tomsafrica

My goodness it must take a huge effort to whine on and on like this. I can almost see the pouty little dissatisfied mouth and the crossed arms.

As someone who spent 10 days on this ship I have to say it wasn't perfect but I don't remember anything other than polite helpful staff, often rushed off their feet yes, but doing good things for their customers. I remember everything from great meals to quite good ones. College food? Really? I think not.

I remember having to wait a whole 6 minutes once to get a drink. I tried not to let it ruin my day. Call me undemanding . I also remember many times when bartenders bounced a drink into my hand almost before I asked for it. That didn't ruin my day either :D

I suspect the OP isn't a regular cruiser. at least let's hope so. Such negative energy can be very debilitating.

It's a fact that the vast majority of cruisers in the UK would never book through an American TA. Many are older and a good percentage still use high street travel agents and after that the same agents online. It's all about what they know over the years and feeling secure. Using an American TA would not cross most people's mind even if they knew which one to use and many on here don't even have that information as you can't name agents. If you take a Celebrity cruise out of Southampton as an example I would gues less than 2% of British passengers would use a foreign TA.

That's the whole point isn't it? Celebrity are using the general lack of knowledge to penalise non US based cruisers "just because they can", hence the importance of websites like cruisecritic where people can share information and experiences and allow others to make a better informed decision on their travel plans. That's the beauty of the global shopping mall called the internet!

Some cruiselines theoretically don't allow you to book via the USA. I say theoretically because in practice I don't think they can stop you as much as they might huff and puff to the contrary. Celebrity have no such restrictions as far as I know - they just hope everyone doesn't notice that you can! :D

Question is, why would anybody book through Celebrity or a TA in the UK when you get much better terms and conditions working through a TA in the USA ? Under no circumstances would I ever book a cruise with anyone without a price drop guarantee.

Yes for me it would definitely be a deal breaker - but only if it applied to the buffet. I like to slip down there to pick up a few items plus coffee so that DW and I can enjoy a light breakfast on the balcony. I do not want room service and I do not want to sit with 850 other people over breakfast. I have no issue with them stopping people from wandering all over the ship with doggie bags but if I am prevented from enjoying my balcony in the morning then no more NCL. Simple as that.

One of the best accidental spelling errors occurred on a press release by the local election board where I live. We had just purchased new voting machines and we wanted to make the electorate know that the vote count would be correct. The machines had two counters on it - a public counter and an election counter. However, in our announcement, we left out the letter "l" in the word "public" so we announced that the machines would have an "election" counter and a "pubic" counter.

 

It passed the spell checker and nobody bothered to closely read the press release.

 

Took us a while to live that one down.

 

DON

Don, you were literally inches away from a second spelling error that would have caused a riot :eek:

Crimes committed against the English Language...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/crimes-committed-against-the-english-language#.qnQZgZ95q7

I don't really consider it a pet peeve anymore, I view it as a source of amusement.

 

I'm amazed this thread hasn't been closed though.

 

Here's a couple that always amuse me, dinning for dining, loose for lose. I could go on, actually I keep a list of common incorrectly spelled words on the internet.

 

F

Arrrgh Dinning! :eek: As a "bilingual" person who is happy with labour AND labor some posts just feel like running down a smooth pathway at noon and others feel like climbing across rocks at midnight. It's not rocket science people, spellcheck is supposed to be there to help you not mug you. It does matter, to anyone who cares about whatever variant of the English language they speak it DOES matter.I'm going to get beaten now I know... but that's how I feel :)

You will note on just about every invoice issued by travel agents AND by almost all cruise lines that it is the passenger's responsibility to make sure their travel documentation is current and all applicable visas are obtained prior to the trip, not the travel agent's responsibility.

 

What happens if the OP has an accident and ends up in the hospital for a week? You have to prepare for every possibility and to worry about wasting $14 on a $20,000 vacation is ridiculous.

Note I didn't say it was the agent's responsibility I said they should be offering (accurate and professional) advice. Of course its the passengers responsibility to take various sources of information and make up their own mind.

