Does Oceania broadcast the NFL playoff games?

[buggins0402]

Cruise around Switzerland with mostly Swiss passengers - for a starter you would have to have things broadcast in four languages (we have four official languages here) And then you could deal with the America's Cup (Alinghi) and tennis (Federer and Wawrinka and Hingis) and I suppose Figure Skating (Bielman) Wouldn't be so bad! You could cruise from lake to lake. we have a lot of those too!!

 

Any insight on the Swiss financial news this morning? We were considering adding Zurich on a trip to Poland later this year, since FF flights from there worked so well. But, now I don't know if we'll be able to afford it. Almost a 15% gain against the dollar overnight - that's a huge move.

[Paulchili]

Any insight on the Swiss financial news this morning? We were considering adding Zurich on a trip to Poland later this year, since FF flights from there worked so well. But, now I don't know if we'll be able to afford it. Almost a 15% gain against the dollar overnight - that's a huge move.

 

Switzerland was nearly unaffordable (at least for us) before this.

Glad we've been there many times before.

[PaulMCO]

We just got off Riviera today and this past weekend 2 out of the 4 NFL playoff games were shown on ESPN international channel. Why the other 2 were not shown I have no idea. However, for those of you that have no interest in football you can rest easy knowing that you can watch Jacques Pepin prepare numerous culinary treats 24 hours a day, or watch any of the other 13 Oceania channels talking about port shopping, dining in Privee, or future cruise intineraries ad infinitum instead.:eek:

 

+1 Agree -- or Mouments Men or Godzilla 15 times.... or the bad guest Lecturer...

[Hambagahle]

Sounds good! Together with lots of Swiss cheeses, Swiss chocolate, a little rosti and Swiss watches for trivia prizes :)

Sign me up :D

 

No problem! Which would be first prize???

[Hambagahle]

Any insight on the Swiss financial news this morning? We were considering adding Zurich on a trip to Poland later this year, since FF flights from there worked so well. But, now I don't know if we'll be able to afford it. Almost a 15% gain against the dollar overnight - that's a huge move.

 

I am not a Finance person but I dealt in currencies all my working life. And I am Swiss. So here is my "take" on it:

 

Our National Bank - BNS/SNB or whichever language you are speaking - put a "floor" under the EUR/CHF exchange rate several years ago at 1.20EUR/1 CHF. To maintain this in the face of inertia from the European Central Bank (ECB) who are trying to control a currency with no control possible of the various national ministries of Finance has cost a whacking total of 480 BILLION Swiss francs (paid for from our Gold deposits) over the years. Today the BNS said "enough". And withdrew the support.

 

Other currencies - USD AUD etc suffered and went down. Both those I follow quite closely and both have come up some. The US economy is probably the soundest in the world at the moment aside from ours (Swiss). And I expect that this was taken into account by the BNS. i.e. the US can defend its own currency. Why should we continue to defend the Euro?

 

Well - several reasons -- our manufacturing industries export more to the Eurozone than anywhere else in the world. We depend heavily on tourism/visitors as another sort of "export". And we are the "hole in the doughnut" - the only country in central Europe that is not a member of the EU. We have many bi-lateral agreements with the EU, some to our favour, many to theirs. And they are hard partners to deal with. We also have to deal with our own domestic right wing and anti-immigration laws... but that is another issue.

In brief for us it is better to be seen to be on the side of the EU than against them...

 

Now for the timing of this action -- next week the ECB meets and will consider QE - like the US has done, with success, for some time. I really think that the BNS did what they did today to "prod" the ECB into action. If the ECB fails to act next week to defend its currency that currency may well not exist a year from now.

 

I did not like what happened at the time. Now, thinking about it, I do not see what else they could have done...

