ontheweb

Yes, and not having to have all the right bills for the envelopes was not always easy. The auto-gratuities has made life at the end of the cruise much easier. And how many people used to skip the main dining room and go to the buffet on the last day to avoid leaving a tip envelope?

Enjoy. I am also not a beach person, but DW is. My job is to watch her stuff while she swims. (And hopefully not so long that my head melts.)

To NCL, free means the tips you would have had added if you drank to the maximum allowed under the drink package. The same goes for free alternative restaurants. And free excursions is only up to $50 for the first person, in other words only free if $50 or less.

Is there no sales tax in the state of Florida? Having merchandise priced on the shelf as the pre-sales tax price is the norm here where we live and I imagine in most of the USA.

As I wrote in an earlier post, we did a Norwegian Florence on Your Own excursion, but a do it yourself Rome from the Epic. We did save money for Rome that way, but there was a negative also. For Florence we had an air conditioned bus. For Rome, the train back was packed and very warm on a very warm summer day. And that was before a fight broke out on that train making it even more uncomfortable! DW did say afterwards, maybe we shold have done it as an excursion.

It was a flight not booked through a cruise line, and I'm not sure if it was Delta or another airline, but we were once changed from Newark direct to Fort Lauderdale to a flight with a layover in Dallas. And if were lucky, we would have been there on time to wave goodbye to the ship as it departed.

If it is the same as when we did the Epic (2012), you could book Rome on Your Own. (We did Florence on Your Own, and for Rome just took the public transportation there.) The one thing that still pisses me off about excursions on that cruise is we were really looking forward (and booked and paid in advance) to going to Arles from Marseilles and it was cancelled because there were not enough signed up.

I have not seen any HAL ads on tv. I have seen ads for Celebrity, Royal Caribbean, and Viking.

Two points: 1. If the ship is being held from leaving because one or more Carnival excursions are late, those not on those excursions will also be allowed to board even though late. So, if you are late ecause of a massive traffic jam, the odds are that there will also be Carnival excursions held up. Also, private tour operators know they have to get you back in time as the bad publicity of cruisers missing the ship will destroy their business. 2. With the aftermath of Covid, there may very well be less private excursions available as tour operators went out of business.

Yes, a long strange trip. but a lot of threads when they get this long veer off into odd directions.

That is not true for a closed loop cruise.

But at least TAs are now making some commissions as their clients are finally getting to sail.

And with a perfect results. 👍

It does not need to be 200 shares. 100 shares in the joint account is sufficient. (Though I would not send in the requests together. LOL).

Yes, what Covid did to tourism must have been extremely difficult on local tour operators. They did not have the means to borrow money to keep in business the same way that the cruise lines had.

"living on reds, vitamin C and cocaine, what a long strange trips it's been."

I think the major reason was lobbying by the airline industry.

I think it is more remarkable that you were only on hold a minute or two than she was able to add the OBC on the spot.

My DW is the opposite; she gets tired of people serving her. She also really like to make her own salad exactly as she wants it.

While it is proper to give our appreciation for what Carnival did, I do think we should withhold any criticism of the airline. I don't know what else they could have done. You cannot have someone out of control in the plane. Unlike a cruise ship, there is nowhere to be able to safely place tah person JMHO.

I agree 100%. I just stated what they could do (including ignoring do not upgrade). I did not say or mean to imply that I agreed with them doing that. Sometimes I wonder whether the bean counters realize the long term harm they do with their little short term actions.

Basically, it's in the cruise contract you had to approve that they can change your cabin (or do pretty much anything the want.) And marking no upgrade will NOT stop them from changing your cabin if they wish to change it.

Yes, you are correct that it is against the rules.

I thought I had read somewhere that at the last stockholders' meeting they had extended it for 2 years not they usual 1 year. In fact, IIRC, there was at the time threads about it in the cc section of the various lines that Carnival Corporation owns.

That sounds more likely than they actually diverted a cruise ship. Thank you for that information.