If you read the OP's first posting you will see that he was due to be flying home just short of 6 months from his passport expiry so even if God forbid he was in hospital for a month or two he would still be travelling with a perfectly valid passport.

Out of interest, do they not put the last 6 months onto your passport?

 

In the UK, when we renew our passport, we can have up to 9 months of our old one added onto the new one. So for example, I got a new passport when I got married. My old one still had 5 years on it (but I wanted to travel in my new name) so it was then valid for 10 years and 9 months.

 

If we book a holiday to Spain from the UK, we are always told we need 6 months left on it. I personally couldn't cope with the stress and would renew.

I think they do - I also have my current passport being valid for a few extra months.

Interestingly enough the current regulations actually state that you may travel to Spain with a UK passport which is less than a year PAST ITS EXPIRY DATE! :eek:

For US folks this was put into place when the passport office had a meltdown a little while back when thousands of applications were held up I think by a staff shortage.

All I am saying is that the original question essentially was will I be ok because I don't want to do this now - I'm really busy with other stuff and I'd prefer to do it later. To which my answer was yes you will be fine. :rolleyes:

Again thanks to all for your insights. I'll just to the conservative thing and renew. Yes, my biggest concern is not Celebrity's, Portugal's, Spain's or the State Dept's regulations, it's that "one person on the pier" thing that worries me.

Whatever floats your boat :D

I don't look at travel on the basis of what would happen if I meet a lunatic at the pier. I believe people fret unnecessarily over these things at times, places like Spain and Portugal are not inclined to randomly change regulations. But then some people love to worry - which is why we see people arriving in South Africa having been told "just to be on the safe side" to get yellow fever and typhoid shots which would be as useful as me getting them to go to the USA - ie no use at all. :rolleyes:

How is that? What is the travel agent doing wrong? It's not up to him/her to look into this - it's always the passenger's responsibility. I believe the TA is playing it safe, which is what I would also recommend. I'd much rather "waste" about $14 by getting the passport early.

What has "playing it safe" got to do with anything? This is not an issue with fuzzy edges - there are clear and concise terms and conditions which the OP fulfills and therefore the answer to his question is not "do the inconvenient thing because it's easier to fudge than to give you a straight answer" but rather "the answer is yes renew your passport when you get home if that's what you want to do." The travel agent is paid to provide a profession service which includes visa and passport advice imho - not come up with a vague response which absolves them of any responsibility.

Your passport is completely fine and you shouldn't worry. You're only going to Spain and Portugal both of which say that your travel docs must be valid for 3 months beyond the period of intended stay and yours is valid 5 months and 3 1/2 weeks past your intended stay. Different countries have different rules, some say the passport only has to be valid for the period of your stay and others say it must be valid for 6 months. I don't know why people need to panic unnecessarily when there are far worse things to worry about. Your travel agent is just being lazy.

They are not padded. There are a few beds that are, but there were those impolite guests putting towels on them early morning & not turning up until midday !!!

 

I actually spotted vacant loungers (not the sunbeds) & asked someone whether it was vacant. She confirmed that no one had sat there although there were towels on the lounger.

 

I removed the towels & almost an hour later, an irrate woman told me to get off her chair !!! She called me very rude for removing her towel & duly informed me that the chair was hers & she had got up early at 8 to put her towel on it !!!!!

 

I got there at 10:45 & she had not been there all morning.

It was a very unpleasant experience, but I suggested that she explain to the pool attendent for him to remove me from the chair (there were other vacant chairs in the area & also many with invisible people, that had placed their towels there early morning & never even appeared). Later the pool attendents removed all the towels from none vacated chairs.

The cheek :eek: I find myself getting angry just reading about it! Where DO these people come from I wonder and who is responsible for their complete lack of manners? Is it their parents or are they just selfish and stupid all by themselves? :confused:

Ok - this is the OP.

 

There are a lot of different opinions here so let me say how it ended.

 

I talked to a guest relations person without saying who I was or who the room attendant was. It was more "hypothetical". She told me under NO circumstances should the room be entered. Even if he saw me leaving the room, he had NO right to go in there. Never, ever... The sign on the door is so they will not go in, whether we are there or not.

