housesitters

Thank you for the helpful advice re some countries including gratuities, while others do not.

My concern is with some cruise lines having fixed amounts for gratuities re. the cabin but listing that amount separately. In that case it makes no sense to me to have it as a separate cost. Yes, I can go to different cruise lines and calculate the total fare (excluding extra gratuities that I might wish to add later) but when I am considering several different cruise lines and itineraries it begins to irritate. Not a big thing, admittedly, but other than trying to hook a customer with a fare lower than it actually is I can see no rationale for it

Is there a list somewhere of cruise lines that have gratuities included in the price? I wish they would all do that

On 9/23/2022 at 1:43 PM, yorkshirephil said:

All adult drinks packages include gratuities, there is no tax on drinks, it is actually very easy to get all this information from the Ambassador web site.

 

 https://www.ambassadorcruiseline.com/on-board-experience/ambassador-drinks-packages/2022-drinks-packages/

thanks! I had trouble navigating the ambassador site but have it sorted now. And no, ambassador does not provide the pre-payment of gratuities alone at a reduce price, the way it used to be on CMV

when it was CMV the extra packages also included all gratuities, both for drinks and everything else. Otherwise what is the price for the various gratuities - 18 % for drinks, and what for the other services?

Is this the same with the Ambassador cruises? Very hard to get information on  their own site - thanks for any help

Thanks so much for all the wonderful pictures and descriptions. We will be on the boat for the Med cruise mid-October so it's nice to have an idea of what to expect.

Only just seen this thread :-). We are Chris and Liz and are booked on this cruise too. We sailed with this group when they were CMV, which went bankrupt during Covid. They had an amazing Around the World cruise with a wonderful itinerary which had to be cancelled. Not seen anything as nice since.

We are open to suggestions for shore trips. We have spoken for a couple via the Ambassador site - Turkey and Egypt. And possibly Rome, if the trip price includes a coach or train from Civitaveccia (sp?) to Rome. It's not clear from the description, We are really looking forward to this cruise and to meeting you all

8 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

 

This screen shot should help you.  Open the thread (called a "Topic" here on CC) that you want to search.   Then, in the upper right below your screen name, you'll see the search oval. Click on that to get the pull down menu, and choose "This Topic," which will limit your search to the existing thread.  Go back to the search oval, type in your search term, and then click the magnifying glass.   (You will not see this screen view on an iPad unless it's oriented horizontally, and you will not see this at all on a phone.  This is the normal view you'll see on desktops and laptops.)

 

Let us know if you are still having a problem.

 

THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!! I think that did it! So very obvious once you know but certainly not to me without knowing.

1 hour ago, Globaliser said:

Go to the thread. Click in the search box (the small one immediately below your user name). Click in the radio button for This Topic. Then enter your search term and search.

Thanks for the suggestion. I am not getting it to work. I have gone to two locations. One is the small print of my name which is above the larger square that has my first initial in. If I hover over that small print it a drop-down appears which has a search icon (magnifying glass) in it. The second option I tried is to click on the large coloured square with my first initial in it. That also produces a search icon. However in both cases I cannot enter text into that area - I can only seem to click on the search icon. That takes me to a page that shows all the messages I have written. I was wanting to find messages in a given topic. I am trying to follow a topic about various shore excursions along the way but seem to be unable to enter the name of a port, for example, and get a result from within the topic/thread unless I have written about it.

How do I search a specific topic (eg. regarding shore excusions) which is many pages long. At the moment all I can do is

read through the whole thing every time I need to look something up. It has been suggested to search my emails which have

the notifications in them but they don't all appear either. This is so very time consuming - there must be a better way