 

Does that help answer the question? I think you should go ahead with your travel plans. The USD is a sound currency. And might not get back to where it was at 1000 this morning, but is unlikely to drop through the floor. On the other hand Poland is a Eurozone member. You will likely save enough in Poland to offset what you spend in Switzerland. (And why Zürich? There are a lot of other nicer places to stay here...):)

[buggins0402]

I am not a Finance person but I dealt in currencies all my working life. And I am Swiss. So here is my "take" on it:

 

Our National Bank - BNS/SNB or whichever language you are speaking - put a "floor" under the EUR/CHF exchange rate several years ago at 1.20EUR/1 CHF. To maintain this in the face of inertia from the European Central Bank (ECB) who are trying to control a currency with no control possible of the various national ministries of Finance has cost a whacking total of 480 BILLION Swiss francs (paid for from our Gold deposits) over the years. Today the BNS said "enough". And withdrew the support.

 

Other currencies - USD AUD etc suffered and went down. Both those I follow quite closely and both have come up some. The US economy is probably the soundest in the world at the moment aside from ours (Swiss). And I expect that this was taken into account by the BNS. i.e. the US can defend its own currency. Why should we continue to defend the Euro?

 

Well - several reasons -- our manufacturing industries export more to the Eurozone than anywhere else in the world. We depend heavily on tourism/visitors as another sort of "export". And we are the "hole in the doughnut" - the only country in central Europe that is not a member of the EU. We have many bi-lateral agreements with the EU, some to our favour, many to theirs. And they are hard partners to deal with. We also have to deal with our own domestic right wing and anti-immigration laws... but that is another issue.

In brief for us it is better to be seen to be on the side of the EU than against them...

 

Now for the timing of this action -- next week the ECB meets and will consider QE - like the US has done, with success, for some time. I really think that the BNS did what they did today to "prod" the ECB into action. If the ECB fails to act next week to defend its currency that currency may well not exist a year from now.

 

I did not like what happened at the time. Now, thinking about it, I do not see what else they could have done...

 

Does that help answer the question? I think you should go ahead with your travel plans. The USD is a sound currency. And might not get back to where it was at 1000 this morning, but is unlikely to drop through the floor. On the other hand Poland is a Eurozone member. You will likely save enough in Poland to offset what you spend in Switzerland. (And why Zürich? There are a lot of other nicer places to stay here...):)

 

Wow...great explanation! Thank you! I had just read this and not 10 minutes later someone on our financial new network gave a similar take on the situation.

You should go into finance! He did say our QE is one of the things that has made things so difficult for the National Bank of Switerland.

 

Why Zurich? The rest of the itinerary would be Krakow and Warsaw. I considered Gdansk or Wroclaw as additional cities, but Zurich seemed more interesting for a few days and those hard to use base frequent flyer miles worked with good flights. Only negative was my hotel points (RadissonBlu) did not work in Zurich unless we stayed at the airport... but I was willing to spend for a nice central hotel. It's been years, but we've been to Berne, Interlocken and Wengen...so we've seen some of Switzerland (some of it on my butt as a beginning skier at Wengen:))

 

Now how is that for a thread moving into a different direction?

[Mura]

As for a non-Swiss response, we are very fond of Zurich and if you haven't been there before it is WELL worth a visit. We've been there often enough that I think I might be able to lead a short walking tour on my own.

 

We also love Basel and Bern ... if you're thinking of a Swiss visit, try to forget the exchange rate. We always have!

 

DH still wants to do a drive through the mountains but at this stage in our lives, maybe that won't happen.

 

Mura

[CintiPam]

Just to complete this thread, on Riviera on NFL league championship Sunday, January 18, Riviera was unable to broadcast the Packers/Seattle game in the afternoon, but actually arranged for it to be shown in a bar right by the dock in Belize City. (I was on a private tour to the wonderful Mayan ruins at Lamanai so watched only a few minutes while waiting for the tender to arrive to take us back to the ship). Riviera was able to broadcast the evening Patriots/Indianapolis game on the big screen on the pool deck as well as to each stateroom.

 

The latter game was such a blowout, that we gave up watching before it was over. Luckily we did, because we then discovered that the Terrace Cafe at night closes at 9 PM, not 9:30 PM as the MDR does, and they started rolling up the carpets there about 15 minutes earlier.

 

The personnel working the grill line were in total disarray at that time, mixing up orders, giving mine away right in front of me, etc. Fortunately, I gave the buffet another chance near the end of our cruise, and all the grilled food plus the service was 100% better earlier in the evening.