markeb

This is great fun, of course, but welcome to the world of highly allocated luxury products. You want to go on the waiting list for a GT3 RS? How many 911's have you bought from us in the last decade? You want a stainless steel Daytona? How much have you spent on jewelry? How many gold and diamond Datejusts have you bought? You'd like a bottle of 25 year old Pappy Van Winkle? (Actually I don't know how you get on that list...) The interesting (unanswerable) question here is if there's a reverse allocation at work. Did buying the 2015 at $40,000 or so give you access to the other wines at a mere $6K (probably less than $2K wholesale)? And it's for show for their wine awards. Because actually opening an 8 year old Grand Cru Bordeaux (which this would be if he'd used the traditional grapes of Bordeaux) would be criminal! It probably needs at least 12 more years to think about peaking. Don't think of it as inventory; it's marketing and advertising...

Equinox doesn't have the "rare wines" section. They're shooting for another Wine Spectator award and Apex is their platform. They don't need, or probably even want, to sell it. They can offer it. I'd be amazed if they even have 6-pack, which would be somewhere between $250,000 and $300,000 at retail. Robert Parker would be simply gushing at the notion...

That was the release price 4 years ago. Couldn't find a current price (saw £36,000 on one review, which would be $47,000). There were only about 500 bottles produced, and one story I saw said they only released about half of that. The fact that Celebrity even has ONE bottle in the fleet is crazy. Which ship? The "Bordeaux" in quotes is apparently because it's not traditional Bordeaux varietals, and if I'm reading it right his vineyards were stripped of their designations so it's sold as a French Table Wine "Vin de France" (which would be a pretty big insult in the French system, if he weren't selling it for such a crazy price). Only did a cursory look, so not sure anyone has actually tasted it...

Guessing you're not showing signatures. OP is in the UK. Type G, not F...

That's where you have to dig into the specs that can be hard to find. Some manufacturers will at least put out a graphic that shows max simultaneous wattage for each port. I didn't look to see if the brick I posted will actually give you 65W and two 30W ports at the same time, but it's a 200W brick so it could. That one is a GAN charger and I've generally found those to have better specs. But I'm usually charging an iPad and iPhone and rotate for camera batteries and headphones so I rarely use all the ports on the 4 port I travel with.

For your list, one outlet (except for the proprietary chargers, but I'd really look to see if you can't find a USB cable that will work. You'd be surprised. BTW, most USB C electronics work fine on USB C to USB C cables. They were shipped with USB A/C cables because USB C wasn't as common. You shouldn't need a USB A to C cable. This one will simultaneously charge 5 USB C and 3 USB A devices. You just have to count cables... And unless you have all day, any USB charging outlets will be the lowest power USB A and will take forever to charge anything significant. Pretty sure there aren't any on Silhouette anyway. That's from the US Amazon site, but just search for USB A USB C charging block. That's 200W, so it won't come near overwhelming the outlet. You can actually charge a MacBook with that version. It would probably come with a UK Type G cord and you'd need either a G to E/F (or C) adapter, for the type F outlet in the cabin or a separate cord with Type F plug. Same for using the US type outlets.

It’s a tempting upgrade to my A6500. The upgraded battery alone would be a great enhancement. Hmmm…

D'oh! Too late to edit. My brain saw Paddington and my hands typed Heathrow... That is correct, of course! And I agree it hardly makes sense for the savings, but it's an interesting point that it does save money. And theoretically time. It's actually what the TFL planner recommends (at £30 walk up fare), but generally not what Google Maps shows.

The video I saw they had bought an advanced HEX ticket for £5.50 then went to the Tube to complete their trip separately. HEX ticket + Tube cost. So that's £5.50 + £2.70 or £8.20. The anytime Elizabeth line fare is £13.30. It comes out to less than the trip from Heathrow since the advanced HEX ticket was less than the Heathrow surcharge alone. LOTS of caveats on that, obviously! And they are separate "stations" within Paddington. You leave the National Rail (HEX) station and have to enter the Elizabeth Line station separately. The TFL planner actually says the fastest way to make the Trip is HEX to Paddington then Elizabeth Line to Bond. And they are actually very close together. But it's probably worth £5 each for us to not have to change and drag our bags. And we didn't buy a ticket a month or more out for HEX.

