ontheweb

Even with income generated, you cannot write off the expense if the IRS considers it a hobby, To not be a hobby, a profit must at some point be generated. There are specific rules as to how often. And since you are showing a profit, even though you are writing off the expense, taxes will have to be paid. You can find the rules concerning a hobby versus a business here: When the IRS Classifies Your Business as a Hobby - TurboTax Tax Tips & Videos (intuit.com)

And also similar to the if I do have a passport should I leave it in the safe or take it onshore with me debate.

Yes, this has been an ongoing debate that pops up every so often and is never resolved.

In our case 2 of the ships were HAL ships and I am not sure what line the other ships was. So, one of the HAL ships got picked to tender, and we were the unlucky ones. As a matter of fact, the seas were a little rough, and a passenger on our tender despite being helped by the staff fell hard landing on his elbow.

This did not happen on an NCL cruise (actually a HAL cruise), but the concept is the same as all cruise lines want to know what employees are going above and beyond to make your cruise experience special. There was a server in the buffet area who just kept keeping my lemonade glass full. I called her over and said I wanted to fill out the card saying how she had made my cruise special, but to do so I needed to know her name. And the only way I could do that was either stare at her chest where her nametag was which I thought was rather impolite or ask her. She told me her name, and in fact often after that even after I told her the card was filled out would come over refill my glass, cover her nametag, and ask me her name. And BTW, even though this was way back in the summer of 2018, I still remember her name, Honeyeyeo.

Not your ports, but I don't know if you can definitively say a port is always a dock. What if there are more ships than there are docks at the port? We once were on an Eastern Mediterranean cruise and one of the ports was Corfu. There were 3 ships and 2 docks. We ended up having to tender in what is normally a dock port.

That brings up an interesting question I have never seen addressed. Does travel insurance cover additional expenses that only become necessary due to a lack of a passport? I am not referring to say the flight itself that would be necessary with or without a passport, only the extra expenses due to its lack. Would the insurance company say, you should have had a passport and avoided these extra expenses?

This past summer (on NCL), we had Isafjordur listed as a dock, but they had not finished their dock, so our cruise and every cruise on that ship skipped it entirely. A different NCL ship did tender there. On the same cruise, Geiranger was listed as a tender port, but everyone was able to just walk off. We were also docked in Reykjavik and saw another ship, I believe a HAL ship, that was tendering. We were once in Corfu on a HAL cruise, and there were 3 ships and 2 docks. Our ship used tenders while the other 2 were able to dock.

We have flown Iceland Air and agree it is reasonably priced, but when booking them one should be aware that they do not provide a free meal even when flying transatlantic.

The idea that smoke can be contained is ludicrous. As is the layout where you have to go through a smoking area to get someplace else like a dining room.

A lot of things have changed in 20 or so years. You would hope for progress, and dialysis would be more available to passengers who need it, but given cutbacks, unfortunately the opposite could also be true.

Not surprising that there are only positive reviews. After a Carnival cruise once, I wrote reviews for 2 excursions. One was an extremely positive review, while the other was very negative. I bet you can guess which got posted and which got rejected for not meeting their standards.

That is an interesting possibility. You wrote "many years ago", could you be more specific about how long ago that was?

Our Prima cruise when we booked it had 8 ports and 2 sea days. We ended up with 6 ports and 4 sea days. There is an entire thread about changed itineraries on NCL.

Although, we will not be getting back there soon if ever, I will still be waiting to see their response posted by you.

One possible problem is missing one of those ports. I don't believe the OP stated when the cruise was scheduled for, but if it is any time within hurricane season, missing a port becomes a real possibility

Jealous, we never made it to Bruges. The stop there last summer on our cruise was cancelled due to extremely low tides. We had booked on Bruges on Our Own excursion, and did a lot of research. Since it was supposed to be on Monday, I googled for museum availability as many European museums close on Mondays. I found many open art museums (DW is a retired art teacher) plus was intrigued by a museum dedicated to french fries. It was actually not the first time we had missed this port. Back in I believe in 2004, we had a river cruise that included Bruges chartered out from under us after we had made final payment.

Our cruise this summer included a 1 day deviation in London. NCL had us on Air Canada, Newark to Montreal and then Montreal to Heathrow. I called Air Canada to give our frequent flyer numbers and to request vegetarian meals. I asked about seat assignments and was told that at that point there was a fee or we could wait until very close to the day of the flight (I forget exactly how many days or hours) because of the special rate we were on. Anyway, I got in a conversation with the representative and told him how we were taking these flights to go on a cruise and also would be celebrating our wedding anniversary (#46). He asked about seat preferences, and then he said let me see what I can do for you. I told him my wife said just not way, way in the back. And he came back and assigned us seats for both flights. I of course thanked him.

😊😊😊😊

As we were among the Prima passengers who never made it to Isafjordur, I can second that. They cancelled it every cruise. I started a topic in this forum asking about whether it was finished. The answer seems to be progress is being made. But that was what was said this past summer as NCL would not cancel each time until a few days before the cruise.🤦‍♂️

And those few probably have a full load of passengers who stay loyal to them making them less likely to be PVPs assigned by Carnival. Good point about the turnover in personnel caused by Covid.

If you book an excursion online, others that conflict timewise disappear from your available excursions shown. At least that was our experience this past summer.

I have found stewards wonderful on all the cruise lines (5) we have been on, but the ones on HAL are by far the best.

And how many of them percentage wise do you think have worked for Carnival for 2 decades and know their stuff?

The lounges on the Prima generally had music. We sat there without drinking and listened without being bored.