poeticlicensed

Remember the two buck chuck phenom? Sometimes I can find a decent wine at TJs, but def not 2 buck chuck

The thought of a Moscato with a burger makes me queasy. Thats really unfortunate. Even with limited training they should know the very basics.

I have a neighbor who went to school to be a sommelier after be sold his company and retired. He told us a trained sommelier makes big $$$. No way can a cruise company afford to hire dozens of sommeliers for each ship Most likely is that the head sommelier on the ship is educated, and he/she gives training to the staff. Its fine with me, I know enough about wine to tell them what I like and have them bring me wines to try.

We've done select and set time.alnost never had to wait with select. I cannot wait til after 8 to eat, so we generally choose early seating, but if we are on an excursion or don't make our seating, we just go to the select section of the MDR. Never had a problem.

Well thats just a pain in the derriere

I used to live near some tomato farms that would grow the best beefsteak tomatoes. There is nothing better than a tomato sandwich on good bread. Most tomatoes I find to be inedible, so I generally don't eat them anyway. I just can't see getting so bent out if shape about a tomato that I went to guest services. I worked with the public for several years early in my career and we used to keep a running list of all the crazy complaints and complainers we got. I bet the folks at guest relations still talk about the tomato guy.

I'm generally not a fan of search functions, but on CC, you need to make sure you change the default from "any search words" to "all search words". I get better results that way. I wish they would set the default to that, because sometimes I forget to change it

Likewise, we typically book verandah, have done concierge and aqua if the price is right. My opinion is that celebrity is raising prices more than other lines, and while i like them, I'm not willing to pay more than I perceive the value to be. We don't have the budget or inclination to do suites or move to a luxury line with butlers, flights, private transport and what not. Not sure what our next move is. We are booked on a TA with HAL, but I hesitate jumping in with them full bore until I see if its a good match. On top of that, X seems to be focusing more and more on Caribbean sailings and as a longtime FL resident, I'm done sailing the Caribbean. We will look at lines like Oceania, but I've also sailed MSC (not in YC. I know the horror of it all) and it wasn't bad at all. And they have a more European focus with their itineraries. There's also much travel to be done that is better suited to land based travel. So we will be looking at that also.

I totally understand the disparity in rates, based on demand, season, location etc. But you would think that wifi and booze would cost pretty much the sane, given that the cruiseline pays a negotiated rate via contract for booze and they are the ones providing wifi.

The all in package pricing is a mystery to me. I'm looking at one cruise and AI is 55 pp pd. On another cruise its 166 pp pd. I cannot figure out why such a disparity. One would think that drink costs, gratuities cost and wifi cost would be similar no matter what cruise you are on. Which leads me to believe its all made up so taking away tips is meaningless, given there's no baseline

So does the best price guarantee only hold if you call and tell them you saw your cruise at a lower price?

That is hilarious. I was still a bit unclear though. I guess he was upset because he likes grape tomatoes and they only had cut up full size tomatoes. I cannot imagine anyone eating a large tomato. I really hope people realize that fruits and veggies are seasonal. If you cruise out of growing season, you may find availability of certain foods lacking. I'd rather have no tomatoes than tomatoes that have been sitting in cold storage for months.

Someone please explain the round tomato thing. This is the second time someone made a reference to it. I need a good laugh today.

Well sure, if I was considering a suite, I'd be all over it. But let me know in the title, then I can decide. I crack up at the people who state they have double zenith status. All I can think of double secret probation. Seriously, I think many people who have achieved those status think that if they tell you their status it gives more weight to their answer. And for some its just a flex.

Same here. But honestly, if people would title their posts to indicate questions or comments about suites/retreat/aqua, etc, or those having to do with amenities are are only available to certain tiers those of us who rarely or never book in that cabin class or aren't at that tier don't need to bother looking at. For example, titling a post "Disappointed by Apex" would have me clicking on it if I was booked on Apex. But "Disappointed about my butler service on Apex" I probably wouldn't read since I would never book a cabin category that comes with a butler. Just like I don't read any post that begins "We are Elite", or "Elite [fill in the blank]", since I'm not.