markeb

My brain is telling me I've seen promotions onboard, but in general they're probably less expensive to pre-book. You just may not have a date or time until you're on the ship. They're unlikely to be at the same time, but they could be back-to-back...

I'm biased (Marriott Lifetime Titanium...), but the Renaissance on 17th is nice and it's convenient to Walgreens, CVS, I think Publix, etc. But we're also normally only there for well less than 24 hours and not looking to do a lot of exploring.

Don't disagree, but the OP's signature says they live in the DC 'burbs on the MD side. Pretty sure they're very familiar with I 95 traffic. It pretty much rules our life around here...

The person they were tipping now has to count their money, probably have it verified by someone in charge, and then turn it in to someone, somewhere. Who will then distribute the tips to the pool. Probably electronically to their payroll account. Instead of simply going on break when their shift is over. Real helpful to them. But I also don't get how they get to keep cash tips when autograts are kept in place but not if they're removed either. You can pull the autograts up until something like 10:00 pm on the last night (or maybe until they close your account?). Do you have to account for cash or put it "in escrow" until the cruise actually ends? Because if the way people believe they understand the system is correct, the tip is only the individual's if at the end of the cruise the daily gratuities are actually charged to the card on file (or closed out with cash)...

Your cruise is about 8 weeks away. If this is a “recent change” it will be all over the board, probably with pictures, by Sunday. Look at the footstool thread. Any perceived bad news or benefit cut will spread like wildfire. Right now you’re reacting to classic RUMINT (rumor intelligence). The fact that it’s from an official source is not verification. The 10 posts between 11:59 am Saturday and 3:00 pm Sunday would be verification. Relax and expect to carry a bag. If they started enforcing this on Saturday, you’ve got 7 weeks for them to walk back a really dumb idea. Unless it’s the port, in which case it will be on EVERY board.

I like what Regent shows for wine service. The variety approaches a really high end land-based restaurant. The wine lists I've seen do a great job of hitting nice wines at what's really not a high price point (to them). But they're also not needing the volume that Celebrity (or RCG as a whole, possibly less Silversea) needs. And honestly I wouldn't pick (or drop) a cruiseline over their wine program. It's just one data point. The original cost question was because there's such variation on the boards these days on what's "costly". There's a thread about the Chef's Table, which is certainly not inexpensive, and probably overpriced given that it's not in one of Daniel Boulud's restaurants and you've already paid a base price for dinner. But it's really not that high compared to what they want to project, and significantly lower than one of Boulud's actual restaurants. It becomes very relative. If you're going to do that on a cruise, especially more than once, and it's included on a line like Regent, it alters the cost calculation.

I found some for Seven Seas Voyager and Splendor. Sample menus. I'm assuming the listed wines are the included wines. Very heavy on French wines for the samples I found. Nice wines. Assuming current vintage not a dramatically higher price point than on Celebrity. Just a different selection. And not listed for all venues (really same as Celebrity). The ones I found were for Chartreuse and Compass Rose, which might explain the heavy Bordeaux/Burgundy/Rhone influence. And they've done the unforgiveable and listed the varietals! (One of the jokes about French wine is you should simply know the grapes once you know the source. They're not listed on the label in general.) I'd be fine, but I kind of wonder how popular they'd be around here... There's at least one undated bar menu out there, based from the UK. If I'm interpreting it correctly (above the line = included (no price given) below the line upcharge as listed) the liquor offerings at least were better than Celebrity is now, with the same sort of headshakers. On the other hand, their web page says "all" over and over again, without footnotes or asterisks, for beverages and open bars. Interesting. Actually, before I hit post, I found this on CC from 2022: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2872037-wine-lists-from-splendor/ Similar to Celebrity in quality and price, just more variety and different wines. No prices to divide the wines into categories. And I assume available.

Meaning? I mean some people find a $50/bottle Napa cab very costly. Are we talking $150/bottle retail, which is a lot of good wine on the market, or Opus at $400/bottle? $50/bottle retail would still be over the Premium package on Celebrity today, but it's hardly very costly in the market. I've never looked. Does Regent have wine lists online?

Don't know of a reason why you can't. Of course, it would probably be simpler to bring a refillable bottle and the powder...

Have you eaten at any of the higher end places in Manhattan? I wouldn't do it often, and haven't done it often. But yes, I've eaten at Le Bernardin. More than once. No, we're not made of money, but we're comfortable. Which is one reason I probably wouldn't pay that on the cruise ship. The food and ambiance will be much better on land... And I don't do wine pairings at those types of places. Too much wine, no matter how good the pairing may be.

