Amberle3

7 hours ago, Clay Clayton said:

So house has been cleaned, toilet case is packed, passport and wallet checked and rechecked…what do we do for the next 12 hours? 😂

OMG I read that too quickly and thought it said "toilet is packed".  I mean I've heard of some people packing some interesting things for cruises but...

10 hours ago, complawyer said:

i dont see your point, but i'm well aware that the tours are contracted out, and that neither the guide nor the driver are employed by ncl.

My point was that the comments seem to somehow differentiate between excursions booked through NCL and others. Your comment was:
"if we're on an ncl booked excursion, i dont tip either  the bus driver or the tour guide"

From the passenger's point of view you're paying a premium for an excursion (from what I've seen the NCL excursions are on the pricey side).  From the tour hosts point of view there is virtually no difference aside from the fact that passengers on the NCL-booked excursions are probably less likely to tip. Why do I say this? For the reason you've already listed:

"(1) i've already paid an outrageous fee for the tour "

9 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

Even better get luggage tag holders from Amazon.  I get the ones with the wire loops to attach the holder to the bag.  I put my cruise luggage tags in the holders before I leave home and I put the holders inside my baggage.  Then just before I make the final move to the port, I put them on the bags. 

Not only that but I since the printed luggage tags are usually folded I write my name, city & contact info on the inside of the printed tag. After the cruise I just fold the tag insert the other way around and voila, regular luggage tag.

12 hours ago, UKstages said:

what's up with that uninspired rubbish? that's not a "decoration," that's a flyer advertising a garage sale! why even bother putting that on the door?

I have sometimes, albeit rarely, put things on the outside of my door.  Usually it's just because all the doors look the same and I wanted something that was going to make it a little easier to find my cabin. Yes I know they all have numbers on them, but if you're at all impaired (be it from an excess of alcohol or, in my case, something like a migraine) it can be much easier just to find your personalized door than to read/focus on the cabin number.

I did have one that somehow morphed into a daily public opinion poll on one cruise. I was with family members and had put up a magnetic whiteboard with pen so that we could easily leave messages for each other. I can't remember what I wrote on it one day but it garnered responses from a fair number of people. So then I started doing random polls on it (like which is better, Star Wars vs Star Trek etc).

On 4/10/2023 at 11:29 PM, complawyer said:

if we're on an ncl booked excursion, i dont tip either  the bus driver or the tour guide (go figure)

13 hours ago, laudergayle said:

I can’t say I disagree with your assessments of the NCL tour guides and excursions.  

Keep in mind that NCL is just acting as a booking agent/middleman for the tours and excursions. Sure they supposedly vet the excursion companies to make sure that the ones they're dealing with are safe and reliable, but NCL doesn't run the tours. They just contract with outside companies to run them.  They'll get quoted a price per person from the tour operator, they'll add a markup to that (likely a considerable markup) and that's what they charge the passengers. The tour company receives whatever the contracted price is and then from that has to pay for the bus (or at least maintenance and fuel for it), driver's wages and guide's wages, and of course has to make their own profit on the tour.

Which was a very long way of saying the tour personnel don't work for NCL, no matter how much you've paid NCL for the tour is has no bearing on how much the tour company is paying them. The might be getting a decent salary, they might be working solely on tips, I honestly have no idea what the norm is for the various countries.

I can tell you that HERE sometimes tour escorts are paid on an hourly basis but most often it's more of a per-day rate. And many smaller companies consider tour escorts to be basically independent contractors, which means they just negotiate a daily or per-trip fee for the tour host which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with minimum wage. Tips collected are sometimes shared between driver and tour host, sometimes not. Some companies have clear guidelines for that, others don't. If you're taking up a collection or wanting to tip then you can always ask if the tips are being shared. I know when I was escorting tours I never took any portion of a collected tip and made sure it went to the driver, my other tour hosts would usually split it with the driver. If someone personally handed me a tip then I considered that to be for me specifically.

1 hour ago, pghflyer said:

The removal of turn-down, which we initially didn't think so important and didn't pay attention to (in my head: I can fold my sheets back off my pillow and turn on bedside lights myself).....turns out to mean more than we appreciated.

I found the same thing on my recent RCI cruise. Mind you I did have the worst cabin steward I have ever had on a cruise, but the lack of evening/turndown service was definitely noticed.

We did get 2 towel animals during the 10 night cruise. I know some people think they're silly but they always make me smile, and making the guest smile is always a good thing. But we saw our cabin steward a grand total of 3 times during the 10 nights - once on embarkation day when he make sure to introduce himself, once when he made a point of coming over to us in the hallway to chastise us, and once a few days later when we passed him in the hallway.  That was it.

I asked on our FB chat/group what others were experiencing with their housekeeping service and the overall reports were very similar - rarely if ever saw their cabin steward.  I really feel like that "personal connection" is missing from that service, which is a shame because the personal connection is one of the things that makes cruising so special.

On 3/28/2023 at 3:36 PM, CILCIANRQTS said:

A cheap electrical device probably made in China?
Can you say fire hazard boys and girls??
I thought you couldn’t.

