njhorseman

There's a huge difference between the types of contracts you were responsible for during your business career and a cruise line's guest ticket contract. You used the magic word in your post..."negotiating". You and your company and the other parties to those contracts negotiated the terms, conditions and prices of those contracts, and presumably availed yourself of competent legal counsel prior to accepting and signing the contract. A cruise line's guest ticket contract and its terms and conditions are what are called "adhesion contracts". There's no negotiation...the cruise line writes the contract and obviously writes it to benefit the cruise line. The passenger doesn't have a say in even one word of the contract . The passenger accepts the contract and all its terms and conditions upon paying their cruise fare. The same is true for most consumer contracts, including the type that I had experience writing, insurance contracts. (I am also not a lawyer.) Because the consumer has no power to negotiate an adhesion contract, courts can intervene under certain circumstances and invalidate all or part of the contract if it's found to be unreasonable or unconscionable . As a result it's not a foregone conclusion that courts would uphold an arbitration mandate or a prohibition on class action suits. Of course it will not be an inexpensive process to attempt to invalidate one or more contract terms. Here's an understandable explanation of adhesions contracts from Cornell Law School: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_(contract_of_adhesion)

Without going back and doing an actual count, my reading of this thread is that 85% of the posts are complaining that NCL is cutting back on service at the same time as they're raising the daily service charge (a rather valid compliant IMO), 10% are pointing out that many hotels and other cruise lines had already cut back on housekeeping service (factually accurate) and only 5% are what you call "violin playing" .

The ultimate consumers of any product or service in any industry always pay for everything...and that includes the carrying costs of any debt a company may have.

Unless it's been changed recently on Jewel class ships theater seating for Haven passengers is in the upper (balcony) level, port side. IMO the seats really aren't very good .

Judith: It can be a bit chaotic, but you'll be disembarking the Gem, so there will be a a much smaller crowd than if you were on one the larger ships. You can't hail a cab on the southbound side of 12th Ave. at the cruise terminal because there's no sidewalk where you can stand and no place for a taxi to pull over. As you know you disembark on street level while taxis carrying arriving passengers are one level above. You may be able to go back upstairs and get a taxi there but technically I don't believe they're allowed to pick up passengers there. Yes, for Uber it's best to get a block or so away from the terminal . Paul

Each cruise line has its own rules. You need to ask your question on the forum for the particular cruise line you're asking about.

If the cruise line doesn't have a testing requirement and the country doesn't have a testing requirement why do you think you have a problem? No one can say what the rules will be 90 days from now.

Absolutely. It's just a short taxi ride away.

You don't seem to understand that the NCL numbers cited by cruiselawnews.com that were taken from skift.com are phony because they're for 2021, when no one worked 278 days since NCL didn't resume cruising until July 2021 and did so with a limited number of ships operating at reduced capacity. Further contracts are not typically 8 months in length. For example if you read the POA ad you've cited you'll see that the wages they are listing are based on a six month contract.

The US dropped COVID testing requirements for incoming international air travelers more than six months ago so it's possible the testing site is no longer operating.

That ad is for Pride of America crew, not international crew. Because POA is US-flagged and based in Hawaii crew is paid in accordance with US and Hawaiian law, which is not the case for crew on the rest of NCLH's fleet, which are all foreign-flagged ships. POA crew comprises only a small percentage of total NCLH crew as POA is only one of 19 NCL ships and only one of about 30 NCLH ships.

You don't understand the numbers you're citing. NCL's median wage artificially appears to be much higher than the Royal's and Carnival's because NCL prorated 2021 wages under the assumption of how many days the crew would work in a full year, when in fact the cruise lines were shut down for much of 2021. Carnival and Royal did not do the calculation that way. NCL's deceptive accounting assumption explains why NCL median wages appear so much higher than the competition's. Here's the article that is the source of cruselawnews.com's report: https://skift.com/2022/07/07/the-highest-paid-cruise-industry-ceos/ "Norwegian based its estimate of the median worker’s pay on the number of days that employee might have worked in a normal year — not the number they worked in 2021, when cruise lines were shut down early in the year and reopened gradually. That led to multiplying an average daily rate of worker pay by 278 — not the undisclosed number of days the median employee actually worked."