Are you a AAA member? Or any other affiliation? Element New York Times Square West. Marriott Property. Studio King, AAA rate, all in (taxes included, and I believe breakfast) for $355/night. Cancellable. You'll need a AAA number to book that rate. That's the only Marriott property I see in Manhattan for that time period anywhere near that price. It "suggests" you might be better off than most of us think, and you should also check Hilton, for instance. But if you are AAA and can book that, do it and then keep looking and thinking.

The chicken tagine is gone and has been for months. It's now a Duck Leg Confit "Char Siu" which is excellent. Neither are on the menu at either Daniel or Cafe Boulud so they were presumably created just for Celebrity. Dinner at Daniel is $188/person plus tax and tip. Wine pairings are $125 or $195. It's consistently had 2 Michelin stars for years. One of these days we'll have to eat there. The pricing on the ship wouldn't be insane if the food and surroundings were comparable to Daniel. That seems unlikely. If I did pay for the chef's table I'd do the wine pairing as presumably it was curated for the meal. But I'm a wine and food geek. Unfortunately most meals I've had with a wine pairing they decided to do full (or near full) pours, so you've suddenly had 4-5 glasses of wine with your meal! When we did a chef's table years ago on Royal there was no tie-in to a celebrity chef. I believe the chef was actually free to pick the best menu for the ingredients he or she had available, not tied to some preset selection. Which was wonderful, and honestly I'm sure what Daniel Boulud would actually do if he were planning a restaurant week menu, for instance, in Manhattan. The artificiality of the ship makes things more difficult.

You’d still come out ahead. $100 bottle of wine would be $120 without the discount. Depending on their software it’s probably $96 with the discount. ($100-20=80 + 16).

Agree. Other than a few that are largely only available in the specialties, the wines are the wines. Which means they pretty much have to buy wines that work in the bars in the afternoon, maybe poolside, and also with dinner. And available in enough volume that they can get them reasonably consistently. The bottle lists are pretty good, and not as overpriced as I've seen in some restaurants. That's where they have an opportunity to make interesting offerings. The catch 22 is you get a nice discount with the premium package, but you're paying more for wine when you buy a bottle. Maybe next time I'll keep track of what I would have spent without the package.

Yes. Regular “well” drinks will be in the classic package based on the liquor. If the base is a premium package liquor, it’ll be in the premium package. So Zacapa and coke (an abomination…) would be in the premium package as long as the Zacapa is in the PP. Just think of the classic package as the well and the PP as a call liquor.

I'm not sure this is the motivation as much as a push to the lowest common denominator/or a regression to the mean. Maybe not as much on the reds; certainly none of cabernets are that great. And the "sommeliers" generally aren't that well trained or versed, and if you say you usually drink a cabernet, rather than "I'm having the...", they'll go straight to that style wine and likely never go anyplace else. On Equinox in November I ordered a fish dish one night and without asking anything about my preferences, I was immediately offered a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, the most popular style of SB in the country and a style I loathe, especially with food. Easy question not asked. In spite of posts on Cruise Critic, odds are the vast majority of diners on Celebrity, even Luminae, aren't as into wine as those of us who are want to believe. The drink packages skew things as well; even if the $17 wine isn't the best on the list or the best pairing, it's the one they'll sell in the package. I do miss the variety they used to have of good alternative wines like Tempranillo or Gruner Veltliner (although I do see some in the app on occasion) that helped offset some forgettable better known varietals. Oh, well.

For Norfolk, I'd pretty much agree with others. Virginia Beach is fine if the weather's good. It's an Atlantic beach, so it can get pretty rough. The Wisconsin is a nice visit, especially if you've never been on a battleship. I don't know that I've ever been to the Nauticus; probably should! Also need to do a cruise around the Naval Base. I've only seen it from the bridge and land side. I'd be a bit hesitant to recommend Colonial Williamsburg unless you have a lot of time in port. It's a good day or more visit unless you just walk around the exteriors, and it's almost not worth the drive just for that. And speaking of drive, as a Virginian, I'd do a ship's tour. It's theoretically only an hour, but you you go through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel both ways and we have an amazing ability to muck up traffic in Virginia. It's part of what we do... The Jamestown Settlement (essentially a living history museum), the actual Jamestowne landing site (National Park Service) and the Yorktown Battlefield (NPS) are easier to see in a short visit. The two NPS sites are kind of "I was there" stops in some ways, but if you're into US history they're interesting. Same basic drive as Williamsburg. Actually, you could bookend the Revolutionary War on your cruise if you wanted to; take a tour to Yorktown from Norfolk and Lexington and Concord from Boston. (There's a lot to do in Boston that doesn't involve a bus ride to Lexington and Concord, of course!)

