markeb

Generally agree, but an interesting story... Last year on Equinox I did the international wine tasting (lot of OBC to burn...). Got to talking to one of the somms who was either from India or of Indian descent. He was a for real sommelier who had worked as a sommelier in London. Really knew his stuff. I kind of asked why was he working on a cruise ship, and either for real or in his mind, it was adding to his international service experience. Once up on a time, HAL had a great program for their wine stewards and had a genuine sommelier on most of their ships. Not sure that still exists. And I've been to restaurants with a team of true sommeliers. I don't try to tell them what I like. I tell them what I'm eating. They'll bounce a couple of ideas, and luckily I know enough to mostly follow their suggestions. It's pretty exceptional, and nothing like a Celebrity cruise...

I remember listening to "A Pirate Looks at Forty" when I was still looking at my future... I'll raise a tequila this evening (no mixers in the house). If you never saw him live, you missed it. The show was pretty much the same, but if the venue allowed tailgating, the Parrot Heads in the parking lot were the true event! RIP.

I thought this was a boneheaded play to begin with, but I would really be surprised if there was a Miami-based conspiracy to remove the Al Bacio cookies. My suspicion is they did a crappy job of communicating intent to their own people and some of them took the (incorrect) initiative to try to encourage sales with the (not incorrect) thought that who would buy cookies when they're free right over there? The intent was "apparently" to offer something different for a fee. They already do that with the gelato, so that makes sense so far on some level. I don't remember what the gelato sells for, but I'm pretty sure it's more than $2. Counterintuitive but a $2 cookie isn't "special". A $5 cookie might have been; some people would buy it just to see if was worth $5. I doubt anyone was doing that for a $2 cookie. But again, it was in the middle of a whole bunch of changes that were extremely unpopular with their frequent cruisers (although pretty much unknown to new Celebrity cruisers) which pretty much doomed the entire idea.

Breakfast tacos… Aren’t you from San Antonio? 😃

Whatever fare you pay. I’m not wordsmithing here. AI is a fare. Cruise only is a fare. Cruise with gratuities for the Australia/New Zealand market is a fare.

Exactly. I know that. If they keep them the same, it is approximately $125. If they come down, it’s $125 - the decrease. We won’t know until the start selling after October 4.

Actual retail purchases never included a gratuity. Anything that could be tied to a "service" (drinks, spa, etc.) did.

You'll still have the daily auto tip in place. The difference is it's not in the fare and could be removed. With AI it's part of the fare. I frankly would prefer it be in the fare.

It could. But we don't have October 4 pricing yet. I suspect it will go up, but going up $125 pn is by no means certain.

Now, will some cruisers skip on grats? Yes. Just like now for non AI bookings. But probably a lot fewer than people think. Will the galley personnel etc receive grats in some fashion? Do they now? Sharing with back of house is a very recent change in the US on land. Will staff now question if/when they'll receive their grats? Maybe Will that non-inclusion affect their service or improve it? Will the cost of our cruise stay the same and the grats are still 'in there' hidden from us but still going to their staff? I'm sure X will have all the answers to these questions but will they share that with us? Unlikely.

Some interesting assumptions here. We'll see. We have two cruises booked, and were planning on taking a cruising pause to do other things anyway. We're not taking our toys and going home because we weren't planning any future cruises anyway. And when we do, it's time to be much broader in our search. I'm curious about the actual changes in AI pricing. If you can still add gratuities at the time of booking, that could be something of a wash, although I honestly don't understand why they wouldn't hold off on gratuities until final payment to more accurately match pricing with costs. That was the one advantage I saw to them of dropping gratuities from AI, and they're giving that advantage away... The Retreat OBC "COULD" work out if they ultimately adjust pricing to reflect the lack of OBC (don't see that happening up front). The Retreat OBC has at times been high enough to offset much of the fare difference between Aqua and a SS (not all by any means, but to make it a reasonable question). That's probably not great business, and if their analytics say they can sell the Retreat without the OBC and those appear to be their most profitable cabins, they'd be crazy not to do it. Thanks for the summary!

It isn’t a strategy. It’s the absence of a strategy. Not a pilot, but the fighter pilot thing is all thrust and no vector. Lots of random activity with no clear direction. The individual pieces have everyone fixated. And some of those individually are no big deal to many if not most people. But the totality does not suggest a healthy company. Which is truly unfortunate and I hope incorrect.

???? Those are the actual terms used in the food industry. Nothing pretentious about it.

They're taking out the tips so they're not locked into that rate on a cruise booked two years out. Their labor charges appear to be fairly unstable. If they don't include the tips in AI, they can raise the tips to offset labor (which is what the tips do anyway). Now if they're stupid and allow you to pre-pay tips at the time of booking, they've defeated that benefit to the company. They should hold off until final payment when their cost are fairly well locked. We'll see. The whole notion of opening bookings 2-3 years out only worked with inflation hovering around 2% and stable labor costs. They need to seriously look at shutting down long range bookings until inflation comes down.

That’s kind of surprising. One of the complaints about the dis was that it was overcooked and dry, but one of the benefits of sous vide is that food isn’t overcooked or dry!

Curious why not? We have friends who recently did Windstar and absolutely loved it. Partially because it was small.

They match status up to Diamond (Elite, Elite +, and Zenith match to Diamond). They do NOT honor points as such. Same in reverse from RCL to Celebrity.

I don't disagree. They could be losing their differentiating features in the market to try to "out Walmart Walmart". I don't know what their strategy is. Apple is an interesting example. They've likewise not truly had an original idea since Jobs died. Incremental improvements of the iPhone and iPad, but a product that's viewed as perishable. Those discussions are beyond this board!

How about it's the Chairman, Board, and CEO saying the shareholders want an ROE. And the President is executing their instructions. That's the only thing that's plain and simple. If Royal's making money, be like Royal. And no, I'm not on their board and they don't release numbers on their subsidiaries. Probably would be an SEC violation since the subsidiaries don't trade. I don't like the changes either, but as was stated a couple of posts up, they're not a charity. And LHB mostly comes from an operational background, i.e., efficiency. Her only real strategy experience is Perfect Day at Cocoa Cay, and that may well have been the operations side as well for someone else's idea. Honestly, when was the last time RCG really had an original idea? Oasis Class at Royal and Edge Class at Celebrity? Those are both a lifetime ago.

I think people are missing the obvious. Be more like Royal means make money…

I seriously think she’s just the executor of policy. And she’s NOT a CEO. I think that change in terminology was intentional…

I’m pretty sure anyone who could photoshop the Ion pic above could photoshop that $2 cookie sign. If they’re really going to do it, sell them for enough that it actually looks like a premium product! $2 is just insulting. Like 2 Buck Chuck!

We’ve only sailed in Sky Suites twice, but both times the signs in the cabin specifically stated the minibar was NOT included in any drink package. The first time there was no suggestion that the minibar could be used as a suite perk, and we didn’t. The most recent sailing our butler said don’t worry and constantly restocked water and Diet Coke. I’m pretty sure the official policy NEVER included the minibar. I guess I view this as a return to official policy, not elimination of a perk (that never officially existed).

I recall the poster saying there were no cookies. I don’t recall them confirming there were cookies for a fee.

This would be one of the most boneheaded ideas in the history of boneheaded ideas, but… The original post is a repost from an unnamed (and probably unnameable) other site. Does anyone on this thread have independent confirmation? Are we sure we’re not spinning out of control on a bad piece of photoshop? If it’s there, I missed it. If they’ve suddenly decided to sell cookies, $2 is just a meaningless annoyance. It’s not even worth programming a sell key!