Could we start a list of perks that were discontinued?

I started to see changes when cappuccino was no longer a 'free' drink after dinner.

No prune juice for breakfast at the buffet; got it in the dining room.

Lobster? Escargot? RCL said we were the lucky cruisers because they had escargot the week we cruised!

Free logo towels? Free logo tote?

Gone are decent priced photos! Seriously. There is no reason to be so expense; the paper doesn't cost that much, nor the ink. Imagine how much more they would sell if they lowered the price!

I remember trap shooting off the back deck.

I remember trap shooting off the back deck.

__________________

:) Bill & Kathy

Yup... I remember skeet shooting too. Here is a shot from the Italian Line's Michelangelo in 1974.

Susan

On my first cruise in 1980, for some reason we had felt hats with feathers at dinner. The next day was a costume party. Carnival left crepe paper in our room to help us make costumes. I was with 7 other girls so we used to hats to make Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs costumes. We won the costume contest! Guess that's a thing of the past!

And funny that the motion of the ocean was mentioned. This year I took my second cruise - 34 years later. I kept telling my family (who have never been on one) how hard it is to walk and how queasy you could get. They looked at me like I'd lost my mind in e we set sail! I had no idea that had changed lol!

If you analyse the many items mentioned in the past posts you can match up cruise lines that still have them....it would make a good trivia game:p For example NCL no longer gives glasses of champagne when you board. They said that the passengers complained that it held up getting to their rooms...I've never seen a Celebrity passenger complaining about their champagne. MSC may not give streamers at the sail-away parties...but they give great sail-away shows....Make you own sundaes are still on Princess, and many other along with free Pizza etc. Gifts are still left on beds..everything from a blue and white tile to a decent heavy duty carry on. Free dinners and wine are still given away in contests along with the required key chains and hats etc....towels are still at deck chairs along with milk and cookies at 2pm.

I've been cruising since 1962 and the only thing I really miss is being able to visit the other ships docked at the port with you. It would be nice to still be able to see " how the others are living" but , with security I can see the reasons behind that loss.

What I don't like is the cruise line that takes too many freebies away at once. With NCL it's the champagne, cappachino (sp) machines and what used to be some free dining now costs $5 and early bird specialty prices are only on port days..no longer sea days...I see no rhyme nor reason for that except "the bottom dollar":(

We started cruising in the early 70s and have never looked back. But in keeping with the actual topic of this thread (perks that are discontinued) there is a new one to add to the list (it can be hard to get serious after reading about the animals). Celebrity seems to have recently stopped their Grand Buffet, which was a very lavish Brunch buffet (served in the MDR) normally served once per cruise. Alas, this has apparently gone the way of all the other cut-backs we have recently seen on nearly every cruise line (and we have cruised on 14 lines).

But getting back to the animal topic, we have noticed a vast increase in "service dogs" brought aboard ships. Since there is no legal standard or certification for service dogs, there are quite a few dog lovers who pass-off their pets as Service Dogs so they can take them on a cruise. Our favorite was a lady who had a very small dog she would take all over the ship in a baby carriage. If anyone asked she did say it was a service dog, but her sister (also on the cruise) told us that her sister was just a nut case who would take her non-service dog everywhere.

Hank

I dont know if I agree with you on the "terrorism has hurt the industry" but I do agree with everything else you wrote...

Sorry, haven't looked at this thread in a long time. Prior to 9/11 we had been watching a Princess cruise that had an inside cabin at $1600. After 9/11 that price dropped to $600 and prices have never really came back to those prior levels. But it has made cruising available to a lot more people that could not have afforded to before then.

Behind the cruise lines happy face that we see is a business like any other that must make a profit to survive and employs experts on how best to do that and still keep passengers coming back. Apparently raising fares is less profitable than slowly removing perks.

Many of us love high quality caviar but would never buy it at home so got our fix on cruises. When the wholesale price of a tin (500 grams) of good sturgeon caviar went from $300 to $600, many cruise lines that still served a midnight buffet stopped putting it out. Hard to blame them for that business decision but it was the loss of a perk that many looked forward to. But for just a few more thousands of dollars there is all caviar you want on a Crystal, Regent, Silversea.....

