HopefulCruiser123

I have been on four cruises so far. A TA coming up in 2025. The first three cruises we used the tip envelopes and on our last cruise they had the auto tips. I knew before I went on my first cruise that I would be expected to pay tips. That cruise was with my parents and was a Christmas gift from them. I was young and had a low wage job that rent and car payments typically consumed. But I saved every penny I could and was able to pay the “recommended amounts” plus a little extra and I placed the cash and a short thank you note in each envelope. And I was tickled to death to do it. Why? Because I was HAPPY and grateful for all who had helped to make it such a wonderful experience. On my last cruise, we had the auto grats but I also brought blank envelopes and note cards with me knowing I would want to tip extra to our butler and stewards. I also carried three pastel colored translucent piggy banks. Two were filled with quarters and one was filled with dimes, all saved up with spare change over many years.. From reading about Labadee on Cruise Critic, I hatched a plan to take them with me and leave them on Labadee on our port day there. Two of them were left in the tip basket of some steel drum performers near the ship and one was handed off to a young man who bussed our picnic table after lunch. To me, the “pleasure” of tipping means it can’t just be transactional. It’s a sharing of the happiness and gratitude that I feel. If I ever start resenting that I feel obligated to tip, then it’s probably time for me to stop cruising because it will most likely mean that I am not enjoying it any more.

One of my favorite photos on our honeymoon cruise 11 years ago was taken of my husband at sail away from Labadee. He looked so incredibly happy and very sexy. It’s the very candid shots as opposed to staged “portraits” that made those photos great.

Just got off the scale. WHEW! I was worried, I have to confess. Two days after the major contamination of my hard won battle against junk food, I took my DH out to dinner at a Mexican Restaurant called "Casa Carrion"......(I pray that word means something different in Spanish). It was excellent and we both had very healthy meals (fish and salads) and came away from dinner satisfied and not feeling stuffed. Today the scale is not revealing any of my secrets and that is good enough for me. Good work Belle. Ice cream is my #1 sin. I love the stuff. Do you ever have fantasies of loosing a few "additional pounds" before you go on a cruise so that you can kind of "bank" them for ice cream or other dessert indulgence later? Foolish I know. Have fun on your trip Izena (and you too Jan if you are about).

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Have a great time Belle. I had been doing so good. Last night DH and I went to a local brewery that has opened up in our very small town. I ate something very uncharacteristic of me due to lack of ANY healthy options. I told my husband after that I felt like going into the restaurant I was a crystal clear babbling brook, and coming out I felt like a polluted toxic waste dump. 🤢 I am back on the wagon again today and will avoid the scale until next Thursday.

$5

I am not actually doing Keto, but I recognize that bread, pasta and sugar can hold me back. So try to limit them.

The scale can play games. I have dramatically changed my diet. No more candy (I too have a candy addiction), in fact unless it is fresh fruit, no more sweets. All food has to be fresh (no cans, frozen food or pre-packaged foods). I make exceptions for keto yogurt, keto bread (very occasional whole grain bread). Water, water, water. Started this in September and have evolved into an intermittent schedule. The scale says I am down 5 pounds. But my clothes are saying I have lost much more. I’m just gonna keep doing what I am doing. Consistency can play a valuable role.

Elizer….I wonder if that is a common name 🤔. 11 years ago our Butler’s name on our Silhouette honeymoon cruise was named Elizer. Very pleasant, soft spoken man.

We're doing a TA from Port Canaveral to Barcelona on Celebrity in 2025. Then a road trip and Eurostar for six weeks in Europe, then a QM2 back to New York in June. With the Cunards going back and forth so often, it makes planning the cruises around your European vacation a lot easier.

I grew up in this area. If you fly in a day or two early, its a good opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Center and do the tour. We'll be on this sailing as well and we plan on driving down from South Carolina a few days ahead and plan to do the tour (my husband is interested in all things having to do with the Space Center and especially the Apollo era). I have been back to Cocoa Beach many times over the years and the area has grown quite a bit since my family moved from there back in 1975, so we'll be searching for hotels as well. This is good information. Thank you all.

We have a TA booked on Equinox a full 14 months away with a 6 week road trip in Europe after, followed by another TA return trip back to the US also already booked. I can’t really reserve anything else this far out and it is killing me to not be able to make plans. I have a large wall map of Spain/Portugal and Southern France mounted on Foam board on my dining room wall, all dotted with multi-colored pushpins of places we’d like to go during our road trip. The latest edition to our dining room “wall art” is a blank, dry erase 24 x 36 wall calendar. To assuage my frustration, my husband suggested this so that beginning with this April (that will be one year prior to the start of our trip) on each day of the month we can fill in where we think we will be and what we would like to do on that day. (This will give me lots of opportunities to research each town’s hotels, restaurants, bike rentals for me, accessible trails for him, potential hair salons, local attractions, etc). We can do the same thing for each day on the ship, particularly with planning specialty restaurants, or our special retirement dinner (that day will earn a trip to the salon), theater shows, and the few port stops we will have. If I haven’t said it before, I just really think my DH is a genius. Now I am excited for this April to get her so I can start fleshing out the calendar.

