havenfan

38 minutes ago, Newleno said:

no someone said they gave donuts as a tip but now they stated that they gave 50 bucks plus donuts, so we dont know what to bellieve

The question is whether a non-cash gift can ever be better than the equivalent amount of cash.

I maintain that, in this particular set of circumstances, a 19 year old Canadian kids counselor on her first contract who had previously told me that a) she couldn't leave the ship in the Canadian ports because of her schedule and b) one of the things she missed most from home was Tim Hortons, might have appreciated our bringing her a box of Tim Hortons donuts (costing around $5) more than an additional $5 cash tip.

Several people (including yourself previously) asserted unequivocally that the cash would always be preferred in every situation without exception.

The fact that the donuts or potential extra $5 was in addition to the $50 we also gave her shouldn't change either the question or the answer.

19 hours ago, cruiser1955a said:

Thanks for the advice, and description. We’ll plan to ask the butler upon boarding. We don’t mind waiting a while for it. We’ll probably be in shock, with our mouths hanging open for the first few hours anyway.

Congratulations.  The butler will give you a sheet from which you can select the bottles if you haven't already informed NCL.

You can also call the NCL Haven Pre-cruise Concierge desk 1-855-625-4283 (1-855-NCL-HAVEn).  They can email you the liquor form and a form with options for your preferences for pillows, water (still/sparkling), soft drinks, coffee, tea and some other things I've forgotten.  You can email your preferences back to them.  You're still 72 hours from boarding so there should be enough time.

28 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

You’re flat wrong about crew only getting off the ship a few hours/month.  Their time off is their own.  They can get off at port during their off hours.  They can choose to hang out in their rooms, or the casual areas on the ship.  When they’re off, their time is their own.

The crew I've spoken with have claimed that they usually only get off the ship every couple of weeks.  That they can rarely get more than a couple of hours off at a time during a port call and it's not worth getting off the ship for less than that.  There are exceptions such as the headline entertainers and the concierge, but my understanding is that the room stewards, waiters and, yes, kids club counselors don't usually manage a half day off in port every week.  What's your understanding and where did you get it from?

28 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

But, you’re bound and determined to deem doughnut giving as a tremendous gesture on your part.

I think it was a reasonable gesture in that particular situation.  And possibly preferable to giving $5, which is the actual point of our dialogue.

49 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Lord knows I’ve “lived through” parenting 19 year olds, male and female.  Yeah, I think I’ve got a fair handle on their likes.

Have your 19 year olds spent time working in a job where they were allowed to leave their workplace only for a few hours a month?

49 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

What’s likely to be day old doughnuts (by the time you get them to a crew member), regardless of where they’re from, wouldn’t be one of their likes.

My daughter delivered the donuts to the counselor within an hour of our re-boarding the ship.  We knew where she worked.

49 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

You mentioned you thought the crew member probably preferred doughnuts to cash.  I disagreed with you, that’s all.

You didn't just disagree.  Your phrasing indicated that I couldn't possibly be right.  That your opinion was always right, "every time".  That there could never be any nuance in the situation.

You may be right.  She might have preferred the extra $5 to the "taste of home".  But your opinion is founded on considerably less evidence and a whole lot more assumptions than mine.  And just because you keep SHOUTING it out doesn't make it true.

49 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Cash has ALWAYS been King.

There you go again....

21 hours ago, graphicguy said:

I would think....”you’re offering me a doughnut as a tip?  Are you serious?”

Where did I say that was the only thing we gave her?  We also gave her $50 on the day before disembarkation (10-day cruise).  So the comparison is between $50 plus a half-dozen of her favorite donuts, and $55.

21 hours ago, graphicguy said:

If I put myself in their shoes, and was asked to choose between cash or doughnuts (unless the doughnuts were made of gold),  cash wins, every time.

I'm surprised you think you can channel so accurately a 19 year old girl you've never met.  But, apparently, you have perfect insight into the values and preferences of every one of the hundreds of thousands of cruise ship employees around the world at all times, regardless of their situations.

5 hours ago, graphicguy said:

Doughnuts  vs cash?

