mistertomatohead

Huh? What does this even mean? It's literally in the name. I'm new to cruising and I like hearing about these issues especially after the shutdown because everything seems to be different. The experience seems very different. The cruise lines seem to treat their guests very differently. I'll leave it at that. People can decide if it's better or worse. I also don't buy the they all do it argument. Some do it better. It's all in the details. Personally, if a cruise line did this to me I'd be pretty mad. I'd give another cruise line my business (and the chance to do the same to me again.) But that's how it goes these days.

Is that confirmed? Sounds like a rumor at this point. People have medical issues on cruises all the time.

Mexico is not dangerous?!? Any place can be dangerous. It depends where you go, when, what you're doing, who you're with, luck, etc. Most tourist areas are relatively safe. Most of the time you are there during the day with lots of other tourists. They protect those tourist areas with armed security or paramilitary police if necessary. You have to be aware of your surroundings everywhere and use common sense. For example, don't be alone, drunk, in some sketchy place late at night buying "adult candy" or "party favors." For what it's worth, I have an NCL cruise coming next week that goes to Ensenada, Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, and Mazatlán. It's proceeding as planned. I've been on a couple of cruises to Mexico while there were bad "news" reported. The cruise lines did not change their plans or even referenced the danger. It doesn't mean something bad can happen but personally I never worried. That's just me of course. Someone mentioned France, have you been watching the news? Avoid those particular areas. Haha.

Is it just a cleaning or do they set the room for sleeping? You know, turn down service. Chocolates, night light and set up the bunk/sofa beds. Or has this never been a Royal thing? EDIT: sounds like they will still do this. Then the question is do you want to make them visit you twice if you need the sleep setup? Then there's the tipping for this if they do visit twice since it's not the norm but then the number of the people in the cabin is already figured into the gratuities. Oh whatever, I'll just go with the flow. Do whatever you want Royal!

If the rules allow it, do you need a parent's permission? I'm guessing no. Can a parent not allow it? Seems pretty hard to enforce. I guess if there's a concern, they shouldn't be on that cruise. They could make everyone from 18-20 wear bracelets. One color for drinker, one for non-drinker. Keycard indicates if you're 18-20 so servers know to check the bracelet. Sounds complicated but it doesn't seem like OP chimed in on the responses. They specifically mentioned parent's permission. Maybe they're under 21..heh. On another note, everything's fine until someone is clearly drunk. What then? Oh, they're just seasick.

It’s not just Covid. I got the cough whatever thing going around in December and now I’m good for 30 total cruise days after that. I guess I’ve built up some immunity. I saw people wearing masks on those cruises. I’m not sure if they’re sick or trying not to get sick. Doesn’t really matter at this point.

They do not ask for proof at the time of the sailing so it’s the honor system for this part. Yes, you can buy and just sell immediately but that isn’t the point of this benefit. They want you to be a long term investor.

The real question is can you share or just give away the lobster? This is a good reason to eat with strangers.

They gave me a receipt most of the time to sign even if it showed everything zeroed out so I could've added extra tip there. I went to Chops so much they stopped giving me a receipt later in the cruise. I had to ask for one to give them something extra at the end. As for if extra is added automatically it isn't. Like the beverage package, people will drink or eat less or more than the amount paid in the package. It's up to you to keep up with your amount if you want. There was no way I covered the tips on the $1000 I calculated I ate on my $250 UDP. With drinks, especially on NCL with their overpriced drink package I end up pre-paying more on tips than I actually drink. I suppose you can say the same for the MDR if you ordered multiple entrees or how messy you made your room. What if you kept your room really clean and housekeeping actually didn't need to service you some days? How about if you went to the buffet, MDR, and specialty restaurants for dinner? It's all up to you in the end.

Does it matter? They run your card each time, right? Or do they sometimes get lazy and just give you a water or coke without putting the card through the system? Sometimes they might do that because they know you have the package so it might be hard to tell what's happening.

