gergles

The Tea Forte provided at Cafe al Bacio under a beverage package is delicious! The standalone pricing isn't worth it (IMO) but if you have a package, I'd definitely grab a few bags.

All prices are exclusive of a mandatory 18% 'tip' added on.

Coke: $2/can

Beer: $5 (Cheap crap) - $9 ("craft" beer)

Cocktails: $8+

There are cocktails of the day, but they aren't always deals. Some bars have happy hours that offer discounts.

I'm curious of the exact mechanics on this as well. I pre-purchased 600$OBC (which cost me 666.66). What exactly do I have to do now to get this in cash ?

Walk to the casino cashier. Give them your room key. Ask them for $600 to use at the tables. Take your $600 in cash.

Is everyone but me missing the fact that the screen shot shows the cancellation fee doesn't kick in until FEBRUARY 2016?

It's discussing the line saying there's an unspecified "nominal charge" if cancelled before the "first date shown below", which is February 2016.

Sometimes you may even see that C1 (concierge) costs more than aqua! Go figure. :confused:

My understanding is that C1s are all aft balconies, which are considered by some the best place to be on the ship and so are generally quite pricey.

(I wasn't a huge fan because of the lengthy walk from the elevators and also because of the complete lack of privacy on the balcony.)

Personally, I found the MDR great and from looking at Blu menus, I wouldn't want to be forced to eat there.

You hope. :eek:

In theory, your mileage may vary, Void in Nebraksa, etc. :cool:

As this thread has mentioned probably 20 times, the restriction on using OBC in the casino is not enforced. As long as you're fine paying the fee, you can just go to the casino and ask for however much you have in OBC and they'll give it to you.

The $20 service is for Luggage Valet, which takes your luggage from the ship to the airport and checks it for you - you put your bags out the last night of the cruise and the next time you need to deal with them is in your arrival airport.

If you want bottles and don't have/want a beverage package, you can bring as much water with you in your luggage or as spare luggage. You can then ask your room steward to keep your room stocked with ice and they will do so.

By 10:30 the entire ship will have long since been empty. I would worry more about fighting for a parking spot with all the other early birds showing up for your cruise!

With casino status, it might be worth purusing the casino clubs of other lines to see if they will dangle a discount at you to try to get you to come spend money on them. It's worth researching what line you might like best and then trying to figure out how to get ahold of their casino loyalty department to see if they will do anything for you.

(As far as general loyalty, yeah, nobody cares -- but for the casino, it's quite different.)

I mean, it's an improv group. So the whole point is that every show will be different. :)

I know the Premium Non-Alcoholic price is $22 + 18% Grats ($25.96 USD) per day. Anyone know what the current onboard price of the Premium (Alcohol) package is? (I think there is a discount to book that online, so not sure if $76.70 USD per day is accurate).

 

Pat

There is no discount for booking online. The current price is $65 pppd + grat or $76.70, as quoted.

Norwegian Cruise line has started adding $9.72 (service charge) per day to its

"FREE" beverage package. That just added almost $200 to my 10 day cruise.

I know of no other cruise line that does this. I will never book with Norwegian

again. Free used to be Free.

Yeah, I just noticed this doing a trial booking last night. On what planet does "Free" mean $10 a day? Really pathetic nickel-and-diming, that I guess I should've expected, reading through this board recently and seeing the room service charge and going "a la carte" for Specialty dining and the ridiculous food ban they tried and and and...

Yes, you pay the difference plus grat on the difference, but you do need to watch your onboard account hawkishly; when I upgraded from one package to another, they charged full price for the upgrade and insisted a credit would show up to offset it (right up until I walked off the ship). It didn't, and it was a hassle to get the money back after the cruise.

On a 7-day cruise you must upgrade no later than on Day 4. (If your cruise leaves on Sunday, you must upgrade by Wednesday, and you are charged per night remaining in the cruise.)

I'd guess that she had a problem with someone borrowing someone else's room card, perhaps she was reprimanded, so she decided to verify everyone with a policy of her own. Of course, that's not celebrity policy, especially since they have your picture available on-line if the server doubts you are you.

 

Of course, without pictures on the room card, how would they know if you were you or your buddy with the premium drink package? Interesting...

Watch the staff when they ring up your orders. If they use the "package-included drink" button to ring up a drink, when they swipe your card your picture shows up on their screen and it asks the clerk to confirm that the picture matches the person with the card.

