brfan

Elite members are given 3 vouchers daily, which have your last name, cabin number and date printed on them. The custom printed vouchers are new, but it makes sense. The vouchers are for beverages up to $8.00 (beer up to $6) to be used between 5-7 pm. It states on the vouchers "For use in bars or lounges excluding Martini Bar, Michael's Club, Specialty Dining, Main Dining Room, and Molecular Bar".

 

 

 

when we were on the eclipse in March we could use our vouchers in the martini bar. Whne did they stop that? I was looking forward to using them there in January. now I am sad… :(

I'm going to guess that the change was made when they went from a fixed drink menu to the $8 or less. I don't know the menu for the Martini bar, perhaps they don't have a lot of less than $8 drinks?

I was on this cruise too and had an amazing time. I agree with others that your complaints are a bit nit-picky.

As far as the sparkling wine goes, I believe Celebrity has changed when they serve it. Instead of when boarding it is now served during sail-away. I was on the Caribbean cruise before the TA as well and that is how they did it for both cruises.

Someplace I have read that some of the cruise lines keep some of the tips and use it for it to fund a "crew welfare" program of parties and activities on board ship. I seem to remember coming across it on one of the cruise lines websites, but don't remember which.

I believe that is NCLA (NCL's American line).

They do need to submit the passenger manifest to Homeland Security, but they typically have this together beforehand because everyone enters the information online (hopefully). If someone doesn't than they would need to check-in 90 minutes before so Princess can supply the necessary info.

 

Now if someone didn't enter this all online and had a 2:30 check-in time for all aboard by 3pm, they don't have a lot of time to sort out any potential issues. I have seen some problems (documentation, on board account setup/credit card issues) all of which could take longer than 30 minutes to resolve.

 

Sure, you really should have all this organized beforehand, but things do happen, and not everyone is aware of what is needed when they arrive at the pier. Who knows what Princess would do in this situation. I would imagine if someone arrived at 12 and was turned away and then had a problem when they came back at their "assigned" time closer to departure they would be quite upset if they don't have enough time to resolve it, but would have at 12.

Hopefully that is correct, but I thought the manifest was passengers actually on board. Someone could fill out the online check-in and then not show up for some reason. Anyway I was wondering what might happen since I have read of passengers being denied boarding if they arrived after the deadline and were not allowed to check-in, even though the ship was still there.

I asked this in another thread relating to this topic, but I don't think it was answered. The question is related to US ports only. I've seen some examples that list the final check-in time is 30 minutes before the all on board time. Even 60 minutes could be a problem, depending on the number of passengers that need to board on the last time.

Is this onboard time the same time that all passenger info has to be submitted to Homeland Security? I believe the manifest has to be submitted either 90 minutes or 2 hours prior to departure. It is also my understanding from previous posts on various boards that passengers are not allowed to check in after that time.

So my question is if it is true that for US ports the last boarding time is 30 minutes prior to this time, what would happen if they cannot get these passengers checked in by the 30 minute deadline. Would they be forced to deny boarding to the remaining passengers or would they have to request the port allow them to leave later to meet the Homeland security requirement to receive the manifest?

While I know no one here can really answer this, but just something that I would worry about if I were one of the passengers stuck with the last boarding time. I would hope that Princess has taken this into consideration and the onboard time has the cushion to ensure all passengers can be checked in and Princess can meet the Homeland Security requirements.

exactly..take your time. Whatever you do, don't start eating the cheese bread balls. They will fill you up and you'll hate yourself for not being able to stop. :) I started with a little bit of salad (the tomato/cucumber salad and a couple others) on a small plate, and then went back for more at the end of my meal.

 

Another hint - they start out with the cheaper cuts of meat. There are a couple of chicken dishes, some sausages, some ribs, a lamb shank, etc. before getting into the good stuff. Pace yourself early.

Do they start serving meat to everyone in the same order or is it whatever meat they happen to be serving when you are seated? Example if your reservation was at 8:00 pm and mine was at 8:15 pm - and they started at the beginning with you, but my first offering would be whatever type of meat they were bringing around at 15 minutes later or would we both have the same first offering? Hopefully that was understandable. :D

$84 for gratuity that means on change over day they get paid twice thats not fair. I thought it was 7 days. There is another $50 I was not planning on.:eek:

Where are you getting that? You pay tips from Saturday to Friday - 7 x $12 = $84. If you also paid on the debarkation day it would be 8 x $12.

So, you couldn't get a studio on the Epic because couples had them all booked? Good grief. The reason NCL discounted these so much is because they WERE NOT selling them all. I also can't believe you compared this to a handicap room. Really? Since when is being single a handicap. Shame on you for this post. It's mean, unnecessary and misguided, especially that chair hog comment. Let's see. You like Karaoke. I bet you're one of those drunk, untalented, chain smoking pathetic singers dying for attention. Wait. You're not? Well, I guess that wasn't nice of me to make that reach, huh?

The studios may have been discounted at the beginning of the year, they sure aren't now. The studios for the Oct 9th cruise went up $300 since I booked mine last February.

Thanks so much for the great review.

One question, do they have liquid soap dispenser by the sink or should I bring my own soap?

Thanks.

Anyone know who is the Restaurant Manager on Century while Jorge is on vacation?

Thanks.