PATRLR

Careful, that's my youth your talking about now 😉

Agreed, Berigner shouldn't be "premium" and I agree that "premium" in this case is a marketing term. That being said, when considering the mass demographic that NCL is targeting, Beringer might actually be premium 😞 .

We got it for our Viva sailing this December out of San Juan. We hit a port every day (no sea days). But when you look closer, we don't get into one port till mid-day, we leave another port in early afternoon, we probably won't leave the ship in St. Thomas, and our favorite time there is late afternoon or early evening before dinner hanging at the bar. There is always a group that hangs out during that time frame. So, for us, we believe it'll be worth it.

Well, unless we're talking about Air-cruiser2015, for many airlines that very well may be a direct flight. I get it, from the passenger perspective it's a connecting flight, but that doesn't stop them from marketing it as Direct.

I've been on "direct" flights recently that involve an equipment change. In other words, same flight number from A to B to C, but when you arrive at B, the continuation is on a different airplane leaving from a different gate. In the past year or so I was on a flight like that but it didn't have an equipment change but everyone had to deplane anyways. I can't recall the last time I was on a flight that included the option to remain on the plane during the turn.

I get it, I'm sure it happens and at the very least the design needs to consider the possibility. But there is definitely something disconcerting about water over the bow of a ship the scale of Viva.

For my December Viva cruise, Vibe wasn't bookable until mid-June. But that delay was related to the fact the ship was still under construction. As stated, I'd expect Vibe to be bookable as soon as you book your cabin. You said your cruise only had cabanas - you do realize the cabana comes with two passes? The one time I looked, the cabana was only about $100 more than two passes. If I was faced with not having Vibe at all, I'd book the cabana in a heartbeat.

???

@djasinsk The service level on all the mass market lines has gone down dramatically through the years, but, especially so post Covid. I have no experience with the lines you say you are used to, so, can't compare. I do wonder how recent your experiences have been with those other lines, if not very recent, you might find their service levels have also gone down. Understanding the current situation with cabin steward's workloads, I agree that it is no longer reasonable to expect the stewards to be able to respond to your request to be "next". Yes, there was a time when we certainly could expect that, but, those days are gone from NCL and I suspect most of the rest of the mass market lines.

For the Viva's Dec 15 cruise, the earliest time to arrive at port that was reported to be available was 1:30PM. No one on any roll call on any forum that I am part of reported anything earlier than 1:30. I don't know if that timing is unique to that cruise (being the first one for Viva from SJ).

Sigh. The only reason I mentioned the chargebacks was to explain why I was looking so closely at my bill and why I knew for a fact that I was getting the Latitudes discount on the onboard booked excursions. Apparently you can't accept that perhaps some people actually did get the discounts. No problem. If it makes you happier, I'll tell you that I too didn't get the Latitudes discount.

Not sure what the FAS has to do with the Latitudes discount that I was discussing.

Well, I must have gotten lucky. Last November, I had rebooked excursions cancelled (2 of them), I got the proper credit back. I then booked on board two other excursions and both of those had the discounts applied. I know this because the way they do the credit for cancelled cruises is a bit weird (they credit the full price and then charge you for the discount) which had me then going over the entire bill with a fine tooth comb.

Enocre last November (2022), I had the discount auto applied for both pre-booked excursions and excursions booked on the ship. I don't recall this ever being a problem.

Well, wouldn't that support the idea that the finishing in the oven is the problem? For thinner steak, most of the cooking is done with the sear so less time in the oven to ruin it? (I have no idea what I'm talking about here, this is way out of my expertise)

You may be right about the prep being the problem. I don't know enough about finishing a steak in an oven to know. My observation has been that the quality of the meat simply isn't good. Up thread you said "Choice". I actually doubt it is Choice (or equivalent as I doubt they have USDA grades). I suspect it is more like Select or some other lower quality of beef. Either way (prepared wrong or low quality), it simply shouldn't be that way. It's bad enough that the MDRs no longer have quality cuts of meat, for the Specialty restaurants to also not have them is simply wrong. I'll be on Viva in a few weeks and we have a Cagneys reservation, I truly hope it isn't my last.

Thanks. I had a feeling trains might be another. We've never done a train trip long enough to have a sit-down meal. Both cruise ships and trains do it for the same reason: Limited space. I'd suggest that as ships get better at managing space, the need for shared tables goes down. It seems only natural that the shared tables would therefore go away.

I'm curious, where else other than a cruise ship would you find a similar concept of dining with strangers? I can think of beer halls in Europe, but that's more of a drinking/socializing environment that might happen to serve you a meal. Where else? I have many fond memories of table mates I've met through the years - we had some great times. But at this point in our lives both my spouse and I prefer to dine without others. We do our socializing at the bars and clubs. That being said, we found ourselves with set-time dining on Oasis this summer and if it turned out we had to share a table we would have been more than happy to do so (we ended up being able to switch to MTD).

For some perhaps. But not for all.

Thank you for posting this. I find it very helpful to understanding what VCB is all about.

Seatguru really isn't what it used to be. https://www.aerolopa.com is much better and more accurate. They have quite a few of the TAP planes I see. I return you now to your regularly scheduled "Live" thread, already in progress. 😉

What is a "service recovery process"? Does that mean they have a process for dealing with the unhappy guest, or, they have a plan/process for fixing the problem?

They moved you because the phone didn't work? I honestly can't recall the last time I used the phone in my room so I'm not sure I'd even know if it didn't work.

But not all ships have Spice H20.

Actually, that's not what I am saying at all. My experience is that there are far fewer people in the tubs in Vibe than elsewhere, typically. I was suggesting if you like tubs and prefer not to be packed in with strangers, the Vibe might be more appealing. Was that directed at me? I said nothing defensive - all I was saying was it's not for everyone and that's OK.