The_Big_M

I didn't comment on whether someone likes it or not. Like pretty much everything in life, some will like something and others won't.

Yes and no. "Badges" are an included feature. But the icon (ship) is customised by the site, and the "rare" is optional. It doesn't need to be displayed at all. So they could for example create a picture with "Live reporter" or similar, which would make more sense and be specific to what it's about. There's no need for the "rare" part, which is actually there to refer to the frequency amongst badges awarded. Since they only have the one badge here at present, it makes no sense.

Sure, but then lots of things here are rare. As a proportion of users, people who report posts would be rare. People who start threads would be rare. People who get over 10,000 views on a thread would be rare. People who get over 1000 likes on their account would be rare. And so on. As said, it's meaningless, and irrelevant. And doesn't actually indicate what it's for.

While it's good you called this out, it is technically correct. This is because it stems from the idea of a business as a going concern. In that context, the deposits paid do not fall under debts as they are not expected to be paid back. As a going concern, they are prepayments towards G&S purchased, so not debt as such. (Of course if the business was being wound up they would be added to the list of creditors, so debts at that point.) OTOH, the reason to calculate net debt is to see the coverage of liquid assets (e.g. cash) as true debts need to be repaid. So in this context again they are part of cash that can be paid to cover those debts. (The use of cash for these purposes is legitimate as part of business operations. Deposits do not have to be held until the product/service is supplied.) You are considering things from a liquidation perspective, but that is not how an operating business is assessed.

Nothing like watching a previous show to see what it's like and whether it appeals. As for price, the pre-cruise price is discounted 20% so you can see what the regular price is.

Yes, same limited menu. It really needs updating as it's very 'old'. It's listed in the updated benefits brochure. captains-club-brochure-pager (zmags.com)

Really surprised they tried to pull a swifty like that though. They're not giving you what you paid for, so if there weren't enough bids for the 2b nobody should be transferred there. And then they give a free upgrade, or a spare as they decide subsequently.

Not my kind of humour. It was mocking those who are discriminated against. Say contiki (or U cruises when they started) ran an ad about their tours, and used a bunch of seniors whining they couldn't join I wouldn't find it funny either. As for being talked about, targeting a specific group is always likely to do that. Again, same as if those youth companies above made a point about oldies, would also get talked about. In advertising terms that's not hard.

Not a fan of discrimination out of the person’s control, whoever the target. And the ‘ad’ is just tacky.

I found there are swimming goggles with optical adjustments. They most likely won't match your regular prescription but should be good enough for a 10 min ride or whatever. It's not just/normally about climbing the stairs, but more about the whole experience. You can't see things clearly outside/people looking at you/meeting you and so on.

Those who already know how NFTs work, and made an informed choice about whether they want to speculate on them, one would expect. Not just because they got an email from Celebrity, heard NFTs mentioned elsewhere, and think this must be a great deal because a brand they know is giving an easy entry to get something they weren't sure about.

If they can't get the wines they order, they can get substitutes. It's not as though there are no wines at all in the world! While running out of a single thing is understandable, to have run out of every high grade wine over the course of a cruise falls in the don't care category. If things were really that bad (somehow) then they could stock up exceptionally at another port.

3 of Celebrity's 5 copies have already been sold. The seller was happy to take the opening bids of about $4k. And of course those buyers have immediately listed to re-sell them, hoping for the next 'fool' to pay 3-5 times what they paid. The best way to look at this is people paying high dollars to be part of the naming ceremony/sailing for 2 nights. Whereas holding a link to a poorly drawn digital image with flaws that had better equivalents made in 1990 is not going to hold any long-term value. As for Celebrity getting into this, it was a bit of a curveball, but is like cruisefam said, that they're happy to market to various niches and 'cryptoboys' is one of them.

Personally I don't see it either. But as you saw from reading those drink package discussions, some people find it "convenient" to pay in advance. As said, doesn't make sense to me, but for them it does. That said, I can think of other reasons as well. For example, because the price onboard is in US dollars, but most of those overseas pay in another currency, prepaying is a chance to lock in the current rates. That may be either as a safeguard against your own currency depreciating, or that you think it's a good time to buy and the USD will get stronger later (similar effects).

Guessing it's because people here haven't cruised for basically 3 years so they've forgotten some of the old tactics. Combined with an increase on pricing when we last sailed.

One thing to be aware of that rating is not as clear as you might think. It is more a relative indicator to show selection chance _if there is a chance at all_. i.e. the first factor is whether any upgrades become available, which this indicator doesn't reflect. Basically, you might make a bid on a Junior Suite for example, make the maximum bid so it will say very strong. But that grade is fully booked at the end and they don't offer any upgrades to anyone. So even though your relative offer compared to other bids is high, nobody gets upgraded at all regardless of the strength of the bid.

The funny thing is a number of the returns above are better than normal. However, the only reason it then goes so bad is that the 2 pair payout has been halved from its normal payout of 2-10 to 1-5. Of course 2 pair is one of the most common paying outcomes, so that halving is a big hit, of 12%.

Of course the focus is on the highest rates; that's where they make the most money, and as they continue them it makes sense to retain the marketing investment they made in promoting them, rather than dumping the whole model. It is a base rate though; it's offered on virtually all sailings unconditionally, and in fact it's just as combinable, commissionable and so on exactly the same as the other existing rates i.e. they're not even trying to discourage people from selecting it so it's evidently seen as a significant hurt to sales that they no longer had this product offering. Any time you upsell whether from an interior to a suite, or with add-ons or flights there's a dollar benefit. That doesn't change the rationale that there's now a product with a close to half the commission COST effectively - that shows how bad the hurt is that they've made this an equal rate with their other rate levels.

That's one way of putting it. However, they would have only added this rate if they felt it was necessary to meet the market i.e. their pricing was above the level they were getting sufficient bookings. If it was only on a few specific sailings they would have continued with the existing process of having no perks rates on guarantees and when they needed to sell a specific cruise. Essentially, it isn't just penny pinchers they want to attract. They were just priced too high for their target, so have gone back to the old model of base rates, and rates with the extra inclusions.