Honolulu Blue

26 minutes ago, robbinsca said:

My SIL was on the ship two weeks later. We had told her to look for Samantha and try to get her table at dinner. She found her in the buffet one morning as she said that she had been moved.

Thanks for the reply.  Celebrity moves fast!  I'll make a note of this.  You never know when it might come in handy.

1 hour ago, robbinsca said:

We also mentioned the level of service from an Asst Waiter to Celebrity and she was promoted from the MDR to the Aqua Clas dining area.

This is also very interesting. How long did it take from mention to promotion? If it was during the same cruise, this would be the height of mixed emotions for me, assuming I wasn't in AQ.

It's also telling that Celebrity thinks that moving to the AQ is a promotion, and at least some moves there are based on merit.

7 hours ago, the penguins said:

Good staff reports help with promotions (we had an outstanding Assistant Waiter who we spoke to the Manager about. A few days later the Manager came back and told us he had checked the person’s assessments, watched their performance for 2 days and they had now been offered a place on a training course to be a  Waiter - The Assistant Waiter was on tears when she found out. 

5 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

Thanks for sharing this.  Was this onboard a cruise? 

28 minutes ago, the penguins said:

Silhouette out of Southampton.

To give you the full story. The Assistant Waiter originally allocated to our table had had to be moved from day 1 because his ability to speak a particular language was required at another table for a passenger who didn't speak any English.

As a result we were allocated an Assistant who was still relatively new which meant they were working their way up i.e. working as a "floater" and not allocated to a particular table/team. From day 1 it was obvious that our new Assistant was more than ready to be assigned to their own table/team and that is what we told to Maitre D.  We were delighted that our actions helped the person concerned get a quicker move up.

On the other hand we also reported a waiter who assured us 3 times that the "special drink" they were offering free to all diners was alcohol free when in reality it wasn't. On taking a sip it was clearly not alcohol free at which the waiter said it contained only a little alcohol and laughed - unfortunately for me "only a little" is medically too much. The Maitre D said that the Waiters actions were totally unacceptable, he was forced to apologies, was removed from our table and was sent for retraining.

Thank you for the rest of the story! 🙂

13 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

why haven't the cruise lines lobbied for repeal of the PVSA?  They did lobby for an exemption for transportation between Puerto Rico and the mainland US.  That took over 10 years of lobbying to get passed, and only one cruise line ever started regular one way cruise itineraries between PR and the mainland, that lasted only about 2 years, and folded due to lack of passenger demand, yet it still remains on the books.  The cruise lines know that in order to get a repeal of the PVSA, they will have to accept laws placing them further under various US laws (USCG inspection, US labor laws, US tax laws) that would adversely affect their bottom line more than doing away with the foreign port calls, or even the "distant" foreign port calls would gain them.  CLIA has stated this publicly over the years.

Thank you for your insight as usual.  I highlighted this portion because I think it's especially relevant to the OP's question and some of my thoughts on this matter.

1 hour ago, the penguins said:

Good staff reports help with promotions (we had an outstanding Assistant Waiter who we spoke to the Manager about. A few days later the Manager came back and told us he had checked the person’s assessments, watched their performance for 2 days and they had now been offered a place on a training course to be a  Waiter - The Assistant Waiter was on tears when she found out. 

Thanks for sharing this.  Was this onboard a cruise?  I've never proactively spoken to management onboard any ship about an outstanding employee.  I've relied on surveys for this.  Perhaps I should start?  Two lessons that I get from your story:

1) One person can make a BIG difference in someone's life

2) Sometimes greatness isn't obvious; sometimes it needs to be pointed out by someone who notices and cares.

6 hours ago, reedprincess said:

Princess (Carnival Corp actually, given several of their brands have the same limit) thinks we need some type of imposed limit.  Go figure. 

Actually I think their limit is meant mostly to send signals to two groups of people.

To law enforcement, judicial, and governmental authorities, it says, "see, we TRY to limit our passengers' drinking to reasonable levels."

To those who regularly imbibe more than the limit per day, it says, "You're potentially more trouble than you're worth.  You should probably pick another cruise line."

Whether Carnival Corp accomplishes their missions is a discussion for another place and time.

JMHO.  I'm out.  Please continue your discussion. 👍

I got a couple of notes with my e-mails from ECP this afternoon.  This coming TEC is 85% full.  Pretty good, but Star Trek is at 97%. 😮

Also, next year's Rock Legends Cruise just changed their port stop to CocoCay.  They were scheduled in Labadee. 😵, so they made the obvious call there.  TEC is still scheduled to head for Haiti as one of their three stops.  When will they make the change?  Who knows??

