Baron Barracuda

Years of commuting on the Staten Island ferry gives me thousands of sailings. Nowhere near a million though. Great bargain. 30 minute trip used to be $.25 each way and now it's free.

Most IPO's are well oversubscribed. Big buyers put in limit orders at multiple prices. The stock settled at the top of the indicated range knocking out any low bids. If there had been a real clamor for VIK after opening it would have popped by more than $2. The potential for a follow on depends on factors such as Viking's view of the stock's future potential (wait for a better price), their need for cash and the Hagen's willingness to further dilute their position.

NCLH had a good quarter. Problem is it came on the heels of RCL reporting an even stronger one. RCL had a 107% load factor vs NCLH's 105%. RCL also had better cash flow, paying down a bunch of debt and refinancing another $1B from 11% to 6%. Street bid up NCLH expecting similar results and were disappointed when they didn't match. Covid put them in a deep hole and it's going to take a while to recover.

Have seen walk-off line begin to form before 5am. By 6am can be hundreds deep. Instead of spending hours on line enjoy a leisurely breakfast and book later departure.

Just off the Prima, 11 days from Miami to NYC. Very nice trip with one exception. One couple in our group booked their air through NCL and were assigned a Jet Blue flight from JFK to FLL arriving at 9am. They made it on time but their bag never left JFK. Jet Blue said not to worry, bag would be placed on the next flight arriving at 2pm in time to make our 4pm sailing. Bag did arrive at 2pm but either NCL or JB decided traffic was too heavy for it to get to ship by 4pm so they held it at airport. Ultimately we didn’t sail until 6pm. JB again said don’t worry, bag would be waiting for us at La Romana. Unfortunately on day 2 we visited GSK and day 3 was a sea day so we didn’t reach La Romana until day 4. JB reported bag was waiting at airport so NCL dispatched someone to pick it up. We were in port for 6 hours but courier came back empty handed. Bag was hung up in customs. Our next stop on day 5 was Aruba but JB doesn’t fly there and refused to send it with another airline. Same issue on day 6 in Curacao. Day 7 we would be in St. Thomas but JB was uncomfortable sending it there and wanted friend to wait until day 8 in San Juan. At this point friend who had been living in a sweatsuit plus two tee shirts and a few things purchased with a $200 obc had reached her limit. She had spent hours on the phone with JB and made many trips to guest relations where some were sympathetic and tried to help while others didn't want to get involved. From our perspective since it was NCL who had assigned her the JB flight they had a responsibility to intercede on her behalf. Ultimately after 7 days and much stress the bag finally caught up to the ship in St Thomas and friend was able to breathe. Protections on their credit card will cover some of their out of pocket costs but hey had forgotten to purchase travel insurance for this sailing. They will certainly do so in the future. I personally always fly in a day ahead of sailing to avoid such problems.

in 2019 RCL had 205 million shares outstanding. Now 256 million. All were likely issued at prices well below 2019 or current level causing dilution.

Earnings appear excellent. Even Jason Liberty called them WOW in earnings announcement. Net yields up from 1.02 to 1.07, turned a profit in seasonally weak quarter and raised full year guidance. Interest expense down from $400MM/qtr to around $300MM. LTD balance continues to shrink and $1B+ in debt refinanced from 11% to 6%. Bookings and net yields strong. Capacity will increase 8% this year.

We're also on this Prima sailing and will be picked up by dd coming south on the West Side Hwy. Given the late arrival should I direct her to Arrivals or have her go past the terminal make a u turn on 12th ave and find a place to wait on the north bound side? Are cars picking up at Arrivals allowed to sit and wait or do police force them to keep moving?

Depends on whether they define "arrives at 10" to mean when ship will dock vs when ship is cleared and passengers are able to debark. It will take some time to unload luggage and sort it by group in terminal. Everyone will also have to clear CBP which can be either a breeze or a hassle depending on how many lines are open. NY now has facial recognition which should speed things up. (Anyone know if NY has Global Entry line?)

