notalandlover

Spend most of the day in the thermal suite. I love the T pools

How did all the behind the scenes people get paid before the introduction of DSC?

Excellent point.

Silversea tipping policy:

 

GRATUITIES ALWAYS INCLUDED

Our unwavering commitment to flawless service requires an attitude that is totally focused on the part of every member of the staff. Their professional training is readily apparent from the waiter who keeps your water glass filled to the chef who prepares your favourite soufflé à la minute. Yet surprisingly gratuities are not expected. They’re included in your fare.

 

Highly unlikely that a chef on Silversea is reaping significant income from tips.

They’re included in your fare. That sounds fair. Everyone pays the same.

NCL doesn't own or control the art auctions

Its always a good idea to take a picture of your passport and keep it on your phone. I have also emailed to my self a picture of my passport just in case.

I second this. Epic Dec 5 to 15, 2018 I feel like i got a good deal.

 

1029 per person Balcony plus $211 taxes/fees plus $176 beverage package= $1416 per person

 

 

Perks included:

$300 OBC fron NCL

$200 OBC from TA

Beverage package

$100 per port excursion credit

 

250 minutes of WiFi

120 minutes of phone calls from stateroom to land

Im on that sailing. When I booked we got DSC paid, 125 OBC from the TA and 100 OBC from from NCL. Then NCL offered paid taxes promo. I called the TA and we lost the NCL OBC but kept our paid DSC, taxes paid now, keep the TA OBC, 50 dollars per port excursion credit, internet minutes, calling minutes, bottle of wine . No complains here

Plus he will not get any reduction in cruise fare, and of course be responsible for his flights, etc. Get the approval of the cruise line in writing prior to boarding, and bring that document along on the cruise.

Bruce in these types of cases who should the OP ask?

Does anyone know how I can contact this vendor. Ive searched and searched no luck. My cruiseship is doing this but I want to book it on our own.

I just got of the Pearl on July 15. I called to book my excursions prior to the cruise. The first day of the cruise the full charge for all the excursions appeared on my account and tickets for all excursions booked were in my room. After we took the excursion, usually that night or the next day the $50 credit appeared on my account. However, I will say that we did not get our Latitudes discount applied on shore excursions until I went to the desk and requested it. I spoke to another person on the cruise who said the same about the Latitudes discount, so pay attention to your account. Once they applied the discount, the original full charge was gone and the discounted charge appeared on my account. We also took a post cruise excursion with drop off at the airport and I noticed the $50 credit was already applied the morning of disembarkation.

What does your level have to be to get the discount

Hi, glad you are making your way to Australia. P&O use AUD as the on board currency. You will find bars and lounges full most of the time. The Pacific Aria is an ex HAL ship of an older style, it was the Ryndam , so balcony cabins are fewer than more modern ships but the cabins are fairly large. Not all the cabins have a fridge, so you may need to ask for ice everyday. It is a smaller ship but is fairly well set out. There are no gratuities on any on board expenditure, i.e drinks, etc.

What is your itinerary? Dates ? I may be able to help with port information.

I wish they did that in the US. Pay once and done. It would end the gratuities threads on cruise critic.

I dont think you will have enough time. We did a land trip last month and the drive to the gardens is atound a half hour. You will be rushed.

Are they allowed? They may be the solution to chair hogs.

In this game a 3 counts as zero, all other numbers count at face value. A player's score is the total spots showing on the dice when he finishes his turn, excludingthrees. Players roll in succession as follows: All five dice are rolled, and the player must leave at least one out but may leave more at his discretion.

The object of the game is to roll a six (the "ship"), a five ("captain"), and a four ("crew") with three dice, and get the highest score with the other two dice ("the ship'scargo"). Alternatively, the game may be played for antes placed in a pot.

We used to play this in college.

Trak...... DITTO, DITTO, DITTO!!!!!!! Especially when it is so up front that these charges exist. Separate or add to fare, what's the difference? In fact, I wish that the cruise lines would make it part of the fare itself and then people can't take away part of these hard working peoples' wages!

 

Pooh

I agree. They do elsewhere. If the lines continue to raise the DSC they will be have to do it. The more they raise the DSC the more people are going to remove it. At some point it will have to be addressed.

I appreciate everyone taking the time to read and respond to this post. I will be booking the Coral.

We did Star Princess and it was amazing!

Based on ?? Thanks

I'm looking into an Alaskan cruise and have narrowed it down to a seven day literary starting in Anchorage and ending in Vancouver. A few years ago DW & I sailed the Royal Princess and had a great time. We want experience a different ship. The ships doing this itinerary are Golden, Coral & Island. Based on these three ships only which one would you choose and why. DW and I are in our 50's and enjoy being busy and active on cruises. We sailed HAL once and found it to be a bit slow for us. Thanks in advance

I agree and I fail to see how anyone was hurt by this crewman's actions. They were inconvenienced perhaps or out some money, but not hurt or injured in anyway that I can see. They got some extra time on a cruise ship for goodness sakes.

Maybe their feelings were hurt. :loudcry::loudcry:

No. It does not. And because the contract specifically says that it supersedes all other statements by NCL you CAN remove your DSC for no reason at all . That does NOT mean that you SHOULD.[/quote]

 

 

I agree with that. I never remove my DSC but always say in the comment cards I hate them and want these charges tacked onto the cruise fair price like they do elsewhere in the world. That would ensure everyone paid it.

