ExArkie

Except, at that time, Texarkana was in a dry county. Don’t know if it still is.

Would I be correct in assuming that the same conditions would apply for gratuities included with the HIA Early Booking Bonus? We booked a transpacific trip on Noordam for April 2025 under Early Booking. The confirmation shows an inclusion for “Pre-Paid Crew Appreciation Promo HIA,” which appears to be essentially the same wording as for those who use actual money to prepay. It seems logical to assume it would work the same way, i.e., charges applied daily with a credit for the prepayment…always assuming that it really does work that way. However, in dealing with most businesses, I find “logic” to be a poor indicator of how things actually are handled.

I received an invitation to participate in the survey, even though we have only one sailing on HAL nine years ago. We do have a transpacific trip booked for next year, so maybe they thought we’d be interested in longer voyages. We really have no interest in a four-month world cruise, and indicated such in their question at the beginning of the survey. Essentially, the survey response was, “Noted that you don’t want a world cruise, but we’d like your opinion anyway.” I found their proposed itineraries interesting, and, though there did seem to be a tendency to include the “usual” ports, there were several uncommon stops included. I liked that there were several overnights in ports on each proposed itinerary. The only itinerary I really objected to was the eastbound trip. To me, the time changes are more problematic when moving the clocks forward, i.e., 23-hour days going east as compared to 25-hour days going west.

The actual amount of outside deck real estate set aside for Grills on Cunard is fairly small compared to Celebrity, although it may be more significant on their upcoming new ship. None of the excluded areas prohibit non-Grills passengers from having substantially the same experience, e.g., the Grills deck on Queen Mary 2 is aft on deck 11. General passenger aft space is open on decks 12, 8, 7, 6, and 5. I found NCL Haven to be much more of a “class system” than Cunard, with Celebrity falling somewhere between the two.

We met friends in Bournemouth for a few days before our December 2022 westbound TA. Lovely beach, but for some strange reason very few people on it during the dead of winter with gray overcast skies.

I was speculating (to myself, so perhaps “musing” is a better word) as to whether it would be a bigger PR problem to first raise the drink prices and follow later with an increase to the package limit, or raise the limit followed by drink price increases. The former gives way to the relatively mild complaints as per this thread. The latter would make one feel they were getting a better deal, only to have that advantage disappear later. Neither seems to be a better approach. The actual better approach would be to raise both at the same time. However, that would require a bit of planning and logistics, particularly making sure everything happened together. Probably too difficult to accomplish. I mean, it isn’t like HAL routinely restocks cruise ship supplies in eight hours for a few thousand passengers, which seems infinitely more difficult logistically. Oh, wait…

What I was told (by one of the Mondavis, not that it adds credibility to the story) was that Bob Mondavi aged his sauvignon blanc in oak to give it a different flavor profile and wanted to differentiate it from the more standard stainless steel handling. Hence, the name fume blanc to convey a “smoky” character from the oak. ”Fume blanc” was originally a style, but now others use oak on their sauvignon blanc and still call it sauvignon blanc. Probably not as useful a designation as it was on my first trip to Napa in the early 1980s.

The same plastic is used in mouthwash bottles - and salad dressing bottles, and many others. The plastic water bottle ban, which ignores other bottles made of the same material, is probably just targeting the largest category of bottles brought on board. Certainly, there is nothing more (or less) environmentally detrimental in the material of manufacture.

I have received a few scattered messages from Cunard (or marketing groups acting on their behalf) that seem to imply they think I live in the UK rather than the US. Nothing consistent, a ratio of probably one out of seven or eight, but it suggests a field in their database that’s not checked prior to sending out a notice. Of course, that beats the airline KLM who are persistent and consistent in their assumption I live in Belgium, probably because one time about 16 years ago, I had to book a short-notice trip from Brussels to Shanghai (long story), regardless of the fact they have my actual address in their database.

Twice. That is out of 10 Cunard trips. One was not a huge difference, but enough to take it instead of booking direct. The other was pretty significant, PG for the same price Cunard was selling ocean view. I spent about 20 minutes with the travel agent just to verify that one. I have also booked a couple of trips directly with Cunard, then transferred the booking to my credit card affiliated travel agent. They did not offer a lower price, but added some OBC for the same price as Cunard offered on the cabin.

So I take it you are suggesting multivariate nonparametric statistics? I used a spreadsheet to compare prices with/without early booking, using values for only those items I would derive benefits from or pro-rating the value as to perceived value on that trip. For example, we booked a transpacific with only four (or five? I’d have to check) port days. Excursion credits are limited value to me on that trip, particularly since we have been to two of the ports before and one port I would want to do on my own rather than an excursion. Bottom line was that, with the combination of my assigned values and the actual costs, the early booking bonus was around $200 per person benefit to us. Take away the gratuities from the early booking package, and it would go the other way.