The 80s Cruise released the highlight video of their cruise a few weeks ago.  The jump cuts from video to video were mostly very fast, so I can't be absolutely sure that they didn't sneak me in there.  But I didn't get a confirmed sighting of me.

There were a couple of close calls.  There was a closeup of Stephen Pearcy signing a copy of his autobiography.  But it wasn't my book - the ink color was different.  And during Sheena's concert, the camera was behind me, and I can almost tell where I was standing with camera in hand... but it was dark, and I didn't see enough details to confirm my presence.

Oh, and former VJs Mark, Julie, and Alan did a little speech about next year's cruise.  I think it was during the late concert, because I don't remember it and I didn't see myself.

It's about 4 minutes long.  Have fun!

A few notes from around the Net:

• Both Rock and Romance and Flower Power have sold out. R&R did it early this month, while FP took a little longer and sold out about a week ago. I hope George got his back to back suites if he wanted them.
• I got an announcement that Summer of 99 is on for next year. Creed will host again. No other performers were announced at this time. It will go April 9-13 and head from Miami to Nassau and back on the Norwegian Gem. It's about $2500 for a solo interior cabin, and I can take another $100 off if I'm willing to pay in full. Despite all this, I was intrigued enough to sign up for the pre sale. I'll get a time to book on or about May 27. We'll see what happens.
• Soul Train 2.0 keeps adding performers. It sounds like it's going to go.

3 hours ago, beltsbear said:

I would rather be on a celebrity edge class vs a 15 year old princess ship, or a newer princess ship vs an older milenium class celebrity. 

I'm the complete opposite - I like the Millennium and Summit, which are both in the same class. I haven't sailed on any other Celebrity ships, but I like them well enough.

On the other hand, I've done two Royal class ships and the Ruby. I liked the bigger, newer Princess ships better.

3 hours ago, beltsbear said:

Yes, loyalty on celebrity got us a free bag of laundry each 7 days after just five cruises.  That’s not gonna happen till maybe our 12 cruise on princess. 

I got half off on Internet on Princess on my third cruise. I value that much more highly than a bag of laundry, which I ordinarily don't do on cruises of 7 days or less. It's all about priorities.

21 minutes ago, NinS said:

Agreed that it seems like a very sold start, HB. And it might explain why it was said at the Lazaroff Q&A you attended that it will be an annual thing. I made the big mistake of looking at what this repositioning cruise would normally go for, and suffice to say I am sure that Celebrity is very very happy to have a charter operator taking over the ship.

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm sure Celebrity is thrilled to have this repositioning cruise chartered. Traditionally, across cruise lines, cabins on repositioning cruises tend to be sluggish sellers that only sell out at giveaway prices. They might have passed along a discount for the charter to Jazz Cruises, which if true, then I'm happy for them. I like win-wins. 😃

I received my e-mail a few hours ago announcing the opening of bookings for the Journey of Jazz Cruise to the general public.  A few details caught my eye - all the suites and some other top-end  non-suite cabins are already sold out, as are the allocated solo inside and balcony cabins.  Overall they say the ship is almost 50% booked.  That's a pretty good start, IMHO.

52 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

We have trivia tonight, so I don't imagine I will get much more done tonight.

This intrigues me... trivia as in going down to the local pub and competing with the locals, or staying at home and breaking out the box of Trivial Pursuit?  Either way, I think I'll give you a wide berth if I see you on my ship.  Then again, I'm only good at trivia in a few categories. 🙂

57 minutes ago, jimbo5544 said:

Ok, I will bite, what bias would that be?

They LOVE Mr. Heald and they LOVE Carnival.  Rare is the unkind word said about either.

14 hours ago, Anyislandwilldo said:

I just want to confirm that with purchasing the WIFI package on the ship, I can load this to my tablet.  Correct?   Will I be able to log in to the hub app on both my phone and tablet?  But just us WIFI on the tablet.  Thanks!

To bend this topic around a bit, I use an Amazon Fire and don't have the Carnival app loaded on it.  It's easy to switch the WiFi from my phone to it - just do the Silk thing and go to login.com .  That will ask you if you want to login to this device and log off of the other device.  Two clicks and done.  I can't ask to be much easier than that.

