jeph

Well, I've never seen, or even heard about, any laundry-related fisticuffs on any ship that offered self-service...But the drive for extra onboard revenue (to make up for fares that are a third of what they were 35 years ago, when inflation is factored in) is common to all mainstream lines now!

As for that CD / DVD issue, anybody please weigh in if you know...

Hmm, that's what I was afraid of! It's one thing not to include it on their newer vessels, but to ACTIVELY GET RID OF IT on the older ones is a bit much. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the info...

I'm booked for a cruise on Rotterdam in early June. Since the dry-dock freshening-up was completed a few weeks back, I had two quick questions, the first of which is just asking for an update ( I had previously asked about it in July, before the drydock)

1) Would there be any point in my bringing a couple of favorite CD's / DVD's? That is, is there a way to play them with the equipment provided in the cabin? (Last HAL cruise was on Nieuw Amsterdam, a much newer ship; cabin flatscreen televisions had a slot on the left side where a CD could be inserted to play)

2) Has the "modernization" done away with the self-service laundry?

I hope some of you have the answers...Thanks!

Heck, I guess I might bring a DVD I haven't gotten around to watching yet...and I suppose it could play a CD as well, even if the drydock doesn't include replacing televisions etc.

Thanks for the replies! :)

The last HAL ship I was on was Nieuw Amsterdam, which is a lot newer. The flatscreen in the cabin had a slot on the left side where you could put in a CD and play music... Have the cabins on Rotterdam been upgraded with anything like that?

You could also consider a different cruise line, if you keep wasting this money.

 

Princess requires neither prepayment of autotips nor of the cost of ship's excursions.

This is the first time it's happened, so it's not like I "keep wasting this money"...and thanks to the suggestions I've received here, the issue is manageable, once you're aware of it. It's way down on the list of reasons to choose one cruise line over another. Itinerary, timing, and price / value for money are predominant in my decision process.

That said, I do have favorites-- Celebrity and Holland America-- and I did very much enjoy a 10-night Star Princess cruise (round-trip out of San Francisco) to Mexico a year prior to the Celebrity trip under discussion.

Not all OBC from TA's are refundable

you should ask in advance so you will know if you can get the credit back

 

If you pre paid tips & excursions before you left on the cruise why was it a surprise that they would not be on your onboard account ??

As mentioned, I was used to being charged up front-- pretty much right at the time of originally booking-- for gratuities / "daily service charges", since for many years now that's been standard procedure for most cruise lines, I believe, when passengers choose open-seating dinner over set "early seating" or "late seating" dinner. I DID notice the charges on my credit card bill for the shore excursions, which appeared about a month before I left since I ordered them relatively late...but I just didn't put it together as to what that would mean relative to the OBC's until the nearly-final tab appeared in my cabin that last night. In the run-up to departure for the trip, my mind was elsewhere.

Well, live & learn! :rolleyes:

I see your point... but leaving it on the table?

 

Book a specialty restaurant dinner, purchase some photos or buy the cruise DVD, take a spa treatment, place it all on black on the casino's roulette wheel, pad the gratuity to your favorite crew member, heck, buy everyone at the martini bar a round! Just don't hand it over to the greedy shareholders who are systematically ruining our collective cruise experience with scams like this!

 

winks

As I said, I only realized how much was left over when the end of the cruise was just hours away. In any case, cynical as I can be, I don't know that I'd put it in the category of a "scam"...:cool:

Never even OCCURRED to me that I might be able to get any sort of refund! But I can't see why Celebrity would even consider it, since it's sort of like "play money" to them, or the equivalent of an unused gift card...

I recently got back from an excellent cruise on the Summit, round-trip out of San Juan (Jan 2nd-9th). The following is an excerpt from the review I wrote:

"Between Celebrity's 1-2-3 booking offer, and the $75 additional provided by my travel agent, I had a total of $275 worth of onboard credit-- but I wound up leaving half of it "on the table", and after the cruise ends it's gone for good. Here's what happened: when you chose open-seating dining, you're automatically pre-billed about $85 for all the daily gratuities / service charges on your credit card, months before the cruise even begins; those service charges no longer appear on your onboard tab at cruise's end. THAT part I've been used to seeing, for many years now. However, this time around, my credit card was also pre-billed for the shore excursions I ordered, so those weren't part of the final tab, either. (I guess the only way to avoid that would have been to wait until I was on the ship to order the shore excursions I was interested in-- which of course puts you at risk of finding that they've already sold out of space on those.) So the only items on that shipboard tab were my drinks-- and I'm not a big drinker. I figure I had more than half of my onboard credit left over, which I only realized when a preview version of the final tab appeared in my cabin the night before we returned to San Juan. Heck, if I had known how much was gonna be left, I'd have treated myself to a massage or something! Moral of the story: don't be fooled by a big fat "onboard credit" dollar figure-- you may already have paid for what you thought that credit was going to cover."

So I was wondering if others had a similar experience on recent cruises...Is a the lure of a big onboard credit total becoming less useful or relevant because so much is pre-paid before you even GET onboard?

