Baron Barracuda

Of course deposits and bookings are up. They'd better be. Even during covid RCG continued to add new builds latest being ICON, Ascent and Silver Nova. That's a lot of additional capacity. There was also a mountain of FCC's that needed to either become bookings or expire.

Viking has a great 33 day itinerary round trip LA. The 11/10/23 sailing which we'll be on still has lots of availability. Prices start around $7K with lots of inclusions (booking code SUM23).

'23 vs '22 is apples and oranges as a number of ships weren't back in service last spring and others were still operating at reduced capacity.

We booked Dec '24. Took advantage of free air and $25 deposit (take a look at high cost of booking air on your own). Have another VO sailing coming up so they gave us 6 month FP. If price drops will cancel and rebook only being out the $25 pp.

MARDIGRAS.COM of course.

Our Mardi Gras sailing back in '17 was marketed as a Mardi Gras theme cruise however X ran it as simply a sailing that happened to call in NOLA for three days in February. Very little themed activities or dining. Fortunately we had well over 1k boisterous CC members on board who created our own fun. Hopefully X has since upped their game.

We've moved over to Viking for our last couple of sailings and are very happy. Miss the casino and big time entertainment but enjoy their free dining options and love all the inclusions. Can initially appear pricey but they are always releasing discount codes which are posted in the "post Viking promos thread" in the VO board.

Is the PC logjam only impacting ships moving Eastward from the Pacific to the Atlantic? We're scheduled to board the Star in LA in three months after she repositions Westward from Florida. Hope drought conditions don't worsen causing further disruptions.

Sailing is poorly timed. Doesn't arrive in NOLA until sometime on Monday so misses many of the big weekend parades. Little to do Tuesday aside from Rex parade as most of city is shut down for holiday. Even the outlet center adjoining the dock is closed. We had a great time on the inaugural Mardi Gras sailing back in '17 which arrived a day earlier. Only disappointments were lack of Mardi Gras themed onboard events and little late food available after returning from parades.

I like to fly Premium Economy on UAL as it has many of the benefits of Business Class at a much lower cost. Last week UAL shuffled their fall NY - LA schedule, downgrading a number of flights from 777 and 787's to 757's which eliminated the PE class. I was booked on two of these flights and UAL downgraded me from PE to a standard seat. As a big guy that doesn't work for me. I am now gun shy about re-booking back into PE for fear they will change planes again. Therefor paid almost double to move up to Business Class. In the future will only consider PE for close- in bookings.

I take 9 prescriptions, some AM, some PM, some both, so always use an organizer. Have 32 night sailing coming up so trying to decide whether to buy extra organizers or pack of ziplock bags. Have pics of bottles on my phone and if need be can call up my UNH account online to show every medication claim I've submitted.

Clay's post prompted discussion with dw. We're on the 32 night Grand Polynesia this Nov which overlaps with a good piece of wc. She admits doing Polynesia decreases likelihood of taking future world cruise but doesn't know if she's mentally prepared for 120 days at sea. Price and inclusions are enticing though. Might call and ask if Viking would let me switch without 20% penalty.

Seem to remember back in ancient times (90's?) mast grill also served ribs, chicken and maybe steak. Would love good, fresh barbecue.

Good to know. I was only passing along what Viking sales rep told us.

DW & DD are booked on the Polaris Dec. 2024 (too adventurous for me). We did a lot of research plus had some great chats with our Viking rep Maury who is planning a trip there herself. I'm not sure if any one cruise line has a better chance of getting you ashore then any other. It's all weather dependent. We chose Viking because of favorable experiences with their ocean and river products. One thing Maury told us is the ship is only allowed to have 100 people ashore at a time. so 3/4 of the passengers will always be offshore sightseeing in zodiacs and submarines or doing things aboard ship. The day is broken into periods and you pre-book your desired activity for each period of every day. As with the ocean cruises those in higher level cabins get to select first. If weather delays morning activities once landings do commence they still begin with period 1. So later periods for that day may be cancelled. Because of this we booked a higher level cabin than we otherwise would to secure us a better place in line.

Sailing from San Pedro in November and looking for a pre-cruise hotel. Everyone talks about the Double Tree and Hyatt but recent reviews on CC parent Tripadvisor cite roach issues in each which freak us out. Is there a good third choice nearby with shuttle to pier or might I be better off just staying at an airport hotel?

December is rainiest month. We're on the Grand Hawaii & Polynesia 11/10 - 12/12 and hoping for sunny skies.

Apparently Jason Liberty believes cruises are underpriced, at least compared to land vacations https://www.reuters.com/business/cruise-operators-plan-hike-prices-costs-rise-demand-swells-2023-08-03/

CCL announced yesterday they are refinancing over $1B of debt, reducing the interest rate to 7% from over 10%. RCL did trim it's debt load by over $2B this year but most of the cash came from higher customer deposits, not operating earnings. 2q '23 was the first time RCL posted a quarterly profit since 2019. Getting their balance sheet back in shape will clearly be a multi-year struggle.

X has failed to heed the lesson that it's much more expensive to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. We're in our 60's and have been sailing with X since '93. We like the product (maybe not as much now as before) and feel comfortable. Our three thirty something daughters have sailed with us on X (as well as Royal, Princess, Carnival and Viking). They are Elite thanks to us but feel no loyalty towards X. They are looking for the most interesting itinerary and don't care if it's a cruise or land tour. Flashy marketing might bring them aboard once but they'll never be loyalists.

Been to Labadee many times over the last 30 years including while boatloads of protestors were floating just offshore. It was all local election related, they had no gripe with us. Given the extreme poverty in Haiti the jobs and money Royal provides are too important for locals to allow their livelihood to be put at risk by bandits. They will either fight them off or pay them off.

I'm sure many suite passengers are quite independent with little use for a butler however there are a few whose demands fill every waking moment of their butlers day. A team approach might better allocate resources so that passengers needing reservations, ice, etc are not kept waiting because their butler is stuck dealing with an overly needy guest.

Believe this wasn't always the policy. Took my preteen children on both Royal and X in the early '90's and still have confirms showing loyalty numbers for each of them. Back then there was no such thing as an app so their loyalty #'s were their customer #'s.

Pretty solid earnings report. Loads and yields trending higher. Encouraging cash flow. One line that struck me was how favorable timing on expenses was offset by higher stock based compensation. So those skinnier menus and loss of half an half are offset by fatter execs wallets.

No. Policy was simply cancelled with no refund forcing me to purchase replacement coverage for the rebooked cruise which we did through an outside agency. Fortunately while I lost $2k on the insurance I saved $6K on the price drop. Still learned a lesson and won't take Tripmate again.