NutsAboutGolf

Negative…When you book AQ, you’re still forced to select a MDR dining time (select, early or late). You can just show up to the MDR within your assigned time, you do NOT need to make arrangements You can simply just show up to Blu if you wish if you’re AQ

The elephant in the room, like anything is cost. The CNBC article points out a ship tour and private tour are the same costs at $100/person. However, their private tour total cost is $600, this is whether you’re a couple, a couple with a kid, etc, yet it just so happens they’re party size is 6. Majority of cruisers are couples so it would be $300/person for most. Lastly, the article states private tours avoids hoards of tourists…Maybe that’s true for the first or second attraction but to claim all day will be hoard-free is highly unlikely as you’ll often have land based tour operators To summarize, it all comes down to cost/seeing the value…In the article’s examples, if the ship offers a tour for $200/couple and a private tour is $600/couple, which would you choose (rhetorical)?

I agree the first part of the story seems made up, and specifically she hates cruising yet her husband booked a surprised cruise and she didn’t contest it I think what’s throwing some people off on here is people don’t realize we have Monica, the CNBC contributor, writing an article about Tammy, a travel writer The article heavily promotes TBLs yet it appears they’re not affiliate links, so she’s not getting paid by TBL clicks Skimmed Monica’s twitter to see other articles she wrote, this is her writing style, highlight a problem and offer the solution

Two topics I’ll touch upon 1) You’re right that US a tiny % of businesses have tried to increase wages and remove the tips but most fail and go back to the tip based wage; this includes the national chain Joe’s Crab Shack. All servers are hoping they get the “elusive whale” or show off tipper, the person who way overtips and wants people to see how much they tip. Many servers never even ask if it’s separate checks for groups, they intentionally leave it as one check as that attract the whale if there is one there 2) Doubtful that the US would ever abandon the tipping model. Why? The federal laws allows restaurants to pay wages as low as $2.13/hr as long as they’re allowed to collect tips

Yes, however many restaurants print the tipping amounts for 18% and/or 20% at the bottom of receipt…I’ve found 80% of the time it’s based on tax included amount

Shuffling of the stateroom categories; I heard on here all the “family rooms” (M and S class) are turning into suites but haven’t verified that

As other have stated, it started in Europe and not only is it not going away, it seems to be spreading like a virus. It seems for many restaurants for take out when using a credit card, it forces you to select a tip amount of 18%, 20%, 22% or other”…If you select other, you have to press 0 three times and enter Not saying this is you, just an overall generalization…I respect the person owns up and admits they don’t tip because they’re a cheapskate far more than a person who claims some ignorant justification that they don’t tip because the crew gets paid enough or it’s not their responsibility if the crew gets a living wage

Custom T-Shirt that reads “#1 Stateroom Attendant!!!”

Or, X has a solution for them, book AI

To oversimply it, here's why you're getting conflicting reports: REVOLUTIONIZED = X's term that they have updated the ship DRY DOCK = Blanket terms which could include a ship being Revolutionized or could mean little to no updates passengers will notice and was only for scheduled maintenance

Thanks for communicating with them...It irks me that they would even reach out to you BEFORE they checked up on the status or reimplementing valet luggage; its literally a total cop out

Yup! Although I'm guessing if one says "can't drink to due to a medical condition" that's all that needs to be said; don't think they'll want a dr's note or will even ask what medical condition is

Also FYI, if you're flexible on your dates, you'll probably want to avoid the sailings of Apr 1st and Apr 29th. Both of these are not at the usual ship berth of 93 and unless they've made improvements, past reports have stated its quite a cluster due to massively long lines. You check in at one location then are bused to the ship berth and same for disembarkation, you cannot self carry off your luggage, you are bused from the ship to the terminal

Guessing yours is different, I just click the BOOK NOW button, you do have to enter your CC #

I was skimming X's FAQs and for those who don't know, if you have the drink package you get free drinks when there

In my personal experience, you always want to ensure the terminal # is there vs the general port address. In that neck of words, it's not uncommon to get a driver who speaks little to no English so it can be difficult to communicate that you're trying to get dropped off at a specific ship vs where the app is telling them to drop you off. Always remember when traveling and you encounter a language barrier, you can use google to translate

It would appear X removed the beverage carryon rules from FAQ and I do believe it use to state up to 12 drinks, each couldn't exceed 12oz. I've checked-in both a 24 pack for a 15 nighter and a 12 of 16oz for a 12 nighter I'm my FAQ search, I stumbled upon this, 3 questions to ask the same thing; definitely the first and last could be merged but they could easily merge all three into one IMO

Another X head scratcher along with how in FLL X hasn't re-started luggage valet while other lines have

Their post was a bit ambiguous but this explains it better than I did

Yes. If you have a Windows PC, you can log the PC in and then create a mobile hotspot so multiple devices can be used on one account; just be aware it splits the wifi speed between devices. On your PC simply search for "hotspot" to turn it on Unfortunately, while nearly all modern smartphones like the iPhone have a "hotspot" feature, with the exception of the Pixel, they will not be able to share the ships wifi between multiple devices. They can only convert cellular reception into a wifi hotspot or to oversimply it: No cell reception = no wifi hotspot

Seems like the beyond is the only ship that doesn't greatly throttle down the speed. Was on the Solstice after starlink was deployed with premium and it only averaged maybe 2.5 mbps and even at 1am or while it port it never even broke 5mbps. Better than the .7mbps averages on the non-starlink sailing but nothing like the Beyond's speed

BCC is open weekends you should call and ask if you book and pay the fees and taxes now, can you receive a full refund if you later need to cancel. That's how it used to be but there have been some 2023 changes so that's why I'm recommending you ask. In short, book now, cancel for a full refund if you decide to cancel, later

A lot of people forget you can bring sealed snacks including candy so one could still surprise their significant other with a box of chocolates, a Giant Hersey Kiss, etc. Sealed snacks and sealed non-alcoholic beverages, including energy drinks, can be brought on from both embarkation ports and ports of call

Just a quick FYI...If you remove the autotips to give cash to your waiter and/or room attendant, you are literally robbing Peter to pay Paul. Many behind the scene workers like the chefs rely on those tips

It's the most debated topic, next is rule enforcement. Speaking of culture, sometimes we really have it bad as in many foreign locations, as an American you are expected to tip even when tourists from other countries aren't