BWIVince

Totally... Norovirus is a different story though... Honestly it's been over a year since I saw any hotels or restaurants have any Covid-specific practices in place any longer. (Other than reduced staffing and guest services.) I can't even remember the last time I saw either have sanitizer available, or if they had a dispenser out, that it was actually stocked. ...For better or worse. Vince

Unless they changed it recently, it has a fixed pin in it locking it into meal-table-height. (I had a similar table at the same height in my (at the time) PH (now Aquamarine Classic), and I ate at it comfortably several times.) What it doesn't do anymore is lower to coffee table height, but honestly, at my height, it would have been incredibly inconvenient if it had been lower. Vince

I've had Sonoran Hot Dogs at several different places in the past year, but none of them looked that good. It's hard to go wrong with a hot dog wrapped in bacon though. (Well, maybe as long as you have good health insurance?) Vince

I'd just add this pic to Rob's excellent series, since it summarizes the biggest changes from the refit prior to the 2021 restart... Symphony's non-PH rooms new carpet, loveseats, cocktail tables, reading lights, artwork and soft goods. The surplus loveseats and tables from Symphony appear to have been used on Serenity's equivalent cabins, but also those items and the new prints seem to have survived on Symphony as well. At least all those new items didn't go to waste. Vince

I was just thinking the same thing! Between the jingle (which I already mentioned the power of this week) and the Weinermobile, OM may not have my favorite products, but their marketing over the decades has been powerful relative to its size within Kraft Heinz. I think I remember every time I've ever seen the Weinermobile. Not sure I'm ready to call it the Frankmobile yet, but accept this is world we live in today. Vince

I always knew the dress was blue! Oh wait, wrong optical illusion…. 😁 Though I still don’t know what all you gold dress people were smoking. 😏 Vince

I just assumed she had the ships mixed up? Her comments could fit Serenity's Prego, but the Kirk Nix iteration of Symphony's Prego only has the Venetian abstracts (but even there, they're not paintings)... There were no grapes or Roman columns in the room. The columns in the foyer had a little band of trim at the top and at waist height, but it's a stretch to call them "Roman columns". Serenity's Prego was a friggin' Olive Garden by comparison. I know we all have our hot button (<COUGH> flying saucer ceiling), but does she actually think Prego was the worst space on Symphony pre-refit??? Vince

+1 on the fun of following ride share nav instructions, but at least DC isn't the most "layered" city. 395 is sort of the Big Combover, since most of it can't really be called a Big Dig anymore... And some other city already claimed that anyway. I need to embrace the Wharf more -- I'm so far behind on older DC neighborhoods (unless I have to work in them) that I've been putting off even trying to sample the newer ones. I think the Magazine title sort of started out like that originally, right? The WaPo banner was at 90 degrees in the original launch commercial (sample linked below)... BTW, there REALLY is something to ad jingles... I still remember this commercial vividly almost 40 years later, and thought of it as the MaaaAAAAaaaaAAAAaaaagamagazine till they stopped publishing it. https://youtube.com/shorts/XD3nWUFnKAo?si=hljiKtNgxm_k7W2T Vince

This is just a random observation, and I'm pretty sure not an actual driving consideration, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Prior to Covid, cruise lines were pretty happy to violate CDC Vessel Sanitation Program regulations in comparably low-risk ways on days when they knew the CDC wasn't going to pay a visit... At Crystal I think the most obvious one was the Grand Gala Buffet being held in the Crystal Plaza. (Improper holding temperatures, no contamination protection, inadequate time tagging, etc.) Even before the shutdown, at the beginning of the pandemic a lot of lines started walking a lot of those practices back pretty quickly, to the point many of the lines operating from CDC-eligible ports just started creating one set of rules to operate from that conformed to CDC VSP regulations, if not for safety reasons, for cost and efficacy of having one set of rules that everyone worked from every day, every meal. Obviously we're seeing a huge shift back to pre-pandemic practices in a lot of our daily lives -- landslide and aboard ship... But that said, I can't say I've seen too many lines (at least in the reviews, reports and videos I've seen) say, "ok, now's a good time to go back to doing our own thing when the CDC isn't looking." This could be an interesting measure of that. Vince

100% correct…. But IMHO, I have a hard time placing too much blame on the AmEx agents though, compared with AmEx themselves. The agents are just reciting the rules, they’re not making anything up — it’s AmEx that’s talking out of both sides of its mouth and literally trying to have it both ways. It’s literally the first term in the rules: Cruise Privileges Program Cruise Privileges Program (“CPP”) benefits are valid only for new CPP bookings made with participating cruise lines through American Express Travel. Vince

We’ll see if they hold to that. That was the published rule of CPP for a long time, but then they had a back door option for certain other agents. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Vince

Thanks Ken! I loved reading both articles, but especially the review of Love, Makoto. I really enjoy reading Tom Sietsema’s reviews. Reading that today reminded me of reading Phyllis Richman’s reviews in the Post when I was a kid. Her Sunday column was in the Magazine (miss that too), so my mother and I would race through the insert bag to find it, but she’d usually get distracted by the bigger and more prominently placed Parade, so I usually ended up with first dibs on the Magazine. I usually read the review (and the rest of the Magazine) while I ate breakfast, and Parade was so thin I usually got a, “are you done with that yet?”…somewhere about halfway through the meal. I had to google where Capitol Crossing is though…. Someday soon they’re going to void my ‘Native Wharshintonian’ card, if I don’t start keeping up. 😞 Vince

I’ve been hearing the same rumors, which would be consistent with the restart. It takes a year or two to work out most preferred supplier agreements, and many of them (like consortiums) get implemented in stages…. They’ll do mild initial offerings without any sales data, to get the relationship started and put the new supplier at less of a disadvantage, but then once they have more sales data, both parties can better assess the true value of the relationship and tune the benefits to work better for all parties. I agree about the prediction for the future — it seems unlikely it’ll be more than $300 for most people though, as they advertise CPP as giving “up to $300” in credits as the headline, but that does still leave the door open to potentially offering the extra $200 in credit that AmEx offers Centurion card holders booking certain lines under CPP. Time will tell. 🤞 Vince

I’m so excited Kathy!