Thanks everyone.  A few quickie comments on your comments and lessons learned:

• Perhaps "scream at me" is an exaggeration.  The polished MDR employees are unlikely to scream at their passengers, even me.  They're more likely to scream at the chef when he rebuffs my request, which doesn't make me feel much better.  Or they're likely to put me on the crew dartboard for the week as the most unreasonable passenger they've had to deal with.  That doesn't make me feel any better either.
• It doesn't seem to be popular among this veteran group, but perhaps that was just the weekend crowd.
• Why ask about what is apparently such a radical thing?  The stomach wants what it wants.  I'm sure many of you have food cravings and/or memories of meals from the recent past.  I wondered about how flexible MDR menus actually are.  It turns out that they're not too flexible.  Flowers are red.  Green leaves are green.  There's no need to see MDR menus any other way than the way they always have been seen.
• The "proper" procedure for this seems to be similar to the special needs menus - ask beforehand and maybe I'll get what I want.  It sounds like too much hassle for all involved for me to try it (even on luxury lines), so I don't think I'll be doing this any time soon.  Some of you, I'm sure are breathing a sigh of relief.
• I briefly forgot about MDR pre-plating.  I'm sure regular restaurants at sea and land do the same (especially with popular meals/entrees), but not to the same degree as everyone's favorite MDRs.

Thanks again, and I look forward to continued replies with more wisdom.

3 hours ago, ldubs said:

If someone doesn't look forward to doing a lot of things together with travel companions, then why on earth would they travel together?   We travel together because we are a tight group of family/friends who enjoy each other's company.  

Two things come to mind quickly - economies of scale and a group of co-workers - where being together is about efficiency and not about enjoyment.  I'm glad you have a clan that you like to travel with.  Sometimes I wish I had one. 🙂

I'm bumping this because John Heald mentioned Journeys cruises in one of his FB posts this morning.  He says it's "important for the beards" to find out how many we've experienced, what we liked about them, and how they can improve them.

I found it interesting to note that hardly anyone had an unkind word to say in the comments on this post about Journeys cruises - even considering the bias of the group it's pretty overwhelming. Feel free to take a look and what was said and comment in your spare time.

30 minutes ago, GeezerCouple said:

What cruise line/ship are you thinking about?

 

Because, yes, "It depends", 😉 but in part that "depends" upon where you are.

 

Some of the premium/luxury lines are able to accommodate special requests (including occasionally something that is not on the regular menu at all, if they have the ingredients, etc.).  That's part of what the extra costs might include (among many other niceties, of course).

I mostly cruise on mainstream cruise lines for... reasons, but your answer in re: premium/luxury lines and their ability to whip up special orders is enlightening.  Thank you for it.

1 hour ago, leaveitallbehind said:

IMO you have two options: fill out the survey honestly but be certain to cover your concerns regarding the line staff openly with any comment section.  They won't be held accountable for, as example, food quality concerns as that is out of their control.  They are only measured on service performance. 

The other option is to address an email separately to the cruise line management and address your concerns that way.  Or do both. 

The above is what i would do - fill out the survey honestly and send a separate communication to the executives.  

OP, I hope you get what you want out of this.  I've always believed that honesty is the best policy - no matter where it leads.

Here's something I always wanted to ask, but didn't want to get screamed at by the waiters and/or Maitre'd - if an item is on the MDR menu on one day during a cruise, can I order it and get it on some future day on that cruise?  Or if it's due to be on the menu later in the cruise, can I have it today?

Let's assume that it's an item that's not on the "every day" menu, if the cruise line has such.

I assume a lot of the answers here will be some variation of "it depends".  And that's fine.  Perhaps the best answers will be what happened when you did it, and where you did it.

Thanks in advance!

It's a rainy Sunday here in Michigan.  I'm two weeks off from my latest music cruise adventure.  The next one is in several months, though I do have a concert in about four weeks.

Let's hand out some silly, meaningless awards around here with pictures.

BEST CONCERT BY CRUISE

TEC honorable mentions - Stephen Pearcy, Debbie Gibson

Winner - SHEENA EASTON.  This surprised me too.  I didn't expect her to hit me as hard as she did.  And she didn't even play her GOOD songs - not many of them, anyway.

R&R honorable mentions - Pablo Cruise, Bella Donna, Lez Zeppelin, Ambrosia & Friends

Winner - GENERATION RADIO.  I did say that the more Chicago they played, the better I would like it.  They played lots of Chicago, so I liked the show a lot.  They even played "Along Comes a Woman", which is my favorite Chicago tune.  And that wasn't even the best song they played.  I'll get to that one shortly.

