BruceMuzz

The CDC did a study a while ago, claiming that 40% of people getting off an airplane come down with a virus within 24 hours.

A bit of anchor trivia.

A new anchor for the average cruise ship costs over $100,000.

There is only one country left on earth today that makes anchors large enough for cruise ships - the People's Republic of China.

They may have changed their name recently. Services are now offered by Maritime Communications Partner (MCP):

http://www.mcp.com/customers/ships-in-operation/

MCP is owned by MTN

Princess doesn't block any telephone or internet services.

That's because they do not offer any telephone or internet services.

There is an independent vendor on Princess ships, called MTN.

MTN offers satellite telephone and internet services to Princess passengers.

MTN frequently blocks VOIP access on Princess and many other cruise lines.

The food should be exactly the same. Both take place in the MDR.

We love traditional BECAUSE of the tablemates....we just enjoy having others to talk to! We can (and do) eat by ourselves most of the time at home (empty nesters!) and enjoy the company of others!

None of the shows conflict with either of the traditional dining times, and there's still plenty of time to be "active"....

Give traditional a try. It's certainly the more "fun" option!

The food should be the same in both systems - but it rarely is.

And for very good reasons.

When we invented "Traditional Dining" back in the 1980's, we did it because ships had gotten too large to accommodate everyone for dinner at the same time - which is what REAL Traditional Dining is. So we decided to feed you in shifts - like in a factory or high school. That is what traditional dining has become today. There are many really good reasons (mostly financial) to do it this way. If most everyone eats at the same time, we can cook everything at the same time - in very large quantities. This requires far fewer cooks to accomplish the same job. Instead of one cook preparing 3 or 4 steaks at the same time (like in your local restaurant or in open dining on a ship), he can prepare 100 steaks at the same time, giving far less attention to the one you are about to eat.

And since everyone eats at nearly the same pace in traditional dining, we can accomplish serving the food with far fewer waiters. They feed you on a production line.

With Open Dining, people arrive at all times and eat at different paces. Our cooks are forced to prepare the food in small batches, giving them more time to pay more individual attention to what they are doing. Open Dining requires 20% more waiters to do the same job, since guest arrivals are unpredictable and we cannot serve everyone the same thing at the same time.

On ships that offer both Traditional and Open Dining, ratings for service are typically higher in the Traditional Dining rooms - not because the service is better, but because it is more predictable. And that pleases the average diner.

But the food quality ratings are always higher in the Open Dining rooms, where more care and attention has been taken in preparing your food.

If you are more interested in having the waiter know in advance that you want your salad dressing on the side, and your iced tea waiting for you, you should choose Traditional Dining.

If you are more interested in eating better prepared food, go for Open Dining.

I think you might be UNDERSTATING this method just a bit.:p

Actually I am not.

Every week my ship is fully booked.

Every embark day I have a list of 50 to 100 passengers who want to buy an upgrade.

Sadly I have none to sell them.

You - along with most cruisers - missed the most obvious and easiest way to get an upgrade.

BUY ONE.

This method works nearly every time.

Most ships in the Med have been forced to raise their laundry prices.

With mostly European passengers, the ship's laundry prices are lower than the prices charged by European land-based laundries.

Many European passengers were saving up all their dirty laundry at home and saving money by having it cleaned onboard.

This was overwhelming the laundry plants on the ships.

I have been at that pier many times over the years.

The pier was built in WWII, ansd has had no maintenence since then.

I have never heard it called by any particular name.

Every ship calling at Lombok stops there.

Any dive operator on the island would certainly know all about it.

The new Palace Hotel in Tokyo has just recently opened.

It is much nicer and much taller than the old one.

This gives you an even better view of the Imperial Palace grounds from the upper floors of the hotel.

Although the Palace Hotel in San Franciosco is Japanese-owned, there is no direct connection between that hotel and the one in Tokyo.

I don't suppose you are still there, but I'll see. Our problem will be traveling in the other direction, from Tokyo, perhaps the new Palace Hotel, to the pier. (We stayed at the old Palace Hotel in 2007.) We are to be on a Silversea ship for transpacific cruise to Anchorage. This si not until May, 2013, so there is plenty of time to plan. Thanks.

