markeb

Totally different laws. They are two trips for customs and immigration purposes. But the PVSA only considers where you as an individual begin and end. You'll clear customs and immigration every time you enter the US (in this case) (or the first time on that cruise). But if the combination of cruises takes you from one US port to a different US port without a qualifying "distant" stop, the cruise line has a violation.

I just returned from the UK (land vacation). I took £80 in old obsolete pound notes, and went through the effort to exchange. At some point for no particular reason I spent cash. Once. Only. You do not need hundreds of pounds near tourist locations in the UK. You certainly do not need to go through the effort of ordering them from your US bank and carrying them to the UK. You can get £10-20 from an ATM and just expect to spend 90% of it on Cadbury at duty free at Heathrow. I haven’t been to Ireland, sadly, as my ancestors came from there, but I doubt it’s significantly different. The only place in Europe I’ve needed actual cash in the last ten years or so is the bier tents at Oktoberfest which so far refuse to go cashless. And rarely to get into a bathroom, although some of those take contactless payment.

Not sure what show you’re seeing and which theater? May have read past it. John’s of Times Square is a good suggestion, but they don’t take reservations, so go early if you’re doing a 7:00 pm show. If you like Indian, it’s a few blocks away, but we really enjoyed Saar on 51st, and they take reservations. The area around Times Square can be hit or miss for dining, and places we’ve been to over the years may or may not still be there.

Several things on this thread are interesting. Beginning with titles. I just looked again at the RCG leadership page, and only Liberty and Bayley have CEO titles; Bethge (Celebrity) and Muckermann (Silversea) are brand presidents. LLP was President and CEO of Celebrity. People noticed that in the original announcement, but we were all waiting to see what was actually posted, and based on that, LHB is not a CEO. They should have just posted their 10-Q and I'm curious what it actually says about corporate governance. But if that's accurate, Celebrity could now be one step further removed from the board, and LHB could largely be an implementer as others have suggested (Bo, for instance)... Loyalty programs are at their heart customer retention programs. Old school metrics are that it costs 5-7X as much to acquire a new customer as to retain an existing customer. I've seen studies that question those numbers especially with targeted marketing and the internet. If the retention program starts costing more than it's bringing in, it's time to change the program. You want to retain customers that spend money or acquire new ones that will. So if Elite/Elite +/Zenith members aren't spending on the high margin add-ons that a lot of CC'ers complain about and profess to not purchase (drink packages, internet packages, and ship's excursions, for instance), then at some point you either change the program or "fire them" if you seriously believe you can acquire new customers for less (big if). And bluntly, they already have our past spending; it's our future spending that matters. There's a looooong thread on butlers running beside this one. I don't know that the sky is falling on that, but it is another in a series of operational decisions (vaping, for instance) that turns into brand strategy by operational decisions and honestly I think they're losing a niche they had almost to themselves in favor of competing with lines they probably could have maneuvered around. The strategy of providing an upscale experience priced better than true luxury/premium lines gave them a nice space in the market. The more they look like everyone else, the more they're competing on price (see several posts on this thread), and those are shark infested waters! To quote Stan, 'nuff said...

Honestly I like seeing a good bar menu. I have a short list of usuals (mostly classics and not frozen drinks), but I’ll find things on a drink menu that interest me and give them a try. I also find it’s useful (harder at times on a busy cruise ship bar) to just talk to the bartender. Most will ask you what you like. I normally drink Manhattans. A good bartender might have a twist on that or a Rob Roy, for instance. The servers are less likely to suggest.

Where are you seeing this? Just looked on the IAmsterdam site and you can order a physical card to pick up in Amsterdam or a digital card to download into their app. You can apparently load the physical card in the app as well. The checkout screen show logos for most if not all credit cards. Don’t need the card today so that’s as far as I’m going, but I certainly don’t see a debit card requirement on the official site. https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/tickets/i-amsterdam-city-card like it or not, if you’re traveling internationally in 2023, you really need to be prepared to use a smart phone. And to pay for international data. Not yet essential, but it makes your life much simpler.

I'd hope so. It's electrically unnecessary and a potential fire hazard. Why even take it?

Sorry. Next cruise is in November and I probably won't follow the amounts again closely until October! Pricing on a US departure cruise does not include the gratuity. Pricing on a UK (maybe European in general?) departure cruise does include gratuity. So your $17 martini on a UK departure would be roughly $14.17 + 20% gratuity on a US sailing. They don't add a gratuity for UK sailings; it's in the price.

That's the UK pricing with the gratuity included. It should be $15 still for US sailings (gratuity extra).

That's a pretty major change for HAL. We cruised them years ago when they allowed smoking and we were in the 5th percentile age group (only because there were a lot of grandkids). May have to check them out again...

