sassy0930

Don't know if he is still on Enchantment, but Desmond used to be up in Viking Crown and he was outstanding.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for him!

Are any of the bartenders really great? I've only sailed Carnival so far and pretty much any bar I went to I could tell the bartender what I was in the mood for, even if I didn't have a specific drink in mind, and they'd make me something delicious. So if I said "I want something frozen and fruity" I'd get something tasty that I may not even know what all is in it! If I say I want something chocolatey and strong, they make me something. Am I going to be able to find any bars on the Enchantment in a few weeks who will be able to give me that kind of service? Or will I really need to print out some kind of list in order to try new things like everyone is talking about?

I have purchased the ultimate drink package so I shouldn't really need to worry about costs of drinks or many limitations, either.

I'm glad there are some good people there who are helping you out. Sometimes people just know and connect. If you see her again, feel free to tell her to her face. She might have a similar story of frustration and doubt about herself to share and might be happy to have helped you in such a small, but significant way!

I sure do not want this to come across as being mean or difficult....

 

 

but when I grew up, the answer was : "If you do not want what is on the table, then you don't eat."

 

And we did not have a dozen choices either.

There is definitely nothing wrong with enforcing that kind of policy in a person's home! But it's nice to be able to actually eat something you LIKE when you're on vacation at what is essentially a restaurant instead ofhaving to settle for eating something that might not actually be something you like, because it's the least bad thing on the menu to you...

I have trouble understanding this line of thinking.

 

On a ten-day cruise, the two top beverage packages for two people would be $1156 or $1298. It's better to pay that than to be run up a $200, $300, $500, or $600 bar bill? Wouldn't you be better off just putting $1,000 on your sea pass account and being refunded the difference?

 

(And I've spent significantly less than $300 in liquor, cappuccino, etc., had had about as much fun as I can handle.)

It's the breaking even part, though. If you don't think you'll break even (6-7 drinks or whatever the cut off is for breaking even given the cost of the plan you get) then no, it's not a good insurance. Port intensive cruises might make it so that a person could absolutely not break even. 3 day Bahamas cruises with a stop in Coco Cay make it extremely easy to break even.

Oh man, that is a dilemma. There is absolutely NO way I'd be able to hide that I knew! Way too exciting for that. Good luck and have fun!

That would be an amazing thing to witness!! Good luck!

Second that!

 

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Triple it! LOL. Lake Michigan cruises just don't cut it.

I'm pretty sure the price shown includes the tax.

That is very unfortunate, however, if the handicap room would have been available when you booked, you would've paid more for it then, as well, because you wouldn't have been able to book with the GTY rate. I don't know that it would've been that much more, but you should have booked a regular cabin at the regular rate, in which case you'd have been able to switch. The point of GTY rooms is that you specifically CANNOT choose which room you get, even if you have a handicap.

Easier then you think. Those college kids are doing it as we speak.

I wasn't wishing you luck in completing it. I was wishing you luck in life. With that kind of attitude you are almost certainly not going to do very well. Believing you are entitled to something for free just because someone else jacked up prices on something you normally would've liked to buy isn't really a successful life plan. If you don't like the price of the product, don't buy it. Pretty simple.

Good luck with that...

How do you make SHRIMP???:eek:

 

Well, you see, when a mommy shrimp and a daddy shrimp love each other very much...

Okay, so if the drinks listed on the menu are premium drinks (ketelOne and Grey goose are usually premium, right? I think smirnoff and maybe absolut are well) can you ask for a well drink and get a lower price? It would make sense for them to just advertise the more expensive option, but still offer the lower priced ones, because people will not think to ask. But it wouldn't make much sense to sell both for the same price.

Well, at the very least, to meet USPH requirements, the counter they are stacked on must be self-draining and sanitized every 4 hours, the glasses must be inverted, and they should be under a sneeze guard. Lets face it, nothing is totally sterile, but if the epidemiologists at USPH/CDC feel that reusing glasses is a significant method of transmission, who am I to argue. And the cruise line would be happy to not have to wash more glasses if they were allowed to permit reusing glasses.

I've not seen glasses under a sneeze guard, but I'm sure that would be somewhat helpful. I am sure that the policy can be used to reduce transmission, and any step, I suppose, is better than no steps towards preventing a spread of illness. I would imagine more people would do gross things if there weren't signs reminding them not to, in addition to the people who are gross no matter what.

But, I think that for the most part, this is more of an issue where people see it and think "eww germs" than it posing as much of a risk as people seem to think it does. The same as was described earlier with a person washing their hands, then handling food and putting it back. Very little risk, but it is icky nonetheless. If I saw someone refilling a straw style bottle, it wouldn't even register to me to think "ew" because there really isn't any way that is grosser than a cup touching the dispenser. CAN illness be spread this way? I'm sure, but so can it be spread by any number of other things, like touching rails, elevator buttons, heck even your own door knob that there aren't any protocols for.

RIIIGHT because those glasses they have sitting out (I only have experience with Carnival, but they were just stacked on the counter near the machines. I assume that is the norm) are totally pristine. Nobody has sneezed on them, no kid has run their grimy fingers across them as they walk by. They are totally sterile...

I get the concept and why it's a rule, and I doubt I will ever bring a water bottle on a cruise, but in reality, I doubt the policy would do much to prevent the spread of disease even if followed 100% because of how the cups could become contaminated just sitting there.