 

If there is no answer, at least this will provide a way to return to this post.

 

Bob :cool:

The Palace Hotel is 3-5 minutes by taxi from Tokyo Station.

It will be very easy for you to take the advice listed above - but in reverse.

The Palace Hotel concierge can help you with more details, and also notes in Japanese - for the taxi and the Train Station master.

US Lines is no longer a US owned Company.

They are a subsidiary of Australia National Lines.

So many people are willing to moan endlessly about the demise of this American icon, but not willing to put up the money to save her. That seems to be the way in America today.

They should have scrapped her years ago.

I'm looking forward to purchasing a big supply of "Big U Razorblades", which should be on the market in large quantities in about 18 months.

Don't mean to sound cheap, but my DH wants to be able to surf the net without paying for the wifi onboard. Personally I think the prices are ridiculous. Is it possible to get free wifi by chance in your cabin or do you have to sign up to get it? Is paying for the wifi worth it? Like I said, I'm not cheap, but I am money conscious. No flaming, please!! Thanks for any and all suggestions.

The Internet / WIFI prices are not ridiculous. What is ridiculous is the hundreds of millions of dollars the WIFI company had to pay NASA to build 24 satellites, launch them into outer space, and continue to maintain them in a geo-synchronous orbit around the earth every day.

When you think of just a few hundred or a few thousand passengers on a ship using those multi-million dollar satellites at any given time, it is a true wonder that satellite time costs less than $1 per minute. Not only does somebody have to pay for all that technology, but the companies who invested all of those millions of dollars are hoping to make a profit for their trouble.

The cruise lines do let you bring alcohol on board WINE. Wine does have an alcohol content & you can get drunk.

Actually only a very few cruise lines still allow passengers to bring their own wine onboard. Officially, the quantities of those wines are carefully limited.

As soon as enough idiots mis-behave with that wine and bring goofy lawsuits against the cruise lines, that privilege will be revoked as well.

It's only a matter of time.

I agree that this is the main reason for not allowing passengers to bring alcohol on board.

 

If the issue is cruise line liability, wouldn’t there be less carrier liability if the passenger drank what they brought onboard and got drunk rather than purchasing it from the bar and getting drunk, which seems to put the responsibility on the bartender rather than the passenger, hence the increased liability.

 

If someone brought their own alcohol into a bar and got toasted and then drove off and killed someone, would it be the bars fault if they didn’t even know the person brought their own alcohol inside? With today’s laws, possibly.

Sadly we live in an era where many are not willing to take personal responsibility for their own actions.

When somebody brings a case of tequila onboard, has a binge drinking party, then falls down a staircase or overboard, he does not say," Sorry but I brought large quantities of alcohol onboard, got stinking drunk, and did something very stupid".

Instead he says," The cruise line got me drunk. I demand $20 million in damages for all my pain and suffering." The cruise line goes through all sorts of negative publicity on those great American cable news channels, then spends a $Million or so defending itself against a frivolous lawsuit. Who ultimately pays that for that $Million in legal fees? You, the passengers, in the form of higher cruise fares.

How many bottles of tequila did the passenger bring onboard? He strangely can no longer remember, and the cruise has no way of knowing.

Where / how did he get drunk? Captains welcome party? Minibar? Room service? Generous / careless bartenders? Friends buying drinks? Binge drinking in the cabin? Who knows?

The US Courts insisted that the cruise lines present a system to them that shows we have reasonable control over people who cannot control their own behaviour.

We now have that system in place.

I don't like it. You don't like it.

This is the result of a goofy legal system, a nation of people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions, and a love to take legal action against nearly everyone for nearly anything.

Just one question: Aside from an occasional umbrella drink by the pool, or a trip to the Martini bar, we don't spend a lot of time in the bars on board. Has anyone ever actually witnessed an inebriated cruiser being "cut off" by a bar server? And, couldn't that person just stagger off to another bar, anyway? Over the years, I've seen a lot of folks on board who were three-sheets-to-the-wind, but I've never seen anyone actually refused service. :rolleyes:

It really depends on which cruise line you sail. Basically all mass market cruise lines have adopted similar policies for similar reasons.