I'm not going to deny there's an absurdity to this, but apparently no one (else) on this board has ever had to deal with the absurd impacts of safety officers and risk assessment/risk management specialists. If they've had incidents (falls, slips, etc.) on the verandahs they probably did the normal maritime (aviation, military, etc.) root cause analysis. Someone with the right training and title determined the verandahs were too crowded with furniture contributing to the slips, falls, etc. That finding will take on a life of its own and NO ONE will second guess it. At least for some period of time. AND it would almost certainly put whatever insurance they have (if they're not self insured) at risk if they didn't take corrective action. Stop pointing out absurd contradictions or someone will decide to evaluate them too... A very typical reaction in the safety/risk management business. Most of my stupid examples would get me in trouble, so I'll leave them alone.

I love “healthy tannins”. A bit of a brute, I suspect! Unfortunately the higher end wines onboard are almost guaranteed to be too young. That’s not unique to cruise lines. We were in a very nice steakhouse in December and they were selling a 2017 Gaja Barbaresco. That’s a wine that should be hidden in a cool, dark place until at least 2027 if not 2037. And Celebrity doesn’t even list vintages… But we’re well away from discussing a nice Moscato at this point!

It's funny. Our last HAL cruise was probably 2006 (we're finally old enough to think about going back...). I remember doing an event, I think in Pinnacle, and met their sommelier. If I remember right, they were actually using him as a sommelier for the whole ship, although he worked heavily in Pinnacle. At the time HAL (headquartered in Seattle) had a very nice wine list that leaned heavily into Washington wines. That's one of my favorite wine regions now. How was a 2005 Bordeaux in 2009? That's kind of a baby...

Bizarrely, I've met at least one. I was surprised he was working on a cruise ship, but he was looking for experience. He was Indian and had worked in London as a somm. Mind you, a CMS certification is not a requirement for the position on the ships. I don't believe they'd let them wear their pins, so you couldn't tell a true Sommelier (CMS) at any level from any other wine server.

No, they didn't. The theory is shaking gin, or brown liquors in general, alters the flavor notes and complexity. I've seen people describe it like you'd describe a perfume or cologne. Most of flavor in gin are "top notes" that dissipate quickly. Shaking speeds that up, and can have some interesting dilution effects. One explanation of why someone with a Double-O number might want their martinis shaken. Shaken gin martinis tend to have a little less flavor, and some interesting dilution effects. The whole effect is known as bruising. Don't know why. Could also be true of vodka with subtle flavor notes, but I've never heard anyone discuss the phenomenon with vodka. Over shaking a crazy expensive Monkey 47 might turn it into Beefeaters... Fun trivial read if you're at all inclined: https://talesofthecocktail.org/techniques/scientific-argument-never-shaking-your-gin/

Easy to find as jelayne said…

It would seem you had a bad sommelier, or they were out of a product. The app for the MDR on Reflection on the current cruise shows a Moscato in the classic package for $10. It's hard to imagine it wasn't on a recent sailing. That's a common, inexpensive wine that almost everyone would carry. Honestly, they show 9 white & rose wines by the glass in the classic package in the Reflection MDR and another 9 premium package wines. I'm not saying they're great wines, but 18 white and rose wines by the glass is a heck of an offering! It's actually several more than I thought they offered!

Yep. I don't know how Decoy and Mer Soleil became benchmarks, but they have. There's nothing inherently wrong with either of them, but they're not great wines, and certainly not "premium". I just avoid cab sauv and California chard by the glass when cruising. Unfortunately, a lot of the good alternative reds and whites by the glass had dropped off. I've only been to a handful of restaurants anywhere that actually had an excellent by the glass program, and those were mostly Michelin starred places with a curated wine list matched to the menu by a master sommelier. On the cruise ship, the wine you buy at 4:00 in a bar may be the by the glass offering for dinner. Tough to be both. On the other hand, at least from the app and our last cruise (our next cruise in in May), the by the bottle offerings, if available, remain excellent. That's what their awards are based on.