I have lifetime Titanium with Bonvoy (was only offered at the time Marriot Rewards and Starwood were combined) so I don't have any current experience with Hyatt or Hilton. I think I get Hilton status through AMEX if I activate it. The point redemptions have certainly increased in the past year; I'm assuming the same is true for Hilton and Hyatt, and you generally can't 1:1 compare. If this agreement matches top tier to top tier (apparently details on that to follow), I'll be a happy camper, even though we don't go to Vegas often!

Not going to hijack this one, but @GTJ I'll start a thread on Brooklyn in a day or two...

Yes. As is Battery Park, Wall Street, Trinity Church, for an out of towner maybe City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge (dividing lines are sometimes fuzzy to me; they probably aren't to a New Yorker...), How much time do you have and what would you like to see. It's a big city... And I'm going to have to pull up @GTJ's list. We have actually never been to Brooklyn... I'm thinking pizza expedition!

Hopefully you're spending some time in Singapore. There is a Little India with great Indian food. There are also restaurants that specialize in Peranakan foods. Peranakan is an ethnic designation of Singaporeans of Chinese, Malay, and Indonesian descent. The food has Chinese, Malay, and Indian influences (and European) and is delicious. Once upon a time, Royal Caribbean (wasn't cruising Celebrity at the time) had menus that varied from ship to ship and a lot of the chefs were Indian. Some great Indian food in the MDR! Then they went to standard menus across the fleet, like Celebrity...

If you pay, the gratuity is automatically added, including to dining packages. You should see a price plus 20% on your final package bill. It's not part of prepaid gratuities or AI. Except, as mentioned for high end suites that include specialty dining.

The sommeliers are bar staff. That's how it works for most shoreside somms as well. They are tipped on their bar and wine sales. Not directly relevant to this thread, but in some higher end restaurants, if you order a cocktail or a glass of wine from your waiter, it's their tab. If you ask for a sommelier (we always do) your drink service now goes through the sommelier. Their share of the tip is based on the percentage of bar sales on your check.

Tough call, but you'd simplify your logistics, and even though you'd be exhausted, you'd be there. Most of the Brits on the UK board would point towards just getting there...

The post office works very well, but there needs to be one nearby. We were able to exchange last week in St James, in London. Five minutes and we were going to be in the area anyway. Different story if you're not going to be near a participating post office.

Suggest posting this on the British Isles/Western Europe board https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/148-british-isleswestern-europe/ and I suspect this will be moved there shortly. You'll almost certainly get better feedback there. What time to you get into Heathrow? Are you planning on doing anything in London? There are transport options directly to Southampton which could make much more sense.

Have them look at Portuguese wines while you’re at it…

I would guess with 500 bottles they'd buy individually inspected corks; they're not really worried about cost!

That's hard to answer, Bo. I'd tend to say anything under about $100 is unlikely to benefit from decanting. I'm looking at the wine lists for my Equinox sailing in the fall, and am frankly pretty disappointed. I've weaned myself off of California Cabernet in restaurants; they're badly overpriced and tend to be young fruit and alcohol bombs. But the Pinot Noir that was there last fall is gone... Looking at Murano, the more expensive red wines ($300 and up) are almost certainly not ready to drink, and there's no vintage given in the app. There's a Chateau Mouton Rothschild (no vintage) for $933 a bottle; it's probably around 5 years old (I "think" they hold them 3 years before release). That's a Grand Cru Bordeaux that will peak at 20-30 years in the cellar. They have a Gaja "Sperss" for $495 a bottle (sounds expensive; it isn't). That's probably the 2017 (latest vintage I see). Gaja's Barolos and Barbaresco will lay down as long as a Bordeaux; the last one I drank was 14-15 years old. Opus One is $480, which is pretty amazing as it's currently retailing in the high $300s, but again, that's almost certainly a 2019 and you taste that as a wine future! A couple of things that jump out at me on a quick scroll: Montes Alpha M from Chile. $134 a bottle; retail $75-95 so not much of a markup. Might or might not benefit from decanting. Hartford Court Zinfandel from Russian River Valley. $106. Might or might not benefit from decanting. Tuscan Grill has a couple of decent sounding Super Tuscans from Antinori that should be good and are young enough they probably won't benefit from decanting. There's a very affordable Ribera del Duero and a Crianza from Rioja that I'd probably try. And a potentially nice Amarone. Beyond those, there are several non-Napa (and mostly non-Cabernet Sauvignon) wines from Washington, Argentina, Spain, and Sonoma County that are $40-55 that should all fit your question (that's the Luminae wine list).

Fact of life. It happens because the cork is infected with a fungus. Nothing to do with how the wine is stored.

The Opus One was probably a current vintage. It's a wine that's meant to be laid down for several years. It would have been harsh and tannic. Caymus is made to be drunk "now" and to be essentially the same wine year after year.

It’s an incredibly rare bottle of wine. It may or may not be a damn good bottle of wine. Unfortunately the two aren’t necessarily the same.