Doughnuts on the ship when she couldn't easily have gotten them for the same amount of cash.

5 hours ago, graphicguy said:

Ask them.

This was a 19 year old girl on her first contract who had previously told me that Tim Hortons was one of the things she missed most from home.

5 hours ago, Love my butler said:

Always.

Not always.

3 hours ago, Love my butler said:

Having said that, the best gift a crew member can receive is cold, hard cash.

Not always.  The kids club counselor who took care of our daughter on a fall foliage cruise to Quebec was Canadian but was not able to disembark at any of the Canadian ports.  I believe she appreciated the box of Tim Hortons donuts we brought back more than she would have the cash.

We just did something similar last month, one of our party chose to fly from St Thomas (USVI) back to NYC rather than spend 72 hours sailing.  We knew PVSA didn't apply to USVI so we went to guest services the day before the early departure and told them about it.  They made appropriate immigration arrangements and all was well.

More generally, NCL can't and won't stop someone from leaving a cruise before the final port.  After all, you can just get off the ship and not return.  However, there can be immigration implications as cruise ship passengers often enter a country on something like a transit visa, not a visitor visa or visa waiver.  In some situations you might find that you can't leave the country because you didn't enter it correctly.  Cruise lines have to be prepared to handle the paperwork in case of, among other things, medical situations where a passenger is no longer fit to sail.  But if they get hit with any sort of penalty because of cabotage laws, they will charge your account for it.

4 hours ago, valleyvillage said:

There are all kinds of rules and laws about this....You should  probably check with NCL.

You certainly should, but it may take a while before you get through to someone who actually knows the relevant rules.  Two of the four NCL Miami reps we spoke with were of the opinion that the Jones Act would cause penalties to be imposed if we left in USVI.  They were wrong on multiple counts.

As for your specific case of a passenger embarking in one Italian port and disembarking in another on a ship that might not be permitted to carry passengers between two Italian ports, I'm afraid I don't know.

7 hours ago, Contessa30 said:

What happens if for example your tour is only $89.  Do you get a credit for $89 or $100?

Thanks!

But if only one of you takes the excursion, you only get the $89.  Use it or lose it!

7 hours ago, Cruisin&Relaxin said:

One way we like to reward the Butler and/or Concierge on B2B2B’s if we get chummy with them is to take them out to dinner at the Speciality Restaurant of their choice on the date and time that works for them.

It's a nice idea.  How often have your butler or concierge had the time for this?  I thought they were "on call" literally from 06:30 to 22:30.  I know that they have quiet hours in the middle of the day, but I would have thought they were busy throughout the evening/dinner hours.

2 hours ago, ColeThornton said:

Slightly off tangent here but I'm surprised at how many of you tip in land hotels.  Paying for rooms at usually a couple of hundred bucks a night I expect that a clean room will be part of that bill.  I've never tipped there.

I'm like some of the other PPs, usually leave $5/day for the room in a hotel.  There I tend to leave something every day or two, not just at the end of the stay, since I rarely see housekeeping and don't know if it's the same person every day.  I know chambermaids (is there a gender-neutral word for this?) in the US do get "proper" salaries, unlike waiters in the US, but I also know the salaries aren't exactly lucrative and anything extra is much appreciated.

Tbh, I'm not completely sure why I do this beyond that I believe that I've been extremely fortunate financially so I feel better when I a) give to charity, b) tip 20% for normal service at a restaurant and 25%+ for "over and above" service, and c) tip room attendants whether I'm on land or on a ship.  If you count the number of "I"'s in the previous sentence you'll see that it's all about me, i.e., a purely personal preference.  I don't believe there's any societal norm to do the same.  Unlike the first 15% for normal service in a restaurant in the US.  Or the DSC on NCL.

We normally tip $5/day for a normal cabin at the end of cruise, usually round up to $40 for a 7-day cruise.  We've never reduced the DSC.

Room stewards have told me that they are usually responsible for 15-16 cabins each.  If everyone tipped $5/day/cabin they would get an extra $75-80/day or $2400/month, which would more or less double their wages.

