karl_nj

Not all travel agents can/are willing to jump through the additional hoops required to apply the benefits to the booking. I've pretty much given up on trying to use it for cruises on Royal; every time I ask it's not combinable with whatever rate I'm booking. I have had luck using it for sailings on Cunard, it seems to 'stack' better on that line.

I remember boarding Carnival Miracle out of Manhattan about a week after Sandy. The midtown cruise terminal still had no power at all; Carnival ran extension cords from the ship to the terminal in order to run the computers for check-in! I was really happy to get out of the area at the time, by this point finding gas for your car was still quite difficult... but I also was lucky enough not to have any damage to my house with that storm.

I've noticed that Indian food on all cruise lines is generally quite good.

I love El Loco Fresh; enjoyed it on Symphony in '19 and was thrilled to find it on Oasis in '21 and Wonder in '22. But I've never had UDP so I was mostly eating at the free places. So check it out next time you don't have the UDP. Wonder has the best El Loco Fresh as they added a great bar nearby too. I also love the onion rings at Playmakers; again I'm paying a la carte prices, but my wife and I usually share an order and feel it's worth the price. Goes well with some of the nice IPAs they usually have available.

On Wonder in August a bartender once told me I had no vouchers left on my card, when I hadn't gotten a drink that day at all. He ended up using two vouchers on my wife's card. But for the rest of the day, none of the other bartenders had any issues seeing the vouchers on my card. Perhaps some sort of software issue? It does seem like the bartenders have to hit a bunch of buttons to find the vouchers. I had a one other time when I ended up unknowingly getting charged instead of a voucher being used. The Diamond Concierge was able to clear that up for me.

I'm not sure that is always the case. When my daughter was 12 she was charged the adult price for her meal in Chops on Oasis of the Seas. I didn't question it, since she ate off the 'adult' menu.

Well, once they turn 13 they are paying full price in any case, so this is a pretty limited scenario. It's just those tweens that want to eat off the adult menu.

When my kids were three, bedtime was before 9pm, so I never found this to be an issue. I guess it could be if you keep your kids up all night.

Wifi always had a "title" and you could read what the order represented. The only way you could tell the drink package order was the drink package was because of the photo. Maybe they are trying to fix that (though it seems like an odd way to go about that)

I really think you are stretching things there. A USB charging hub is not a device multiplying the number of AC electrical outlet, potentially overloading the electrical circuit. It's a charging device that converts mains AC power to low voltage DC. It doesn't matter how many USB ports are on it. OEM vendors of laptops (such as apple) ship their laptops with chargers that can have more than one USB port on it. Under your "guideline" those would also not be permitted onboard. A power strip/board might also have USB outlets on it, but I would say it's incorrect to call a charger that only has USB outlets a power strip/board. I wold agree that a USB hub/charger that has a AC passthru or two is in that grey area that is probably best to avoid.

NCL scrapped testing in Europe (except from Greece) months ago, so it doesn't seem like a "government" thing anymore. I really expected RCL to change by now.

Ah, sorry. I guess I misunderstood your comment about not tipping "extra cash"—seems like you meant you never thought of doing the whole "remove the auto gratuity" and then tip using some "alternate formula." I agree that seems like a lot of extra work for everyone (self, front desk, tipped employee), for no real benefit. Much easier to leave the auto gratuity and then actually "tip" a bit more to anyone that goes above and beyond for any special requests.

I don’t feel it’s unreasonable to know what things will cost ahead of time. It’s nice to know how much I’ll be charged for parking. It’s good to know what drinks or specialty dining is going to cost. It would be nice to know what the service charge is going to be on my cruise in two weeks.

In the future you may want to consider tipping a bit above the base service charge if your room steward or wait staff does a great job. The base service charge is really just part of their salary, and not really an extra tip/bonus. Since, as you know, it’s embarrassing as a society and if you really can’t afford to tip maybe you shouldn’t be going on a vacation to begin with and save your money.

but those would be actual tips, where passengers give him cash. His position is not included in the service fee.

How aggravating! Although it's best to keep your letter short and to the point, maybe try to mention that the only reason you couldn't go on the original cruise was due to the fact that RCL changed the return date.

When your cruise was cancelled, they also returned your money? This was more of a "goodwill" FCC that they issued, in order to encourage you to book with RCL again in the near future? If I were you, I would think of it more as a "coupon" that you never got around to using, and not cash that you lost.

Corporations should be transparent regarding extra fees, including service fees. If the service fee increases, they should update their website and any associated documents issued. If RCL decides to bring back the fuel surcharge (which is still mentioned as a possibility in the cruise contract) they should inform their customers. I just want to know what service fee I'm going to be charged for my upcoming cruise. My edocs still say $14.50/day, so I'm a bit confused about when this fee is going to increase. It sounds like the customer service reps at RCL are also in the dark. I'm not sure why you are assuming this has anything to do with tipping. Even if the service fee has increased, I don't plan to lower the additional cash tips that I give my room steward and waiters.

Interesting. My edocs for my upcoming cruise still say the old rate: I wonder what I'll get charged onboard.

That is true. On the other hand, there is no "paper" 1 or 2 euro currently. Only 1 and 2 euro coins.

I think it's understandable for people to be disappointed. I'm sure people on 3/4 night cruises boarding before August 8th are disappointed/annoyed too. Personally, I'm still hoping for more announcements about my upcoming cruise out of Rome. I'd rather spend my vacation enjoying Rome, instead of trying to fight with hotel Wi-Fi and get 5 supervised covid tests done sequentially and waste a whole morning. Assuming there isn't some random Amazon AWS outage, and then trying to scramble to find a test locally. But yes, I'm happy things seem to be moving in a better direction in regards to pre-cruise testing.

Which is very similar to the language used by NCL when they made their announcement weeks ago: MIAMI, July 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: NCLH) (the “Company”) today announced it will no longer require guests to complete pre-cruise COVID-19 testing unless required by local regulations. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Announces Revisions to SailSAFE Health and Safety Protocols :: Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. (NCLH) (nclhltd.com) It seems pretty clear that when Azamara made this announcement, they didn't expect the CDC to make changes so quickly, since their chart, released as part of this announcement, still mentioned that testing would be required in the US. They were just matching what NCL did weeks earlier, and not yet making any decisions on how to handle sailings out of the US. Since they don't have any at the moment. I agree who knows what the situation will be in December, but I would not be surprised if most cruise lines have dropped testing by then. That does seem to be the direction things are heading in now.

Actually, Azamara has identical testing requirements to NCL in the US too. All Azamara did was to match the NCL brands. They still require testing in the US, if you read the "fine print":

Yeah, I saw that. But then it goes on to say: Packages positioned in the bulk department, next to the aircraft’s outer structure, might be exposed to temperatures as low as 35º F (2º C) during flight, but could be subjected to temperatures as low as 20º F (-7º C) during international flights Which is basically the reason why people are warning against putting the tests in checked luggage. However, there isn't any indication on the outer package/fed ex label that says this can only be shipped in the main cargo compartment. I also wonder how hot the back of the FedEx truck gets. Bet it goes over 85F with the weather much of the northern hemisphere has been having over the past few weeks. In any case, I would agree it's best to carry these in carry on baggage. Especially for a long international flight. Even if the test was already exposed to temperatures outside of the range, trying to minimize that going forward seems like a prudent measure.

Sorry, I met on the fedex package. How does fedex know to have special handing and not store it in a part of the plane that would have the same environmental temperature issues as a passenger plane? It’s more of a theoretical question. Somehow they managed to get this test to me on a plane. But how?