MacMadame

It's their job to talk up their product(s) and smooth over bad PR. 🤷‍♂️ I just think he is doing a bad job, not that he isn't supposed to be doing it.

All I am saying is that the original business model didn't scream scam to me and why. I didn't say VVR will be a success. They are clearly making mistake after mistake. But those mistakes are not required by this business model. They were unforced errors on their part.

Nowhere in my post did I say anything about what the norms are or should be. I said the discussion of tips is helpful to some of us. So I'm not sure who you are disagreeing with here but it's not me...

This part cracked me up: "We planned for a little more than half of that. So we're about £10m over budget. "It's not the end of the world, but, yeah, it's certainly a little unexpected.” So being out 10m pounds not originally planned for is not the end of the world? Definitely a salesman and not a businessman. He actually reminds me a bit of my father had so many schemes that never worked. And blaming the people doing the certifications for not communicating well is pretty rich too. People will decide after a while to bow out and resell their cabin back to the cruise line. Plus, as I said above, they aren't selling all of them. So they could theoretically raise the price for people "renting" a cabin on segments enough to make up for the deficit. And start charging for things that were originally included. I'm not saying that it definitely would have worked. Obviously, there is only so much you can charge people before aren't willing to pay. Just that I can see why people didn't think it was a scam from day one. On the surface, it could have worked.

It's still not much. It is well known that soda fountains cost companies less than serving soda individually. That's why so many fast-food places use them.

If they didn't include Margaritaville at Sea, then it's not a valid opinion. 😉

Also to use OBC to pay for it. This also makes the Princess Vacation Insurance lower as it's based on the total cruise fare (Not an issue if you use another insurance company).

It's because most of us know how tipping works in restaurants and other places and we know the norms. But we are less familiar with how it works on a cruise and what is normal. And also there are way more people involved in serving us. When I get my hair cut, the only person serving me is the hairdresser. When I go out to eat, there are a handful of people serving me. On a ship? Too many to count! 😄 I think asking how it works and what is normal is completely reasonable. I definitely appreciate these discussions. Well, until these threads go off the rails!

It shouldn't be. A 16 oz cup of soda only has about 25 cents worth of ingredients (and I think that might include the bottle/can). Most of the expense of a soda is the labor of getting a glass and pouring it. Not to say Princess won't do this, just that they shouldn't because a soda fountain might even save them money.

That's what I ended up doing. I didn't want the pressure of having to spend that much OBC. 😄

Sarcasm? Well, I laughed anyway. This is what I do not understand. If I had given money to LAS, I would *never* give money to VVR until they had proved themselves. OTOH I do think the VVR people did a good job of getting out clean with Miray looking like the bad guys especially as a lot of the lies passengers were told came from people at that company after the original LAS people left. ---- People have talked about how the financial model doesn't work and this was obvious but I'm not sure it was so obvious. First of all, there were a very limited number of cabins at the lowest price point. Most people were paying more than that, sometimes much more. Second, permanent residents were not 100% of the ship. People buying segments were something like half of the ship (I think) and those prices could change with every booking just like a typical cruise. Btw, there are a number of industries that charge a monthly fee that they swear won't be raised over time. The way they work is; 1) The fee is raised for new customers so there is more money coming in even if earlier customers aren't paying their way anymore 2) They charge a lot for add-ons and even sometimes they make things add-ons that used to be included (cruises do this also) 3) Quality of the service goes down as the money doesn't go as far Since those industries are still in business, I don't think it's unreasonable to think VVR could do those things too and stay in business. I think their problems were bigger than that and mostly centered around not having a ship and then buying a ship in bad condition which I am sure played havoc with their budget. This is not to say their business model was perfect and absolutely would have succeeded. But if they had bought a better ship and had sailed within a month or two of the original date, I think they would have been okay for a while even a couple of years. And, they could always find another company to buy them out and that company could offer the existing cabin owners a new contract with less favorable terms (something that also happens with industries with a similar model).

I have been trying to buy Princess gift cards all morning. I keep getting technical difficulties no matter what CC I use. Just venting...

re: the cheerleaders If I hear one more time "It's a startup. These things are to be expected," I will lose it. I have worked for *many* startups. They don't work like this. Am I the only one who thinks "Theranos" every time someone from VVR including the customers talks about it? Promise something "too good to be true" according to people with expertise then deliver something much, much less than promised and late at that.

I know but that's an extra step when I want to be enjoying my vacation! 😄

Yikes. People on CC told me that it wouldn't work that way. I think I'll buy $100 cards instead of $500 for the last bit so I haven't got hundreds on a card. Even though I *will* spend it. LOL That sounds like a personal problem to me. 🤷‍♀️

When you book the cruise and have to put down a deposit, "Gift Cards" is not a payment option. Just CC and PayPal. But when you make any payments after that, "Gift Cards" is an additional option. Once I booked my cruise, I made all my payments with gift cards. I'm about to pay off the cruise with gift cards and since the gift cards will cover more than the remainder I owe, the rest becomes OBC. So that's one way to turn Gift Cards into OBC. It's the only way using the website. No way I'm calling the 800# I'll add GC to my folio on board instead. As mentioned above, you can't use Gift Cards to book excursions either. Not sure why.

Part II of Jenny's interview is up: An interesting thing she said is that after a short time at a nice hotel, VVR stopped paying for and booking their hotels directly and some residents were given a per diem amount to be reimbursed later but others continued to get their hotels paid for. If I were in the former group, I'd be pretty pissed that other people were getting their hotel paid for when I wasn't. She also said that a ton of residents were planning to embark in Miami for insurance reasons. But I don't see any port in Florida on the detailed itinerary until the end of the cruise. Was this a port that was canceled due to the delays?

I was very attracted to the 3-year world cruise concept. I would have to sell everything to afford it so it wouldn't be a second home for me but my only home. However, we have lots of pets that wouldn't be allowed on the ship so it wasn't practical for us. Also, Mr Mac isn't on board with traveling full-time. I looked at VV's prices and figured I'd buy a cabin, cruise for 3-4 years, then sell it back to the company (which they guarantee to take it back for a specific percentage of purchase price). 10 years would be way too long. Also, what are the chances that the company would still be around 10-15 years from now?

Then I guess it's a good thing that this is not the ship's maximum speed. (As has been explained multiple times by @chengkp75 but you continue to ignore.) Did people see the interview that Jenni did with Backroads Tourist? She seemed pretty reasonable to me and not just complaining to complain.

That's where we are staying because at the time I booked it, so many on CC were raving about it. Hope we won't be disappointed. I used CC points so price wasn't an issue. Hawaii was like that when I lived there. Even the rich people had roaches.

My Medigap (Part G) also covers medical when out of the country. There are some great aspects to Medicare! I haven't been on it long enough to know if I'm going to prefer it to insurance through an employer but a lot of my older friends do.

Drones can be annoying and run into people and stuff causing damage too. I have a drone and I would never think of bringing it on a ship. For one thing, I'd be afraid I'd lose control of it and it would end up in the ocean!

Cruise lines don't approve products just like the TSA and the airlines don't approve luggage. It's a marketing phrase that is meaningless.

And it's only for production shows in the big theater so the OP doesn't have to worry about it impacting smaller venues.

If you have an Apple product, you can also turn on "don't track me" The side-effect is that some websites don't remember my login info even when I ask them to "remember me." But I can live with that. As for putting in a fake phone number, I recommend using one that leads to a recording such as 202-762-1401 which tells you the time.