dd2355

nm.

It's a shame we weren't all lucky enough to go to university

Luck had nothing to do with it. I sacrificed and busted my azz working while in school paying for my business education of which marketing was one part. No handouts here, so get off your high horse and stick your condescension.

No university education is required to develop the basic skill of critical thinking that is so sorely lacking in today's society.

I can understand some kid getting misled by signs like the one your father's store displayed, but there's no excuse for any grown adult to do so. Any who were inattentive enough to be fooled are the ones at fault. Yep, the sign is misleading if one doesn't pay attention, but there's a phrase about fools and their money. Caveat Emptor is a phrase that's been around a very long time.

I wonder if those that are so accepting of this would accept it in other situations? Let's say a hotel advertises "stay one night second night is half off" and then saw that the first night was $350 and second was $325 with the excuse that the normal rack rate is $650. Would that be OK?

To answer the specific question:

Would it be okay? It wouldn't bother me at all. I consider such marketing claims superfluous and irrelevant. The room is priced at $675 for two nights. I don't care how they arrived at that number. All I care about is how that the total number (plus any add-ins) compares to other properties I'm considering for that particular time and destination while also factoring in any value adjustment appropriate for differing amenities and other non-monetary details.

we have been programmed to think half-off means half-off of the current normal rate that people are paying, not some rack rate that no one ever pays.

You may have been programmed to think that, but I sure haven't.

Maybe I've been around too long to ever take advertising at face value. Maybe studying marketing at university all those years ago rid me of my naiveté. What I do know is that any time I see big flashing letters claiming some great deal, I'm looking for the catch. If I see "half off" I wonder what it's half off of and never assume.

The one thing that is never misleading is the bottom line price once you've tracked down and added in all the small-text and footnoted add-ins.

Yes it'd be a lovely world if you could trust the marketing messages, we'd all sit around singing kumbaya basking in the glow of our saved money. That isn't the world we live in though and it's improbable it would become so in our lifetimes, so best to deal with the world we do live in today. And that means basically ignoring that the marketing says and stick to the numbers.

nevermind

When they say 50% off the 3rd and 4th I personally would like to see the original price listed somewhere, not the "brochure" price that doesn't exist.

Well you could just double the number you see listed as 1/2-off and arrive at the original price... :D

Yes, NCL ought to be listing the brochure price themselves, but it's certainly available for the different main categories via third party TA sites.

At the end of the day, the dollars on the bottom line either are acceptable or they're not acceptable. It doesn't matter whether the figures are 1/2 of some made up price that's never charged or 1/10th of some other made up price that's never charged.

I don't want to use my normal credit or debit card because I heard it can take a long time for the holds they put on your card to drop off

The duration a hold stays on your account is up to your card issuer, not the merchant.

Call whatever bank issued your credit card and ask them about their hold policy and timeframe. You might also see if they'll raise your limit a bit to give you additional headroom if you're running a high enough balance that holds matter.

I'd also suggect, if you have enough time, that you go open a new credit card that offers zero percent foreign transaction fees (Bank of America's Travel Rewards card is free of annual charges) and use that. You won't have to worry about holds consuming available headroom on the card, plus you get the bonus of saving the 3% fee on anything you buy while at foreign ports.

I have a friend who is travelling with me. Her father is ill. She wants to know if iConceirge is possible for folks at home to reach her in case of an emergency?

Read the last page of the PDF document linked above. Item #7 addresses your question.

in fact they probably don't as in most places other than the US people are not paid sub standard wages in the service industries. Most of those employees are probably making more than the people on the tour.

Your comment is difficult to accept at face value given published wages and purchasing power parity figures. Could you explain it a bit more? Are you thinking in terms of European ports instead of Caribbean / Central & South American ports?

http://www.worldsalaries.org/mexico.shtml

http://www.wageindicator.org/main/salary/minimum-wage/honduras

Has anyone ever found these prices printed anywhere?

As I alluded to above, look at third party agency sites for listings of the "Brochure Rate" at least for the general room categories. CC doesn't allow me to give your a specific site reference so you'll need to look around on your own.

I believe the non-US brochures are available for download online, just not the US ones for some reason.

One site I use is often for example shows the Feb 20 2016 sailing of the Spirit with OV starting at $1039 with a brochure price of $$1799. NCL shows the same price of OV starting at $1039 but nothing suggests they're already at 42% off of MSRP.

At the end of the day it's a whole lot of marketing bullpucky that'd it'd be nice if NCL and the others didn't do. We can wish in one hand and s--t in the other, guess which is going to fill up first. Focus on the bottom line, what you're paying, and figure any of the "you saved xyz!" is mostly smoke and mirrors anyway.

FWIW I'm not trying to defend NCL here, I'm just pragmatic at what I have any realistic chance of affecting and focus instead on how to sort through the marketing B.S. we find nearly everywhere these days. The flashy signs and bright colors don't affect the cold hard numbers at the bottom line, so that's what I'm paying attention to.

Good question. I've always seen it listed at the ************* site so I've never explicitly looked for it at NCL.

Edit: whoops, though I knew the preclusion from mentioning specific TA's I thought the general site name would be allowed. I won't try to weasel around the rules here and will just leave it as the site I always check for cruise pricing. I've never seen them use TV advertising and they're specific to cruises, so they have no garden gnomes or former starship captains.

There's your mistake; you're thinking the later pricing was "full price". It wasn't. 1/2 off MSRP is 1/2 off MSRP whether it's a promo or a sale. As with so many other things, the regularly advertised prices are usually already substantially below MSRP (aka Brochure Price).

Yes, cruise pricing can be misleading, especially at this tier. You have to read the details and fine print for any promo that you're looking at. This is true for any cruise line. So is the fact that prices and promos change all the time and what you see today may be different tomorrow, or even two hours from now. If the pricing is the same they may have jinked around the structure to end with the same result but allow them to advertise it in a different way. Definitely one reason to consider using a human TA who has experience with this stuff.

