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cbr663

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  1. I think that it will vary from ship to ship and will depend on what you are asking for. My DW loves escargot and we know that it will show up on a menu while cruising. Last year we sailed on 2 different cruises on the Koningsdam and dined in CO for both. DW asked for escargot on both cruises when it wasn't available on the menu and both times was told no.
  2. Unfortunately CO is yet another HAL program that is the victim of being poorly administered. It should be relatively simple to see whether CO is available on every sailing prior to booking as it is simply a bundling of amenities like HIA. But of course this isn't the case. Instead, you are forced to call HAL to request if it is available and your access to CO is 100% dependent on the knowledge and expertise of whomever happens to be on the other end of the call. Every time I have called to determine if CO is available I have been told that the PCC has to call Ship Inventory to find out. Perhaps your PCC was trying to meet a sales quota and wanted to create a sense of urgency for you to book?
  3. Unfortunately, the B&D saga is an example of what happens when cruise lines try and enforce their own policy. As I mentioned before, content creators are self-regulating and as this example demonstrates, do not readily accept that they cannot create content when and how they want. Let's never forget that it is the content creators who decide what content to create and how to present it. Right now most have created content reviewing cruise ships. There is nothing though preventing any content creator from boarding ships and using the experience to create different content. As an example, The People of Walmart content could easily be The Crusiers of MSC/HAL/Carnival/NCL content. Imagine someone creating content of how much cruisers are eating at one seating, how often they go to a bar, what they wear or any other content that supports all the cruise stereotypes that are out there? I hope that all cruise lines create robust policies limiting this behaviour and consistently enforce it.
  4. Exactly. Their response to the MSC cruise email was replete with unsubstantiated allegations. The video that was released, like all of their videos, are heavily edited and presented the narrative that they wished to present. Did MSC staff onboard handle this poorly? Yes, it appears so. Did B&D handle the incident poorly? Yes, I believe that they did. I can't believe that it has taken this long for the whole issue of content creators being on cruise ships to reach this point. With the majority of cruise ships now having high speed internet capabilities it is inevitable that content creators will start live streaming on the ships. I have already seen content creators live streaming from their cabins, and it is only a matter of time before they start live streaming walking around and throughout as many areas of the ships as they can. Cruise lines have to put guidelines in place for this as to date, content creators have been primarily self regulated and that is simply not enough.
  5. Yet another example of here's what we want you to believe rather than providing what is most likely the real answer: that with our ships understaffed all staff are needed during the embarkation process, especially luggage handling.
  6. I don't interpret HAL's new additions to the T&Cs and FAQs as promising a minimum 2 day notice. It states under FAQs: "Guests are confirmed within the week of sailing (7 to 2 days prior to departure) in the order of when you are added to the Standby List. " The reason I don't see this as promising a minimum 2 day notice is this new statement to the T&Cs: "If HAL does not confirm guest on the Cruise’s standby list at two (2) days prior to the Cruise’s depart have two options. They can choose to have their reservation cancelled and will be refunded the full amount of the cruise fare that they were charged at the time they were placed on the standby list or they will have the option to remain on the Cruise’s standby list until 90 minutes prior to departure and their booking will be fully refundable if they do not sail."
  7. To the best of my knowledge it has never been there either and that is the point I am making. Until the very recent website update HAL didn't list this as a Neptune amenity anywhere on its site. How would anyone unfamiliar with HAL know about this amenity? When I provided my review of the cruise there were posters who responded that they had sailed in NS and didn't know that this was available. For some of us it is an issue when we are paying for amenities that we are not getting and even worse, not even aware that we should be getting. A glaring weaknesss imo.
  8. It's challenging to understand HAL's suite amenities as HAL isn't very transparent about them. The link provided is a great source, but it doesn't capture all of the suite amenities. Luckily during HAL's most recent website update it does provide a more comprehensive listing of the various stateroom amenities. I've attached a screen shot of such a list for a Neptune Suite for you to compare to the link provided. I wish to point out though that I have discovered a glaring weakness in HAL's service while on board is that many of these amenities must be requested and even then, there isn't any guarantee that you will receive it. For instance, on our Alaska cruise sailing in a Neptune Suite we had to request the fresh fruit and the reply was they don't do that anymore. I then replied it is still advertised as a suite amenity so the cabin steward asked what we want and they go it for us once, even though we requested that we have it every day. On another note, for instance, don't expect to find in your cabin any literature or menu with reference to the pre-dinner hors d'oeurves available in the suite or anyone offering this as an option. You will need to approach the Neptune Lounge Concierge for a list of what is available and you will need to order them 24 hours in advance. Expect the service to be reactive and not proactive.
  9. Just wanted to provide a correction. My posted mentioned remote workers, not work from home. Please don't quote me as writing something that I did not. There is considerable difference between a remote worker and a worker that works from home.
  10. Our Nov cruise on the K we had a 90 min wait on embarkation evening. We went to GS and were quickly escorted to a table for 2 in the MDR. After that we didn’t have any wait in CO.
  11. Some suggestions: 1. What has been the highlight of your day so far? 2. What port are you looking forward to the most? 3. What excursion are you most excited about?
  12. I wonder whether the huge increase in remote work during the pandemic has had an impact on our mis-use of public spaces. A little while ago I was reading an article of a coffee chain in my city that was recently sold and was closing some of its locations. The owner was interviewed and stated that you can't look at the number of people sitting in the coffee shop as an indication of success as these are people who spend very little and spend hours working. It seems like this has become a normal thing for some people to do. Buy a coffee, grab a table and spend an entire afternoon using the free wifi. It would seem that offering free wifi to attract customers has created unforeseen issues for many land based establishments. I mention this as it seems like many people have forgotten, or don't care, that these establishments are profit seeking companies. There is a need for them to turn over the tables often. Customers hogging the tables actually cost them money in lost sales. This mindset of being able to use public shared spaces for as long as I want seems to be spreading to cruise ships, at the same time, cruise ships are introducing faster and faster internet connections at sea. Many cruise passengers are now purchasing faster internet connections for working cruises and it is naive to think that these passengers will be working in their cabins. Will the unintended outcome on cruise ships be the same as on land with more and more passengers claiming public spaces as their own to work all day or surf online all day?
  13. I like the idea of more signage as it does work for some people. Although, I must admit I would remove the "limit your" and replace it with "no" so the sign read "Sit and enjoy your food, but please, no lounging during busy hours".
  14. Last night I watched a cruise vlog showing how the couple went from bar to bar on a X ship trying to find a cocktail that was included in the standard beverage package. After 2 hours they found one in the casino bar. It appears their standard beverage package is best for mocktails, a couple of wines and a limited number of beers.
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