floridafish

Thanks for all your help. If we wanted to do the Viking museum as well do you think there is time? We are docked at Akershuskai. Does the ferry to the Viking museum run from there?

In general, they annoy me with their announcements. I'm usually relaxing around the pool when they come on the PA to inform us there is an art auction on level 5 and the towel folding class starts at 1.

The daily agenda you get every day in your room pretty much spells out what's going on in the ship.

I mean seriously, if a cruise director makes or breaks your vacation you might want to rethink cruising. :rolleyes:

sexy time:cool:

I can tell you something I DON'T do and that is eat shell fish about a week out.

The chances are very low but I'd hate to eat a bad shrimp and get sick before the cruise.

How do I sound? Like someone who's shops for a good deal I hope. I have no loyalty to any TA. Why should I? The good price is part of the deal. If price plus "free stuff" is lower from a new travel agent, then I will go there. Service doesn't enter into the equation for me. I really just use them to make the booking. If they screw that part up, then I care, but I don't need anything else.

So in the grand scheme of things you will dump a reliable TA over a bottle of wine:rolleyes:

Yes, you're being petty. At least you are if you've been happy with the service and pricing the TA has provided.

I understand it's nice to receive a gift but hey...it's just a bottle of wine.

Hoping for decent weather next month and would like to be outdoors most of the time.

I'm interested in visiting Akershus Fortress and Vigeland Park.

How close are these to the cruise terminal and each other?

I don't think it was your imagination. While on the Brilliance back in December I thought the variety was very lacking in the WJ.

We sailed the BOS this past December and plan to do so again this year. I happen to love that ship class. Perfect size ship and I appreciate the layout.

We took one of the "bump out" cabins and really liked its location. Tucked just off the hallway and close to the elevators. A definite feel of privacy not having so many people passing your room in the hall.

No insult, just pointing out blatant factual errors. When you said outside of the Cruise Director there are no Americans on cruise ships you were incorrect, that's not really debatable so I'm not sure why you're arguing.

 

I agree there aren't many, but it's not because of the unions or US labor laws, which was your original theory.

You called me a troll and then went on to claim there are "plenty" of Americans working on ships. :rolleyes:

So you encountered 40 Americans on your last cruise?

What positions did 10 of them hold?

40 out of 1,000. LOL I bet you can't name ten of them. Not by name but what they did.

Never mind....I'd rather not embarrass you.

Next time don't be so quick to insult people on this board for posting legitimate opinions.

Blatantly untrue. I've met many Americans on my cruises. They are definitely a minority, but they exist and there are plenty of them.

 

 

 

Someone isn't nearly as informed as they think... which goes back to my comment that I think you're just trying to rile people up at this point.

 

Not that I don't love working people up sometimes myself, but I do advertise that as a service I provide.

Oh really? Just how many American crew members do you run into? I'd like to hear a rough estimate out of 900-1,000 plus crew members on any given ship? And I'm the troll?

There are more Americans working on cruise ships than that. There were around 40 when I was on the Disney Fantasy last year. And the cruise line isn't subject to US labor laws regardless, because the ships don't sail under a US flag.

 

Anyway my only point was that bragging how super generous you are with tips but not with cruise ship workers, because of a policy they have no control over seemed strange, but hey it's your money.

40 huh? :rolleyes:

I'm not bragging. I used to work for tips when I was younger and I know how important it is to service workers, especially wait staff.

Pre paid and pre calculated tips in general are probably the best policy for cruise lines. They protect the staff and people you might not notice, hopefully, get to see some of that money.

But like a restaurant that tacks on an automatic 18% tip, incentive for giving good service(other than pride in one's work) goes away. As does my usual 20+% tip.

I suspect an attempt at "organizing and making collective decisions as to what is best for them" might lead to the cruise line organizing a walk right down the gang plank.

Which is why with the exception of the cruise director you don't find any Americans working on cruise ships. The unions would eat them for lunch.