If you still feel there's a real case of false advertising, there's a link at FTC.gov for you to file your complaint. EDIT: here you go: https://www.ftc.gov/complaint

Totally agree. Americans are over tippers..not sure why.

Not sure it's so much that (we) Americans are over-tippers as much as many Americans feel over-entitled. Just become someone put a tip jar on the counter doesn't make me feel I need to put anything into it.

I do tip restaurant servers generously, and give the valet a couple bucks the rare times I use one, but almost never tip any transactional service where I've not asked for anything special beyond their normal job duties.

Just remember that October remains smack dab in hurricane season in the Caribbean.

Ships can and will rearrange itineraries if there's an active storm when you're sailing. IMHO that's the great thing about a cruise ship vs a resort; the ship can go where the storm isn't! :D

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So how do you buy a FCC?

See http://www.ncl.com/cruisenext You pay the deposit on board and they apply the OBC to your current cruise, effectively knocking $$$ off the out of pocket cost of the deposit.

There was a whole thread on this just a month ago.

Look at http://www.cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/Norwegian-Epic

Ah cool, missed that Marathon in my search. I've usually parked at the port parking for Terminal 3 and hadn't been up in that direction.

One note though, NCL is giving 815 Channelside as the pier address for the Star, as is Tampa Port, so it's a bit further away. Looks like half a mile each way.

Cool idea, though I've never owned a freezer that got cold enough to freeze vodka. When keeping a bottle in the freezer it got a little thicker but never close to freezing.

What a great idea for martinis!

A quick google search says 80 proof vodka freezes at -16.5F/-30C and more like -40F/-40C for 100 proof. Which consumer-grade freezers get that low?

Probably best to have the taxi driver stop on the way.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/convenience+store/@27.9455958,-82.4530825,15.75z/data=!4m8!2m7!3m6!1sconvenience+store!2sThe+Florida+Aquarium,+701+Channelside+Dr,+Tampa,+FL+33602!3s0x88c2c4f0c9fcc9fb:0x9968c30af52d084b!4m2!1d-82.4451338!2d27.9442871

The problem with throwback days is no corresponding throwback prices. Although that might be a good thing for cruises. :cool:

True, though a dollar went a lot further in 1985 than it does today... :D

In fact about 2.23 times further: http://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=100&year=1985 :cool:

I know how to read and yes the signs do say no bottles beyond this point. Whether they are right, wrong, or otherwise doesn't matter to me. I was stating that as an example that I have seen posted rules in airports that say no bottles. So a security officer in a port isn't dumb or wrong for telling someone the same verbally.

 

More importantly, my comment and this thread started almost two weeks ago. I don't see the subject worth going on and on about. Bring your empty bottles if it suits you. In my opinion your comment was a pot shot. If you disagreed, it sure took you a long time to do so. Enough already about the empty bottles. You guys carry on if you wish.

Yep, it was about a week ago that you posted your reply to my comment. I hadn't seen it until this morning when the thread popped back up due to others comments.

If you think a security guard isn't wrong for communicating or enforcing rules incorrectly then you have even lower expectations of them than I do. :eek:

I'm unsure why you're so indignant though. You quoted and replied to my stand-alone comment in the thread, I've merely clarified my original statement in response and then added additional clarifying information that others may find useful. If I've stated something factually incorrect, do feel free to provide evidentiary corrections, but keep your personal attacks to yourself please.

Midnight buffets went away MANY years ago. File those alongside your episodes of LoveBoat.

Yes on NCL room service has a service charge for anything other than the limited continental breakfast items before 10am. It will be interesting to see if it lasts and/or to what extent other lines adopt similar policies.

As people become more confident in the economy and thus more free with their spending, vendors such as NCL will continue to to take advantage of the loosened purse strings. Yes it svcks but your know what they say about wishing in one hand and s--tting in the other... We know which one fills up first.

I don't think it's really necessary to less of people. The rules say no bottles and you don't know if the employee was told to enforce something absolutely or not. They could get reamed out if they allow someone to go through even if it makes no sense.

 

At my airport there are signs all over saying "no bottles beyond this point" yet there are two soda vending machines "beyond that point." I seriously doubt it was the security guards - the ones that deal with the customers -that made that decision or put up the signs.

I don't think less of people at all. I recognize they're doing the best they can. Whether it's the individual employee that's misunderstood/misinterpreted the rule or whether it was his/her boss that erred in their interpretation, the fact remains that someone isn't fulfilling their duty to know and properly apply the rules.

BTW can you please cite where "the rules say no bottles"? I'm unaware of any Carnival policy prohibiting empty bottles.

Your airport has either put up incorrect signage or you've misunderstood what it says. TSA explicitly states you can carry empty water bottles aboard. I regularly do this when flying for work; some airports such as ATL now have bottle-filling setups at the water fountains so you can easily fill the water bottle you brought through security empty. Type "water bottle" into the search box at this TSA link: https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/prohibited-items

You may take empty drink containers through the checkpoint and fill them afterward.

Thank you for the answer rather than a snipe. :rolleyes:

No worries. IMHO $11.52pp/day is still a bargain to have an "all inclusive" feeling during a cruise. NCL could be a bit more obvious about the added charge to the "free" promo, but it is what it is. I'm a bottom-line kinda guy so I don't get worked up over marketing wording, I figure there's almost always some catch. "The big print giveth, the fine print taketh away"

Beverage package is free. The 18% gratuities calculated at the $64pp/day UBP price are not.

Been discussed a few times I think.

Easy enough to figure out whether you're better off with a different promo or the UBP. Just a simple maths problem.

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