Since you're on NCL it's likely you have the "Free at Sea" promotion which provides a $50 credit per port day toward shore excursions. As a result one person can take the ship's $49 Horseshoe Bay transfer at no cost. When I did this I took the shore excursion that was paid by the credit and my wife took the $7 mini bus shuttle. We met in the Horseshoe Bay parking lot and the total cost for transportation for the two of us was $14...my wife's round trip mini bus ride.

Not from personal experience, but based on looking at the requirements posted by two cruise lines, NCL and Holland America, it appears that you have to either have proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, not both. Have you looked at what your cruise line says?

Try reading your original post. You said NCL was reducing the salary of "the attendants"...you did not say NCL was reducing the salary of "Stateroom Stewards ". The position of "Attendant" currently is occupied by two job titles, Junior Stateroom Steward and Stateroom Steward. Those with the current job title of Junior Stateroom Steward will in fact be receiving a salary in increase. You're definitely making up your own facts by failing to recognize that there are two different current job titles . And you're trying to cover your misstatements by using different job titles in your most recent post than you used in your original post .

I don't know what you're reading but I'm quoting the original article in crew-center.com. Subsequently cruiseindustrynews.com obtained the same letter that crew center was quoting and did not dispute anything said in the Crew Center article. You were not just giving an opinion, you were misstating a fact . Are you familiar with the saying "Everyone's entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts"?... stated by Senator Daniel Patrick in 1983. There other well-known figures who have made similar statements . https://crew-center.com/norwegian-cruise-line-reduce-stateroom-cleaning-services "With this change the crew holding the position of Junior Stateroom Steward will see an increase in salary, however, this will scale down the salary for the current Stateroom Stewards."

Actually that's not accurate . Any attendant with the current job title of Junior Stateroom Steward will be receiving an increase in salary under the new system. I don't have any hard data to back this up, but I suspect a very high percentage...who knows...perhaps even the majority of NCL's stateroom attendants carry the "Junior" title because there's been a huge turnover in crew associated with the long pandemic shutdown.

Holland America's website says you have upload your vaccination or COVID test information to the VeriFLY app . It says nothing about check-mig being rewquired: https://book2.hollandamerica.com/protocols/?protocol=colombia Colombia Protocols This specific booking and/or voyage follows our COVID-19 Colombia Protocols for vaccination and testing requirements. Vaccination Requirements We highly recommend all guests be up to date on their vaccination status. Vaccinations, however, are not required. Testing Vaccinated guests: No testing is required for vaccinated guests. Unvaccinated guests: All unvaccinated guests ages 19 and older are required to take a medically observed COVID-test. Medically observed PCR test within 72 hours before embarkation Medically observed Antigen test within 48 hours before embarkation. Guests ages 18 and under are not required to take a COVID-19 test. Please upload all required documentation to the VeriFLY app for a quick and seamless embarkation process. Global COVID-19 regulations and protocols are continuously changing and we may revise or modify these requirements (effective immediately) to evolve in line with the latest practices at any time. Please check back regularly for any updates. These protocols only apply to the specific booking number or voyage entered. As of December 2, 2022

Not the same scenario at all as Renaissance. First, FDR was a fired by Renaissance months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks . 9/11 merely hastened the demise of a company already doomed to failure. Second, Renaissance was drowning in red ink long before 9/11, while NCLH had been profitable for years prior to COVID .

The reason for dropping Bermuda on the trans atlantics earlier this year no longer exists. Bermuda dropped its travel authorization process and associated fees. Numerous future NCL TAs still have Bermuda on their itinerary.

Yes, I know...I quickly discovered my error and edited my post...but not before you had seen it.

And the same to you !

edit: My apologies. My post was wrong.

No...you need to read the first paragraph. Cruise Industry News clearly states it obtained the letter. Optimizing operations is continuing at Norwegian Cruise Line, which is set to reduce its stateroom cleaning service in 2023 fleetwide, according to a report from Crew Center, citing a letter sent to crew, which was also obtained later by Cruise Industry News.

Judith: We've done a number of NCL B2Bs and even B2B2B booked as individual cruises with different reservation numbers and always completed the on line advance check in process for each segment. Paul