Just thought I'd close the loop on this. The Elizabeth Line was as advertised, and the trip to our hotel was exactly as @Globaliser described. About the only thing that didn't work was that the Marriott had some construction on its front facade, and for some reason (tradition, quaintness?) has a cobblestone drive at its entrance. The rolling bags just love cobblestones... Neither of us pulled the Oyster cards we had with us out of our bags; TFL supported Express Transit on our iPhones. There were some nuances to getting that to work every time, but once you got the hang of it, it was wonderful. The Heathrow surcharge kind of bites. I've actually seen a recommendation to buy advance purchase HEX Tickets and connect to the Elizabeth Line at Heathrow as being cheaper than the Elizabeth Line. We liked not having to change trains. Many of the places we went by Tube were on or near the Elizabeth line (Portrait Gallery, British Museum, Paddington for a train to Bath) and so much more convenient than transferring on the Tube to make the same trip. And it was a 3-minute walk from the hotel! I'm now a fan of the Elizabeth Line. BUT, just like HEX, it's great if it goes where you're going or you can make an easy transfer to another line that makes sense. It's not a one size fits all option.

Which mass market cruise lines sail primarily from North America and have abandoned gratuities? Most of the lists I see (and I'm not in the mood to look at every cruise line's web page) are UK centric with a caveat that cruises sold in other parts of the world may have separate gratuities. MSC and Viking are the two that are most confusing to me; if you book MSC in the US, there's a daily service charge added. If you book MSC elsewhere in the world, the service fees are included in the fare (from what I can find). Yes, the luxury lines are generally all-in without daily gratuities. It's probably the best indicator of where Celebrity really exists in the market that they don't believe they can differentiate themselves as a premium line and up their fares to include gratuities. They're competing on price with the mass market cruise lines on the price searches, and their competition doesn't include gratuities when you sort by price...

The motivation for tipping is that most US centered (obviously not US incorporated or registered) cruise lines follow a version of the US service industry compensation model. That model generally requires the employer to ensure the employee makes at least minimum wage, but they can count tips towards compensation. If the employee doesn't get enough in tips to meet minimum, the employer has to pay the difference. If the employees salary is at least minimum wage, there's no plus-up. I have no idea if the cruise lines follow that part of the US model. And tipping in general has a pretty sordid history in the US (it's really a North American thing now). It originated in Europe, actually, in a Master-Serf world, and came to America about the time of the Civil War and the US aristocrat class adopted it. It was actually considered a bit obscene. Then it became a method to not directly pay former slaves after the Civil War. Several large restaurant groups have tried over the years to eliminate tipping, including Alice Waters, Thomas Keller (Per Se) and most recently the Union Square Hospitality Group which raised prices in 2015 for a "Hospitality Included" model; they abandoned it in 2020. In fact, gratuities are included at Per Se, but people still tip! Cruise ships aren't Michelin starred restaurants, but wait staff at higher end restaurants have historically made far more money on tips than direct compensation; they want the tips instead of a higher salary. I suspect many cruise employees also do better on tips than they would on higher direct compensation. I'm all in favor of fares that include all customary and required charges. Celebrity does that in some markets. But the whole industry has to do it; there are too many people out there who just price shop without looking at what's included in the price.

You never have control. Cash, credit, auto. On the ship or on land. How tips are distributed is between the employee and employer. Most of the service industry uses mandatory tip pools. There will be a formula for distributing tips. Until recently in the US back of house personnel could not be in a mandatory tip pool. In some cases waiters were making substantially more money than the chefs due to tips. If there’s not a tip pool your primary wait staff generally “tip out” other wait staff, bussers, bartenders, etc. And have to keep track for taxes. But there’s almost never a case where the person you hand money to keeps it all. And not turning in your cash tips with a mandatory tip pool is absolutely grounds for dismissal! Exactly.

In 8 weeks with a convenience sample of already scheduled cruisers, they're really not going to get much data. I suppose the null is that there's no difference in revenue with or without vaping in the casino, so increased revenue would at least suggest vapers didn't leave the machines, and those opposed to vaping in fact didn't leave the casinos either. Decreased revenue would be the opposite. And from a statistics geek standpoint, if they just do a one tailed test, they'd never know if a decrease was relevant. Objecting and continuing to cruise and play in the casino is ultimately an interesting but irrelevant observation. Although an 8 week test is going to be after final payment so people aren't going to not cruise this cruise because of the change. A significant change in onboard bookings might matter. But so far, most people on this thread are saying this isn't enough to make them not cruise Celebrity; they're not going to lose cruise revenue from CC members. So our little convenience sample here says this is only going to be about casino revenue.