Another way to think about it is that a steward probably spends about 40 minutes a day on your cabin (10 hour day divided by 15 cabins).  So $5/day/cabin works out to an extra $7.50/hour over what NCL pays them out of the DSC.

The Star did a similar itinerary in the winter of 2016/17, i.e., sail east from the Mediterranean, cruise Southeast Asia and Australia/NZ, before sailing west back to Europe.  We were on the Singapore-Hong Kong leg just after it arrived from Dubai.  We spoke with several people who were doing a B2B Dubai-Singapore-Hong Kong cruise.  Reviews of the Dubai-Singapore leg were mixed.  Some of the people I spoke with felt that the disembarkation/embarkation procedures were very inefficient and that the NCL excursions weren't very well curated or organized, perhaps because that was the first time a NCL ship had been in that part of the world for over 20 years so NCL were not familiar with the ports and tour operators.  They singled out the experiences at the Indian ports as being particularly poor, but I guess that's not relevant for your cruise.

The Star is very similar to the Jade with the biggest differences being that it doesn't have a Haven on Deck 14 and that on Deck 12 the Spinnaker Lounge was replaced with suites.

At any rate, here is one review of the Dubai-Singapore cruise, one review of the Singapore-Dubai cruise, and some other reviews that you might find useful.

Sitting in the sun under the transparent roof can be very pleasant.  I suspect you won't get as much UV as under the direct sun.  Again, only a few chairs will be under the direct sun when the roof is open.

2 hours ago, newmexicoNita said:

thanks, I was about to mention this as well. I guess some people do not realize the smaller ships do not offer lunch at any of the specialty dining rooms for the standard cruiser. 

I was on the Pearl just over a week ago.  Teppanyaki and Sushi were open for lunch at least some of the days.  I think Chin Chin was as well, though I don't know if you consider that a specialty restaurant.

The roof doesn't open that much, only about 10 ft or so.  That's plenty to air it out and get a breeze, but only a few of the deck chairs will get direct sun.  You can take the stairs up to the Haven sun deck on 15 if you want a tan but it can get quite breezy up there when the ship's underway.

We were on the Pearl last week.  Our room steward had not heard about the new "no towel animal" or "towel animals optional" policy, so it hadn't rolled out to that ship yet.  We had animals every night except embarkation day (which was why I asked about the policy).  The steward reused towels from the previous night's animals whenever possible; we know because my 6 year old waited for him every evening to see how he made them.

On 4/22/2019 at 1:35 PM, Casino Comp Chick said:

If I remember correctly one has a mini kitchen with microwave & sink. You can check YouTube videos by putting in the ship name and both cabin numbers for a walk through of both cabins.

I know the GVs on the Star and Dawn are different: 14000 has a pantry/kitchen and 14500 has a bar.  I thought the GVs on the Jewel class were full mirror images of each other (only ever stayed in 14500s on the Jewel class).

One of the things we like about NCL are the 2 bedroom suites with a master bedroom, a small bedroom and two bathrooms.  They're perfect for my family of 4 and, on the Star and Jewel class ships at least, often cheaper than two mini-suites or even balcony cabins.  Do any other cruise lines have similar cabins for similar pricing?

57 minutes ago, janice2348 said:

No we still had the UBP but it is a perk of the owners suite so they removed the service charge.  Same with the UDP.

Did you do a fully paid upgrade or did you "win" one through the bidding?  Suites have gotten all four/five/six "benefits" like UBP and dining the last few years but I thought that was a function of the booking category, not the cabin, iyswim.  I'm under the impression that you would have gotten UBP and dining if you paid the full difference for an upgrade but not if you got an upgrade through the bidding.  I'd love to know if I'm wrong about this.

16 hours ago, janice2348 said:

We upgraded from an aft balcony to Owners Suite on the Jade ast year.  We already had UBP and were credited back for that.

Did you give up the UBP because the three bottles were enough?

16 hours ago, janice2348 said:

We were also able to substitute three bottles of wine for the hard liquor at no extra charge. 

They usually have two types of whites and two types of reds (both including a North & South) in the options so that probably wasn't a substitution unless you got bottles that they didn't list.

