djhuff

20 hours ago, Cel_cruise said:

 

It is per day but several folks on longer cruises have reported lower sales prices than those on short cruises.  Everyone drinks more on the short ones! 

Yes, it is all supply and demand pricing I'm sure.  It is a whole lot easier to stomach $207-276 for a 3-4 day cruise than be staring at almost $500+ for a 7 night or longer so you'll get more people purchasing at $69 on the shorter cruises, and they'll discount it on the longer cruises to hit the sales targets.  Plus it is easier to "get your money's worth" on 3-4 day cruises vs 7 day.  At least for me.

We are simply surprising my daughter with the cruisefor her birthday next year.  Never even been on a plane and I don't plan on telling her anything about where we are going.  We'll just be "going to the beach" when we get in the car and then show up at the airport.

Spending the night in Ft Lauderdale the night before, we will point out the big cruise ships but may not even mention we are going to get on one until the next day when we get on the shuttle to the port.  Should be a blast.

Yes, we are already booked on Independence for 10/12/2020 and now my wife wants to do this one prior.  I'm not terribly keen on the idea, but if she can find a friend, I'll just meet her on Monday.

It really is amazing on those lists, how many decent deals there are, very fair prices for some of those bottles.

And then you see Mer Soleil - Silver at $68.  That's an $18 bottle every day.  I could see MAYBE $40 in a wine bar on a cruise ship.

I do realize that cheap bottles are marked up a higher %age than expensive bottles, but wow.

2 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

As one who has had to arrange the accommodations for service animals, and who has had to deal with mistakes from "genuine" service dogs (a seeing eye dog jumped in the pool to "rescue" its owner), I wholeheartedly disagree.  There is no reason that a well behaved and well trained service animal shouldn't be on a cruise ship, any more than they shouldn't be in stores, on buses, trains, or airplanes.

I think there are two topics being discussed here, we have Emotional Support animals, which IMO are a complete farce and make all service dogs look bad.  If you need an animal to feel safe and emotionally stable, then there are other issues at play that need fixing.  Plus the training threshold for these animals is virtually zero which results in the public behavior and resentment evident in this thread.

True service animals OTOH (seeing eye, medical alert) are HIGHLY trained animals and I for one have no problem with there presence anywhere I am, this would include on a cruise.  Key point here is well behaved and well trained

The difficult question becomes how do we validate the Service Animals who are trained to behave in public, and react to specific medical cues from their charge vs. the emotional support animals whose mere presence is the help, not their ability to sense or react to anything.  The people who abuse this are the ones that cause all animals to be questioned and will ruin it for all.  

I for one am OK with a national registry here with a database.  Yes that will require additional costs, but true service dogs are already extremely expensive, to the point where an additional ~$100 is almost inconsequential, where an emotional support animal, well, maybe that will deter someone from trying to bring fluffy on their cruise.

All I can say with 100% certainty, if I get on a plane and the person sitting next to me has an emotional support horse, the airline WILL accommodate my desire to not have a horse in my face for the flight.  If that means catching the next one, so be it.