Is there a (big) price difference between all included and buying separately for just one person, especially when adding the soda package? Classic is $106.8/day per person, Zero Proof (soda, premium bottle water, coffees, Red Bull, Soda, etc.) is $36/day per person. Maybe they have sales? You can also just bring two wine bottles* and a 12 pack of soda and pay for extra drinks as you go. Then again, I sense the other person is drinking a lot themselves or perhaps for two. (And I'm not talking about a phantom baby.) *contents unknown Seems like they are doing what they can to make the decision easy for people and at the same time upsale you to "All Included."

Try it at home first with your WIFI (not your mobile cellular since your carrier might be blocking it). It should rule out Royal doing something on their network specifically to block it.

@IGRWhich ship exactly? I've never done it on Royal. I've only been on Navigator but I've avoided needing Internet so far. I have cruises coming up on the NCL Gem and Carnival Miracle which I will have Internet so I'll be sharing the connection again assuming it works the same way.

Why do you say no? I've done this on Celebrity, NCL, and Carnival ships. My Samsung phone connects to WIFI and has the ability to be a hotspot through bluetooth which my iPad uses to connect to the Internet.

I can't tell the difference so I'm the wrong person to say. The picture of the Royal menu in the other thread indicates Maine lobster... I can't remember seeing that on the Celebrity menu but that's just me not paying attention.

NCL did it to me while in Los Angeles. It wasn't the amount but the surprise and inconsistent way they did it that annoyed me. They had some signs up but it was on the other side of the first bar I visited and the bartender didn't say anything. But they didn't actually charge me tax on the drinks for that bar and the restaurant. I went to the pool deck and saw the sign and they did charge me up there. What the heck? Does that mean they could just pay the tax themselves and not pass it on to the guests? There's no way they are getting away with not paying the tax to the government. Maybe it's just NCL since they seem to find every way to annoy me. Especially with making things not so "Free at Sea". Does Royal/Celebrity do it in LA? It didn't happen to me in Miami on Celebrity. The Texas/NY thing sounds like a different deal. The NCL bartender/server mentioned Alaska does something too. Or maybe it was Seattle.

You’ve still got plenty of time. I booked a Celebrity cruise a few days before sailing and was getting worried. I was on the ship with a copy of the stock statement and visited guest services. They had to contact the shoreside team. The next day, I got the OBC. I received the email and a notice outside my cabin. This was only my second Celebrity Cruise. I got it pretty quickly for the first one in December which was submitted online with a statement screenshot (JPG) of just the page with the holdings.

Is it even considered tips or do they just bake it into the wage like I'm assuming a daily service charge? Your cabin steward who is very new but works much harder than the person that has seniority. What is their share? What do they do with cash? Report it for taxes? Are they forced to put it into the tip pool? I say if you want to go through the hassle just take it out and control your tipping and use cash. By the way, trying to figure out what the share is for each crew member is pointless. There are so many unknowns. Not every ship is full and I can't imagine all crew members getting the tips. Are the officers included? How about entertainers and their support people? The doctor? I would just take the amount they want to take from you and just distribute at least that much by the end of the cruise. Someone will probably point out that it makes you seem like you're tipping a lot extra so you get better service since the vast majority will not take out the default gratuities. On Celebrity which I'm assuming is the same, when I went to use OBC to tip my cabin steward extra there was a form and one additional group they showed was housekeeping. These are the folks who clean the ship. Maybe also the laundry people? Those that wash the towels and sheets. There are plenty more people who might be excluded. What about the tender captain/driver? The people helping at ports of calls? Excursion desk people? Anyone tip the captain lately? It'll be very hard to tip them individually. They've set up a system that makes it hard to do your own tipping fairly unless you're just tipping extra. Personally, I wouldn't rock the boat.

