PATRLR

@wil e coyoteEncore has a similar sized (maybe bigger counting the upper sundeck) Vibe and they typically had 2 bartenders and 1 or 2 servers walking around taking care of things throughout the Vibe. I seldom had to wait more than a couple minutes. The 100% full comment is interesting, I've not seen that, not even close. I'd consider 50% full to be the extreme, typically its more like 25%. Were you on a school vacation week maybe with people more motivated to escape the kids?

What do you mean by "both sides"? Encore has 1 vibe bar, located in the middle of the deck.

It's not that much of an exageration. If they aren't careful, the cruise ship will become little more than a means for transportation. Just think about how often we read right in these forums that people choose their cruise based on the ininerary, not the ship. Back in the 80s when I first started crusing, the itinerary was an after thought, we just wanted to be on a cruise!

I think those words perfectly describe it. It used to be a nice treat after an evening "out" to come back to a room that had been picked up, bed ready, mint on the pillow, linens refreshed, etc... Will lack of evening turndown ruin my vacation? Of course not. That doesn't change the fact that it was something special.

I find those comments to be interesting because I respect both posters and based on our 1 recent RCCL cruise (Oasis, last summer), I thought Chops, Giovanni's, and Park-whatever were much better than any of the NCL offerings. Chops had good quality rib-eye like Cagney's used to have many years ago, and the other two just seemed to be much better than anything we'd had lately (before or since) on NCL. RCCL's MDR we found to be lousy. At the time we thought worse than NCL. Oh well, just shows that food is very subjective.

You may want to reserve that celebration until you learn which country she got you a visa for - you might not be going where you think you are going 😉

I agree that quality has slipped significantly. Food is the biggest area. We have been on many cruises going back to the 80s. I honestly don't think we've ever intentionally planned on eating dinner in a buffet on any ship, ever. We enjoy and prefer being served dinner. Well this past December on Viva, the MDR meals were just so bad that we actually planned one night to try the buffet. The general reduction in quality has us now trying other lines after many years of just NCL. RCCL last summer, Princess this summer. We still enjoy our NCL cruises, we bought more Crusie Next when we were on Viva. As others have said, we just don't enjoy them as much.

It's a great question that I've thought about for a while since you wrote it. I think I would be happier with the honest reason than the BS reason. Of course I understand the next thought I'd have is along the lines of "OK, what's my cut of that savings" and therein lies the problem. But at the end of the day, I'd rather be ripped off than lied to.

Not for my Northern Europe cruise this coming summer. I won't repeat what @dmwnc1959 wrote but my experience matches theirs's. I haven't sailed yet, so will withhold any further comment/judgment.

I'm not sure it's possible to ruin NCL's soft serve. How would you know it's ruined? My thought was it sounded like a way to ruin a cup of coffee... 😉

I have nothing to add regarding NCL or the Joy. I notice in your history there is no RCCL. Any reason to not try them going out of Cape Liberty across the river? Tiring of how far NCL has slipped, we tried them last summer. Better entertainment, better specialty dining, worse buffet and worse MDR. Bars/drinks about the same. (we're trying Princess this summer to the Norwegian fjords, I notice only one Princess trip in your list)

Seems like something is missing from the story here. I admit ignorance here, but I would think there might be a handful of passengers exhibiting Norovirus symptoms on every cruise. Do they actually test everyone who exhibits the symptoms? Seems like a heck of a reaction for such a relatively small number cases.

My comment was tongue in cheek, sorry for not adding some emojis to make help make that more obvious. The fact of the matter is that I have asked the grill guy, nicely, if I could have one before it got to hockey puck state and was told "no". The reason stated was food safety. I've made this request on more than one occasion and received similar responses.

I wonder if I could tip the grill guy to get me a burger that isn't over-cooked to the point of being nearly inedible?

I know we do. We don't travel without them.

Here? On CC? Nahhhh....

Seeing as the question you are asking is different from the OP's question, perhaps you should start a new, separate topic for your question.

I wouldn't change plans for the Latitudes party. It was nothing more than cocktails and a few appetizers and a couple sentences from the Captain and a few too many sentences from the CN head sales person. It was held in the OL.

You might want to go back and read the original post again. I'll save you the clicks: "Does anyone tip their cabin stewards in top of the $20 per person per day service charge? How much additional do you give?" OP asked two questions. First one is answered with yes or no, second with a number. Both questions are asking for facts, not opinions. Earlier you mentioned people thinking for themselves. Unless one is thinking up fantasies, most useful thinking is based on learned facts. OP is trying to gather those facts and your encouragement of people not providing those facts or telling OP s/he doesn't need those facts is not helpful.

Another example of you projecting your thoughts onto the OP. The OP said nor implied nothing along these lines. My guess is you have some sort of insecurities related to tipping amounts.

Is there a problem or something wrong with gathering information as part of the process of determining "what they want to tip"? Your posts sure make it seem like there is something wrong with asking questions and gathering information Who said that's what they were going to do? If you inferred that, then that is on you. If that would be your simplistic approach, again, that's on you not the OP.

we got on Viva Dec 15

On Viva in December there were no wrist bands, my understanding from staff is the wrist bands are a thing of the past.

@Nipo I see you are from Europe. I believe some European countries require the gratuities be included in the published price. Is it possible you were checking two different countries version of the web site? Two different countries with different rules?

Typically, you can book Vibe as soon as you book your cruise. However, FWIW, we were on Viva in December and for that sailing Vibe passes weren't available until only a few months before the first sailings. I assume the delay was because the ships weren't even sailing yet. We kept checking almost daily and then one day someone in our roll-Call said they were available and we jumped on them.