Thanks-- I did so, as I had with the previous question. However, Martinique being a less frequently visited port, the Martinique page likewise gets relatively few visitors, so I found it best to post it here as well. (If I had a question about St Thomas, posting here wouldn't be necessary!) :D

If anyone knows this, it will give our group (of six passengers) some basis of comparison with the cost of renting a suitable mini-van from one of the local agencies, such as Budget or Europcar.

Thanks to the many replies to my earlier question, I am assured that:

1) Taxi payment by credit card would be a bad idea even if it were possible, and also that...

2) no visitor should count on U.S. dollars being accepted-- best to come with plenty of Euros in hand!

Now I'm wondering if any recent visitor to the island, or perhaps a native, can enlighten me as to what we should expect as a by-the-hour rate to engage a taxi-van? The last time I did this was in Dec 2004, and as I recall, a total of about 5 hours came to about 300 Euros (then equivalent to about $375)-- and that was BEFORE adding a tip. (There were about 7 of us besides the driver, so still not too bad on a per-person basis.)

If I can get this information, I will then have some basis for comparison with the cost to rent a suitable minivan for the day from one of the local agencies.

...As you see, there's not much viewer traffic here, so I went to "Ask a Cruise Question" where there's so much more, and quickly got multiple replies. The consensus is clear: even if you COULD pay by credit card, people consider that too risky.

Thanks for all the replies & info...As for the car rental approach, our group is already up to 6, and might grow larger, so a compact Renault sedan would fall short-- but I can look into whether minivan-size options are available.

I already posted this question on the Martinique "Ports of Call" page, but haven't received any replies-- neither the page nor the island get as many visitors as, say, St Thomas...so I thought I'd put it out here.

I will be one of a party of six planning an independent excursion by hiring a taxi-van right off the pier after exiting the ship on the morning of Jan 6th. IF they are now equipped to take credit cards, as U.S. cabs generally are, that would cut way down on the amount of Euros we would need to have in hand...Does anyone have recent first-hand experience on this point?

I will be part of a party of six planning an independent excursion by hiring a taxi-van right off the pier after exiting the ship on the morning of Jan 7th. IF they are now equipped to accept credit cards, as U.S. cabs generally are, that would cut way down on the amount of Euros we would need to have in hand...Does anyone have first-hand recent experience on this point?

Below is a review I wrote of a late Feb / early March 2012 cruise (out of New Orleans, on Norwegian Spirit) that called at Roatan. Scroll down to March 1st and you may find some useful advice. Bon Voyage!

http://www.cruisecritic.com/v-1/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=99763

1) I have often taken wine in CHECKED luggage, although the airlines like to know about it, and know that it's specially sealed and padded-- as will you, of course, since nobody wants their clothing soaked in wine! The check-in person at the departure airport will provide "FRAGILE" stickers for that bag.

When you get to Ft Lauderdale, you can transfer the bottle(s) into a carry-on.

2) If you want to use the "buy on arrival" strategy, many people have mentioned that there's a Total Wine, which has a giant selection, just north of the port. In that case, order ahead of time online so you can swoop in for a quick pickup on the day and minimize the taxi's waiting time.

Incidentally, I cruised with Princess out of San Francisco last winter-- and brought FIVE bottles aboard, courtesy of my brother, who lives out there and has a huge collection. They'll charge a corkage fee of $15 a bottle right as you check in at the pier. (Just be sure they don't charge for the bottles a second time when they're opened in the dining room-- sometimes the left hand of management doesn't know what the right hand is doing!)

So...within about a half hour of leaving that post, it occurred to me, "Hey, dummy, why not just hit google for "Images of Balata Gardens" and see if there's pix with a suspension bridge of some sort in there?" So I did, and there were.

So unless there's ANOTHER botanical garden convenient to Fort-de-France with that feature, I think I can consider the question answered... ;)

I'm trying to make sure the botanical garden referred to (but never actually named) on Celebrity's online shop-for-shore-excursions Martinique page is in fact Balata Gardens, which I missed seeing during my one prior visit to the island more than a decade ago. Any other Celebrity regulars who have been on this particular excursion who can confirm this?

In reading through the posts on this thread, it occurs to me that since the ships involved often have 1500 or 2000 or even 2500+ cabins, having ONE cabin with drunken or possibly criminal miscreants is a pretty good ratio...If only the crime rate were that low back on land! ;)

More than you ever wanted to know! (Courtesy of wikipedia...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony

I trust any such ceremony performed aboard a passenger ship was a mighty pale facsimile of the often-brutal hazing rituals described in the article, which deals with naval traditions.

I can also vouch for Gina and her Calabaza outfit-- they've always garnered top ratings from clients, myself included (Jan 2014). It would be worth going just for the wonderful home-made spread of local delicacies they prepare for every trip, and the personalized service that comes with small groups-- limited to a dozen, as I recall.

Wow - I (don't sail much and) have never heard of that. Are "equator parties" a standard thing (with the King Neptune gig and all)? Sounds pretty Animal-House-ish to me (hmm, thank gawd it's not a dead horse then)!

The tradition is a very old one; in books I have about old liner lore there are pictures of this ceremony being enjoyed-- or endured-- by very well-heeled passengers of the 1920's and 1930's. And I'm pretty sure the tradition dates back to naval vessels of the 19th century...I expect former navy sailors, of whatever nation, may be able to fill in more details on my fuzzy memory.