I was on the Celebrity Solstice last week. The menu had the $16.99 extra charge for the additional lobster tail dish. I didn't go for it but I asked if it was the same as the first dish. It's the same dish with the same small lobster tail. $16.99?!?! I should've eaten more when I had the chance when it was included. I guess people will go for it if they have OBC to burn. I'm assuming it's the same for Royal. Anyways, so I had three entrees (lobster tail, duck, and lamb). $16.99x3 = $50.97! That's not including the two appetizers and one dessert. I won't go into how many entrees I got the other nights.

I just retyped one digit so the Save button shows and clicked the button. Now I'm reminded I'm 24 nights of solo cruising from Diamond.

Just got off it. Everything looked fairly new (i.e. not worn out). I was in an interior on deck 9 and everything looked updated. I'm pretty sure the whole ship's been through a renovation. It does have Starlink Internet now but to fully utilize it the older internal network equipment needs to be updated. I'm not sure when but that probably needs drydock. I never tried the Internet myself so I don't know what the experience is currently. There are only a few nitpicky things like the only plugs I found were far from the bed. The movable table and bedside pieces look worn like they didn't replace them in the renovation. The TV look longer than usual to load. By the way, I'm told this ship was supposed to be in Asia so sail on it from L.A. while you can because it won't be in L.A. much longer nor will it return. The fares are super cheap right now. This past week it was only about 1000 people on the ship so 1:1 ratio with the crew. It's a real bargain. I did a solo trip and I called in to get a cheaper guarantee inside cabin. I still had to pay for two people but it was still much cheaper than booking on the website. The cheaper guarantee cabin is not available on the website for solo but it allowed me to get the $200 OBC. If you book those last minute ("exciting rate") you lose out on the OBC but the rates are really cheap too.

On the Celebrity side, I thought I got it added by calling after booking on the website myself in July but the cruise I booked this month they wouldn't add the $125 OBC. Nothing about it only applying once a year. They just said it had to be a casino booking. After trying with different people I just gave up. I'm guessing booking through the casino is the best chance at getting it.

For NCL, it's a Daily Service Charge so they don't even try to pretend it's gratuities or tips. Translation, they can do with it as they seem fit. How's it being distributed? Is it really extra for the crew or is it baked in to the base pay? Don't know. Does the crew care? Probably not. They're happy to be working. (Although, if they work on multiple cruise lines they'll find which ones are best for them.) They also don't allow your non-refundable credit to be used for it. Their base alcohol drink package is super high and they make you pay gratuities on the full price. (Royal does this but at least the package isn't super expensive but it's probably creeping up. Follow the leader I guess.) Get just one drink on a day, you still paid gratuities on the full package price. Their free at sea is misleading. They have a sail away rate that's less than the base price for free at sea. And that's not including all the gratuities on the drink and dining you see at the end of checkout. I just gave up and don't tip EXTRA on NCL. I only sail with them because I get a good bottom line price for a solo cruiser with the drinks package and $50 excursion credit per port. I don't drink a lot but all things being equal (they aren't) it still works out better with all the extra discounts (solo cruisers, Amex offers, CruiseFirst, Shareholder credit, Caesars Diamond 20% off). There's a ton of sales/marketing engineering going on. I find a lot of hidden and confusing things. I don't find it as shady on the Royal side. I sail Royal if I can get a good deal. Obviously all the cruise lines make it hard to compare since they offer so many different things you can't directly compare. Some things are worth the extra money. One last thing, NCL is clear they never lowered prices during the pandemic. They have directly said this publicly a couple of times because they want their shareholders to hear it. Customers don't like to hear it but NCL seems to think everything's working out for them and they're making the most money possible. I'm just trying to get the best deal possible while trying to limit the surprises. Royal is much more straight forward to me.

I got spend $500 get 17500 points last night. Expires 3/31. Now if only I can find a cruise with no single supplement.

I'll echo what was already mentioned. The ship clocks sometimes don't get updated and the app doesn't display the correct time. On my Samsung phone, I change the time and the app reflects the updated time even if it's wrong! Also, don't make the mistake I did last time when going forward one hour shortly before midnight. I didn't realize it starts the day over! My apps started to act weird. Make sure the day is correct when manually adjusting your phone's time.