sparks1093

Probably not very likely, we have nothing to eradicate the virus, but society will adapt to it being present.

All of the above plus make sure that you keep your devices on ship time. If you use a smart phone instead of a watch make sure that you turn off the feature that changes the time automatically.

We cruised during Thanksgiving once and swore never again, but only because we missed being at home with the family. Other than that we are fairly flexible.

Well, DHS has access to all of the databases so I don't think it matters that much.

We cruised with our step granddaughter (5) in February. We wrestled with the same question and decided to get it. She might have had 4 sodas the whole cruise and when she did I suspect the servers used our Cheers for it. We have deeper pockets than we used to have but we didn't get our value from the package. We'd just go a la carte next time.

I believe they will also break bills in the casino.

If you haven't read post #30 I would recommend it. I don't see anything unusual in a teenager using a school ID if that is all that they have.

No, not logic, but a knowledge of how things work. Yes, people can make mistakes but the folks processing IDs in the cruise terminal are pros and as a subsequent post confirms they aren't the ones who do the denying, it's a supervisor one or two levels above them. When we entered the Netherlands the official looked at my wife's passport and said "you do know that you need a valid passport to enter this country, right?". My heart sunk and I wondered what he was talking about since the passport was less than 6 months old. He said that DW had not signed it and let us proceed. So yes, there are super-officious people out there but they are usually the ones that are carrying government credentials, not folks working at a cruise line check in terminal.

If the cruise line says it is sufficient why in the world would the folks in the terminal say no? The terminal personnel do everything they can to get people onboard, if they are saying no it's for a valid reason (such as having an expired ID) and a supervisor has normally gotten involved. In any event I would personally rather show up with the student ID rather than nothing (well, if we could turn the clock back almost 50 years).

You could have done it with one transaction, you should be allowed $500 of each type of Cruise Cash. 🙂 I read your other post right after posting this.

To you it may not feel like enough but they are acceptable nonetheless. The people that carry these IDs are a low risk to the national security, which is why this type of ID is permissible for them. Some people fixate on the requirement that the ID needs to be issued by the government and a private school would seem to be excluded because of that. @Ferry_Watcher has cleared folks and may be able to discuss how often these IDs show up.

They did the same thing in the Navy, and often for lunch as well.

I've seen a couple of folks say that a school ID isn't sufficient. The regulations only say that a government issued photo ID is required. Here is what one cruise line (Carnival) says in its FAQ: Photo Identification A non-expired government-issued photo I.D. is required of all guests 16 years of age and older. The following are acceptable: Driver's License (a temporary Driver's License with photo is acceptable) Driver's Permit School/Student I.D. (acceptable for guests 16/17/18 years of age) Government-issued identification card including a U.S. Military I.D. with photo (city/state/federal) Government-issued Trusted Traveler Program Membership Card (NEXUS/SENTRI/FAST) - for photo identification use only As the bolded text says, a Student ID is acceptable for those who are 16–18-year-old. Now before anyone says "well, it's only Carnival" remember that while a cruise line may impose a stricter standard than what the regulations require, they cannot accept less (it helps that OP is sailing on Carnival as well). Also note that there is no distinction made between a public and private school.

I answered yes but would consider booking elsewhere under the right conditions. The right conditions come down to price for the most part- which cruise line will take us where we want to go for the least amount of money. Since we are now getting the drink package on every sailing we will factor that in when looking at a line that includes their drink package in the fare (and typically they will also include gratuities and wifi so since we get both of those that gets factored as well).

Most Americans flat out don't need one for the type of travel that they can do. I live 8 miles from the border with Canada and for most of the folks around here that will be their only international destination in their life time. They could spend the money on a passport, but for that type of travel it is more affordable to get the passport card or an EDL. When we first started cruising it would have cost around $850 to get passports and for a 4 day cruise that just didn't seem like a good expenditure (and three of those passports would have limited validity due to the age of the kids). DW and I both knew that we wanted to travel to Europe some day, but at that time those plans were only pipe dreams. After looking at all of the risks we determined that it was feasible to cruise using our birth certificates (naturalization certificate in DW's case) and photo IDs and wait until we needed the passports for the type of travel we were doing. Every cruise we took thereafter we looked at the issue all over again. We made our first trip to Europe in 2015 and that is when we got our passports (and by that time we had taken 4 cruises, although we had EDLs by the time of the 4th trip). So in the end it probably comes down to Americans don't need a passport for the types of travel they can do so they don't worry about getting one.

Quite so, but to be clear I was talking about a closed loop cruise within the WHTI. For other cruises a passport would be needed.

The lesson learned is if at all possible deal with the issue onboard and don't wait until after the cruise. I'm glad they took action and hope that it corrects the issue (but as you say at least they did try to do something).

Are the two mutually exclusive? Could not both have been equally compelling?

A whole bunch of interviews, more than likely. As I understand it the affects of gambling and smoking on the brain create a similar affect, but I haven't looked at it all that closely. (I do recall that when I smoked I did tend to gamble more, mostly by playing the lottery which I very rarely do any longer. Could just be confirmation bias, who knows.)

I read post 91 more as a commentary then as a whine (and if it is whine it's alcohol content is very very low🤣).

I'm sure that the bean counters have analyzed this every which way they can. I have read of many studies that link gambling and smoking together so it does make sense from a revenue viewpoint to allow smoking. I do gamble a little but not very much and I wouldn't gamble more if the casino was smoke free.

Maybe there shouldn't need to be a workaround but it's far from a perfect world. As mentioned there are different clientele on the two lines and Celebrity doesn't rely as heavily on casino revenue. I'm sure a good number of smokers do just that. It just means that my money stays in my pocket longer. 😁

I've never heard anyone whine about it and if they do they are being inconsiderate (unfortunately there's no rule against whining...but if there were it would likely not be enforced as well 😉.) Post #76 was someone drooling over a menu item on a different cruise line, perhaps you meant another (or possibly the original #76 was deleted).

We've always managed to find a way around, even if up one deck and then down after the casino. And short term exposure is only unpleasant, it's the longer exposure that tends to be an issue (in my previous post we thought that where we were sitting for trivia was far enough away from the smoke but we were wrong).

We by no means expect anyone to cater to us. We know where the smoking areas are and we avoid them. Easy enough to do. The problem is when smoking takes place outside of the approved smoking areas. I don't care how much anyone paid for their cruise nothing allows them to smoke in an area that isn't authorized. Nothing.