PATRLR

Is "Day 2" the first sea day or second? My expectation would be by the morning of second sea day you'd be able to sit outside without issue. You might be wearing a sweatshirt depending on the weather patterns, but you should be well beyond the bitter cold of NY winter.

I didn't think the OL would be useful in the Carribean, but I have to say that I made nice use of it each morning. I'm an early riser so that was the perfect palce for me to escap to while my wife slept. I love it and I'm glad it was there. That being said, I never saw many people there. If there were 50 people in the whole lounge, I'd be surprised. I also walked through one sea day, mid day, and similar number of people. Seems like a huge wasted space for a warm weather cruise.

I don't intend to speak for Dexddd here, but, IMO both are a joke.

I'll give you one example where the crew in the passenger area was a problem. I don't recall which line it was but certain crew were allowed to use the fitness facilities. There is limited equipment and these folks doing their workouts meant I had to wait for them to finish for me to do parts of mine. sure, it could just as well been passengers I had to wait for, but why add even more people to a venue that is so limited to begin with.

FWIW, last week on Encore, I'm certain a couple members of the "Choir of Man" cast were eating in the buffet. I'm about 50/50 certain the lead from Kinky Boots was also spotted there. They were dressed in street clothes but wore name tags.

Sigh. It's not $20 per day. Everyone knows the cost of the drink package is baked into NCLs generally higher than the competition's fares. And please spare me your examples where you've found NCL fares lower than everyone else, I wrote "generally" above because everyone knows there are no absolutes in these discussions. But even if it really was $20, its still OK to complain about the package being reduced whether its by incresing the charge for certain drinks (e.g. Baily's), removing popular drinks (Captain) or eliminating categories of drinks (mixed shots). It's all part of NCL's nickle & diming from both sides of the ledger.

Fireball was on Encore 11/13/22 sailing, though I think they had to search for it. I wouldn't be surprised if it too joins Captain Morgan in the land of the missing.

@fshaganYour highlighted words above most reasonable people would infer to be saying one credit per stateroom per port. That is wrong because you can get multiple credits in each port. You write " It is indeed "per port" " - correct, but it is not one credit per port which is what your highlighted words imply. @cruiseny4life's reminder to read the T&Cs is far from being snippy, especially when the statement you made implies incorrect information.

reports are it started this week.

By the way, if they can eliminate mixed shots, why can't they eliminate all shots? Anyone wanna bet that eliminating all shots is somewhere on or just over the horizon?

For me, the issue is that its supposed to be an all-inclusive type of vacation. Yes, I get that it isn't ALL inclusive and there are plenty of T&Cs, but the idea is that generally speaking most average things are included. And then they find a way to charge you for something that used to be included, or they start taking things away. Each move is small and damn near incidental. But its constant. Over and over. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Or simply annoying - No, you can't have a mini-beer shot, but you are welcome to slam shots of tequila.

Of course it's about $$. EVERY move NCL makes is about either extracting more money from the passengers or spending less money on the passengers. EVERY move. It's nickel diming, except from the cost side of the balance sheet, that's all. (queue the NCL apologists)

We were on Curacao twice about 30 years ago and recall going to a very nice beaches there. We were on a B2B that had both legs stopping there. I'd consider that for my beach day. While I think Eagle Beach on Aruba is the nicest beach in the world, I'm not sure how well it works for cruise passengers (we've always stayed for a week or so). Some will recommend going to Baby Beach, I've never liked that beach - too shallow and too many people. Reminds me of sharing a bath tub with a couple hundred others. If you are at all adventurous I'd consider renting a jeep and exploring Aruba. It's very safe and very easy to get around. Take a ride to Arikok park, drive through it to the southwest corner of the island and loop back through San Nicholas. If the time is right, have lunch at Zee Rovers in Savaneta. Then drive through town and north to the California Lighthouse. Follow the shore and you'll see Eagle Beach and the low rise district followed by the high rise district then various other beaches including Malmok (very nice). Stop anywhere along the way, beaches are all public. I also strongly encourage you to check the ports of call forums: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/101-aruba/ https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/42-bonaire/ https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/50-curacao/

So this reminds me of tequila which IMO is best used to power your lawn mower. Or strip paint. Or, at least I used to think that was the case until I got to talking to a Mexican shop owner who proceeded to let me sample the "good" tequila. Much, much different than the mass market tequila and actually enjoyable, but any of those good bottles were $100 or more (one was like $300+ IIRC). I don't like it enough to spend that kind of money. The good news about the bottle you posted above is it looks like it's only about $50. Maybe, just maybe I'll try to have a bit more open mind about it.

Scrapped just this past summer.

Yep, I was going to ask the same thing. I have something that I suspect is similar, it's just a pocket folder in which I print out anything that might be important and definitely anything I've paid money for and includes typically a sheet per day of planned or wish-list activities for that day. But I suspect Gary's is much more comprehensive. I'd like to see it too.

I'll do you one better - in the mid 70s, when I would guess I was about that age, I DID the payroll for my father's contracting business one week when both my father and his bookkeeper were on vacation. No computers at that time, it was all done by hand, using an adding machine and looking up withholding in tax tables. He probably had 15 employees at that point, it really was rather simple. Funny thing is, they all knew I was doing it and my brother (who was busy actually running jobs) told me they all were looking over their slips very, very closely. No mistakes reported.

They are. Most of the time.

I just find it curious that the Cruise Next folks are the ones making such decisions. Afterall, this is a benefit of the room you booked, not Latitudes. And then you later posted that Guest Services seemed to override what CN said. Hmm... this shouldn't be so difficult 😉 . Great live posting by the way. We're 5-10 years away from doing cruises like this one, but, God willing we'll get there eventually.

This just feels like one more step to ratchet down just how much you can get with the "free" drink packages. Add me to the list of people who are pissed off by this.

Sorry if this was stated, but when is your trip? I believe after the first of the year (? or some specific date), the drink packages are going to include a 6 pack of waters delivered to your room. Also, if you are receiving non-refundable on board credit (OBC) and don't have plans for how you would spend it (e.g. no intentio to use spa services, or go-kart rides or other pay for activities), then buying the water onboard would help you to use that non-refundable OBC.

And you know the agency gets a percentage of wages how? And you know that percentage does not include the DSC portion of their pay how? Most agencies I've dealt with get a flat fee, or, they get a straight markup if the employee is being paid on the agency's paper. But those are just details that could be negotiated. Making the DSC obligatory and making sure the staff gets their fair share and the agency gets their due all can be negotiated.

I think the difference here is you employ "young" people. Most of the ships staff isn't as young as you describe. Most all of the staff I have conversations with (admittedly that means stewards, bar staff, waiters) are not young, are mostly married and many have families and children back home. I'd expect these people are not ignorant of their work contracts, pay stubs, etc.

IMO, rum is vile. There is a reason spices were added. The Bacardi spiced rum is the Bud Light of spiced rums. The Kraken they serve is much better, but, has a certain taste that makes me prefer Captain Morgan.

After reading some excellent input in this thread, my gut sense is that those who used to get the envelopes are now getting an equivalent pay by way of their cut of DSC. From my point of view as the passenger, the DSC replaces the envelope with the "recommended" tip. With the envelope system, I tipped more than the "recommended" amount if I felt the crew member provided above and beyond the expected level of service. Same thing today, but only that "extra" portion is handed to the crew member. Effectively, DSC = Weekly Gratuities. This is something most everyone knows but for some reason causes others to get their britches in a bunch.