DaCruiseBug

People have gotten too used to airfare prices that aren't profitable for airlines. Greyhound charges $250 each way from Miami to New York...on a BUS! $3,500 round-trip in Economy Plus isn't really that expensive if you look at what you're getting for the price. You can also book regular economy for under $2,000 (my guess) which is still a good price considering you're traveling over 10,000 miles round-trip.

Then instead of eating 1 juicy burger I eat 2.

I do, and I spend a lot of time eating them as well. Can't beat a nice juicy burger and french fries while partying and getting tipsy at a pool party.

Great...so you eat the foods you want to eat and let the majority of people eat hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken tenders etc... Why should there NOT be at least one of those options for people that want them? Should everyone be forced to eat what you want to eat?

Oh really? Is that why all those items are offered onboard the actual ship? How does that make sense?

Every cruise line offers this kind of food on their private island. Including RCL, NCL, and Disney. It's not a Carnival thing. It's common sense.

These are still the food options offered.

I have flown over 5 million miles (most outside of the US). This has nothing to do with geographical location but rather knowing what your clients want and what food to serve for a specific occasion. If you want to serve chicken curry and fish filet at a pool party you're ignoring the wants of a large chunk of your customers.

I based my "most people" on the fact that nearly everyone was complaining about the food options at the beach club while waiting in line, while sitting at one of the tables, and even people around us by the pool. If you want to keep serving your fancy food that's fine...but to not have a single option of either burgers, hot dogs, pizza, chicken wings, chicken tenders or whatever else you generally eat at a pool party is a mistake.

Because when you're at a pool party most people aren't looking for curry chicken. Most people want finger food.

Having sailed on most other cruise lines and having recently sailed on the Scarlet Lady i'm going to have to disagree with the assessment that the food is great on Virgin. First off, I was excited to try the Italian restaurant as it had great reviews. I was born and raised in Italy so I can speak to good Italian food and what was served in Extra Virgin was anything BUT good Italian food. The highlight of our meal was the meats and cheeses they brought out. We then had the Bucatini Carbonara which was very bland and was probably one of the worst carbonara i've ever seen...looked and tasted more like bucatini alfredo with a few pieces of bacon. Also had the gnocchi which were incredibly overcooked and tasted like balls of mashed potatoes. We also sailed on the Celebrity Apex last year in Aqua class and both service and food quality put Virgin to shame. Seems like Virgin is more interested in hiring staff that fit their "hip look" rather than hiring individuals good at what they do. Our room steward wasn't good. Room was quite dirty when we first embarked the ship. Asked the room steward to give us 3 big towels each day instead of just 2 and each day we had to request the additional towel anyways. The staff on Virgin did actually look like they were happy and enjoying themselves much more than staff on other cruise lines but as far as service...lots of room for improvement. Another thing I noticed is that there's a lot more staff running around on their time off in the ship areas with guests. We regularly saw ship staff in all the dining rooms and entertainment venues. While this is nice for staff...it's annoying to have a staff member scream in your ear the entire time during one of the nightly shows and waiting in line at the pizza shop at night and watch an employee come in and grab 5 pizzas at the busiest time of the night. It's like there's no etiquette or respect for guests so that crew members could enjoy themselves more. The beach club in Bimini was great other than the food options there...maybe someone should tell Virgin that people don't want curry chicken and other weird food while at a beach club. Having burgers, fries, pizza, and other simple foods would have been much better. Also, the Scarlet party was perhaps one of the coolest parties on a ship i've seen. Kudos to that as well. Lastly...my BIGGEST complaint is the size of the bathroom and the shower. *****??? We had a standard balcony cabin and that was the smallest bathroom and shower i've ever seen on any cruise ship. I'd compare that to the bathroom and shower in the studios on NCL. Absolutely terrible.

Step 1: Prohibit fans Step 2: Reduce air conditioning allowance Step 3: For only $29.95 per day you can have unlimited A/C in your cabin.

We did an upgrade a few months ago from Balcony to Mini-Suite which had higher amounts but pre-paid before the upgrade and weren't charged more.