Does anyone remember the 14kt gold Le Monde globe shaped pendants that you would add diamonds to for each country you visited that was sold on Celebrity ships in the jewelry stores 1990's? I remember there were 2 sizes and recall seeing a lady with the larger one and lots and lots of diamonds on it from all the places she had been! It was really quite stunning!

I also miss being able to buy sterling silver charms for each ship. I was making a cruise charm bracelet, but ships seldom have these charms anymore, if at all.

Not sure if this is the way of the future, but we just got off the Star Princess and there was no embarkation lunch provided in the main dining room, the only options were the buffet-style lunches on deck 14. Also, there are no longer "served" lunches provided on port days, again only the buffet style lunches.

Confused! When you get ON the ship it is embarkation. Is that when they didn't serve lunch?

You said when you got off. That is disembarkation. Why would you still be on the ship for lunch the day you get off??????????

A lot of ships do not have lunch in the MDR on port days. Usually there are not enough passengers still on board on port days to have it.

Confused! When you get ON the ship it is embarkation. Is that when they didn't serve lunch?

You said when you got off. That is disembarkation. Why would you still be on the ship for lunch the day you get off??????????

A lot of ships do not have lunch in the MDR on port days. Usually there are not enough passengers still on board on port days to have it.

Apologies for the confusion! What I was trying to say is that our recent experience on the Star Princess was that a served lunch in the main dining room is no longer provided on the day when you embark, and on days when the ship is in port. These lunches used to be provided.

Yes.. you still do get lunch, but must go the buffet locations. Many people enjoy having their first meal on board (lunch) be a served lunch in a main dining room, away from the hustle and bustle of the buffet.

Some of the perks that have dissapeared off of some of the lines are still available on others - a friend and I did a Med cruise in October 2014 on Oceania, they still have champagne as you board, an excellent afternoon tea and I had lobster EVERY night I went to the buffet - that was wonderful! Specialty coffees are no extra charge and there are nibbles and cookies in the afternoons. Specialty restaraunts are also availlable for no extra fee.

Also, the river cruise lines, at least Viking who I have sailed on twice since 2013, still have a lot of the old perks - warm orcold, wet towels when you come back on-board from port, as well as lemonade/water/champagne when you come back onboard from a port - complimentary red or white wine with dinner, as much as you like -and they also send out a lovely leather portfolio with your travel docs, a book about the ports and their history and lovely leather luggage tags before the cruise. There are cookies and light sandwiches in the salons in the afternoon and specialty coffees are not an extra change. Champagne is freely available at breakfast for mimosas. They also give out little gifts during the cruise, pins and bags and such. And overall service is top-notch. I love river cruising! :D

I can't say I blame some of the cruise lines for removing some of the things that used to be standard - free sodas (remembering the post from the person who saw the kids having a "soda fight" on deck) - and it still appalls me to see the amount of food wasted on some cruises. People with the "load your plate to the sky and eat none of it, it's free" mentality as well as the "I'll act/dress (and my kids also) any way I want to, it's my vacation" have taken a lot of the charm out of cruising. :(

A deck of cards on Carnival and Royal Caribbean left on our pillows. I still have packs in their original wrappers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, I had forgotten about these! I still have a deck of those old Carnival cards, lol

I miss personal service. Your waiter knowing what you like and having it ready for you when you sit down in the dining room. It's not the big things, it's the little intangibles that make cruising different now. The closest I've come to the "old days" of cruising is Disney. We still get little gifts, the same waiter fussing over us, a captain's cocktail party, lavish entertainment, pool towels, free soda, 24-hr pizza and ice cream, etc.

It's not perfect, but it definitely feels more like cruising in the 80's and early 90's!

On what ship are you not getting personal service? We cruise a lot (10 times last year) and my husband only asks for milk the 1st night. Then the waiter brings it every night without being asked again. He learns the 1st night not to ask if I want coffee- I don't.

WE are Diamonds on Carnival so get a gift and chocolate covered strawberries, pins plus other things. We're platinum on Princess so also get pins and a gift. We get gifts on RCCL also.

