ARandomTraveler

Oh - I haven't done the big ships yet so don't listen to me 😂

I personally didn't find the suite class benefits to be worth much to me, but a bigger room is sometimes worth more money to me. $800 might be worth it depending on whether you feel you got a good deal for your current room, and whether you have a lot of port stops or not. Southern Caribbean cruises that leave from Puerto Rico are only worth paying extra for a Junior suite in my opinion, because you're off the ship so much, with 5, sometimes 6 port stops. But if you only have 3 or 4 port stops, and you feel like you got a decent price on your current room, $800 is probably worth it. If you have a dining package, you can make reservations before boarding the ship, which to me is one of the better perks. *And the double points, but I don't know if you get those if you're upgrading with a Royal Up. The suite lounge and the pool seating and stuff like that weren't worth much to me, as I didn't utilize them.

Ignore the % off and just look at the price. The % off changes as does the "on-board" price, but the resulting "sale" price is almost always the same couple of numbers. The lowest "sale" price lately seems to be $207.99/person for a 7 day sailing.

Any Chassagne Montrachet or Puligny Montrachet on the wine lists? If not, that's what im bringing. I'll bring it anyway actually, because they probably charge 3 times as much as I bought it for at home. I have this handy wine suitcase I bring with me when I travel to places with good wineries, usually to bring wine back home, but I'll bring it with me on the cruise to get wine onboard since I'm flying SW and get the 2 free checked bags. https://www.flywithwine.com/vingardevalise/

I'd bring wine anyway, just because you can bring higher quality wine.

I doubt a 3 day cruise is going to be any more crowded during Thanksgiving weekend than it would be on a normal weekend. My guess is that families are either taking the whole week vacation on the cruise, or they're taking the whole week at home (or at their family member's home). I don't know how likely it would be for a family to pack their kids up for 2 separate vacations during that week (one to do thanksgiving and the other to take a cruise at the end of the week). It seems like too much work and expense for the average family. Plus those 3 day cruises tend to be more booze-cruise-y and I don't see that changing just because it's Thanksgiving week. From what I hear, the 3 day cruises are usually pretty packed and rowdy, no matter when you take them. But I doubt it will be filled with more families and less partiers that particular weekend. I think I'd prefer it full of kids than weekend binge drinkers. Don't go 😂

I've also read that we can order pre-dinner (or whenever) sushi to-go. I wonder if that's still a thing.

I haven't seen CATS on the ship, but count me as someone who really likes it. I just saw it for the second time in San Francisco last month and thought it was great 😂🐈 I like the music. I think it helps to see the DVD Hollywood version first because they do a better job helping to kind of explain the plot lines a little better then the on-stage versions do.

I love a good spreadsheet. I think that would be the most accurate answer to my vague response too. Cause I never go the most expensive (but often consider it), but I never go the cheapest either.

So if you remove those, we're at 31 (nicer) vs 32 (more). A pretty even split. I wonder which category you put my ambiguous answer in? 🤔😂

There's no way. It's a legally required fee by the federal government. I think you've just not noticed.

Wow 15%!! I could see that causing an economic slowdown if that happened again. I don't have a mortgage anymore, the house is paid off now, but when I did it was around 3.75%. I have a car loan now at 2.74% which seems pretty good. I pay for everything with a credit card because of the purchase protection and because if anyone gets ahold of the card, they can't drain my bank account with it. I pay the balance in full every month so I've never paid interest on it but the card's interest rate is pretty high.

Or just try to contract covid for real, like we used to do with chicken pox before there was a vaccine for that 😂

I always have to pay a fee with mine. It's a "taxes, government and airport fees" charge lumped into one. It's not very expensive, like $11.20 for a round trip ticket on SW.

Make sure you take it through all the way to the payment page because there's a couple fees that sometimes change aside from the base price, and you won't see those changes if you don't go through the whole process of putting in your name and getting to that final page where you can select things like "pre-paid gratuities" and "refundable deposit." I've noticed on my cruise that sometimes when they change the base fare to something lower (for example, let's say it's $15/person cheaper), they raise the fee to select a cabin in the center of the ship by $30, making the total price the same. Or, they'll make the cost of a refundable deposit higher. One week it'll be $108, the next week it'll be $130, etc., so by the time you factor in all the pricing changes, the net difference is actually $0.

Check different room categories. My oceanview balcony cabin on Symphony only cost $130 more for the refundable option. And I bought "cancel for any reason" insurance (which will refund me 75% of the cruise fare if I cancel after final payment), which only cost me $180 for 2 people. So for an extra $310 I'm guaranteed to get at least $2,000 refunded to me if needed. And if prices keep dropping, I'll call right before final payment and switch to the non-refundable option and get that $130 back. I asked the agent over the phone if I could do that and he said I could. And during a couple of my price drop phone calls, the agents asked if I wanted to stay refundable or switch to non-refundable, so I'm fairly confident that's an option.

