IDL

My point is everyone can decide what fees make sense for them and what is nominal or not as I don’t need the cruise to make that determination (i.e. just state the fee). As long time cruises may recall when specialty restaurant fees started they were originally couched as nominal as well in all their promotional and marketing material.

A component of the cruise business model is revenue generated from sources beyond the cruise passenger fee (captive audience so makes business sense to seek passenger more goods and services to increase revenue). I always find it amusing that no matter the amount of the fee charged the cruise lines always couch it as a “nominal” fee.

Now that various cruise lines are again requiring indoor masking on their ships does anyone know what Celebrity current masking policy is as the situation is very fluid. Also if indoor masking is required are there any venues excluded such as the gym and the solarium (indoor pool area)?

Thank you; I scrolled right by it but now see the menus.

I am sailing on the Infinity later this month and have the app though I do not see any menus displayed.

I agree there is no transparency in the whole process and I view this 18% "service charge" as just an increase in price that is most probably going directly to the cruise line and not the wait staff. At the beginning of Specialty Restaurants on cruises the entire fee was supposedly a tip as all cruise passengers already paid for all their meals in the cruise fee (would have been clearer to say the main dinning room credit is say $30 for dinner and the specialty restaurant surcharge above and beyond that is say another $40 so there was some logic to support the fee). Now the passenger is basically paying full price for a restaurant meal, getting zero credit for the meal they did not eat in the main dinning room and to add insult to injury paying an 18% service charge that people are not even clear is actually a tip and therefor tipping on top of that. To each their own but I have no interest.

We are booked on the Infinity and to me it came down to value and convenience. For instance, one criterion I quantity is the upcharge for Aqua class from a regular Veranda cabin as the only real benefit I care about is eating at Blu and if that price delta makes sense to me (as it did for booking my Infinity cruise) I book Aqua class. As long as the ship is clean and the ratio of crew to passengers is adequate it should be an enjoyable cruise.

Your post underscores that the level of risk via covid is obviously not even distributed and each of us need to assess the cruise go/no go decision and if we decide to cruise what mitigating measures we will take (if any) when on the ship and at the ports of call. No one size fits all and unfortunately, we need to make these decisions without perfect knowledge of the potential consequences.