 

I did talk to the room attendant about it - he apologized for it and also said he was NOT supposed to enter any room with a sign on it. Whether he thought it was left over or not - he should have checked with us.

You know I can't help thinking that had you had the courtesy to explain to the room attendant WHY you were leaving the room sign up even though both of you were not going to be there instead of treating him like a robot with no initiative then he wouldn't have had to experience the horrors of seeing your underwear on the chair. At the end of the day he was only trying to be helpful and do his job and obscure requirements from one out of a hundred rooms he has to clean and finish are not helpful. A little communication goes a long way sometimes.

And yet...the poor reviews continue to appear. Torn this, broken that, rusty the other. It's a bit worrying - surely not all of them can be OCD passengers? There's a definite pattern of identifying what appears to be a very substandard level of general maintenance. This is not the image that Celebrity should be exposing themselves too and not one that fills me with confidence :(

The ship's water might be better than some of the bottled water you buy on shore . I find (some will disagree) the water on board is perfectly good .

I agree. Why anyone wastes money on bottled water shipped/flown half way around the world when the ship's water is about as pure as you can get - totally escapes me.

I wonder if broken items, sad tatty cabins and bad smells are really the image Celebrity want to project? Does anyone know if there is any plan for some downtime/dry dock in 2015 or is this something that they might just try to fix as they go alone? It's beginning to sound like they left too many things undone in the Solsticizing - too much focus on cramming in more money making opportunities and not enough beauty treatment. I hope there's some improvement before we sail on her :(

Can't wait! :D

We just returned from the Millennium. There where only 4-6 movies for free every day, but they changed every day. There where many more movies available but those where not free. But none as old as gone with the wind... I remember Mandela the movie was free...

 

 

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Thanks for that. In light of what people experienced weatherwise on the TAs this month they probably feel a movie with the title "Gone with the Wind" is inappropriate viewing :D

Does anyone know if this applies to the M class ships too? A couple of decent movies would be good - we have a lot of sea days!

There's a common thread to so many of these stories. Me me me me me me and me. It's funny but at the same time it's kinda sad. These people obviously lead very shallow lives where they believe the whole world is just there for their convenience and yet they've never developed the intelligence that should go with a position of such importance :rolleyes:

tomsafrica

 

If you don't go on organised excursions, what was the point of your original post?

Because I'm kind and I hate seeing people getting ripped off ;)

But seriously...

People go to strange cities and worry so much about how scary they might be that they end up being taken for a ride by the people they trust. How can that be fair? Just be sensible and don't believe them when they say that this is the ONLY shop where you can buy a model Zeus (even though there are 27 shops selling the same thing in the street. :rolleyes:

Think of it like this:

NCL's website is like a 2 seater roadster whizzing through the countryside at speed.

RCI's website is like a big comfortable Mom's taxi. A little slower but gets you everywhere you need to go.

MSC's website is like a Lada. Lost in translation.

Celebrity's website is like the Partridge family's bus. Prone to breakdown, full of promise, low on delivery.

Why don't they pick some agents (would 4 be enough??), give them a free trip on the TA, and then they can pre-clear the crew and passengers on the way into the US...On last sea day they can work and enjoy a relaxing TA cruise!

That wouldn't work. They'd be fraternizing with the enemy for two weeks :eek: How do you give someone a hard time when you've slumped over a martini together? :rolleyes:

We've been in and out of the US many times and twice on TAs - and always found the customs officials polite and efficient and doing their best under the circumstances. Inadequate staffing, ageing computers, sagging tired ports from the 1970s, bottlenecked bridges and potholed roads is something else all together. Somehow the basic concept of INFRASTRUCTURE seems to have escaped politicians??

Tomsafrica

 

Then don't go on organised tours as this is what happens wherever you may be. If you think it doesn't, well, then you are wrong.

I rarely do the ship's tours unless there's a compelling reason to do so. Mostly they only compel you to spend twice what you would spend otherwise doing the exact same thing on your own!