US Law claims that if a server or establishment knowingly allows a customer to get drunk, any consequences of that drunken state are the legal responsibility of the person who served the alcohol, and the establishment he works for. If someone gets drunk in your bar, then crashes his car and kills someone, you and your server are legally responsible.

Most businesses selling / serving alcohol in the USA - and all the major cruise lines - have been forced to adopt "Responsible Service of Alcohol" training and policies as a means to protect themselves from lawsuits.

On all the mass market lines, any bar server who knowingly serves alcohol to a drunk passenger will be terminated. That is the official company policy. Most cruise lines disable the drunk's charge privileges as soon as he is identified, to further ensure that he cannot just go to another bar and try again.

But there are many ways for a determined person to have another drink; alcohol smuggled in his suitcase, minibar in the cabin, a friend buys it for him, company sponsored cocktail parties, room service, etc.

Do all the cruise lines religiously enforce the alcohol policies? Not really.

Enforcing them completely causes revenue losses for the cruise line.

Remember that these policies are not designed to STOP you getting drunk and stupid.

They are mainly designed to prevent the lawsuits AFTER you get drunk and stupid.

You have actually answered your own question about drunks being refused service.

Since you told us that you rarely go to the ship's bars, it is not surprising that you have never seen drunks being refused service.

On the 3,000 passenger ship I manage, we refuse service to several drunk passengers every night of the week. The smarter ones just walk away; the dumb ones get to spend the night with Security.

Those that drink and become stupid on a cruise will drink and become stupid whether they bring their alcohol on or buy it.

 

If the cruise line wants to prevent drunk and stupid, they should not provide alcohol, huh?

The cruise lines know that we will NEVER be able to stop passengers getting drunk and stupid.

We are primarily concerned with those drunk and stupid people causing many lawsuits for many millions of dollars.

The Courts told us how to prevent those lawsuits; control alcohol at the gangway, in the shops, and at the bars.

We followed their advice just to up the point of getting away from the frivolous lawsuits.

With the lawsuits out of the way, we can now concentrate on handling a far lower number of drunks and stupid passengers sailing on our ships.

I have managed many ships for several different cruise lines. Occasionally in the past we experimented with confiscating alcohol one crusie and then allowing it onboard the next cruise.

We were quite surprised to learn that onboard revenues were rarely affected by these actions. We made as much bar revenue while confiscating alcohol as we did when we allowed passengers to bring it onboard.

But there were other issues that were affected by our actions.

When we confiscated alcohol, we had far fewer complaints from passengers that their neighbors were partying in their cabins and keeping everyone awake.

We also had far fewer accidents where drunk passengers were falling down and breaking bones.

We had fewer fights where drunks were punching each other over really silly things.

We had fewer cabins trashed by drunk partiers.

We had fewer drunk people falling overboard.

And most importantly, we had far fewer lawsuits from people who brought their own alcohol onboard, got drunk in their cabins, got into some sort of trouble, and then sued the cruise line for millions for getting them drunk.

Most of these were frivolous lawsuits that were thrown out of court. But the cruise lines still had to pay big legal fees to defend themselves until the charges were thrown out. At one point, the cruise line I worked for had over $500 Million in frivolous lawsuits to defend.

The US Courts ruled that they would be more willing to dismiss the bulk of these charges if the cruise lines could demonstrate that we had a relatively tight control of alcohol consumption on our vessels.

By limiting and controlling what is brought onboard, establishing Responsible Service of Alcohol Training for all servers, making regulations for refusing to serve drunks, and keeping prices comparable to those on shore, the cruise lines convinced the courts that we are making a serious effort to control drunkenness on our ships. The courts in turn have been very cooperative in refusing to entertain frivolous lawsuits from those who still manage to get themselves drunk on ships.

Unfortunately when you deal with the masses on a mass market ship, the bad behaviour of a few has unfortunate consequences for all of us.