Manhattan is chaotic. Bayonne much easier. Brooklyn not too bad.

Have been playing with the 36 day Grand Fjords & Iconic Viking Shores from NY to Amsterdam which can also be booked as B2B2B (NY - Iceland, Iceland - Bergen & Bergen - Amsterdam). Price difference between 36 night booking vs 3 smaller ones is only about $1k. If I book it as b2b2b do you think they will give me booking discount + past guest for each leg?

A classier move would have been to give everyone $300 not just those facing higher airfare. We're disembarking on the 27th with dd picking us up at pier and $600 would have been a nice farewell gift.

We spent 33 days on the Star in Nov / Dec. Believe part of it was with Chef Joseph. Did Chefs Table and Manfredi's 7 times each and with the exception of fatty, thin ribeyes in Manfredi's (attributed by chef to recent switch to new beef supplier) we were very satisfied.

The Olympics are an infinitesimally minor event In the overall scheme of world finance

We were on same itinerary Nov/Dec. Ride from LAX to ship on a Friday was surprisingly quick, under 30 minutes with little traffic. Coming home on a Tuesday we walked off ship at 9am just as transfer bus departed. Called Uber and found a driver already in the parking lot. Drive to airport in heavy traffic took an hour. Passed transfer bus on the way. Grabbed a bite in the United Club ahead of our 1:30 flight.

We rely on the folks at Insuremytrip. Many policies appear identical but the fine print can reveal large differences. Another problem we ran into with Tripmate was when we attempted to cancel and rebook we had to forfeit our Tripmate policy on the original booking and purchase a new one for the replacement. Attempted to switch the policy to another reservation but was told we could not. Other carriers allow you to transfer policy to new sailing.

At least these folks were stranded in the Caribbean. Norwegian recently left 9 people behind in Angola. Were on a late returning non-ships tour. Tour operator said they notified ship but when they returned despite ship still being tied up at pier captain wouldn't allow them to board. When Angolan Coast Guard later tried to ferry them to ship they were turned away. https://www.wral.com/story/south-carolina-couple-stranded-in-africa-cruise-ship-left-without-them/21357016/

Years ago when Explorer was doing Caribbean sailings out of NJ we hit rough seas causing captain to deploy stabilizers. Something went wrong with starboard side one causing ship to lean violently to starboard. I was on promenade and watched carts of liquor bottles roll across deck and crash. Most of the dishes in Portofino fell and broke. Tropical fish from the display tanks flopped all over the floor. Only smart one was my daughter who ran to casino and made quite a haul from these machines.

We arrived at LA pier last November at 10am. Star didn't begin boarding until 11am. At that point there were probably 50 passengers queued up.

Been sailing to the Caribbean more than 30 years and the ONLY port we felt totally unsafe was Ocho Rios. Last time we were there (and it's been a while) machine gun carrying soldiers and unhappy looking locals everywhere. Couple of excursions to plantations had recently been robbed at gunpoint.

It's a long, hot walk around the bay. Much easier to take water taxi to pier at center of town.

How do you know your missing bag even made it off the ship? You put it in the corridor the night before and assumed it would naturally find it's way to the exit hall. Perhaps it fell by the wayside aboard ship or some nefarious sole snatched it and took it back to their cabin to examine.

Sometimes it pays to watch. On the deck 5 laundry on the Star last November the three washers worked fine as did dryer #3. Dryer #2 however didn't heat up leaving clothes damp and while the timer on dryer #1 read 50 minutes when started it would always turn off after just 10 minutes. Need to bring a book and keep pushing the button.

Hopefully danger to Labadee isn't as great as many on here fear. But with US is sending in additional troops to safeguard embassy and evacuate non-essential staff why would Royal take the risk?

In one of the poorest areas of the world Royal contributes greatly to the local economy. In addition to providing employment In the aftermath of of recent earthquake and hurricanes Royal regularly donated large quantities of relief supplies. By all accounts the company is highly regarded in the local community. Perhaps you might do some research before making uninformed sarcastic remarks.