Interesting statistics. No surprise that "Hotels Restaurants and Leisure" show some of the highest revenues. Obviously the inflated prices are affecting the lower income people, who are always feeling the financial burdens of any change in pricing or employment, but people who have discretionary income are still spending it the same as always, if not more so. The article mentions comparisons to last year, which makes sense that the % increases are so high, because people had less opportunities to travel and go to restaurants last year. But this year they now have twice the money to spend because they didn't spend it last year. Another_Critic has made a good point though in that there's likely a lot of people living on credit. Middle income people who have good enough credit to get them credit limits a little higher than they should be spending may end up feeling the consequences later. But maybe they won't, salaries have been going up too, as have home prices, and therefore home equity. I guess we'll see.

I have a Thanksgiving cruise booked this year. I assume it's going to be overly packed and hard to reserve dining and shows, but the timing worked best for us this year, plus I really wanted the break from doing all the cooking and cleaning. Surprisingly, I've had 4 or 5 price drops on my cruise in the last 2 months, which makes me wonder if they aren't booking as much (or as quickly) as they expected. I assumed prices would just go up and up and up after I booked, but I'm not seeing that happen. Airfare might be a reason for lower bookings amongst larger families who have to pay for 4 or 5 people to fly, but I don't think it's deterring smaller groups of 2. Heck it might not even be deterring the larger families, I'm just making guesses here. Flight prices are going up so that doesn't seem to be stopping travel in general, but perhaps there will be less big families on board than normal. I guess we'll see. I won't know the difference because I've never sailed that time of year before.

Based on 2 anecdotes I've heard from people I know, if they're going to enter Canada by air or by land, and they have to show a passport, they will be denied entry 100% of the time. Since the cruise in non-refundable, and they didn't buy insurance, they may as well try and see what happens, but they should go with the expectation that their wife will be going without him, and that he'll get his port fees and taxes back once he doesn't check into the cruise. Is there any insurance policy they can buy this late in the game that will pay them for trip interruption? And does trip interruption include being denied access to the flight that gets you to your cruise? 🤔 I'm not sure on that one but it might be worth looking into.

That's another thing - after the pandemic, Vail Resorts lowered the cost of their ski passes, then realized demand was greater than ever, and raised them back up; no loss in demand. It costs $239 for a one-day lift ticket at Vail (for people who don't buy a pass ahead of time), where it used to cost $189, and yet, the mountain is fully packed every day of the week. You used to be able to ski on a Friday and avoid crowds, not anymore. Even going on a Wednesday doesn't seem to bring any relief. The prices haven't deterred anyone, nor has the additional hour-long drive up the mountain from the rest of the ski corridor. And hotels? Forget trying to find anything in Vail for less than $800/night during peak ski season unless you drive to a nearby town and drive in (and even then you're still paying at least $400). Higher gas prices, higher lift ticket prices, higher hotel prices...higher demand. I keep looking at cruise prices and consistently see star class suites selling for $13,000/person (or more during holidays), and they're selling! Remember when people thought the cruise industry was going to die over the pandemic, or had hopes that cruise prices would be really low for years to come while the cruise lines tried to convince people to come back to the ships? Ha! That lasted all of 6 months, and we're right back to the usual prices. And it doesn't appear anyone has stopped cruising, despite it costing 2 to 3 times as much to fly to the ports.

Maybe

I see these 2 hotels recommended often. Their reviews on trip advisor are equitable. Prices are basically the same. I know one is a Marriott and one is a Hilton, but other than that, is there anything that makes one better than the other? Location? Reviews make them sound like they're in the same place, but According to Google maps, they're a 9 minute drive apart, which to me sounds like they're in quite different places. Anyone have any reasons to favor one over the other?

It's hard to say. I look around me and it doesn't seem like anyone is slowing their spending, so I'd be inclined to say no, prices probably won't drop. It seems (at least where I'm at) that prices keep going up, and demand hasn't changed at all. Restaurants are packed, hotels are fully booked, there's cars all over the highway despite gas prices, housing prices continue to skyrocket, rents are through the roof. People are complaining about it, but nobody has slowed their spending from what I can see. I feel like prices will have to go up even higher before people stop buying things or traveling. I assume other parts of the country are the same way, since things like airfare and hotel prices and items I buy online continue to be high, meaning other people in other cities and states are still spending money. But who knows, I hear things on tv and read the paper and those make it sound like people are struggling more than the norm, I just don't see that anywhere around me so it's hard to believe people will stop spending or that prices will go down.

I believe it's 2 per stateroom, but the stateroom has to include an adult over 21. If you guys went through security at different times nobody's gonna know that the other person already brought 2. Or, you could have your daughter carry the other 2, and hope they just don't check ID. Or, a 3rd option is to put 2 in your checked bags, knowing you'll have to go downstairs to pick it up.

Puerto Rico has this too. Although I can't recall if it's before or after security. I do know that you can leave the ship and come back though, so even if it's before security, you can come and go as much as you want, and the ship doesn't leave til 8pm.