karl_nj

Doesn't NCL already have some ships where the ropes course goes over the end of the ship?

I prefer the lot over the garage actually. Easier than waiting for the elevators to bring luggage up, or trying to drive down to the loading area (and waiting for a spot to open)

OK, but like I said, we don't know how much of the discretionary service fee goes towards meeting the min salary. Employers have used similar policies in the US for tipped positions.

We don't know what the base salary is, or how much of these 'tips' are 'included' as part of their salary. And they do need to pay for internet and alcohol (but at a discount).

In the past the app hasn't really been good for predicting this sort of thing. Just like when a ship alternates between, say, 5 and 9 day cruises, the dinner menus can be messed up if "this cruise" doesn't match the number of days of the cruise you will be going on. At least in the past, some parts of the app can really only publish information for the current cruise, and it can cause confusion when looking at your future cruise in the app.

Yeah, it really depends on the specific sailing and the exact point in time you are booking the cruise. You really just need to price out all your options at the time, and see what works best. Seems like RCL does dynamic pricing based on the cabin category. And Royal changes around the categories all the time (that is why you will see multiple versions of deck plans for specific time periods). If a particular sailing has sold mostly Quad Occupancy cabins compared to Doubles, then the price of those will be higher. If they haven't sold many Quad cabins, then they price would be lower. Same thing with Connecting cabins (if you are booking at a time period where Connecting is a different category) I've been sailing a lot when kids are out of school, so cabins for 4 tend to get booked up quickly, raising the price. I recall a time when I needed one cabin for 2 (for my wife and I) and one cabin for 3 (for my mom, son and daughter). My cabin had an amazing group rate price, the other cabin was at prevailing rates. My daughter, booked as a 3rd person, had a more expensive fare then I did. Was wild.

For a family of 4, with one kid below 12 and one kid above 12 it could potentially be cheaper to book 2 double occupancy rooms instead of one quad occupancy room. Especially if the travel agency has group space.

Well, they have also "moved the goalposts" in the past, but they have done it along with a bigger change around the criteria. Such as when they moved from getting Diamond after 10 cruises, to getting it after 80 points. So they went from people needing to take 12 seven night cruises to hit diamond, instead of 10. But they also closed a "loophole" where you could hit diamond after 5 three night cruises in a suite. I guess it's possible that they make bigger changes to the program, perhaps to also include spend as a criteria. But to avoid blowback, they would need to make the change complicated, so it isn't very apparent the goalposts were moved.

Wasn't that the same exact excuse they used to kick Diamond+ out of the Concierge Lounge for like every single sailing?

Well, you take advantage of the program change to make hitting levels more difficult in the future…. At one point diamond was 10 cruises.

Royal already had that, and then they replaced it with the vouchers. So if they do head in that direction, it would be less then copying celebrity, and more of a rollback to an earlier Royal policy (but perhaps related to trying to match benefits across lines, as mentioned in the cc webinar)

Yeah, no access changes for now. We'll see what happens next year. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Remember this from a few months ago? Could be phase 1 of the solution to this 'problem'

Yeah, that's what it sounds like to me too. I bet I'll lose access as a lowly diamond C&A member sometime in 2024...

NCL has Vibe at an extra cost, but they also have Spice H20 for free, no?