We just spent a week in London and it seemed like everyone was playing video, chatting, or playing music. Without headphones. And all age groups and nationalities. Not sure when it became the thing. Or walking and talking on speakerphone. Again, all ages.

What were they playing? (Yes it’s poor etiquette but way too common.)

I’m afraid it probably is about casino revenue. And I don’t think that’s the right question. I’ve given them a pass on a lot of operational decisions given their finances. But all we’re seeing are operational decisions. This seemingly simple change cuts at the heart of their business strategy and what separates them from other cruise lines. Forget the arguments about nickel and diming, they’ve positioned themselves as different. This takes away a difference. In 8 weeks they can at best collect data on casino revenue from current bookings. Period. They’re not going to see a sudden change in their demographic; that would take months, maybe a couple of years. If existing customers create more casino revenue if vaping is allowed, that’s at best interesting and demonstrates nothing. It certainly doesn’t mean they’re going to suddenly recruit a bunch of late 30 to mid 40 cruisers. I don’t see them positioned to 20-30 year olds. You’ve got a brand president with an operations (efficiency) background. She can be outflanked by another line with a more strategic view. Assuming one exists. There’s a near axiom in business that you don’t try to out Walmart Walmart. Swimming into a red ocean full of competitors doing the same thing only better than you isn’t a viable strategy. Do what you do better than them! In 5-10 years MBA students will get to suffer through case discussions about Celebrity. With the “what should Laura do?” question…

That was a feature of AI. That went over great around here…

But that’s it isn’t it? Until people walk (and aren’t replaced) or negative press drives new people away, voicing displeasure has limited impact. Remember 2 1/2 years ago when there were people who (exaggerating, but not much) would have paid to get on a ship in a Level A positive pressure bio safety suit? Calling or emailing can’t hurt, but if they pull up your account and you’ve got 5 cruises booked that you’re not canceling, so what. They’ve done some things lately that I can rationalize on pure business terms. This really eats into their unique value proposition that separates them from other cruise lines. And now when you add all the changes up, I don’t get it. Arguably they even cut value if RCG decided to put Celebrity on the market.

I assume it goes into the pool whether cash or not.

Get an additional gratuity form from the Retreat Concierge. That will come off your onboard account. Check with them but you should be able to designate the specialty restaurant.

I'd probably have stuck with Equinox for that reason, but Reflection is bigger and has more suites. Kind of like someone had a potentially really good strategic idea but couldn't quite get it fully to the finish line...

That's true, and a fair criticism. We're doing this for the first time this weekend, but we're going to Grosvenor Square and our hotel looks to be a shorter walk than getting from our arrival gate to the Elizabeth Line at Heathrow! And the Elizabeth Line is air conditioned... It's £7.70 I believe. £5.60 by Tube and £13.30 by Elizabeth Line.

Where in Westminster? The easy options could vary depending on how close you are to the Tube, how willing you are to wrestle your bags, and the day of the week. If you can make an easy transfer to the Elizabeth Line by Tube, that's probably the most economical and pretty fast (I'll report back in 10 days, but I'm not going to Westminster). Not sure about elevators or cross platform changes on that route, which is a key consideration. Beyond that, easiest is probably to get the hotel to call a car. Could be the most expensive, depending on who they use About the same level of ease, but probably less expensive is to book your own car service (I think we used Blackfriars on our last trip. There are plenty of others recommended on this board.) And there's always a London black cab. Their real draw back is they're on the meter if traffic is bad. If this is an 11:15 Sunday flight, probably not a big issue. If it's an 11:15 Monday flight, there could be (will be?) traffic, but hopefully most of it's into London. Taking a cab from Westminster to Paddington and the Heathrow Express to the airport is an option. Unless traffic is horrible from London to Heathrow, it's may take longer and be more expensive than just using a car service all the way. It depends... I personally like to be at Heathrow 3 hours (and sometimes a little more) before a US bound flight. That's what's recommended on Heathrow's web page. Airline status and/or First Class/Business Class can speed things a bit, but if you have those, the clubs are nice anyway.

They are. We’re old.