McDonald LaBelle Cruise winner - Well, I only attended two concerts here.  No surprise who I picked as the better of the two.

BEST SONG PLAYED LIVE BY CRUISE

TEC honorable mentions - "Telefone" (Sheena), "Lay It Down" (Stephen Pearcy), "Teacher, Teacher" (38 Special)

TEC winner - "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic".  80s era tribute band Jessie's Girl did this one.  It's a nice surprise; they didn't do this on the show I saw last year.  It was a good version, though the Stinger and the boys in blue can/would do it better.

R&R honorable mentions - "Love Will Find a Way" (Pablo Cruise), "Waiting for a Girl Like You" (Foreigner), "Baby Come Back" (Peter Beckett with Ambrosia)

Winner - "Danger Zone" (Generation Radio).  I didn't expect them to play this one.  Well played sirs.  Forgive me for not using another picture of the Radio stars; let's do Pablo Cruise this time.

McDonald LaBelle Cruise winner - "Sweet Freedom".  Yes he played it.  I wasn't sure he was going to.  Let's show the entire band this time; he had quite a few people around to make him sound good.

SONGS THAT I LIKE MORE NOW THAT I'VE HEARD THEM PERFORMED LIVE

TEC - "Over the Wall" (Debbie Gibson).  Cute song near the end of the "Electric Youth" album.  She played it second at this concert.

R&R - "Kashmir".  Lez Zeppelin did the honors.  A 10 1/2 minute song that captivated me throughout.  Do I really need to say more?

BEST SURPRISES (NOT CONCERT RELATED)

TEC - Who knew Ray Parker, Jr. liked us so much until he told us?  Also, he mentioned my podunk little town in one of his stories.

R&R - Who knew I'd like the tribute artists (like Bella Donna) very nearly as much as the bigger names?

McDonald LaBelle - Who knew that George Wallace deemed me worthy to take a selfie with him?  Sorry this isn't it. 😞

Also, I didn't find Nassau to be the horrible place that some cruisers had mentioned it would be.  The port area seemed quite nice to me.  I wouldn't mind coming back sometime.

OK, enough silliness for one day.  Thanks for indulging me. 🙂

Whenever I see ribs on the MDR menu.my interest is piqued. I like prime rib, short ribs, and the BBQ ribs. 👍

On 4/16/2024 at 3:32 AM, jlawrence01 said:

2) While there is a lot of information out there, there may actually be too much.  And there is very few filters.  You have to evaluate a lot of the sources of information as there are so many influencers who are quietly sponsored. 

You speak the truth, not only about cruise info, but ALL information.  Since the rise of the Internet and the movement of much data there, there has been a TREMENDOUS rise in the amount of available information, but also a rise in the amount of opinions that are sometimes disguised as information, and a rise in outright untruths.  It can be hard to tell which is which.

On 12/5/2023 at 4:27 PM, shipgeeks said:

Here's one I heard after a cruise:

"I never knew if there was anything to do. They never made any announcements.  The cruise was pretty boring."

Me: Read the daily paper and/or app that lists all the activities, meal opening times, going ashore times, etc.  Some of us even pack a highlighter, and mark things we don't want to miss.  

On 12/5/2023 at 5:24 PM, leaveitallbehind said:

On some cruise lines one of the biggest complaints is constant activities announcements!

 

They must have been asleep or just not paying attention to anything.  To add to your information sources is the stateroom TV, typically with a scrolling agenda of events on one channel and another dedicated to ship activities hosted by the cruise director and staff.

I can imagine some new cruisers not paying attention to the app, the newsletter, or the TV screen and relying on the CD to tell them what's going on each day.  I think I understand better why Carnival makes so many announcements - especially since they have a large percentage of new cruisers on most of their ships.

On 2/21/2024 at 11:33 AM, shipgeeks said:

Misconception:  I need to decorate the door of my cabin, and I need to buy and hide a bunch of little ducks.

Reality:  No, you don't need to do either.  Most people don't.

I've been cruising for a decade.  I'm pretty sure there were doors decorated on that first cruise.  I don't know when the practice started.  I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if a few of the cabins on the Titanic were decorated.

I definitely started cruising before ducks were a thing on cruise ships.  I hope it's a fad that will fade in time.  That's all I'll say about it.