DirtyDawg

Your post gave me a great idea of whet to pack for our next Royal Caribbean hot weather cruise to ward off the chair hogs. Portable snow making machine! We will have our choice of any lounge chairs on the pool deck! 😁

Fair enough. I understand your feelings on this. When I get my hotel bill at check-out and see an itemized list that includes Sales Taxes, City Occupancy Tax, State Occupancy Tax, etc. I think, "Good for you. Your Town, State,Provence must understand the demand elasticity for leisure and business travel spending, and your legislators really must take care of your own taxpayers. Bravo!

That's been our experience too. The chair hog problem is much worse on cruise ships than at the many Caribbean all inclusive beach resorts that we have been to over the past 30 years. Perhaps you and I just travel in elite circles. 10 star and above! 😉 We went to a Cuban resort once that was definitely NO stars and did not have any chair hog problems.

Good call. Unfortunately for me, you definitely can't teach an old dawg new tricks.🐕

Why are you embarrassed? Frankly, I'd be embarrassed if my community didn't make visitors pay "Occupancy Taxes", sales taxes , HST, etc. because if they didn't pay those types of taxes I would have to pay more tax. I pay enough tax already!

OK folks, here's Dirty Dawg's tip for saving money on a cruise on alcoholic drinks if you don't have a drinks package. Drum Roll please 🥁 🥁 🥁 Don't Drink! 😁 just kidding. I just drink to excess for two or three weeks prior to my cruise, to the point where my liver wants to sue my for "cruel and unusual punishment" and then I go on my cruise and when I even see a drink I go🤢. I use the same strategy when I'm ever tempted to spend mega bucks for Toronto Maple Leafs tickets. I just watch the last 40 plus years of Leafs' playoff debacles in a TV marathon and magically the thought of spending almost a grand ( or even ten bucks) to see them live makes me go 🤢 (And yes, that was a joke too. 😉)

The carnival system might work on Royal but frankly I prefer my system for dealing with chair hogs. Chair Hogs' Punishment!

Now that I am back in the classroom at the university and dealing, face to face, with my students once again I can understand where those feelings might come from. It might be less than two months into the semester but I already know which students I'd help in an emergency and which ones .... 🤔well let's just say .... 🤔 .... my lousy back and arthritic knees might, just might, prevent me from helping. 😉

I understand your position here but I'll just sit back and read what @chengkp75 and @Heidi13 say about unpaid vs. 'simply part of the deal' training.

How many hours per year do mariners do the unpaid drills and training? For example in my industry I might do 10 hours of unpaid mandatory training for my employer per year plus another 30 hours of mandatory professional development training for my professional designation.

Thanks for posting this. My original question has been answered. And yes I knew the crew received other training but I did not know that training was unpaid. Given this industry, unfortunately I am not surprized about this.

Thanks for the time you took responding to my post, however I was not auguring for a fee for service model. I was making the point that, to the degree the old muster drills, were exclusively for crew training, shouldn't the participants be paid for their time and contribution to that training? Of course, that part of the Muster drill that, again would be exclusively for crew training might be very small which might render any compensation being immaterial. You and @chengkp75 would know this better than any one of us. Perhaps I'm too sensitive about this issue following my move from the investment industry, where clients gladly paid for my time and expertise, to the academic field where both students and Administration routinely expect us to give our time freely to seemingly endless add-on projects well beyond those we actually get paid for. 🙂 Now, if the old cruise contract stated that customers, by purchasing cruise fare, agreed to give up their time for the crew training then my question is moot. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those lying around. But I'm sure some folks around here would have one around and could comment. Have a great day.

I'm sure some posters here will recommend, or insist, you sail Oceania, but @Aquahoundis right. Royal is the most family friendly cruise line and their newer ships in the Quantum class have the most activities for your demographics.

That thinking is why you will never get hired as head of primetime programming at CBS. If you were the head of programming, you'd have made the colossal mistake of not airing these FANTASTIC CBS shows; Uncle Buck Dirty Dancing Bleep My Dad Says, and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders and Beyond Believable.😉

Sailed on the Monarch and the Majesty a number of times. Do I miss or nostalgic about them? Maybe a little bit, just like how I miss and nostalgic about the purple minivan we used to have when the kids were young. Great times were had in/on all three of them. Frankly, I miss my long gone hair and my long gone 32 inch ab filled waist WAY more than any land or sea based hunk of metal. I also miss my 20 something disco dancing knees and back that I used to have, not to mention the eyes that I could read a book with, without the aid of reading glasses. 👓 Old scrapped cruise ships are Way, Way down the list of old, nostalgic things I miss. 😉

Thanks for explaining this. But it begs the question; if a significant part of the old muster Drill is for crew training shouldn't I be able to charge the cruise line for my time that I contribute to crew training? For example, if 50% of the muster drill is for me, as a cruiser, and 50% is for the crew, I could charge 50% of my usual charge out rate that I charge my consulting clients. Between Mrs. Dawg and I, $500 in OBC should cover it for both of us. Not much to ask to help train the crew.

I'm Canadian, we are born with ice caring tools in our hands and ice skates on our feet. No wonder our birth rate is getting so low! 😳 😁 I'm glad you got the 20th century reference. 😉

Well, you asked. 😁

Firing would be too kind. Make them walk the plank!

Very reasonable, but is this an actual issue on Celebrity cruises these days. I haven't cruised since Covid but before I'm not sure if I ever saw shorts (even Bermuda shorts worn by my fellow Bermudians) or flip flops, t-shirts, swimsuits, robes, bare feet, tank tops, baseball caps or pool wear in the main restaurant or specialty restaurants in the evening while on my cruises. Perhaps I wasn't looking at the guys in those venues very closely. I have noticed, on several occasions, some women wearing inappropriate attire at times but I am pretty sure they were within Celebrity's dress code, just not mine. 😉 In the spirit of full disclosure, I have broken Celebrity's dress code on a few occasions when I went to the theatre at night wearing dress shorts. This was before I found out I was 1/8th Bermudian so even though I was technically not breaking the rules, I was breaking the spirit of the rules. Frankly, I was too lazy to go back to my cabin again (after changing from long pants to shorts after dinner) to change back for the few minutes in the theatre. My experience has always been they the shows are so bad on Celebrity that I have to leave after a few minutes. I did manage to stay for 30 minutes once, but I was on some great medications after a knee operation on that cruise. 😵

Until next time then. May your drives be straight and your puts fall in! And if your drives can't be straight let them hit the trees solidly and bounce out of the forest! 🏌️‍♂️

I only use Reddit to get stock advice which I give to really, really BAD crew members as "Tips"! 😊

But did you check a certain internet forum for the hundreds and hundreds, and possibly thousands of autonomous complaints made by your fellow cruisers on Reflection. 😉

I'm 1/8th Bermudian so I'm thinking that I will be OK to wear my formal kit - Shorts and a jacket on Chic night on our next X cruise. But I'd better remember to bring my DNA analysis with me should anyone object. I'm also part Scottish, but not even I would submitted my fellow cruisers to that site! 😱

X posters on dress code threads are like cats. It take 10 times before they finally expire! 😉