There is a Cruise Critic article on which ships have butlers (short version: lots of them). https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles/which-cruise-ships-have-butlers They seem to have omitted Seabourn from their list. Maybe some others, too, but that was the one that I noticed immediately because we have been on Seabourn. I have never found butlers to be a selling point. Very little of what they do are things that I cannot do easily myself or ask the concierge/customer service to do. This year, we were in a suite on NCL and the butler mostly seemed to want to ingratiate himself to us (being overly friendly, for one thing) in order to garner a larger tip.

Thanks for the clue. I looked at QE current itinerary, brought up the webcam for her position in New Plymouth, NZ, and saw the same photo. It was not one of our stops on our weeks-long land tour around New Zealand a few years ago.

Actually, I have. Was connected in St Louis on Ozark Air heading home (at the time) to Little Rock when the airline went under and abruptly ceased all service. Fortunately, TWA honored the ticket and got me home. Sorry for the digression. As to the topic at hand, I don't begrudge any business from trying to alleviate its debt burden, but if they are going to make changes such as increasing drink prices so they are no longer covered by your package, it should be done in an organized and controlled manner, e.g., everything updates together - particularly if an increase in the package limits is also coming - and only take effect at the beginning of the cruise. It would also be nice to publish actual prices, too.

I was thinking the opposite side of the world: Milford Sound, South Island of New Zealand

From the Merriam-Webster definition of critic: "one who expresses a reasoned opinion on any matter especially involving a judgment of its value, truth, righteousness, beauty, or technique"

I am with you. “Spring water” is groundwater that pumps itself out to the surface, as opposed to our using mechanical devices to bring it to the surface. Certain contaminants are more likely to be found in spring water via runoff and certain other contaminants are likely to be found in groundwater via infiltration. Either one needs to be filtered and sterilized before consuming. The only advantage I have seen to spring water is the spring on my grandfather’s property when I was a child. The water in it was remarkably cold, so it served as an excellent refrigeration unit for a watermelon. As for allergic reactions, there is an extremely rare condition called aquagenic urticaria that results in a histamine release when one is exposed to water. It occurs with treated or untreated water, so not specific to purified water. It is possible one could be overly sensitive to chlorine or chloramines and have a reaction to the water sanitization process. That would make one more sensitive to the nonpurified water.

Several years ago on a different line, we were the ones caught in the middle. Drink prices went up and, somewhat later, the beverage package limits went up (it was included with our booking). Unfortunately, our trip fell between the two dates, so we had the new higher prices, but the old lower limit. Took a lot of items out of our included package. I am assuming that HAL would increase the limit on packages purchased prior to such changes? Seems a logistical nightmare to keep track of which passenger has what limit on their package, if they were to track the limits from time of booking. It would be simpler to just give everyone the same limit, regardless of what it was when one booked. However, I have been surprised before by the lengths to which a supposedly customer-focused company will contort itself to avoid giving anything away.

It astounds me the number of times I have received an email touting security, even to the extent of saying don't click on email links, that include a link to click for more information.

Same here. I wandered down the rabbit hole of history and never actually emerged to try to identify the port. Actually, that has happened before on this thread, but this time I started from a position of total ignorance…as opposed to my customary state of slightly more limited ignorance in all areas. Thanks to D&N for the direction to a fun exercise in history.

We did one transatlantic on Oceania after the shutdown. Granted, it was still relatively early in the restaffing and retraining process, which indubitably had an effect, but aside from the Asian restaurant Red Ginger and the grill-to-order shrimp and lobster in their buffet, we found their food quality to be comparable to or worse than MDRs on Celebrity, NCL, and HAL. It was much worse than Luminae or Cunard Grills (those are the only two suite dining experiences we have had). I am told it was an anomaly, but that was our experience.

Good point. I already know that it is nonrefundable, though, since that is what it was from this TA the last time. However, I'll be using every bit of current OBC (and then some) since the Retreat package no longer includes daily gratuities.

First, thanks to everyone for pointing this out. I was not aware that one could see the OBC, so that helps. However, our OBC came from the TA and it shows on the site as directed above. We did not get any OBC from Celebrity.

The cake I received was not accompanied by anyone singing. Our server brought it, and was met at the table by the PG maitre d’, both of whom wished me a happy birthday in a pretty subdued manner. Nearby diners may not have even noticed.

I don’t know that they believe their customers to be stupid so much as they want people who write lengthy letters of complaint over conditions they have not yet experienced and who are asking for them to justify their cost-cutting measures to just go away. Not saying you were at fault for doing so, but your synopsis above did ask them to justify a lot of decisions that have already implemented and will only change if it costs them money. Having been assigned to respond to members of the public in similar situations, I was told not to engage in debate, to write a short response that did not imply follow-up would be welcome, and to reinforce the company position in as few words as possible. Sounds like you got that letter. So, no, I don’t think they believe we are stupid, just a nuisance.