Obobru

A cruise is not a great way to see Europe where most of the best locations are far from cruise ports. Greatrail.com is the best place to look for rail tours which are far better and you could combine with a river cruise if you have a $15k budget to spend on a cruise.

Your question isn't valid because that doesn't happen.

How do you work out which inside rooms have sofas and not chairs? We usually travel with Disney where every room on every ship seems to have a review but on Celebrity it's hard to find a listing of rooms with sofas. This is for Silhouette and Millennium if anyone knows of such a list.

Very likely they commited suicide, seems to be getting more common for people to kill themselves on cruises which is odd as if I wanted to kill myself I wouldn't want to inconvenience everyone and put the crew through an awful stressful situation and doing it on the first night too. Suicide is an awful thing but also is a selfish act even more so doing it on a cruise. Thoughts are with the crew who get no break after this and the passengers who had to witness this and continue on with their vacation.

Do men wear t-shirts in the evenings? Or is it all polos and formal shirts?

They might add a few additional entertainment/kid staff but where would they put extra waiters, bar staff and cleaners? They would need to put them in the lifeboats the staff beds are full all the time with the staff they have and guest rooms are all sold. They do put guest entertainers on the 4th deck in guest rooms.

Suites may still have turndown but it's not for most rooms. As for cleaning the cabins get the bed made, bins emptied, towels changed, light wipe around, replacement of cups/glasses/coffee, refill of bathroom liquids. No vacuuming, bed changing on one week cruises, and no mopping of bathroom.

It's fully staffed in that every crew bed is full they can't house any more crew. The full staffing levels may not be adequate but they won't be increasing as there's no more crew beds.

We spoke to a number of staff on Iona over the past week they said it's fully staffed it wasn't designed to have twice a day service the staff were hired to do hybrid jobs. They work 11 hours a day 7 days a week. The rooms are nice but not cleaned well. No vacuuming all week, no bathroom moping, no bedding change. They tidy the bed, empty the bin, and change the towels. The rooms have full packs of spare toilet paper and tissues to change yourself and under the bed is a black box with spares of glasses, cups, towels, etc should you need them.

The newer ships attract a younger guest and I don't think younger guests like myself are as interested in afternoon tea, it's a hangover from the past like a cliché Americans think of when they think of Brits. As for the turndown I like it because they changed the towels, made the bed if I have a nap and emptied the bins. Before on most ships the attendants would clean up to 15 rooms once a day and then give them a quick tidy in the late afternoon. Now they are having to clean 30 rooms fully all day which is much more work for them as these are full cleans. It's all about cost cutting their is no staff shortages just staff cuts.

Nothing mass produced on a cruise ship is anywhere close to Michelin star rated.

Just a heads up if you have an Amex card in the UK they are offering £150 cashback if you spend £1000 with Celebrity. You must add the offer to your card in the app or website.

A lot of the crew do eat these foods, crew are from all over the world so while they make some regional foods for the different nationalities many of the crew are from countries in the west or eat a mix of foods depending on the country they are from.

We have a friend working on Disney and he told us a lot of things are reused the next day with expensive items such as prawns and crab were put out for a number of days. Other items were used to make soups and deserts were used a second day and were used for staff. The food waste from buffets isn't that much most of it is customers who either take too much or just don't like the food which can sometimes be down to the quality of it.

More BS from the cruise lines, the labour comes from Asia we have Filpino and Indonesian friends who worked on the cruise lines, no shortage of qualified people their is a lack of hiring by the cruise lines to save money. Which sounds best to customers... We are cutting staff and food to save money as we got into too much debt and didn't have a plan if anything went wrong. We are cutting some food services to cut food waste and we have a labour shortage so we are having to cut some services.

You mean like the cruise fares that increase to cover the costs that increase.

Just checked Starbucks website and there are 7 stores in Melbourne so the coffee snobs didn't exactly scare them off.

Don't believe a word they saying, food waste has no impact on decisions, food cost is what has the impact. The food is not being sold to you and a budget per head has been worked out and food supplied to that budget but when that budget is cut the inclusive food needs to be cut but if they can spin it like they are saving on waste of sounds so much better to customers than they are cutting it to save money

Go for it and don't worry it's the fear the cruise lines depend upon to sell their massively overpriced excursions. Reputable independent operators are going to ensure you get back on the ship or cover costs for you to get to the next port just the same as the ones the cruise companies use and you will likely have a better excursion as the cruise companies use the cheapest operators designed for mass market.

I keep seeing the same myths posted. Cruise ships do not have recruitment problems they have chosen to reduce staff by 10-20% per ship to save money, we know Filpinos and Indonesians who worked on the ships they have stated agencies in those countries have no shortage of qualified applicants they just don't have the cruise lines hiring at the same levels. Who is this Southampton based supplier who suddenly went bust? There's no need of it online and no one has ever managed to provide a name of this massively important company. There are many food suppliers, I don't believe someone like Bidvest didn't just step in as supplier, again it's cost cuts.

Nah I will just stop tipping on lines that want me to directly pay their staff I only use the OBC to give to staff as that's the cruise lines money anyway and isn't real money. The more people that stop the quicker the staff will turn on their employer and cruise lines will be forced to change. Some cruise lines are doing this already higher end and ones in Europe who don't pretend it's a tip and and have decided to just pay staff.

Tips should be banned or people should stop paying them on mass so the cruise lines pay staff properly, they are a nasty American concept of companies not paying people. When the cruise ships are busy yes the staff do better but when it's not busy they earn less. It's a disgusting way for the cruise companies to absolve themselves of paying a living pay instead it's down to the customers and enough of them sailing. Fares need to be raised and staff paid then tips are optional for good service like in the rest of the world.

I think you missed the part where I said in the "future" of course it can't happen now but then not long ago people were saying trucks wouldn't be able to be powered by batteries. China is making huge advances on battery power, I expect in less than 10 years we will have the batteries capable of doing it.

Do you think they have a long pipe for the diesel? It will be charged in the same way as they are currently fueled, at the port 🙄

The same as you charge an electric car