mnocket

I believe that practice is referred to as treating people like mushrooms😁

I remember seeing another post recently about this mystery cruise. The responses there were generally positive. People seemed excited. I don't understand it. Would anyone really prefer to book a cruise where the ports are unknown over one where they know the itinerary in advance? It seems some would, but it's certainly not for me.

I'd imagine it causes some confusion for guests who are on private tours🙃

For me it's been 100% of the time.

I can certainly understand your disappointment with the lack of communication and empathy from the captain regarding the multiple port cancelations - particularly when other ships did make their port calls. I recently had an experience on another cruise line (Windstar) where the captain handled a similar situation extremely well. It was a circumnavigation of Iceland in September. There were 5 ports on the itinerary. Not too long after we boarded the ship, all passengers were called to the theater for an address by the captain. He gave a detailed presentation, including Powerpoint slides, showing the weather conditions along our planned route. He explained the scale of wind speeds. He suggested we could download the Windy app and track the wind speeds and wave heights ourselves. He explained the dangers of proceeding into such conditions in the context of his many years of experience - and then announced that we would be staying in port that night, the next day, and not departing until the evening of the day following that. We would be skipping 2 ports and the schedule for the other ports would also be altered - totally impacting every planned excursion. His apology was sincere. His explanation was clear and compelling. Everyone left that theater feeling disappointed, but confident in the captain and trusting his decision. To continue the saga... when we arrived at the first port days later, we were supposed to dock at the pier. Instead the captain dropped anchor within view of the port. After a half hour, the captain came on the PA system and explained that the wind was hovering around 20mph (I may misremember this number) and the direction was such that if he docked and the wind got any stronger the thrusters would not be powerful enough to push us off the dock. Further the wind made it too dangerous to try using tenders. Hence, we would be skipping that port as well. 10 minutes later he pulled up anchor and left. We now had missed the first 3 of our 5 ports. You might expect a passenger uproar, but there was none. The captain's behavior and communication had built up a trust among the passengers and, while there was certainly disappointment, there was no ill will among the passengers. I relay this rather lengthy tale of woe to illustrate how a captain's communication can drastically impact a passenger's impression and satisfaction with a cruise - especially when things don't go according to plan. It seems in OP's case; the captain fell well short of the mark.

Today I learned that a drive-by cruise in Antarctica is not an Antarctica cruise. You might want to tell these people. They seem to think they are enjoying an Antarctica cruise

Simple, you can book a bus that will take you to the Blue Lagoon and then, when you're ready, on to the airport (which is nearby). This of course is dependent on the Blue Lagoon being open as it has recently been closed due to volcanic activity.

I'm sure the cruise contract says NCL can make just about any change they want to the cruise, but that doesn't make it right to wait until after final payment, or even worse until after customers board to announce a change they knew of in advance. In fact I find it downright dishonest. A good example was when Bora Bora enacted restrictions on ship sizes. This was known months in advance of many cruise departures, yet some cruise lines chose to wait until the cruises were actually underway before informing customers that they would not be visiting Bora Bora. Far from ethical in my opinion.

Yes, the original Starlink deployment favored the northern latitudes, but that is no longer the case.

I hadn't heard about the highway being closed due to lava. The Blue Lagoon had reopened after the initial eruption died down, but closed again yesterday due to new volcanic activity. There website says they will remain closed at least until tomorrow. It seems that for the foreseeable future, any trip to the Blue Lagoon will be conditional upon the whims of the volcano🙁

It seems every cruise line is testing the market to see how much they can cut back on their offerings without losing business. So far the answer seems to be encouraging them to look for more and more areas to cut back. People may complain, but they keep booking. One day, I'm sure it will come back to bite the cruise lines in the ass - but that day is still a ways off.

Starlink is dependent on the presence of satellites and in some locations this can be a problem - particularly some ocean locations. Most of Starlink's satellites are the original Gen 1 satellites. They are not useable when over the ocean and beyond the reach of ground stations to relay the signal. Only the new Gen 2 satellites work over the oceans since they can use laser communications to send their signal satellite-to-satellite until a ground station can be reached. Starlink continues to launch and position new Gen 2 satellites, and until the constellation is complete there will be some remote areas that receive poor/no service. Still, in most cases it's a huge step forward for ship internet.

In truth, the Mariner did have a spat of toilet issues that far exceeded what is normal. However, there is some reason to believe that the situation has returned to a more normal pattern of occasional outages - something that happens on many (most?) cruise ships due to the nature of the vacuum waste systems. At least we can hope🙂

That's sad news. Moorea is my favorite island there.

I agree, Regent could have expanded the 30% rebooking offer.

That certainly looks like a fair and reasonable change. Attaboy to Regent.

We were in cabin 413 in September. Some days the AC worked and other days it didn't.

For me the question is do I want to visit the Falklands on a large mainstream cruise line or on a small ship. My decision is to visit the Falklands as part of an Antarctic expedition cruise in 1/25 aboard a small (200 passenger) expedition ship. I've just grown tired of the lines - especially for tendering, associated with mainstream cruise lines. I tend to book private tours and being at the back of the line for tendering is a real problem. Actually, crowds and lines is a problem in general for me... just ask my wife😁

Was there any discussion about the avian flu?

This is the kind of thing that has turned me off to cruising on mainstream cruise lines - the lines!

imho Most Celebrity cruisers will only be happy sailing MSC if they sail in the Yacht Club - in which case, they will be very happy.

About the elevator override.... I'm willing to pay for extra perks that other customers don't have - where I value them. That said, I'm not comfortable with perks like the elevator override that so clearly disadvantage others for my benefit. I've never used it. On those occasions when being escorted by the butler, I felt the disapproving looks from the other passengers were justified. However that's just me. You paid for the perk and if you want to take advantage of it, that's certainly your choice. I'll pass.

We stayed there in December. Different experience. Entered room and found the room safe still locked from previous guests. Called reception and was told there was no one from security in the hotel that could unlock the safe. Hard to believe so I waited a few hours and called again. Different person. Same story. Dead bolt on room door wouldn't lock. Bolt didn't line up with hole on door jamb. TV remote was in terrible condition. Missing vinyl cover over one button. Had to press several buttons 10-15 times before they would work (i.e to bring up guide and then again to select channel from guide). Was told they were aware of the problem with many of the TV remotes and they were trying to buy replacements. Didn't help me🙁

Yeah, that was one of potential problems I thought about. Another was imagining a crowd of people gathered around empty lounges as the time ticked down. Kind of like musical chairs on a pool deck😁

I don't know if it is practical for mass market cruise lines, but I posted my thoughts previously in this thread, starting with post #108 and expanded upon in follow-up replies. Basically, I believe whenever a situation exists where demand significantly exceeds supply, the inevitable result is hoarding. Unless cruise ship pool decks can be redesigned to provide adequate lounges (adequate being in sufficient number that people don't have anxiety over finding an available lounge), then people will tend to hoard (i.e. "reserve") lounges. So, in the case of mass marked lines, the chair hogging dilemma may indeed be unsolvable🤔 I have read one post some time ago claiming a situation where notices were placed on unoccupied lounges with a timestamp warning that unattended items will be removed after a set time has passed. I initially thought this was a good solution, but having thought about it more I could see a number of problems arising. Since I haven't seen another post since reporting such a policy, I'm guessing it hasn't proved to be an acceptable solution.