I’ll leave it to others to provide photos for comparison, but Classic does mean it was not renovated this year. The reason they use Classic though is because different parts of the room were updated at different times. InSymphony’s case, the cabinetry, table lamps, headboards and bathroom were updated in a couple of previous refits, but the furniture, carpets and artwork were replaced in 2021. Personally, I prefer the Classic Aquamarines on Symphony to the 2017 ones. Vince

Nooooooooooooo Muriel! 😢 If you stay on for an extra cruise, I’ll buy you a drink or three! 😁 Vince

Yeah, I’m not expecting that at all, though that’s a shame because it’s technically the best spot for the casino (custom designed in a windowless, low ceiling space) and is in Crystal’s magic spot outside the main showroom (their number one market “catch” for casino activity)…. But like I said earlier, for maximum flexibility of repurpose of this space, they need all the square footage, which pretty much rules out any subdivision, sadly. Vince

I suspect this is what’s being studied, but ironically on Serenity, this might end up working in reverse, if I had to guess (unfortunately). Because the casino doesn’t need windows, the original casino was located in one of the interior spaces, but in order to get a smaller venue, it may have to go from the windowless space to one of the precious windowed ones. They could split up the old casino space and use part of that, repurposing the remainder, but that limits some of the options for the remaining space, as some concepts require more room. I shouldn’t be as down on that as I am, because Serenity’s entertainment hub aft on deck 6 is not exactly a place people see a lot of daylight right now or go to window-gaze, normally, but relative to Symphony, Serenity’s windows overall are pretty precious. TBD…. 🙂 Vince

At least pre-refit, among the evening venues besides restaurants, the Cove, Avenue and Palm Court’s bars all has espresso machines too, at least on Symphony. I’m sure Serenity is similar, and doubt that’s changed since. Vince

Meeeeeeeeeeee too! 😢. But Serenity is ok too, except for the deck 7 cabins with that dang eye-level promenade. 😒 Vince

I agree about the size…. The concessionaire charges (in a few different pricing models) for every machine and table leased, on top of the staff. Every machine that sits there unused is costing Crystal — hence the reason the casinos were cut in the first place. If they’re coming back at all, they HAVE to be smaller and at a scale closer to the actual utilization. Vince

Everybody else is doing it, I guess I should too! Just booked Serenity for July 2, 2024, Vancouver round trip. Yes, I said Serenity. 😆 That wasn’t a typo. And no, threats and a gun weren’t involved, because I know people will ask…. Probably repeatedly. Vince

Keith nailed it, but I’ll just add a few other points, and an example since it may be clearer if we take this away from the specific parties here. I get your point, but it’s apples and oranges for the points I listed upthread. A sales incentive is in no way considered reimbursement for a host of reasons, but not the least of which that you are not able to actually receive money out of the transaction, and you’re required to actually buy something with an unrelated (to the loss) third party in order to get any kind of incentive. I would never update a claim for a loss based on some kind of sales promotion I got from a third party to book new, additional business. Let’s put it this way…. Let’s say I bought a defective Android tablet and filed a claim with the manufacturer. While that’s working itself out, I look around for alternatives to use in the meantime, and I’m lured by a local retailer that’s incentivizing much more expensive iPads, and their promotion is equal to the value of the original Android tablet, with the condition that you just need to be a current Android tablet owner (and show proof of purchase). I may consider myself whole because I sort of “got my money back” from the original Android investment, but who would consider their warranty claim settled with the original manufacturer just because an unrelated company gave you a discount on a new product you had to buy? That’s what’s happening here. I get that it may be confusing because the reverse can definitely be adjusted. Being a marketing promotion, and being A&K was in no way responsible for and is not a party in the loss, they can absolutely adjust the incentive to use current numbers and not just prior claims. They’re the ones discounting their product to incentivize new sales, so they have every right to give less of a discount if the customer already received cash back to cover part of their claimed loss. They can basically discount as much or as little as they wish, provided its consistent with the stated terms and FTC practices, and they have no reason to discount the product more than a customer actually lost. Vince

Yeah, it was three tenders starboard and two tenders port. Somehow that asymmetry stuck in my head. Has anyone seen a new exterior pic of the port side to know if that one remaining standard covered lifeboat remains? I don't think I've seen a pic from that angle since the refit yet. I also don't seem to have a single pic of the port side of the ship where at least one lifeboat isn't lowered. Just goes to show how many pics of ships I take from tenders. 🤷‍♂️ The tenders look the same to me, with the canvas flaps for doors... Which I'm fine with -- I have a complete compulsion for sitting by the open flaps and taking pics as the tender sails. After I die, someone is going to look at my series of pics deliberately taken with the orange rope stretched across and wonder what the heck I was doing. 😁 Vince

I believe Symphony had 5 tenders pre-refit, three starboard and two port, IIRC. I say that from memory though -- I'll have to check after work. Vince