On the cruises we've been on (all Carnival so far, but prices are pretty much the same across the board, right?) when we pay for each drink, we don't spend much, but we also skip getting drinks we might want to get out of concern for our bill at the end of the cruise. So even if I wanted a glass of wine with dinner, I'd decide not to get one to get one to save money. With a package (even Carnival's with the 15 drink limit) we drank more for sure, but not more than we actually wanted to drink, if that makes sense. I'd have my wine at dinner, a cocktail before a show, and a couple of drinks throughout the rest of the evening.

For us, even if monetarily we wouldn't necessarily break even each day, the added value of convenience and peace of mind regarding the bill at the end makes up any difference there might be.

yes, Crown and anchor member's are able to mark these upgrade preferences on their Crown and Anchor profiles. such free upgrades are rare and those rare events are supposedly more often offered to higher level loyalty members first. some first timers have gotten upgrades over the years, but you (like pretty much everybody) should plan to happily sail in the cabin you booked.

Oh I would pick not to be upgraded!! I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something on the website, seeing as though I'm reading it's not the most reliable! Thank you for the information!!

Okay, are these preferences only available to C&A members? Because, I don't see anything like that on my booking, but May will be my first RC cruise.

We went to a free beach to snorkel. It was right near chankanaab, and had a nice little beach area with hammocks. The walk in was a little rough from the coral, but there were a lot of fun fish to see. Not the best actual reef, though, so if you're a very experienced snorkeler (I'm not, at all) you might be disappointed.

ETA: Money Beach. Just looked it up.

Interesting. I wonder who gets the extra 3%.

Well, it's gratuities, so I'd imagine that the serving staff that normally got the other 15% will get it.

We pre-plan to be flexible! LOL We will figure out what we want to do in ports pretty specifically so that we can make arrangements ahead of time, and on the ship we will look for things we want to try, but won't hold ourselves to some kind of schedule to get stressed about.

I've never seen anything like the way cruisers defend/take offense to anything negative anybody says about "their" cruise line. It's mind-boggling. There are so many pople around CruiseCritic who literally take it personally if somebody has anything but utter praise for "their" line. It's so bizarre, as if the cruise line an offshoot of themselves. Royal Caribbean could dump a thousand passengers in the middle of the Atlantic and there would be a very vocal group on CruiseCritic arguing that it wasn't Royal Caribbean's fault and the passengers must have done something to deserve it.

 

I've said time and time again, I enjoy cruising with Royal Caribbean. I'm also not going to pretend Royal Caribbean is the jewel in the crown that people like to pretend it is. It's ok to acknowledge what a company is doing wrong, just as it is to acknowledge what they are doing right. I think Royal has a well rounded product but going down a slippery slope with questionable pricing schemes and blatant corner cutting.

I think what the problem is that you're definition and my definition and the guy down the hall's definition of good and bad are going to be sooo different. A cruiser who has been cruising for decades will obviously think it's bad if the things they are used to getting are reduced or the quality diminished. Newer cruisers will think it's good to focus on keeping prices lower or investing money in different features/amenities. Some people want more focus on food, some on suite perks. I agree that it is silly to be loyal to one cruise line and be personally offended when they change, as if it is some personal affront, when there are so many lines that can cater to what a passenger might want.

But these conversations/debates come more from feeling like your values are being attacked (cruisers valuing more perks, some people valuing lower prices, etc) than the cruise lines themselves.

You missed the boat, so to speak.

 

I was referring to the fact that overall quality has suffered with prices remaining stagnant and now the overall product has become mediocre. You'd never find me complaining about being on a cruise or little incidents that may or may not happen onboard. I'm not a nit-picky person, but there's some major changes that you can't help but notice... Which goes back to my point, people either ignore it/accept it or don't.

 

We've never had a bad cruise, love the feeling of being on the ocean, love leaving everything on land behind and love the aspects of cruising that you can't get with a land resort, but I'm not going to pretend it's some high end luxury experience like other places we travel to on land.

Wait, you mean that like every other business that has ever existed ever, anywhere that RCI has to choose between raising prices or lowering product quality? Of course the quality goes down if the prices stay the same. Look at dairy prices, beef prices, flour prices, fuel prices, etc. All of the resources that go into providing the basics of a cruise experience have become CONSIDERABLY more expensive in the last decade, whereas cruising prices have remained relatively stable. Unfortunately, It is in the best interest for most mass cruise lines to market to new cruisers. Getting new people interested is more profitable than maintaining existing cruisers.

The idea that these businesses "owe" customers certain experiences is misguided, to me. Of course they are in the business of providing specific services, but when amenities are reduced so the company can remain profitable and continue to grow, well, then decide if you want to be loyal to a company that is happy to run itself into the ground while it provides every luxury possible at next to nothing, or if you want to be happy that cruise lines are doing what they can to reduce costs before passing on the added costs to the majority of cruisers.

I think if you have gotten to a point in your life where you can consistently say that any type of vacation can be considered mediocre, it's time to take up a new hobby. I mean, really. There have definitely been things about cruises that have made me disappointed. Our last Carnival cruise we had a terrible room steward. It bummed us out a little to not get anything we asked for from him for the entire 7 days. But it was still better than being home not on vacation.

Vacation is supposed to be about letting GO of the cares that you have to hold onto in your everyday life. Are you so pampered from day to day that a few mistakes or a few fewer amenities makes an entire vacation? Really? Maybe get rid of some of the luxuries in your every day life and pay for a more luxurious cruise line and things will be better for you. For me, not having to do my own cooking, cleaning, or drink mixing will be perfectly acceptable no matter what line it's on.