I Don’t Get the RCCL/NCL Pricing Argument

[BirdTravels]

19 hours ago, gkbiiii said:

The Diamond Lounge is great for Breakfast, Dinner, and for all day Expresso Machine!

So,,, since they went to drink vouchers, there is zero reason to go into the Diamond Club. Yeah,,, you can get a few leftover buffet pastries in the morning and similar buffet leftovers in the afternoon... but it is not "breakfast" nor "dinner". And that is the reason that RCCL is downsizing the clubs,,, soon to go away. 

 

"Lunch",,, yum,,, I will give up a real meal for this stuff

 

"Dinner" (a.k.a., Windjammer Jr.)

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by BirdTravels

[gkbiiii]

I go there for breakfast and pre-dinner at MDR.  The Buffet is pure hell, with hordes of people and annoying children!

[graphicguy]

I found the Diamond Lounge Concierge very helpful on my last Royal Cruise. He took care of my billing snafus and did some dining reservations for me.  That kept me out of the crazy customer service lines.  

 

But, I do agree about the food they had there.  Kind of like leftovers.  But, all I wanted was coffee in the a.m. and some sodas after coming back from excursions.  So, purpose served.

 

You don’t have to take the FREE AT SEA packages.  NCL will not charge the $20 tips/PD for the unlimited drinks nor the tips on the specialty dining packages if you don’t want to include the FREE AT SEA.

 

Like was said, there are some vehement opinions about new ships of all cruise lines.  Some don’t like Prima.  They either prefer the Jewel or “Away” class ships.  Same goes for the EDGE class on Celebrity and the Oasis class of the Royal ships.  Some like them, some don’t.  And, whoever a new ship is launched, those expecting more of the same as before, end up being disappointed.  That’s why I look in the threads for reviews, not in the review section.  Weird but I get more good info here, than I do in the review sections.

 

Sorry to hear about STARLINK, but not surprised.  Every time any of the cruise lines update their WiFi, there’s a lot of ballyhoo….until a ship full of people try to use it, and then reality sets in.

 

It’s probably better than what was available 10 years ago, but still not great.

 

 

 

[Charles4515]

30 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

 

Sorry to hear about STARLINK, but not surprised.  Every time any of the cruise lines update their WiFi, there’s a lot of ballyhoo….until a ship full of people try to use it, and then reality sets in.

I would give Starlink a chance. They have not reached full coverage. The service is not complete. They have launched a little over 3000 satellites out of 12,000. They may eventually launch 40,000. Theoretically Starlink should be getting better. Time will tell. 

[hallux]

52 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

I would give Starlink a chance. They have not reached full coverage. The service is not complete. They have launched a little over 3000 satellites out of 12,000. They may eventually launch 40,000. Theoretically Starlink should be getting better. Time will tell. 

It might have been mentioned here or in another thread - it's about more than the satellites.  The ground station(s) they communicate to play a part, and if all of the ships in the Caribbean communicate to satellites that communicate to the same ground station(s), those uplinks to the internet will get saturated and the performance will suffer.

[Charles4515]

28 minutes ago, hallux said:

It might have been mentioned here or in another thread - it's about more than the satellites.  The ground station(s) they communicate to play a part, and if all of the ships in the Caribbean communicate to satellites that communicate to the same ground station(s), those uplinks to the internet will get saturated and the performance will suffer.

They are still building ground stations so that is expanding.  They are upgrading the capacity too. Elon Musk is a self promoter and there is always a lot over hype and over promises but Starlink should be better than the previous service. Starlink can keep building because it gets funds from the US government. Musk did not give Ukaraine Starlink. The US is paying for it.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Charles4515

[graphicguy]

On 2/18/2023 at 8:25 AM, Charles4515 said:

I would give Starlink a chance. They have not reached full coverage. The service is not complete. They have launched a little over 3000 satellites out of 12,000. They may eventually launch 40,000. Theoretically Starlink should be getting better. Time will tell. 

That being the case, it’s going to take a very long while for STARLINK to be fully deployed.  Plus, Musk’s recent operational prowess has proven to be quite erratic and subpar.  But, as you say, time (a long time) will tell.  

[SeaShark]

The sad part is, regardless of how many satellites they send into orbit or how many ground stations they construct, shipboard internet will never match the speed of off-ship internet. It will always be slower than what people want, and thus the complaints will never stop.

 

Remember, we are a society of people who sit in front of the microwave thinking "Hurry".

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, graphicguy said:

That being the case, it’s going to take a very long while for STARLINK to be fully deployed.  Plus, Musk’s recent operational prowess has proven to be quite erratic and subpar.  But, as you say, time (a long time) will tell.  

They are launching at a fast rate.

 

Musk is not operating Starlink. He is a pretender who likes attention takes credit for other peoples work. Same with Tesla. He was lucky with investments years ago. Twitter on the other hand is his mess now. 

[Liljo22]

On 2/15/2023 at 12:49 PM, Liljo22 said:

Some of it was legit and some was just nit picking.  Being upset that it costs 3% to charge casino money to your on board account is legit.  Complaining that the NCL package only allows you to get fountain soda and not cans is just nit picking.  

So I just got an email from Royal about my tier status for Club Royale and it says that unless you are a Prime level player(second level), you are charged a 5% fee for using your onboard account for gambling.  Is the vlogger going to rant about Royal also?

[styles27]

I find NCL and RCCL pricing to be very similar when searching. 
 

MSC is the only one that is always hundreds of dollars less. 
 

But we’re going back to NCL in April for our next cruise even though it’s double what we paid for our MSC cruise last month. 🤷🏻‍♀️
 

[aubreyc1988]

On 2/17/2023 at 5:25 PM, BirdTravels said:

Well.... that's sad 😞 

 

And you know that Starlink will only go down hill from here. All of that data needs to funnel to a terrestrial interface to the real internet. As more and more ship users start Starlink-ing, the point where all of that surfing and streaming leaves Elon's world and enters the real internet world will become the choke point.  

 

Kinda like during the pandemic shutdown... "Look how fast I can drive around the city"... but as more and more people started using their cars again ... the roads backed up and speeds came to a crawl. We'll give Elon another 18 moths before he is crawling and his satellites start to age and fail. 

I used two days of Starlink on Symphony with my Diamond benefit last week...and it was AWFUL. In fact, I wish I had never activated it because it kept kicking me off the wifi every 3 minutes and I couldn't even use the Royal App...before I activated my day of the internet, the wifi stayed on and I could use the app no problem. 

[fshagan]

On 2/17/2023 at 6:06 PM, gkbiiii said:

The chairman of NCL stated this, in their shareholder's meeting: the average (not you personally) guest cabin, generates 40% additional of their fare paid.  Everything on an NCL vessel is geared to this.  It is fleetwide and Prima is the apex to the mastery, & evolution of this corporate ideal. 

 

This isn't that surprising. My May Alaska 7 day cruise has a fare of $690 each (exclusive of taxes, which don't count as revenue). 40% of that would be an additional $276 in spending. If I had taken the FAS drink package, it would have added $140, plus another $36 for my FAS specialty meals for an automatic $176 additional spend. That only leaves $100 for me to spend on other things on board. That's not a stretch at all.