Petronillus

I find the raves about the hamburgers at Dive-In Grill puzzling. I've tried them twice and each time that it was awful. Now the hotdogs on the other hand! I think they are Nathans. Is there some trick I should follow w/r/t the hamburgers? Like, perhaps, insist that they be freshly made and not languishing in a foil wrapper?

Many thanks to the OP for starting this thread! We booked a "bucket-list" cruise for late January-February 2025, Oosterdam starting in Buenos Aires, Argentina and ending near Santiago, Chile with a few days cruising along the coast of Antarctica. Following the info provided here, we just had our PCC re-fare it for us, starting with the lowest-fare category-V cabin (VH), adding Club Orange, upgrading to a category VA, and thereby saving ourselves a few thousand $$$$. Best of all, I now know how to go about it when I book far enough ahead to be able to factor in CO.

We had the same experience on our last cruise. The CD was the universal and ubiquitous emcee. She was the one I dumped my displeasure onto about the loss of the Lincoln Centre Stage. (She parroted back the namby-pamby company line, in desultory fashion.) Suffice it to say that despite her ultra-high visibility I never found a place in my heart for her.

Amen to that! This has been a delightful thread -- lots of information peppered with a lot of humor. Some of the early posts had me thinking that cabanas are not my thing, but later ones tempered the potential negatives with depth of perspective. One further set of questions occur to me. Is the cabana a suitable substitute for a verandah? Assuming you book your cruise early enough, before all the cabanas are claimed, doesn't it make sense to book the lowest-fare inside cabin you can find and then use your cabana during daylight hours? Add in Club Orange and maybe you get a poor man's suite?

With all the hullabaloo about smoking, this comment surprises me. How surreptitious can you be when exposed on the starboard side of the aft pool on the Lido deck? As for using in your cabana, wouldn't the staff be all over you in an instant for violating the no-smoking restrictions, whether tobacco or cannabis?

The one question I have: when the ship is underway, is the noise of the engines and the wake a problem? While walking the promenade I notice both the noise and the steady vibration.

For me the major takeaway is that the PVSA and the Jones Act are attempts at protectionism (largely futile because they don't have significant benefits to stateside commerce) and horrid examples of featherbedding. Who really benefits from all these contortions?

Oakridger Nancy covered the waterfront. All I would add is that the dollar-figure limit is applied to the "menu price" of the drink you order. I suppose that's to clarify that you don't get the benefit of any reduced pricing, not even during happy hour; it all counts the same with the drinks package.

I wish I could take credit for this idea, but one gentleman posted that he liked to bring a stack of $2 bills (with Jefferson's portrait) to distribute to bartenders and servers, particularly at the beginning of the cruise. He figured that it made his generosity more memorable. I find that I tend to save my $1 bills in anticipation of an upcoming cruise. Then I hand one or two of them to the bartender and/or server when I'm trying to establish (and later occasionally to sustain) my status as a regular. With the HIA drinks package it feels more natural and less extravagant/flamboyant. Since I never get close to exceeding the daily 15-drink allotment, what I appreciate most about the drinks package is that it takes the on-the-spot economics out of the decision of what to drink and when.

If I've already heard about medallions, I wasn't paying attention. This thread prompted me to take a look at my cruise history, and I've just discovered that with our last cruise we have completed exactly 100 cruise days. Does that mean that we'll get bronze (entry-level) medallions at some point in our upcoming cruise in February? Will I also be schooled in the secret handshake?

The only benefits I see from a signature suite are (1) doubling the number of cruise-day credits awarded toward Mariner status and (2) the tiny lights that momentarily guide your feet to the bathroom and back when you get up in the night.

When I was in school in Montreal we used to joke that the four seasons of Quebec are June, July, August, and winter.

Oddly enough, the same was true in Chicago. The fall colors didn't turn until much much later than usual. IIRC, the trees were just turning at Halloween.

Maybe it was a stroke of good luck, but the PCC I work with now is everything the one I complained about wasn't. It's as if the supervisor I talked with took note of my gripes and custom-tailored a replacement for me. Makes for tons of good will.

FWIW, I thought the "click bait" comment was a cheap shot. OP's post has stimulated an interesting and worthwhile thread. OP should keep on keeping on. One man's opinion.

If you don't work well with the PCC you got assigned to, you can insist on a change. I have worked with a number of PCCs over the years and none of them required an appointment for a consultation. I usually start with an email to my current PCC, who got saddled with me after I complained about her immediate predecessor; she typically asks me to suggest a time when I'll be available to talk with her, and she calls me and has never missed such a prearranged rendezvous. And, yes, as Crystal said, she tells me that the call is being recorded. There is no reason for you to feel reluctant to initiate a change. It's simply a matter of the two of you having incompatible communication styles. It's in HAL's interest to match you with someone you can build a long-term relationship with.

Komodo. . . . Is that where there be dragons?

Everybody's opinion, and approach, and perspective is different. For me there is no comparison between a road trip and land tour, on the one hand, and a cruise on the other. The comparison, for me, is between a cruise and a stay at an all-inclusive resort like Dreams or Secrets. The convenience of the cruise ship's stable environment (unpack and repack only once) and its itinerary to me counts for a lot. Similarly, the great value of the beverage package lies in how carefree it makes the choice of what to drink when. I'm not the type to run the figures in order to satisfy myself that I'm getting my money's worth. Maybe it makes me a sucker, a lamb getting sheared, but hey, I'm on vacation!

I haven't taken part in a lot of high teas, but I suppose you check in by cabin number before being seated by the MDR staff.

To me it seems reasonable to put a cap on utilization of some services or amenities. The beverage packages are an obvious example. By that measure, can room service be "abused"? Are there anecdotes out there about pax taking the convenience of room service to excessive extremes? As for DW and me, we have never splurged on a Neptune suite and don't find our verandah cabins to be attractive dining venues. Besides, we sort of pride ourselves on being low-maintenance clients. The very idea of a butler, for instance, we find abhorrent.

This summer we were on a Norway (Land of the Midnight Sun) cruise, where Lerwick in the Shetland Islands got substituted for one of the Norwegian ports. We did need to queue up to pass customs inspection and receive the magic sticker. The customs agents were Scots and couldn't have been more affable and gracious, and the whole process went smoothly and pleasantly. There was nothing memorable about the ensuing tender ride, whether bad or good.

I 'm told that bar soap versus body wash is one of the factors that distinguish Baby Boomers from Millennials. I suspect, in addition, that keeping the dispensers in the cabins topped off is less costly than replenishing soap bars and small tubes of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion.

Here's what I think is an interesting, collateral effect of raising the drinks prices. For purposes of accruing credits toward our Mariner Star Status, we are credited with one "bonus credit" for every $300 spent on board (up to a max of $300 for each cruise day sailed). I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the ticketed price of the drinks we obtained under our beverage package counted toward that $300 bogey. Therefore, the more they raise the prices of our drinks under the packages, the faster we accrue the bonus credits, and the sooner we land on the Free Laundry square.

You've nailed it. Like you, the real point of the beverage package is the carefree spirit it gives me of ordering what I want when I want without giving a thought to the cost. Especially true of the elite package, but on our last cruise, when we had the $11/drink signature package, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I wasn't charged extra for a rusty nail nor for a double!

Cloth, but surprisingly malleable (or maybe it's that my laundry items are surprisingly compressible).