We go to the captain's cocktail party and on Carnival a special party for Gold, Platinum and Diamond guests.

They give out pool towels on the deck and when going ashore.

Soda is not free but pizza is 24 hours and so is ice cream.

Again what ship are you talking about? Disney charges more because they have no casino and we have no little kids so we don't go on Disney.

Bonnie,

You are lucky that you belong to all those high levels of frequency on those cruise lines. That is how you get all that personal service.

I am not finding fault at all, because i I enjoy the same service on HAL. Last cruise, I was upgraded to the top level of suites on a 35 day cruise, and everyone on the crew knew who I was, even crew I had only seen once knew me by name....it was a wonderful experience.

However, Greg is correct, if you do not belong up in the higher rewards level, the personalized service is no longer there as it was when he began cruising. But lifestyles have changed in general and that is the way it is today

Lynn

Wow, I had forgotten about these! I still have a deck of those old Carnival cards, lol

I have a few unopened packs of cards RCCL and others, rccl also used to give you a small box of chocolates on Thanksgiving

Discontinued items on cruise lines:

Thin Passengers - 1995

Well Dressed Passengers - 1998

Well Behaved Passengers - -1999

This one cracked me up......lol!:p

Reading this 14 page thread brought back some memories.

Our first cruise was in 1971 on our honeymoon on the Home Lines Oceanic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Oceanic_%281965%29

I was able to order 6 shrimp cocktails for both lunch and dinner with 5 large shrimp. After the first day I no longer had to ask for them. The waiter just lined them up in front of me. Lobster and prime rib was served during a 7 day cruise The midnight buffet was huge with very impressive ice carvings just outside the buffet. The pool had a sliding glass enclosure that closed if it began to rain and reopened after the shower had passed.

If you put your shoes outside your cabin door at night they were shined when you woke up.

We had a nice Bon Voyage party on board for a few friends.

Princess still places chocolates on the bed in the evening.

The hallways were compartments that you had to step over and also step over to enter the cabin.

On our last 5 day cruise to Mexico on the Caribbean Princess last December we were upgraded to a mini suite that gave us fresh fruit, chocolate covered strawberries and Hors d'oeuvres brought to our suite daily.

Now that is the way to go.

On the negative there is no more lobster, the shrimp cocktail are so small you can barely see them and there is no freshly squeezed orange juice.

Howard

We still get shrimp cocktail every night with 5 shrimp plus shrimp as an entrée, still have lobster and prime rib on 1st formal night however Costa served crab legs instead of lobster. Always get chocolate on our pillows each night.

Do miss the midnight buffets though.

Cruising is still fun but after reading these posts, the cruise lines have made so many things go away. Cruising use to be for the few, now it is for the many!

Suite Traveler,

Yes, I remember those gold globes with the diamonds! As well as sterling Sulver, there were gold charms of the ships, all to scale. When they supposed selling them, I found the company name on the box, found them online, then ordered a few that they carried,but not the new ships. For instance, the Sitmar Lineship that eventually became HAL Prinsendam. Alas, due to lack of demand, they went out of business.

Cruising is still fun but after reading these posts, the cruise lines have made so many things go away. Cruising use to be for the few, now it is for the many!

Good point, when I started cruising cost was about a months pay for a week cruise for me at least. WE have a suite for 1600 for the week inside rooms are about same as 30 years ago

Agree with George. First cruise HAL, 7 day round trip Vancouver to alaska end part of May. Big promo price was 999 plus taxes. This was 1993. 22 years later it is less than that regularly. Has anybody remembered the waiter sweeping the crumbs off your table with a little whisk into a small silver tray between courses?

It was a more elegant time, but these niceties have left many areas of our lives.

Things change, and cursing still providesexceptioalvalue inmy books l

Remember the elevator men in stores who called out the merchandise found on each floor?!!( no,not on the ships

To Homelover,

I remember the golden globes on HAL and have one, and two pairs of earrings. The way I remember it, is they never came with diamonds, but you could have a diamond or colored gemstone put onto your globe showing where you have been. They are still available on the longer cruises. They had them available on the Transatlantic cruise I took last year from Venice to Ft. Lauderdale.

Best regards,

Hooked on Travel