Well the Guest Ticket Contract states that the DSC can be adjusted “ at your discretion “ whcich legally means “ for any reason or no reason at all” Flynt v. LFP, Inc., 245 F.Supp.2d 94, 104 (D.D.C.,2003). Legally an “adjustment” means any change in the price, including a refund after payment. Bunge Corp. v. Northern Trust Co., 252 Ill.App.3d 485, 501, 623 N.E.2d 785, 796, 191 Ill.Dec. 195, 206 (Ill.App. 4 Dist.,1993)

Does it mention that you must have a good reason such as poor service:confused::o etc

You might want to consider a spa balcony.

It will be about $275 - $300. A week is $199 if purchased before sailing.

you might want to consider a spa balcony room

There is definitely logic being applied, but it's on a per cruise basis. While a low bid might win an upgrade on one cruise, a max bid might not win an upgrade on the next cruise. It's really quite simple on the NCL end, it's just not evident to us on the consumer end, because we do not see all of the behind-the-scenes data.

 

On the NCL end, they want to make as much money as they possibly can. The will accept/reject bids in a manor that maximizes their earnings. Here's a little scenario to demonstrate how things might look arbitrary from our perspective, but makes perfect sense from NCL's money-making perspective.

• Couple A purchases an inside room for $699 per person, for a total of $1398.
  
• Couple B purchases an ocean view room for $749 per person, for a total of $1498.
  
• Couple C purchases a balcony for $1199 per person, for a total of $2398.
  

First of all, how much all of these couples paid for their initial booking is completely irrelevant. NCL already has that money. All they care about now is how much MORE money they can get out of these couples for their bids. The only scenario I can possibly imagine in which NCL *might* factor in the initial fare is if there were a "tie" in the bidding process and they needed some piece of data to break that tie. I also assume that NCL's third-party partner that handles bidding might track the initial fare to get some sense of whether people who pay more/less up front are more inclined to make higher/lower bids. So it is useful for data mining and predictive analytics.

 

Now, let's move on to the next step in our scenario, the bidding process:

• Couple A gets to bid on an upgrade to an ocean view and a balcony. They bid $100 pp for the ocean view and $200 pp for the balcony.
  
• Couple B gets to bid on an upgrade to a balcony and a mini-suite. They bid $150 pp for the balcony.
  
• Couple C gets to bid on a mini-suite and the Haven suites. They bid $1200 pp for a Haven.
  

Now we come down to a few days before the sailing and NCL processes the bids:

• Couple A gets upgraded to an ocean view.
  
• Couple B gets upgraded to a balcony.
  
• Couple C gets upgraded to the Haven.
  

They come to post on this site and all we are told is that Couple A went from an inside to an ocean view for $100 pp, Couple B wend from an ocean view to a balcony for $150 pp, and Couple C went to a Haven for $1200pp.

 

Couple A might be mad because they bid more for the balcony upgrade than Couple B did, but they got stuck in an ocean view room. What they don't see is that it was more profitable for NCL to upgrade Couple B to the balcony vacated by couple C and then upgrade Couple A to the ocean view vacated by Couple B. NCL has now made $100 pp from couple A plus $150 pp from Couple B for a total of $500. Whereas, had they just accepted Couple A's $200 pp offer on a balcony and left Couple B in their ocean view room, NCL would have only made $400.

 

Now, scale that out to the entire ship... potentially hundreds, if not thousands of bids. Since we only hear a couple of accounts from each sailing (if that) on these forums, we aren't getting anything near the whole picture. Plus, add in other complicating factors like more people per stateroom, or the actual distribution of weight on the ship dictating which staterooms should be filled or left empty and there is just FAR too much information that we are lacking here on the forums.

 

I don't think NCL is playing mind games and making some staterooms appear to be sold out when they aren't just to try to trick us into bidding more. I legitimately believe that if a stateroom appears to us to be sold out, it's because it currently *is* or it is on hold. But NCL is still more than happy to take your bids, because up until the very last second, they don't know if there will be a cancellation or if someone will get upgraded and therefor vacate that room. Plus, by taking your bids on sold out rooms, they are still getting valuable data for their predictive analytics that help them make future decisions on pricing.

 

I think that at the moment NCL or their third-party partner runs the algorithms to process the bids, they are simply trying to squeeze as much money out of the sailing as they possibly can. I also think that they might auto-accept some very high bids further out from the sale date in order to "lock in" those bids. For instance, if someone bids high on a balcony and NCL is about to drop the price on those balconies because of poor sales, they might go ahead and accept the high bid on the balcony while they have it so the passenger doesn't lower their bid once they see that prices are dropping.

Great post. Thank you

Perhaps more the exception than the rule:

Some cruise lines do have "preferred" TA partners who (like an onboard "ambassador") may be able to "prebook" new itineraries about to be published. One of our very recent onboard bookings for a summer 2020 extended itinerary was arranged before appearing to the general public on the cruise line website. Even with this advantage, we secured the only remaining cabin in our favorite category.

Basically, the itinerary was "sold out" before it "appeared." Yet another value of the "right TA."[what was the iternary ship and date?