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njhorseman

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Everything posted by njhorseman

  1. The Caribe Hilton is located in Puerta deTierra just outside of Old San Juan. Sofia's is in the heart of Old San Juan about 2 miles from your hotel. I believe the fare will be based on the meter rather than a flat rate.
  2. Because facts don't deter the denizens of the internet from making fools of themselves.
  3. No one's suggesting you should cruise on NCL if you don't like it, but stop the bull crap Implying that NCL is somehow making money by charging the passenger for the government's sales tax, which your post's opening sentence clearly suggests:
  4. I've never seen it charged as a flat tax. The 20% gratuity charge for the beverage package is prepaid with your cruise fare. It doesn't come into play on board except if you're buying a beverage that isn't covered by the beverage package or a beverage priced over $15 in which case you're charged the excess over $15 so $5 on a $20 drink, plus the 20% gratuity on the $5.
  5. Stop it. It's incredible how you delight in bashing a cruise line you don't sail on or at most sailed on decades ago. NCL charges the sales tax percentage imposed by the local government authorities....that's all, but why let the facts get in the way of your unsubstantiated and unwarranted vitriol.
  6. I can't express an opinion about cruise lines I haven't sailed on such as Seabourn, Crystal, Regent Seven Seas and Explora Journeys, but based on what I read and hear it's possible any of them may have better food. Obviously there won't be any uniformity of agreement on the issue as it's not a matter of fact but rather a matter of personal tastes and opinion. But none of that is the point of my post. Let's say that hypothetically there were reasonably objective measures of which cruise line has the best food, and that cruise line wasn't Oceania. Oceania would still be able to use the advertising slogan "The Finest Cuisine at Sea" because it's a registered trademark despite it having extremely questionable validity. Should any intelligent consumer take the word of a trademarked advertising slogan as the gospel truth? It's advertising after all, not an immutable law of physics. You know that O's food isn't objectively the best at sea...look at what you said in subsequent posts: (bold lettering is my editing addition)
  7. Can you point out who has said that in recent years? I can't remember that claim being made anytime recently . "The Finest Cuisine at Sea" is an Oceania registered trademark, not a statement of fact. It's purpose is for advertising purposes and is what is know as "puffery"...something quite common and legally permissible in advertising. "The Ultimate Driving Machine" is a long-time registered trademark of BMW. Do you think that is any guarantee of a BMW's performance relative to other motor vehicles?
  8. Most hand sanitizers are alcohol and of little or no use in killing norovirus and other viral infections. Washing your hands with soap and water is the preferred way of limiting the spread of the virus. In almost forty years of cruising on about a dozen different cruise lines, the only time we've gotten noro is on Oceania. Having the crew serve you in the buffet isn't all it's cracked up to be as a preventative measure because the crew members serving you can spread the virus. In fact I'm reasonably sure that's how we got noro. The server who we went to for our eggs every morning came down with noro just before we did and I suspect that's how we got it. One morning she wasn't there and the next day we were ill. she came back to work the day before we were released from quarantine and told us she had been ill.
  9. Since the OP clearly doesn't want to disembark that early I think it’s quite unlikely that they have an early morning flight. Anyone who has flown knows you have to leave from wherever you are, at home, at a hotel on a ship, etc in order to get to the airport in time for your flight. Further, since the OP's cruise is in 2025 even if they are using the cruise line's air arrangements there's no way the cruise line would have assigned their flights yet. That won't happen for many months. The 3am schedule isn't just for the OP, it's the ship's schedule as posted on the NCL website I can assure you that all 2000 passengers on board will not have flights requiring 3am disembarkation. Finally, it's not uncommon for Panama Canal transits ending at Fuerte Amador to have unusual docking schedules similar to this one. Other ships that may be docked there often do not depart until about midnight to take their place in line for the next day's transit.
  10. Unless something has changed, when we were on an Oceania cruise affected by a GI illness outbreak and became ill we were not charged a fee by the medical clinic for the consultation or medication. Oceania definitely does not want to discourage passengers from reporting their illness due to fear of rolling up a medical bill.
  11. That's just the time the ship will be docking. The next cruise doesn't depart until 11:59 PM on 2/9/25 so you won't have to be off the ship until a normal disembarkation time the morning of 2/9.
  12. https://www.royalgazette.com/transport/news/article/20240316/ridesharing-comes-to-bermuda/ https://bernews.com/2024/03/cabinet-approve-pilot-ridesharing-program/
  13. Embassy Suites by Hilton Newark Airport, 95 International Blvd, Elizabeth NJ. It's the only Embassy Suites close to Newark Airport and Cape Liberty https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/ewreles-embassy-suites-newark-airport/?SEO_id=GMB-AMER-ES-EWRELES&y_source=1_MTQ4NTM0Ny03MTUtbG9jYXRpb24ud2Vic2l0ZQ%3D%3D
  14. It won't be beach weather. Figure on high temperatures around 70 or a touch above. It's not a particularly rainy month. Your guess is as good as mine on sea conditions. It's before hurricane season so you shouldn't worry about severe storms, but weather in the North Atlantic is always unpredictable. The ride could be smooth as silk or somewhat rough. Everything but beach and water related activities are generally open and operating all year.