I'm one of NCLs biggest critic but in this instance the port change is solely due to the weather. Tomorrow the forecast calls for 25 mph winds with gusts up to 45 mph. The Nassau stop is useless but I guess they have to make a stop in a foreign port somewhere and outside of Bermuda that's the only option. The one area where they could have done better is with compensation. 20% isn't good enough. It should have been at least 30-40% and the option for any passenger to not embark with a full refund even if last minute.

Maybe the menu items on paper may seem higher quality but for example I had to send back a burger 3 times on the last YC sailing because they kept bringing it to me raw.

I haven't sailed in the Retreat but I have been on several Celebrity cruises and have sailed in the MSC Yacht Club 3 times. While the service in the MSC Yacht Club is very good, the food is terrible. I would take Celebrity main dining room food over what was served in the Yacht Club. Also, the common areas in the Yacht Club are very spacious but I wish they would have more shade on their top decks.

This is what it can also include... "Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses may include U.S. Customs fees, head taxes, Panama Canal tolls, dockage fees, wharfage fees, inspection fees, pilotage, air taxes, hotel or VAT taxes incurred as part of a land tour, immigration and naturalization fees, and Internal Revenue Service fees, as well as fees for navigation, berthing, stevedoring, baggage handling/storage and security services. " Lots of room for a large corporation like NCL to make money by using the model I posted about for stops in GSC. Maybe stop trying to defend them so much? It has nothing to do with having a tin foil hat but when most cruise lines charge X amount of dollars in port taxes and fees and NCL is usually X+60-70% then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that something fishy is going on. If it looks a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...it's probably not an elephant.

There's only 1 reason you'd choose NCL over Celebrity and that's if you have kids. Celebrity isn't really kid friendly. Other then that...Celebrity blows NCL out of the water in every possible way. Ok ok...I will say that the Thermal Suite on the newer NCL ships is nicer than on Celebrity.

Like I said, the difference may be 5-10% more...but not 70%+ Each cruise line knows exactly what the other cruise line is paying thanks to the CLIA.

Hmm not quite...you forgot something... "Taxes, Fees & Port Expenses, as used by us, may include any and all fees, charges, tolls and taxes imposed on us by governmental or quasi-governmental authorities, as well third party fees and charges arising from a vessel's presence in a harbor or port." You forgot the "as well as third party fees and charges arising from a vessel's presence in a harbor or port." Luckily, Princess cruises has it all on their website...

If the difference was 5-10% I could MAYBE see it as justifiable. But it isn't 5-10%. It's more like 70%+

Bingo! So NCL sets up a shell company to operate GSC that charges NCL double or triple what the standard rate is for services and "port fees" compared to the other private islands. Those increased costs are passed onto the consumer as "port fees" and the shell company ends up raking in a ton more in revenue from it. All perfectly legal. Some will try to find any and all excuses to justify NCL doing this but the reality is that the actual port fees for each cruise lines are very similar. Imagine RCL finding out that NCL is paying only 1/2 what they are...not gonna happen.

NCL has considerably higher "port taxes and fees" than all the other cruise lines because they overinflate the charges and funnel them to their coffers. Don't believe me? Ask NCL for a breakdown of what the specific amount of port taxes and fees are for your itinerary...they'll refuse to tell you. What they do for example when they have a stop at GSC is have their umbrella company that handles GSC charge considerably more than normal and in turn that money makes its way back into the same bank accounts that NCL has. Compare an identical itinerary with CCL/RCL and NCL where the only difference is that each cruise line stops at its own private island and you'll see exactly what I mean.

NCL has a horrible selection of late night food. It's either O'Sheehan's or room service...that's it. I had a friend on the Bliss over New Years and obviously the entire ship was going to be awake well past midnight...doesn't take a genius to figure this one out. At 1:00am the line for O'Sheehan's had over 50 people in it (host said it would be about 2 hour wait) and room service wasn't answering. They ended up going to bed hungry. Did it kill them? No. But come on...it's total BS. Open up a pizza stand or extend the hours of the buffet at least on certain nights like this.

It doesn't matter where the company is based out of. Florida law clearly states.. "A gift certificate purchased or credit memo issued in this state may not have an expiration date, expiration period, or any type of postsale charge or fee imposed on the gift certificate or credit memo, including, but not limited to, service charges, dormancy fees, account maintenance fees, or cash-out fees."