monkey_wants_banana

Wow. I thought it was happening because I look scammable.

It's just nature of any place that has lots of tourists. Don't feel bad! Although I do look like an easy victim myself as well...

I used to taxi a lot in Las Vegas, and I've had quite a few bad taxi experiences. To clarify some things:

1) You don't need to tip taxi drivers.

They get a percentage of the fare, somewhere between 40-70% of it. It makes no sense to tip them for a service they are supposed to provide (getting you there safely). IF you wish to tip, so be it. But if you are getting ripped off, don't.

2) Taxi drivers will attempt to long haul you.

A lot of taxi drivers ask how are you, where you are from, etc. Most of the time they are not interested in where you are actually from, they are doing it for 1 of 2 reasons - to get a better tip, and to find out if you know the area. IF you don't know the area, they may attempt to longhaul you, which is a term for taking the longer routes to get to a simple destination. Taking "short cuts" or "conventions in town" are common excuses. Simple solution: tell them to take you the shortest distance route, or GPS your phone and give them directions.

3) If they longhaul or bs you

In Vegas, you can take a picture of their license and state you will report them to the Nevada Taxicab Authority as well as call the cops. You can pick up your phone and tell them you will wait until the cops arrive, and take a picture of the meter as well. I have done this on 3 occasions before, as well as it escalate close to that point over 10 times, and every single time they either offered me a reduced rate and once a guy said I could go for free and drove off.

Since Florida doesn't have a NTA, just tell them you are going to call the cops.

A little background on why taxi drivers do this:

They arrive in the morning, and let's say 50 drivers get a shift. They are given a somewhat average or quota they have to meet, and those 50 drivers that meet it and bring in $ to the company get the shifts. The ones that don't, are given the day off. That is why taxi drivers longhaul/scam. It's a pity really, because they can make so much more providing stellar service and getting 2-3 big tips in the day from people who truly appreciate it. But it's a vicious cycle.

DJ is a Princeton/marketing genius (don't tell him I said so:p) and I will only be able to pry his phone out of his cold, dead hands - he will answer texts and emails any time that he's awake, and it would not suprise me if Adam did the same. Not all advances in technology are for the better. I have emailed Adam twice - once I received an email that I am certain was from him, and the other time I received a call from a corporate person who was careful not to say that he had forwarded it to her.

I'm curious, how were you certain the e-mail was from him? Now it has me thinking that this e-mail may have been from him.

Also, I just checked my phone and got a call from someone thanking me for the e-mail (don't want to leave the name here, but if you PM me I will give you # and her name) and she admitted she is one of four representatives who respond on his behalf. Again, everything from my personal experience is

1) letters as complaints don't matter as much as complaining at the moment/on the ship/at the event (so criticizing format is sort of irrelev)

2) that if he has an entire team, its more likely he is not seeing any of the e-mails.

I could be wrong as some people are coming forth saying "they know" - but again I'd like to know what evidence there is.

I sent AGoldstein an e-mail today as this thread touched on that topic, and sure enough, I received a reply that was personalized to me in 2 lines.

I have a 1% belief that he actually read my e-mail/responded to it for two reasons:

1) He in no way describes in any detail any of the content the video link I sent him (which he mentioned as a "nice video"). This is a classic sign of a PR/customer service rep who reads e-mails and responds to them as fast as possible.

2) He responded at 5:56 PM. Normally, that wouldn't be a huge issue but this means if this e-mail was vetted and sent to him, he looked at it at 8:56 PM since he resides in Miami-Dade.

Assuming we all accept that e-mails are filtered and sorted, and ones of importance are actually sent to Adam, this leaves room for 3 explanations:

option a - Adam burns the candle at both ends, doesn't spend his off hours with his family and instead looks to answer e-mails during his on and off hours instead of worrying about multi million dollar decisions.

option b - He actually answered ryano's e-mail, and mine was selectively answered by a PR/customer service rep

option c - A PR/customer service rep always answers all of them

a is not really logical for a Princeton/marketing genius who would be efficient, b seems very complicated with far too many variables for sorting, whilst c presents the most likely answer for myself.

If people still want to believe Adam answers some e-mails personally after knowing this, that's fine. But if you want results, I urge others to address them while they occur on the ship.

One of the most well known posters here actually commented on his e-mails before: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=15700487&postcount=4

Sound familiar?

As I stated in my previous post, I'm not trying to offend people, just stating from first hand experience and what I seen - but to my knowledge CEOs don't read your emails. Yes there may be a CEO here or there of smaller companies that do, but anyone in a multi billion dollar company such as Royal really does not possess the time to read these e-mails. Can you imagine how many thank yous or complaints they get a day?

I've knew a person in the industry who was on the board of one of these huge companies, and she expressed extreme surprise when I stated I got in touch with so and so CEO. She explained that the person's email is not posted anywhere online (their real one). Then I forwarded the email and she explained it's a PR canned response, and someone else handles it.