From the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

 

You do not need to include optional charges or extras or delivery charges – unless you are aware of a minimum delivery charge that must be paid in which case you can chose whether to include it in the total price or as a separate component.

 

So the law does not REQUIRE gratuities to be included, they may be itemized, subject to further rules.

Your (and many many many other people's) main argument in this thread is to imply that gratuities are mandatory (or should be considered mandatory) because that is how the staff are paid. Now you want to argue that they are optional so that X doesn't have to advertise them as part of the price.

It's one way or the other. It's deceptive to have a mandatory fee that isn't part of the price, period. This is what lead to airlines advertising $1*** fares that were actually $550. I would also take issue with your characterization of grats as 'optional' given that you are put on a Naughty List if you remove them and that if you book in Select Dining (and Traditional dining is mysteriously unavailable on tons of cruises as far as a year out) you are required to prepay them.

I don't have a problem with however X wants to pay the crew or structure the payment to their advantage. I have a problem with a high surprise fee tacked onto the bill and not being properly disclosed.

***Plus fuel surcharge, fees, other random BS, upcharges, and etc.

Service charges are taxed differently than gratuities. X is going to keep calling them 'gratuities' (and doing everything they can to make them basically mandatory) so that they aren't included as part of the employee's wages that X has to pay taxes on, but that they can still promise staff that 90+% (or whatever percentage) of people will pay the grats.

As long as they aren't actually mandatory, then they are (legally, at least, Webster would probably disagree) 'gratuities' and not 'service charges'. This is to X's advantage, which is why they insist on calling them gratuities even though they're basically mandatory expenses and the staff behaves as if they are a guaranteed part of their wage.

I like formal Nights. [...] When else would you dress formal? The occasional wedding.

You can dress formally literally any time you like. There's no restriction around wearing formal dress.

My answer is if you can afford to cruise, you should be able to afford to pay for luggage.

Yep, if you can afford one expense, you can afford literally any other arbitrary expense that someone dreams up, because that's how people plan their budgets.

Yeah, it was only available at select locations when I was on the Silhouette. MDR had no problem acquiring it, but the only bar where I found it regularly was the Sky Lounge, interestingly enough.

As long as we're talking passports,I have a question. My daughter is considering a Disney cruise with my 3 grandchildren ages 4,5,and 6.Cruise stops only at Grand Cayman and Disneys private island. Does she need passports for children? If not what I.D. would be required? If so are childs passports less than adults?:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

If the cruise starts and ends at the same American port, they technically do not need a passport. (This is a 'closed-loop cruise'.) Given their ages, the kids just need a (state-issued, not hospital-issued) birth certificate, and the parents can go with just a birth certificate and photo ID. This is true for this particular cruise because Grand Cayman does not require Americans to have passports. Some other cruises/itineraries may still require you to present a passport to them.

However, there is a caveat here -- if anything goes awry and the family needs to fly back home from Grand Cayman for some reason, they will not be able to (easily) without passports for everyone (including the grandchildren.)

This page from the government has more info: https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/1139/~/documents-needed-to-take-a-cruise

Also can you get capucino and espressso in the dining room included in the classic package?

In Luminae, you never have to dress up. Dress there is "smart casual" every night. For men, slacks or jeans, and a polo or button-down shirt. For ladies, a casual dress, or appropriate skirt/pants and blouse are fine.

You don't need to dress any particular way for any other place on the ship (except that the theatre also requests "smart casual or above" attire every night.)

Entertainment I found significantly lacking compared to NCL, but it was still OK. There is a show or some other sort of entertainment each night, but honestly I found most of them pretty amateurish. There's a DJ near the pool and often there are events going on there (like crew/guest volleyball or kid's club stuff.)

I also keep track. All figures below are inside cabin, (unless noted) base fares, w/o taxes or tips. ;)

Most people simply REFUSE to believe this can be done on an ongoing basis. :rolleyes:

OK, well, you have to pay taxes and tips, so I will continue to refuse to believe that this can be done on an ongoing basis, because it can't. If I arbitrarily exclude things from the price, I cruise for free*!

* Plus charges, fees, tips, and taxes, of course.

How many alcohol drinks are included per day with the Premium package? Do they have a hard cider like Angry Orchard, Strongbow, etc.?

As many as you can drink.

In the Caribbean, they had Angry Orchard, but its availability was pretty limited. In Alaska, I'd wager they'll have more availability of ciders, but that's just a hunch.