BlerkOne

In what other industry do customers break down tips by staff members and stuff dirty money into envelopes and hand them to the staff members individually. That is how cruising used to be and what they invented. It has evolved to try to make it easier on customers, but there will always be some who make excuses. Restaurant tipping is a percentage of the bill and not at all the same.

The cruise industry is not a standard service industry and never has been. Too many anti-tippers get hung up on semantics and use it as an excuse to not participate, or to substitute their own variation. Whether tips/gratuities/largesse/whatever, the extra money has always been part of the hard working crew member's compensation packages. It is not based on the price of the cruise, meal, or anything else. It is an optional (unfortunately) cost per person. Why tip someone you don't see? Because it is always a team effort. Without the team, you have no service. NCL has even changed the name to service charge, and some people still don't get it. On some short cruises (some of the 3 day?), I believe Carnival has even required gratuities to be prepaid and some still try to weasel out.

What perfect world is that?

Don't have answers to your specific questions, but I would first try to find out if ship time is the same as local time or what the time difference might be. I would also consider seeing if anyone one your roll call might be interested in chartering a boat to go to the Baths

I think you are going to have issues. When the second room is a no show I think Carnival will cancel that room out and refund port fees and taxes

The pricing is market pricing so it varies.

Emeril's is not a regular sit down restaurant. You place your order at the register and sit anywhere in the area you want. They give you a number to place on your table and they bring the food to you.

Reducing waste would include prepared food inventory management to reduce available food to throw away. But I think this thread is beyond off whatever the original topic was.

Most crew don't have guest area dining privileges. I'll see if I can obtain a crew mess menu next cruise.

I mean given a choice, most of the staff would not choose to eat Western food on a regular basis. They should not be forced to eat leftovers.

United. I happen to be in Premium Economy, but really because it is a perk of the T-Mobile plan I have. T-Mobile customers get free Wi-Fi That’s unlimited Wi-Fi, texting and streaming for T-Mobile customers on domestic and international United flights. See plan details for eligibility

You may not feel that all those people deserve gratuities, but I guarantee without all those people working behind the scenes, you would not receive the service you do from the people you think deserve gratuities.

No. I haven't noticed. What I do notice is that often a desirable cabin I book one day jumps a few hundred the next. You snooze, you lose.

Anti-tippers never run out of excuses. It doesn't matter that Carnival is following (not leading) the industry on tipping and is less than some.

A lot do. I still say most don't. We agree to disagree.

I doubt most of the crew would eat the food served to the passengers by choice. They are employees, not slaves.

Supply and demand. Cruise fares can't go up if there is no demand. Celebrity is still giving away lots of free cruises via the casino.

Good deal - looks like I will have complementary WiFi on the flight to Buenos Aires. How good it is might be a different story.

Probably could do worse, but I might take my chances.

Math can be hard. Costs, including labor, are up. A new hire is not as efficient as someone with experience. Capacities and spending are still not to pre-pandemic levels. Profits are not where they need to be. Iter-8. Good luck finding a cruise line that hasn't tightened their belt and tried to reduce costs including reducing waste. and yes, waste costs money in more ways than one.

Royal didn't use to be over $20 billion in debt and doesn't have lots of cash on hand.

The food is pre-plated. Whether you see it or not, there would be waste. These days, the environment is a concern. It should have always been, but that's another topic.

Cost management.

If they order off of the regular menu, they pay full price.

It should be at least as good as before when people legally drunk were attending. The good old days were when Princess was teaching people if all else fails, this is the procedure for jumping overboard.