I would wager that Adam is not even very cognizant of the things even posted on his blog, just as like the President of the United States isn't really aware of the 20 minute speeches he gives (just knows the bullet points). These are all crafted by other people, because that is their job. They get paid for it.

As someone who works in a similar industry as Royal, I'd like to offer feedback to anyone having the same issues. This view is my thoughts from the purely business side, not cruise side. I have no clue what cruises used to offer and how nice they were 20 years ago. I am not trying to offend anyone with my views.

1) CruizAddct's letter is fine. She wrote how she felt, and that is important. Although I agree with others, I would work in the future to excise some of the personal stuff and stay to the facts (dates/times/examples) as a lot of what is stated is fluff, most of that is just personal taste. In the end, it doesn't matter as the 2nd point describes.

2) Their response is copy-paste. Many, many cruisers and people do not like hearing this, but it's very likely true. I seen our department deal with these letters and they literally have paragraphs and paragraphs of responses they paste out. There is very little chance a company as big as Royal would hand type any of these letters out. In fact, in the past I actually created one of the templates that one of these big companies use that they send out.

Solution: you must complain while on the cruise. Go to Guest Relations if need be. That is the only way they can rectify your problems.

3) Raising the prices. This is my biggest problem.

Although raising prices to suit your wants sounds good in theory, but Royal will lose tens of millions, if not hundreds. They have several financial analysts going over the numbers, and raising the prices $100 pp to an already escalating and competitive market, while trying to expand, is very damaging for Royal. The fact is these decisions are made by the numbers. They don't arbitrarily keep prices low and gouge amenities to maximize profits, they maximize profits by staying competitive within their field. Royal makes over 500 million net profit a year, are rebounding from a horrible previous year (dip +16% to -20% in stock price), and adding another possible loss of $100 million to implement the costs some are suggesting to appease them - is just absurd.

I'm sure Royal would love to do all the things you mentioned - have a wider selection of food, towel animals every night, refurbished and updated rooms. The simple fact is they can't.

There is a reason these companies branch off with subsidiaries such as Celebrity and such - it's to cater to other audiences. Hilton does the same.

Solution: Book Celebrity

I really hope that anyone who has issues realizes in the future decides to take up when they have them. People on the other side really can't do anything, our hands are tied!

thanks for all the useful advice here! Love it

u guys are all some rich people

solution: give me the difference. I will go on the ship and serve as your personal slave hand. I will feed you only the finest California grapes from Napa, and pour wine down your gullet from a silver goblet.

The rating part will come at the end of the review, I will post it here before I post it on my site. I haven't even wrote it yet, although I am very sure of what the outcome will be in the end. They are two complete different products, and it is hard to compare them side to side. But it is fair to say that as an overall product I prefer the Disney.

This makes you an even worse person.

I still have yet to book a cruise on Allure, and it looks like Disney will follow shortly thereafter.

How do you expect me to pay for this when I spend all my time sitting at home living vicariously through your posts :D?

Gambee, first off, you are a horrible person.

I am supposed to be doing other things but cannot as I am simply obsessed with your review and pictures. Damn you.

Secondly, how would you rate Disney vs Allure for adults/couples? I been waiting patiently on your website for you to release a breakdown but you haven't yet, and am trying to decide whether to go Allure or Dream.

bump.

this thread has so much useful info.

I really wish scubagirrl or someone who has been to these places could rate them in terms of environment for: family, couple, adults.

I saw one of the offsite parking places as $8 a day (not sure if you walk or need a shuttle to get there), was the place you went to more?

thanks for the quick reply,

 

I'm not interested in the water park in atlantis, Do i still need to go get the day pass?

I just want to walk around check out some building and check out the shop and hit the casino for a bit. Will come back for the water park again!!

In the past apparently you could, or even tip a security guard. According the the boards, seems now they started to crack down on it so I doubt you could walk around on Atlantis property unless you bought some sort of pass.

1. Tour the Atlantis, any suggestion on who i should get the day pass with beside Carnival? Or is it even possible?

 

How long would it take? Will we have enough time to do anything else?

 

2. Would like to find a good bench and snorkeling, where should we do that? Freeport or Nassau? Any tour suggestion??

 

3. Where can i rent jet ski?

 

3. Where can we find some good fresh seafood to eat??

 

thanks

1. Don't book through the company, they overcharge you. Either get it at Atlantis or Comfort Inn Suites at Paradise Island(book a room, you get up to 4 day passes and it's cheaper generally).

2. No clue, heard Nassau has rough waters later in the day which makes it dangerous.

3. Do not rent Jet Skis as Nassau as they aren't kept up to safety standards. Not sure about Freeport.

4. Any place on Nassau/Freeport should have good conch food.

your video is absolutely breathtaking. It went by far too fast - a characteristic that is reserved for great film editing.

You have encouraged me to create a vacation video :)

ksawyercruiser I just wanted to say a big thank you for your review of Enchantment. My gf of 5 years and I are sailing with another couple, and aided by your review, we feel a lot more prepared to get the most out of our cruise.

Chops, park cafe, breakfast in bed, here we come!