tonyfsu21

I agree. My post on page one of this thread reflects just that. The additional tipping should be at the discretion of the individual and not dictated by the opinion of a random person on this thread. If you ask the question though, you are going to get a range of answers that you may not agree with and that’s fine.

I believe there are still generous people out there (especially on vacation). What is the point of spewing BS to a bunch of random people on a forum like this? Also what does “tip hundreds of dollars” mean (like at once or over a 7 day period)? I guess I am in the 10% of people that will “tip hundreds of dollars” over a 7 day cruise and I am not full of BS. These crew members work very hard and I don’t mind tipping well at all.

I always hoped when I hand a cash tip discreetly to the cabin steward that they just put the money in their pocket. I would actually be pissed if they ended up pooling the money. I can understand the waitstaff with the envelopes on the last night but a discreet cash tip in passing through the hallway should go direct to the steward IMHO.

This was deck 10 from what I remember.

You might be surprised. You should see the volume of crew members who overtake 17th street in Fort Lauderdale every single weekend. They are in Publix, the dollar store and anywhere else they can find a western union to wire money back to their home country. I don’t think it’s a matter of weeks but probably more like days. There’s an entire business model set up in East Fort Lauderdale to transport crew members from the port to various shopping plazas on 17th street.

Liberty is great and the aft views are certainly not deck 17 but they are pretty ok. The ship is showing her age but the crew happened to be better than we expected. NYE was insanity!

Bring back the midnight buffet!!!! The demographic has shifted to cruisers who would actually go to a midnight buffet or possibly pay for one to have another late night option that isn’t pizza.

Yes, it’s really great! We are heading out on this voyage but it’s not “southern Caribbean”. This voyage is Holiday Eastern Caribbean.

We bring a small suitcase full of snacks that the kids like. Never have had the slightest issue. We don’t take them back off the ship into port though.

We need to knock these out one by one. First the hogs and then the folks that don’t know how to use an elevator!

Still a great value! Inflation tightening its grip.

Yes, that has been my experience connecting through ATL. It’s always something, either no pilot available or we are held on the ground at FLL until weather passes exc. A 30 minute gap has not been good enough.

How about they add $5/pp to all speciality dining venues, up the drink package by 25%, add 10% to all alcohol, coffee and soft drink and call it a day? Double the cost of the Starbucks and watch the line disappear. Forget about charging for the pizza or the hotdogs or extorting people for a grossly undersized rock lobster tail. There are plenty of ways to increase the bottom line and personally I don’t care what they charge for alcohol and food, people will pay! The bottom line here is that regardless of where this company decides to extort more money from customers it’s going to piss one portion of the customer base off and another just won’t give a crap. It’s a delicate dance and there will be people up in arms.

I would pay for food delivery for sure. When you have younger kids at the pool it would be much easier to pay to have a decent pizza delivered direct to a lounge chair. I would pay double for Starbucks delivery. There are so many untapped revenue streams that RC needs to jump on w/o having any impact to the free offerings. I also really would like to resolve the chair hog issue once and for all. Forget about charging for pizza, how does RC keep the hogs from taking every chair on the deck?

Hopefully you can fly direct. I have connected through ATL a few times in the past couple months and have been heavily delayed or cancelled each time. Maybe it’s just bad luck but I wouldn’t take any chances before a vacation.

Even though PizzaGate 2023 is officially over, I think you are on to something re: get rid of the antipasti. This place should be devoted to pizza and only pizza! All useable real estate on Sorrentos display counters should have pizza. That place is a pizza making machine and there’s no room to clog up this operation with other offerings which should be housed at cafe promenade or the windjammer.

I would consider booking a flight at any point after noon for both ports. This is certainly conservative but it allows for contingency in the case of issues with customs, transportation exc. As for pre cruise, come in the day before because of the mess that is current air travel (hopefully you NEVER have to connect through ATL or connect at all for that matter).

Comparing American pizza to Italian pizza = apples to oranges. Personally I prefer American NY style pizza to the “pizza” they serve in Naples. Sorrentos is a low rent take on a NY style pizza and it’s decent for a cruise but on land it could be compared to Dominos.

This has morphed into Pizzagate! By 1/1/24 the lines at Sorrentos will be very short. I wish the company focused efforts on mitigating the chair hog issue which is an actual issue and could be turned into a profitable chair reservation system for revenue.

I wouldn’t pay for the crappy pizza but I could see paying for the return of the midnight buffet! I could actually logic this fee especially if they resurrected the chocolate fountain and the elaborate ice sculptures.

It’s all about timing and you are unfortunately late to the game. I managed to book Icon for 2 holiday sailings next year and the price wasn’t too bad for a new ship. I repriced the categories we booked and they have more then doubled in price which is crazy.

Freedom is awesome!!! I wouldn’t hesitate to book a 7 day voyage on that ship. The crew is great and there are plenty of dining and activity options after the AMP. We sailing her again in a couple weeks.

It’s easy. The port will have vans running continuous from the parking garages to the terminal and they are frequent. Last time the lot was full I thought we were in for a hassle but it ends up being about a 10-15 minute delay in plans with a 5 minute drive in the van.

Unless you have an Earth Roamer, you shouldn’t worry about this at all. The large bus(s) used to transport guests and their luggage fit just fine.

Just pick your poison, they are all pretty much the same. There’s plenty of nickel & dime price gouges at these “all inclusive resorts”. I’ve been to 3 of the 8 you mentioned above and they were really bad to the point where we axed them as a vacation option.