12 hours ago, Paul Bogle said:

Officially the other two passengers remain in their inside and cannot be rebooked into the SC allowing you to cancel the inside. Unofficially it will not be a problem for them to actually stay in the second bedroom, just let your room steward know to make up the beds. You can have extra keys made at guest services.

11 hours ago, mjkacmom said:

But only 2 would get suite privileges.

The butler would probably bring snacks, etc., for all 4 passengers.  Whether the other two would get Cagney's / Moderno privileges would be at the discretion of the concierge.  I wouldn't count on it.

One question I have about this scenario is whether it would be possible to simply add the other two passengers to the SC after the upgrade, paying the port charges and the 3rd/4th fee (if any)?  Practically speaking, if the upgrades come through just a few days before sailing, NCL might have closed the cruise and not allow any modifications for anyone.  But, if an upgrade were to be sent, say, a couple of weeks before sailing, is it actually documented anywhere that you can't add passengers to the upgraded cabin?

12 hours ago, Até said:

The days of being able to work this type of situation out with an upgrade department are long over.

Sadly true and can lead to very silly results.  I once booked two suites on the Star for 6 people in total when a GV wasn't available.  Fortunately for me, both GVs came back onto the system a couple of months before the cruise.  I was eventually able to secure a discounted upgrade from the larger suite to a GV.  NCL wouldn't give me any "credit" for the second suite.  Fair enough.  But, if I'd wanted to cancel the second suite and officially move my parents into the GV, they would have charged 5th/6th rates for them.  So I would have had to pay ~$1500 in addition to giving up all the perks (drinks, dining, wifi, taxes) my parents were entitled to as the 1st/2nd in their own suite.  Faced with those choices, I decided to keep the second suite and save the $1500 and the perks.  Once aboard the ship, I explained the situation to the concierge whose first response was "Yes, corporate and ticketing can be stupid sometimes" and whose second response was to have the key cards changed.  So the ship sailed with an empty suite which I'm pretty sure someone would have paid NCL money to upgrade into.

2 hours ago, newmexicoNita said:

wow, $300.00 for tips What kind of a ship were you on and how many days? I don't remember if we knew about tips or not in the 80s, but even if we didn't our tips were nothing like that. The only people who got tipped were the cabin steward and assistant steward and our wait person. I don't remember anyone else.

On my first cruise, on Costa about 20 years ago, they used some pretense to call passengers into meetings on the second-to-last day where they handed out envelopes and one of the front desk staff addressed us explaining that the crew relied on tips for most of their compensation.

In addition to the positions you named above, I remember receiving envelopes for the assistant waiter and the maitre d'.  The "recommended amounts" were something like $2 ppd for the cabin steward, $1.50 for his assistant, $2.50 for the waiter, $2 for his assistant, and $0.75 for the maitre d'.  So something like $8.75 ppd.

I definitely remember scrambling for $200 in cash (for the two of us) at the end of an 11-day cruise.

14 hours ago, phillyguy31 said:

First cruise 4 years ago and before I read anything about the DSC I knew there would be tipping. The ship is entirely a service industry and just like hotels, resorts and just about everywhere you travel now tipping is expected(at least in the US) so when I read further I was please about the DSC it made sense to me.

Norms for service industries vary greatly by country.  Service is included in restaurant and hotels in most of continental Europe so the 15-20% for basic service that is de rigeur at American restaurants is an unfamiliar concept to Germans.  Tipping used to be considered positively offensive in Japan, as though the service provider needed to be bribed to do their very best.  Even in the US, it's not clear to me when it's appropriate to leave (or not leave) a few dollars for the chambermaids at hotels.

Cruise ships set their own norms.  I very much sympathize with people who are caught out the first time.  Not so much afterwards.

17 hours ago, robin13 said:

The only caveat was that they picked the cabin but since it was a mini suite I didn't think there were any bad locations.

Some are definitely noisier than others, e.g., there have been complaints about cabins under the gym or under parts of the sun deck where people move chairs around a lot.  But some people pay full price for those cabins anyway, either because they don't know or because that's all that's left when they book.

Edit: Sorry, I just realized you were talking about the Escape.  I'm thinking about the older ships where the mini suites are all under the pool deck.