Ahhh, I thought you were just mad at the cruise line for pre-calculating tips. Turns out you also feel the individual workers should somehow prevent the cruise lines from pre-calculating their tips if that's not what they want.

 

The waiters and stewards should just organize and decide what the cruise line's policies should be, and just make the policy whatever is most beneficial for them. Makes perfect sense, not sure how I missed that obvious solution.

I have problem if they pre calculate tips or not. That's between the cruise line and their employees. And I was not being flip about the worker choosing to organize. If I had to guess though they(the crew) are probably are happy with the current system.

For me, this post crossed the line from "this person has a legitimate thought" to "I think you're just trolling now."

I'm not quite sure what you don't get or why you think I'm a troll.

I have no clue how RCI or any other cruise line comes up with their tipping policy. Quite frankly I don't care. Furthermore I have no problem if they want to collect pre determined tips up front. At the end of the day it makes sense to protect and reward the crew for their hard work.

If a restaurant or cruise line or any other service establishment has this policy, for me personally, I will not tip any more. To do otherwise makes no sense. Is there no downside for collecting tips up front?

What don't you get?

Yes, it does suck for them. And as a group they might want to organize and decide collectively what's best for them.

They might prefer the security albeit possibly less tips derived from company pre-calculated auto collected tips. Or they might want to "roll the dice", benefit from people like me that tend to over tip but risk getting stiffed by people with no clue or just too cheap.

They just can't have it both ways. At least not in my world.

You're calculating the per hour cost of a cruise? :rolleyes:

You must be a load of laughs in the MDR. :eek:

I can see if I'm really bored maybe calculating per day costs of various trips. Per hour....not so much. Life is too short my friend. :)

I just don't see the point in doing that. The banks here will rip you off just as much as the banks/exchange places there. I travel out of the country a dozen times each year or more, and never get money before I leave. I step off the plane, clear immigration/customs, and stop at the ATM right away. That's all I ever need to do.

Not my bank. Nor should yours. They simply use the current Dollar to Euro exchange rate. A service my bank provides. Unlike the exchange stores that stick it you on the exchange and keep the difference.

I don't get all my Euros at home but enough to get myself a cab from the airport and usually cover myself for the first couple of shore days.

I consider myself a very generous tipper.

I won't get started on my belief that employers should pay living wages without the assistant of customer tipping but that's another topic for another day.

Having said all that, once tips are pre-calculated by the service provider, I will not tip any more as a matter of principal.

I suppose it protects the workers from cheapskates. And you know who you are.:mad:

On the flip side it precludes the workers from my habit of tipping in a generous manner.

I think they should have a relatively generous rating system in their casinos.

Basic tier reached = free drinks while gambling.

Second tier = some kind of on board credit, discount at spa

Third Tier= discount on cruise or drink package thrown in

These are just ideas. I use the players card and gamble quite a bit when on board. The benefits just don't seem to come my way.

With a more generous frequent player program they would attract more customers and increase wagers IMHO.

Our 1st cruise we dined with another family and as I recall it was pleasant enough.

Since then though we have only dined with each other. Quite frankly it's the one time during the day, shore time aside, that I'm with my kids alone.

I find it a nice way to slow down a bit with them.

While it's nice meeting new people I prefer having the "alone time" with my children.

Stay way from the exchange places. ATM is the way to go.

You might want to check with your bank before you go. I always get some Euros and or Pounds from my local bank here before I leave.

That’s just ridiculous. I previously had the drink package on my last trip and my drinks were no weaker than any time before on a cruise.

I also hear how service suffers with those with those that have drink packages. As my British friends would say….rubbish!

It’s very simple math and we all know about how much we consume drink wise on a cruise.

If you’re a 2-3 drink max kind of person then the drink package is not for you. If you bang back 4+ and like good wine by the glass and premium booze I’d say it’s worth it.

I was wondering if it is possible to cheat the drink package system? If I buy 1 drink package for myself, why cant I order a drink and then give it to my wife and then go back up and get another drink for myself? How do they keep track so people cant do this?

Why would you want to do that? Where I'm from that's considered stealing.