The directive to confiscate alcohol did not come from our Revenue Department, but from our Legal Department.

Shogun,

In order to cut to the chase here, the actual number of staff entitled to wear Officer-type uniforms on a Princess Ship the size of Ruby Princess is approximately 200. This includes petty officers, supervisors, managers, etc.

Fewer and fewer of them are seen "out and about" when not working.

In the good old days, officers enjoyed substantial discounts on food and drink in public venues. All of that is now gone.

The cruise lines needed to cut those perks to keep operating costs down.

They also cut the perks to minimize fraternization between officers and passengers, due to lawsuits, etc.

Finally they cut the perks to avoid the passenger perception that officers in charge of safety and security might be indulging while on duty.

After the recent Costa debacle, you can bet that any other chances of Officers enjoying themselves in public will be removed.

Cruise ships are not policed by the U.S. Navy.

That's odd. The 25 cruise ships I have managed are monitored with US Navy infra-red cameras aimed at our smoke stacks to measure smoke density.

We are inspected every year by US Coast Guard for safety equipment and safety drills.

US Navy claims jurisdiction over all the 7 seas as far as emissions, traffic, and cargos are concerned. My ships (not US Flagged) have frequently been required (not requested) to participate in US Navy exercises on the open seas.

If we spill even one drop of fuel into the ocean, we are required to report it to US Coast Guard and US Navy.

Has the US Navy stopped doing this recently?

The largest fleet of ships in the world is the US Navy.

Many of those ships do not treat sewage or garbage, dumping it straight into the seas. They claim that in the interests of "National Defense", they can get away with this.

You be the judge.

Most cruise ships are required - and policed by the US Navy - to treat and process black water, grey water, and other wastes before putting them in to the ocean at specific places.

Sadly, many ports where cruise ships call are still dumping garbage and untreated sewage directly into our oceans. Boston, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are some of the biggest offenders.

Bruce Muzz.....

 

Had the guest come to you and explained what had happened, was clearly disturbed they had done this damage, would it change your view of the situation? I am 'assuming' they simply packed and left without speaking with anyone about the damage they did.

 

The pax in question were very apologetic and admitted that they were not thinking very clearly when they plastered these things all over their cabins.

The replacement wall panels will arrive in 3 to 6 months.

That means that all the passengers booked into those cabins with large orange stains all over the walls, and large orange HO HO HO across one wall will just have to put up with this nonsense for the next 3 to 6 months.

Do you think they will demand refunds on their cruises, for the inconvenience of the ugly stains?

You can bet on it.

Shall we give those refunds and then charge those to the culprits as well?

Or we can give the refunds and increase the price of your next cruise to pay for it?

I don't understand what sort of decorations ruined the walls. I certainly don't want them in my home so please describe what they are. I've never had any trouble with window 'clings'. Is that what they are?

 

I do take along battery operated strings of lights when I cruise at Christmas and have a travel sized Nativity that I decorate with fresh flowers. We also bring along cards from family and friends to open and use to brighten up the room. No tape, etc.

They purchased the decorations at Walmart.

There are all sorts of designs; letters of the alphabet, flowers, wreaths, santas, snowmen.

There is an adhesive attached to the back. Just peel off the plastic covering and slap them up on the wall. It is only when you peel them off that you notice that the dye from the adhesive remains behind.

I'm afraid that we are going to find many more this week. Some of our passengers are going to have some very expensive Christmas cruise memories.

Christmas Cruise has just started on my ship.

So far we have found 4 different cabins whose occupants plastered adhesive Christmas decorations on the walls. We will probably find more this week.

The adhesive has an orange/red dye in it that has seeped into the wall panels.

No chemical onboard the ship will remove the dye without destroying the wall panels.

We have already ordered replacement wall panels from Germany.

Until those panels arrive two or three months from now, every passenger sailing in those cabins gets to stare at large orange letters spelling HO HO HO across the wall, as well as large orange blotches everywhere else.

As per the passage contract that nobody ever reads, passengers are responsible for any damage they cause to their cabin.

One of the cabins has already been charged $7,000.

The other 3 cabins will be charged $5,000 each.