Mississippian

I've gotten some mail from Princess telling me that I'm eligible for discounted cruises, but when I logged on I never found any. A few weeks ago I was searching for Alaska cruises and a bunch of them came up as $0 (they are now a little higher). I searched Europe and transatlantic cruises and most of them are not discounted, but a few are, and the discounts are pretty substantial, as in $800 for a solo stateroom instead of $2,800. They aren't exactly the cruises I want to take, but they look fun. The discounted prices just appear as regular prices, and not as part of any special search. I know they are discounted because I've looked at them without logging in. At this point, my attitude is to just book it if it seems like a good deal and play as much or as little as I want. At a land-based casino, I make an effort to have a reasonable level of play for comp rooms, but Princess isn't even telling me that I am getting a discount; it's just there. Can anyone with experience explain exactly what is going on? FWIW, I did spend a good bit of time in the casino on my last Princess cruise, but it was mostly playing low stakes for an hour or so most days, just because the odds and paytables were so awful.

Plus Lisbon is a great place to spend a couple of days post-cruise. It's actually a pretty hard city to visit, in that it can't be reached by train very easily. So most people never go.

I've taken three transatlantics over the past 15 months and have another booked for December. I travel solo and these tend to offer good value. Some have a lot more port calls than others, and I try to go on those with a lot of stops, because there are still plenty of sea days. I enjoy them, but I also enjoy lying in bed reading a book or taking a nap!

My big regret is that I bought 100 shares of Royal Caribbean for $35 and sold when it got to $50. It's now close to $100.

Probably the same as yours.

I've been there and done that half a dozen times, so it really doesn't matter. And I prefer to see Venice from a hotel room, not a cruise ship. But my personal opinion is that these cruise ships were not doing any damage whatsoever. They did pose some risk.

The shareholder credit used to require an investment of almost $6,000. They now give it for $1,850. And by blind luck I bought in for almost $500 less than that. Pretty good benefit, as far as I am concerned.

Cruise ships aren't and weren't "destroying" Venice. There was fear, probably legitimate, that a serious accident could do great harm.

On Princess some years back, we had giant prawns one night, and I think maybe langoustines another night. We thought both were better than the lobster tail we were served near the end of the cruise..

Starbucks burns the beans. It tastes awful, which is why they have to dress it up as a cupcake.

Ok, I just booked a cruise and got my upgrade offer. One of the upgrades is two additional specialty dining credits for $69+20%. I can also get Premium Plus, which includes two additional dining credits. Last cruise, after I booked Premium Plus the specialty dining credit upgrade disappeared, although it took most of a day. So, has anyone ever purchased two upgrades, one for dining and the other for the full package?

On a recent Breakaway cruise, there was pizza on the buffet all the time. I pretty much hated most of the buffet food, but I thought the pizza was good, even though the crust was quite different from what I am used to: it was very "floppy."

It is much easier to clean 12 rooms twice a day than 24 rooms once. Many people don't take a nap during the day or create much of a mess at all, so the 2nd cleaning/turndown can sometimes be done in two or three minutes, maybe less. The first cleaning takes much longer.

But I don't think they did know. This is a new rule. If forces the stewards to provide crappy service. I am not going to pull down the mandatory gratuity, but I won't be tipping extra. The consuming public will vote with their feet on this one. NCL is a bit cheaper than the other mass market lines, in my view. It may be they are making a wise marketing decision, or not. There is already a staff shortage, and they may find a lot of workers jumping ship for better opportunities.

NCL now expects the stewards to clean 24 cabins. On my recent transatlantic my room was made up about half the time. I keep odd hours, and there was never any information on what time would be best for the steward. I had a couple of port days where I returned and was surprised to see the room unmade, but I think the stewards go ashore, too. I didn't make a production of it because I knew the steward was overworked, but I do think it was bad form on NCL's part to raise the daily gratuity while making a substantial cut in services. FWIW, I didn't tip over the mandatory gratuity amount, and probably will not in the future if receiving only once-a-day service.

I took a recent Breakaway transatlantic and the Internet service was the best I've ever had. There were a few days when service was slow or spotty, but overall it was speedy and working. I took a transatlantic cruise last year on the Enchanted Princess. Service was so bad that they simply refunded $10 a day for wifi. After Day 6 wifi barely worked. After Day 9 it didn't work at all. I actually prefer Princess to NCL, but Internet is important to me and be the deciding factor in selecting between similar cruises.

Sorry for the delayed response. In Valencia, there were supposed to be shuttle buses waiting to take us into town for around $15, payable at the dock. There were zero. When we asked about them we were pointed toward the exit and so started walking. It was roughly a two-mile walk just to exit the cruise port. But there weren't many buses or taxis available, so I ended up just walking to the science museum as my only option. This ended up being close to four miles total. To return I had to walk a mile to find a taxi, and the port wouldn't let the taxis fully enter the port, so there was another mile-plus of walking. All-in-all I had to walk six or eight miles. I talked to people who had trouble walking and turned around after about a half-mile and returned to the ship. Compared to other cruise lines, NCL provided very poor information on port transportation options, and their planning was awful to non-existent. This was true for all ports.

I saw numerous notices on signs and the daily newsletter, but it is wrong for them to just keep your money. Livorno was ridiculous, but the Valencia s**tshow was way worse. I think I walked eight miles that day.

I think he knew. But as I understand it, even getting to pay is discretionary.

I don't doubt that a bit.

At the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest, I met a guy on my recent transatlantic cruise who said he and his parents had been allowed to join his uncle and aunt in the Haven restaurant. It was a one-time deal, though.

I was on the NCL Breakaway about a month ago. The JOB machines were 8-5 at the quarter and dollar level (97.30%) and 8-6 at the $5 level (98.39%) which is about as good a vp machine as you will find on a cruise ship. I played a quarter Double Bonus machine and the quarter paytable was 9-6-4, or a 96.38% return with perfect play; I suspect dollars are the same. I don't know the $5 paytable. Double Double Bonus, 25 cents, 9-5, 97.87% return; $1 and $5 unknown. I think this makes the Double Double Bonus the best play in the casino for quarters. If the $5 version improves the payout to 9-6 (98.98%) it is likely the best game on the seas. But oh, the volatility! The above figures are for "perfect" play. Most players will lose an additional 5-7%. Reasonably good players will lose an additional 2-4%. Really good players will still likely lose an extra half percent or so. The reason I have all of these numbers is because about a year ago I started taking a photo of every quad hand, as well as straight flushes and royals. It's clearly a habit I need to continue. If a cruise line has better paytables than these, I'd love to know it. There were a lot of things I didn't like about NCL, but when the other lines are holding out an extra two or three percent on coin-in I'll go with NCL.

Not really. The Haven is only twice as much! I have been shopping for a T/A cruise. I suspect this will be the biggest bargain to be had when they finally get the pricing right. I will be sailing solo, so it doesn't matter that the bathroom is essentially open to the stateroom.

I have received a number of mailers from Princess touting their casino program (I played a decent bit on my last cruise). The mailers are kind of confusing. I recently did some cruise searches and found that I was entitled to a number of Alaska cruises for free. Further searches showed some heavily discounted Europe cruises, but no transatlantics. My question is, if I book one of these heavily discounted cruises, do I get a drink card? I know that on NCL I can drink in the casino for free, no hassle, but would like to know how Princess operates. Does taking a free or heavily discounted cruise make me a VIP?