As much as I'd like to think "I'm sure everything will be fine", I then remember the cheap universal laptop charger I bought that started smoking and then caught fire...

1 hour ago, 3412mom said:

How do you get the 2 day deviation?  That is what has me leery of doing the NCL flights--No way am I flying in the day of the cruise!  I did not know it was an option to ask for different days.  TIA for any help you can provide

If you're booking with a travel agent then call them and have them put the request in.  Otherwise call NCL and ask for it to be in the file.

Info on air deviations is lower down on here:
https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/air-service-standards

On 3/26/2023 at 11:03 PM, spenecer said:

With Sailaway, I did not look at Spice H2O this evening but from what I’ve seen on the internet, the pool in Spice H2O gets covered in the evening to become a dance floor or stage or maybe just to keep the black soot  from the smokestacks out of the water. 

Well balls.  Okay so that's another cruise where I won't be spending any time in a pool/hot tub.

46 minutes ago, spenecer said:

Speed: 6 Mbps Down / 1.1 Mbps Up

 

Clearly, the internet is faster at 11PM when most of us are too drunk to be typing with our thumbs. Thank goodness for autocorrect. Here are the pages for the Day 2 Freestyle Daily.

 

I'm sorry, does that say the adult-only pool closes at 6pm??

We're booked on the Epic next year and one thing I really like is being able to just relax in a hot tub in the evening without kids running around.

We're booked on our first NCL cruise next year so this is just my perspective as an as-yet NCL cruiser:

- We passed on the free-at-sea drink package.  The "service charge" on it was $325 (Canadian) per person for the 11 day cruise.  We just returned from a 10 day RCI cruise a few weeks ago and we each had a whopping 2 drinks during that one. If NCL had the "everything but alcohol" package that RCI does then I'd probably go for that one but they don't seem to.

- I'm just fine with the 2 speciality dining meals included. Honestly I'm not all that fussed about speciality restaurants on the ships. I've done a few on some of the RCI ships and they're good, but I'm frugal at heart and I keep thinking that I've already PAID for meals and now I'm paying more for another one.

- The $50 shore excursion credit seemed like a good deal when we were booking, now that I'm looking at excursions I'm not so sure.  All the ones that are showing (so far) in our planner are way more expensive than comparable ones through other suppliers.

- We did opt for the 2-for-1 airfare because it's literally half the price of booking on our own, and since the cruise leaves from Portugal that's a pretty significant difference. We will be putting in for a 2 day (on each end) air deviation because a) there's no way I'm flying in the day the cruise is supposed to leave and b) we'd like some time to explore the city after the cruise.

6 hours ago, julig22 said:

Amen to that!! 

...

Made it to my gate just as my group was boarding. Not my favorite airport...

PS - that was my first post-covid cruise.  Now I usually fly at least a day early, lesson learned.

My lesson was my honeymoon with my ex.  It should have been a sign really.  We left a day before, ran into weather delays, got re-routed to another airport and that connecting flight was cancelled.  Spent my first official "honeymoon night" in a Detroit airport hotel.  Made it onto a flight the next morning and made it to the cruise on time but man what a headache. Now I fly in at least 2 days ahead - I'd rather be relaxing at the port city than worrying about my flights.

6 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

Thanks. BTW I was just checking out Toronto airport and there are a lot of delayed flights. Any idea why? Weather? The flight we would be taking from here to Toronto was cancelled, and the one to Japan left nearly 2 hours late!

I honestly have no idea.  I know it's raining there but that's all I can tell.  Toronto is just chaotic in general, there always seems to be something going on or going wrong. It is hands-down my least favourite airport for connections.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/inside-toronto-pearson-airport-1.6772718

11 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Wow, given all that, I'm surprised 1'10" is considered enough time. I think we only have 1 1/2 hours to make our connection to Tokyo. I hope that is enough time.

Because you're a transiting passenger and not staying in Canada I think you should be fine.
According to the AC website transiting passengers in Toronto don't have to go through customs/immigration or clear security again.  They say "a quick passport check and you'll be on your way!".

22 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Glad you got that changed. I agree that 45 minutes isn't enough-most of the time they start boarding by then, unless it's a really short flight. We've had connections that tight a few times, but were lucky enough that the gates were close together AND that we alerted the staff immediately upon leaving the first plane so they knew we were on the way. Didn't AC tell you in the email when the 1st plane was due to land? 

They did include the information for both flights, but unless you're used to flying, and the Toronto airport, you might not know that 45 min (or even 55 min) isn't enough in Toronto.  The Toronto airport can be really disorganized and chaotic to begin with, and then when you factor in having to make your way from your arrival gate, go through US customs and Immigration and get to your departure gate there's just no way that less than an hour is enough.  

But if the airline doesn't tell you that no longer have a legal connection and just leaves it to chance, and you don't find out that you're not going to make your connecting flight until you get to your connecting airport, then the airline reaccomodates on you a flight that they have room on - which might be a much later flight than one you could have gotten onto if the situation had been rectified sooner.

3 hours ago, sanger727 said:

 

As long as you are ticketed on one airline to your final destination its a "legal" connection. .

