.

Well that should be obvious.....you lose a towel you pay for it.

Quite a scam they have going on.....

I also agree....I have folded and even stapled many luggage tags and not once have I ever thought 'man this is difficult'. Also, not one has ever been damaged or lost.

Don't put so much concern on what deck it is on. There may be a slight difference in perceived motion but in my experience it isn't enough to matter, it just gets overblown. My wife is very prone to motion sickness and there are no spots on a ship that make one better than another location when she is feeling bad.

The true fix is to take the meds as directed.

As above...both scenarios pay the 18%.....if it is on a promo the UBP price is what is comped.

I really don't see NCL as being in a higher class over Carnival. They are both mass market lines with a remarkable number of similarities. I have been on all of the big 3, each have things I like and things they don't do as well as the other 2.

I read on another post that you couldn't use a gift card to pay for Cheers. Does anybody know if this is in fact the case?

No.....we pre-purchased and I paid with a gift card.

We have been in early November a few times and the ship will probably be full. However there will be very few kids so you don't have as many 3rd and 4th passengers in a cabin. It is nothing like a summer cruise.

I don't know why people are oblivious to this....cruise lines pool....land based bars pool....land based casinos pool. That is the way it works.

It doesn't take very long to spend $200 on alcohol on a cruise ship when many drinks approach $10 each. I could spend $200 myself during the week just at dinner with my normal drink prior and one during the meal if I didn't touch a drop the rest of the cruise.

.......

As opposed to the know it all who ignores facts and thinks his opinions trump those said facts? :rolleyes:

LOL....'facts'. No.....marketing.

The cruise line business is booming since its transition into the mass market. Bottom line, they are now catering to demographics who aren't commonly found in situations where they are surrounded by a multitude of servers who rely on tips. There are segments of the population where that is the norm which just happens to be what was once the main customer base on cruise vacations. Things changed. They all want to avoid the new customer getting 'sticker shock' when they find their family of 4 is going to cough up $50+ per day in 'tips'.

They worked to find a way to make this more inclusive as simply part of the fare since they were certainly not going to back away from that method of compensating the employees. That is when the marketers came into play toying with the names of the program and pushing for automatically billed gratuities. NCL just decided 'service charge' was more palatable for their customer base to ensure their employees are compensated.

All the programs put the compensation of the employee on the customer....they all are based on near identical industry standards when it comes to the amount of compensation.....they just have a different name.