  15. I don't recall any taxis in San Juan taking credit cards, but that could have changed. School students in Puerto Rico have been required to take courses in English as second language since the late 1940's so almost everyone can speak sufficient English to communicate with English speaking tourists. Many younger Puerto Ricans have spent a substantial time living in the 50 states and can speak English just as well as you or I. Assuming the taxi fares haven't been changed recently, you can find them here: https://aeropuertosju.com//wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Taxis-Tarifario.pdf Fare from the airport to the Caribe Hilton should be $21 plus luggage charges of $1 per bag and the$3 airport fee. Tip is additional. The taxi dispatcher will give you the sheet of paper with your cost indicated.
  16. To give you complete instructions we'd have to know exactly where in Manhattan your trip is originating and what day of the week you'll be traveling. That information will affect which PATH train line to take and where to transfer to Hudson Bergen Light Rail. Absent that information, the general instructions would using a PATH train from Manhattan to New Jersey, transferring to the Hudson Bergen Light Rail, taking the Hudson Bergen Light Rail to the 34th St station in Bayonne and then taking a short taxi or Uber ride from the 34th St station to the cruise terminal. Unfortunately there's no way to make that last short segment of the trip using mass transit so taxi or Uber is necessary.
  17. You're basing your argument on what occurred at final payment time, which glosses over the real cause of the problem...the travel agent failing to carry out the OP's original instructions to cancel one of the cruises. First, any competent TA would have told the OP to make the cancellation request in writing. A written request protects both parties. But even if it wasn't the TA's usual procedure to require such a request to be made in writing, if the TA had done their job and carried out the OP's oral instructions the problems arising later would never had happened. Now should the OP subsequently have done some things differently? Certainly. When the OP didn't get an invoice within a few days of the cancellation request showing the cruise had been cancelled and the deposit refunded and applied to the second cruise, the OP should have contacted the TA to ensure that their instructions were being carried out . However, the OP's failure to follow up doesn't excuse the TA's failure to carry out the OP's cancellation instructions. The TA is the professional. The TA is licensed as such by the state, and the TA is the person who earned money from the client having booked the cruise. Do you want to know why the travel agency suddenly went to bat with Oceania on the OP's behalf ? Hoping to keep the OP's business? Sure. Hoping that the OP wouldn't leave scathing reviews on Yelp and Google? Sure...but the agency was in jeopardy of being held liable for the mistake if the OP chose to pursue the matter with the state licensing agency or in small claims court. I can guarantee that the agent got a good dressing down from their supervisor.
  18. Making mased potatoes as I recall 😁
  19. Even if Oceania's accounting system can accommodate the direct transfer of funds from one cruise to the other, as I stated the OP did not receive any confirmation of the transaction. A new invoice would have been produced if the transaction had actually been processed.
  20. It's clear that Oceania isn't at fault. With cruise lines having accumulated billions of dollars in debt due to the COVID shutdown they're not about to issue a refund as a matter of customer goodwill. Competent travel agencies normally require cancellation requests to be in writing just to prevent this sort of thing from happening...or also the cancellation of the wrong cruise in cases like this, where the OP was booked on two voyages.
  21. As a Haven passenger you can be among the first passengers off the ship. You'll get an escort from the concierge or an assistant. Assuming your scheduled arrival time is the typical 7 am and the ship isn't significantly late and CBP doesn't unreasonably delay clearing the ship for disembarkation you have a reasonably good chance of being able to make the flight, but as @navybankerteacher said you might want to consider a later flight.
  22. As I read it the OP's problem is precisely that they never got anything in writing to confirm the cancellation of the cruise they intended to cancel and never made a written request, but only a telephone request. Frankly I'm puzzled why the OP never noticed that they didn't get a refund of the deposit on the cruise they had intended to cancel when they called the TA in December. Deposit refunds normally are processed in a few days...a couple of weeks at most. Months going by without a refund should have been a red flag.
  23. As a former travel agency owner, first I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. If you can identify the owner, president or other senior officer of the travel agency I would suggest you contact them via phone or email to lay out your position on this matter. I would then document the conversation via certified mail, including as much evidence as you have. In order to sell travel in Florida the agent/agency must be licensed by the state, so if the agency is not responding satisfactorily I would file a complaint with the state agency responsible for licensing travel agents. When I was an agency owner I always carried Errors and Omissions insurance in the event something went sideways and we were unable to come to a satisfactory resolution with the client. (BTW that never happened...we always settled any problems, which were always minor, directly with the client.) If you're not getting anywhere through any other means I would consider filing a small claims court lawsuit against the travel agency, which should be enough to get their attention and spur them into action.
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