Not necessarily. The term "legal connection" just means that it meets the minimum required connecting time. I have had schedule changes that resulted in my flights no longer having a "legal connection". Most times the airline has automatically changed my connecting flight to one that does have adequate connecting time, but not always. They don't always tell the passenger that the new connection time doesn't meet the minimum.

For example, I had a flight to Orlando booked through Air Canada, departing from Canada and connecting in Toronto.  Minimum "legal" connection time for Canada to US flights in Toronto is 1hr10min. AC had a flight schedule that left us with less than an hour to make that connection (I think it was about 45min). Although they sent me an email about the schedule change there was no mention in it that the new connection time was too short. I had to call AC and talk to a rep who actually tried to tell me that she was sure that would be enough time and that it wasn't necessary to change my connecting flight.  It took quite a while and a supervisor to get her to make that change.

If there's a particular type of shore excursion that most people are interested in then you can see about trying to plan one of those for the group. I don't know if Royal will do a private shore excursion but there are shore excursion companies that will.

I'm on the  Feb 22 Serenade sailing - the only menus I can see in the MDR are the kids menus but someone that is onboard now has confirmed that they are using the new menus. She also said that her app also only showed the kids menus until they were onboard.

1 hour ago, twoshay said:

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the menus are not appearing in my app.  I double checked to make sure I have the most up to date app. We are sailing February 27th on Liberty of the Seas.

I have a cruise in 2 weeks, I submitted my first-ever Royal Up bid about 2 weeks ago.  I've seen people talking about their bid status saying "pending" or "cancelled" etc, but all mine has ever said is "submitted".  Is that a normal thing?

8 minutes ago, Ourusualbeach said:

One thing that does come to mind is some TA's set their own final paymemt date, while Royals invoice lists the absolute last date, many do not like clients knowing they are collecting final paymrmt 2 to 4 weeks early. 

Very true!  I forgot about that.
And there are far too many people who think that the "payment deadline" means "I can email my travel agent at 10pm on that day and everything will be fine."

7 minutes ago, TeamCan said:

 

I've booked once with a TA from another agency and he said it was company policy not to give/email of copy of RC's booking invoice. He said his company's invoice is all I needed. Why would the company refuse to give  a copy of RC's booking invoice?  I like to have both the agency's copy and RC's booking invoice.

Because some agencies like to add additional fees and try to hide them.  And some agents don't know how to find the client copy of the invoice from the booking system and they don't want you to see the copy that breaks down the agency commission.

I mean I understand not providing the supplier's booking in some circumstances.  For example, agencies have access to what are basically wholesale consolidators who use massive buying power to (sometimes) get big discounts on things like airfare.  They sell only to travel agencies, they sell at a net cost, and the agency adds additional amounts to that net cost so that they make some money on the sale (there's no commission involved at all). In those cases there isn't a client-view invoice, because none of those transactions are meant for the client to see. Just like something is bought from a store customers don't get to see how much the store itself paid for those items.

There are travel consolidators who specialize in cruises - they work with the cruise lines to establish specials and deals etc, and they sell only to travel agencies. But I've never known any of them to NOT be able to have a client copy of the invoice.

4 hours ago, reallyitsmema said:

 

Good to know there are controls now after the problems they had with all the independent TAs years ago.  I remember reading stories here of people that lost all their funds and TA disappeared.

It's been their official policy for a long time. I was with an agency 20 years ago that would deliberately NOT follow this procedure.  Back then there were fewer checks on credit card information, the name on the order didn't have to match the name on the card and almost no one asked the name on the card. The agency owner told his agents to call the cruise lines to make payments, give them the client's name and info but the agency card number, and he ran the client's card as a charge to the agency.  He did this because his card earned mileage points, so he and his wife would take vacations with the points he earned from his client's travel. 

I'm going to chime in and say you can still do My Time dining but book your dining times ahead of time so that they're "set", and then when you get onboard ask at the dining room that they schedule your table with the same servers every night.  This is what we've done on our cruises and it's never been a problem.

9 hours ago, Mick B said:

To be a VIP is to be treated as special in front of others, and is anything on the key list other than seating in the theatre that is really that special at the end of the day? Looks like the best benefit of the key is the internet part for anyone who really needs it.

We got The Key for our upcoming trip. The selling points for us was that it was almost the same price as the internet package, the delivery of the carry on baggage directly to the stateroom (we're bringing wine onboard and I don't want to schlep it through the ship), the reserved seating at shows and the Chops lunch on embarkation.  Would I pay full price for those? No.  But given that the sale at the time and the fact that it was only something like $1 more than the internet alone it seemed like something worthwhile to try.

4 hours ago, Longford said:

However, cruise ship housekeeping workers don't work 24--hour shifts - nor do equivalent hotel staff.  Thousands of ships' passengers holding, touching handrails, door knobs, other surfaces ... cannot and will not be effectively sanitized consistently.

Oh I absolutely agree.  My comment was more to try and say that cruise ship staff have a bit more incentive to keep things clean than the average hotel housekeeping staff does.

1 hour ago, ngrund said:

My Price today was $42 per-glad I bought a while ago for $32

My current price is $39 (Canadian), and it was about $26 (Canadian) when I booked it.