Whew! I have finally made it through to the end of this thread. We are booked on a TA in April 2025 on Equinox in a Sky Suite and then on QM2 in June 2025. I am sure we will have a wonderful time. We are pretty low maintenance people with an “if you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with” approach to traveling and encountering things that are beyond our control. This and the butler faux pas thread has been disappointing to read. I think they ought to stop calling them beverage “packages” and start calling them “beverage discount coupons”. Definitely would do a better job of managing expectations. For now there is a lot of unhappy people. Many of them long time Celebrity Passengers who have racked up a lot of extra perks over the years. It’s going to be tough to leave Celebrity and start all over again with a new line. You have to wonder if that might not be part of the calculation on the part of the decision makers at X. If you leave and go to a new line, you will be replaced with new cruises who won’t bite into the bottom line with extra perks. If you have acquired a long list of perks, how likely are you to book at full fare with nothing extra thrown in to sweeten the deal. Seems like a win-win for Celebrity. For awhile the new cruisers will not be fully aware of just how wonderful it once was, but given the price point they may end up looking to the bigger mega ships that cater to younger travelers and their families as they will provide the same food, the same booze, the same itineraries but with many more venues and attractions to enjoy while on board. What will Celebrity do then? Build bigger ships to compete? Or lower their pricing to compete. Either way it will beg the question, “What was it all for after all”.

On our last cruise 11 years ago, my DH and I requested to be seated at a larger table in the MDR with other passengers (old school)😀. In the past it had always been a good and enhancing part of our cruise experience. There was a couple who were frequent cruises and they boasted how they had learned to complain frequently so that they would be comped extra perks. We watched them repeatedly complain about the food at every meal (sending things back and demanding the meals be remade), weak drinks, slow service, etc. demanding to speak to the maitre d and sure enough, they received future cruise credits, on board cash, bottles of wine etc. We were embarrassed and even though we didn’t know them, we felt shame and felt like we wanted to be even nicer to the staff to make up for their bad behavior. This really wasn’t fair to us either because it would have been nice to just enjoy the food and service, naturally. This time around we will request a table for 2 and if we make friends onboard that we would like to dine with one night, maybe we will splurge with them for a specialty restaurant dinner.

A perfect example of the impatience of someone not actually on the cruise. I remember NOT living on Cruise Critic on my cruise but doing my review at the end of each day. When I got home, only then did I have time to go back and read all comments and answer questions I might have missed. Nothing deceptively malignant about it.

Okay, okay, okay……NOW we have some tension in the hopeful household… “DH”……says the topic of desert cocktails being called “martini” speaks to the degradation of our society. He says if it doesn’t make sense to put an olive in it, then it shouldn’t be called a martini! Thems fighting words! He says it must be a clear beverage with gin or vodka and vermouth (and the adornment of an olive) to earn the right to be called a martini! I asked him that if that is the case, how will I order my creamy, flavorful after dinner cocktail at the martini bar (because he doesn’t believe they will serve anything but a “proper” martini there)…I said, “WHAT?” (Those were my exact words) and now…we may have to cancel our cruise (tic). So the question is, can I get a chocolate martini at the martini bar?

I’ve actually started making my version of caprese salad with sugar baby grape tomatoes when good tomatoes are out of season and are not very juicy. (I add a little Kalamata olive and red roasted peppers with a little fresh basil for a burst of extra flavor). I have come to actually prefer this over traditional caprese salad.

" Also Barf service in Blu was amazing, I always had a refill waiting 😊" I swear....some typos are just better than others! 🤣 Thanks for a great retirement review. DH and I do our retirement trip on Equinox in Spring of 2025.

Seems kind of odd to have a gratuity added to a service charge. Typically, in a restaurant tipping culture, the food and beverage is one price and the gratuity is calculated to cover the cost of serving the food and beverage. So to charge for that service and than also add a mandatory gratuity is double dipping. That's like saying we are going to charge you a nuisance fee for a small order, and oh by the way, we're going to add a gratuity to that too. Mind you, I am a very generous tipper. I just think this mandatory smoke and mirrors is a little vulgar. JMHO

Can anybody answer that same question regarding Port Canaveral?

Very nice.

Personally, I appreciate Zitsky`s questions and the resulting answers. I have never visited the Regent board before. I probably will now as a result of this discussion (Virgin and Oceania too).

We barely used our butler on our Honeymoon cruise 11 years ago. However, there are some benefits to having a butler besides unpacking for you that are value added features that disappeared along with the butler. 1. Cleaning out the mini-fridge and stocking with drinks you prefer. 2. Setting the table and serving breakfast or dinner out on the verandah. 3. Setting up your suite with drinks and snacks for an in-suite cocktail party. 4. Offering afternoon canapes and tea 5. Making reservations for spa, salon, bridge tours, specialty dining, after dinner shows. Some say your Retreat team will do this for you, but from all the comments on Cruise Critic about this topic, I don't think that can be relied upon. Will the lack of these things ruin my cruise? Certainly not. But it is disingenuous to suggest that the perks of the very expensive Sky Suites were not watered down significantly with the removal of the butlers.

I am in the camp of bringing my two bottles of wine on board because that is my favorite and not found on any of the wine lists. We look forward to sharing those two bottles out on our verandah. I am an extremely light drinker, and on our 16 day transatlantic my husband will take full advantage of our premium drink package. I likely will use my premium drink package (that I am required to have) for coffee, lemonade, water and maybe a frozen mocktail. I have promised to try a couple of new creamy style cocktails. Celebrity will make out quite nicely between the two of us. As far as how many threads on Cruise Critic discuss this topic, I think people who are cruise enthusiasts are just “living on the high seas” either in reality or vicariously through the discussions on these boards while waiting for their next cruise. There is no exhausting any topic because there are as many perspectives and opinions as there are stars in the sky. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Thank you. That is good information.