markeb

So, would you walk out of a restaurant in San Antonio that had menudo on the menu? Spam is hardly a traditional Hawaiian or Polynesian food like poi, but it's served everywhere, in every quality of restaurant, in Hawaii. Has been since at least World War II. It's arguably become a cultural phenomena, kind of like menudo as a hangover cure. Or tamales at Christmas. It's fun to make fun of Spam, but you'd be insulting most Hawaiians by doing so in Hawaii.

So I'm going to confess I kind of like Brussels, but I've really only been to the area around the Grand Place and (old) NATO Headquarters building. Having said that, stay in Bruges. Just not enough time, and you can do almost everything in Bruges you could do in Brussels (mussels, frites, chocolate, beer, historic cobblestone plaza), and (if memory serves) there are windmills. There are plenty of lace shops and tapestry shops to separate you from your money, and a number of nice restaurants to just sit and have mussels et frites and a good Belgian beer. You will, of course, miss the Mannekin Pis. But other than the huge crowds standing by it, you could do that in Brussels as well... As JB said, the simple size of Brussels begs for time. Bruges should be much more manageable.

It's a somewhat lighthearted thread, but there are SO many parallels that can be made from that simple statement...

It shouldn't. Since they're a publicly traded company, they have to follow standard accounting practices. Deposits aren't revenue; they're actually a liability on the balance sheet (accounts payable) and not the income statement, but they are positive cash flow. So the deposits would show up on cash flow either way. Don't ask; modern accounting was created in the same place that over engineered Ferrari and Lamborghini so they'd run well but require a lot of maintenance... They can't actually recognize the revenue on their income statements until you take the cruise. Same principal applies to gift cards, etc.

Back of the house waste. Since the US based cruise lines are inspected by US federal agencies, I assume they largely follow the US Retail Food Code. There are limits on how much they can rework product. Things that are put out for service generally don't get reworked or reused (food code). Bagged produce is flushed with nitrogen at the processor (which is why your salad looks like crap overnight in the refrigerator once you open it), so there's little or no ability to rework. Most of the crew is from outside of North America. I'm sure they'll eat things from the buffet, but several common nationalities are heavy vegetarian, for instance. It's not as simple as people want to make it. For any cruise line. Or really any restaurant. Waste eats into margin...

They can't hire enough staff. Labor supply is down. Labor demand is up. Cost of labor has to go up. Economics 101...

You really can't separate food waste from food costs. And food costs have gone up dramatically. As has labor. They probably should have done something to control this years ago...

Of course they assessed food waste in the past. But the economic impact (yeah, it's also a cost control measure) wasn't as great. Have you priced a dozen eggs lately? There's an article here on Cruise Critic on increasing gratuities to increase overall compensation because of staffing shortages across the cruise lines. If half of all food is being wasted, that's a raw material cost, a labor cost for preparation, a labor cost for service and/or delivery (for room service), a labor cost for clean up, and the associated costs for disposal. All while trying to meet their ESG goals to maintain institutional investors. It's waste in the back of the house. It's not just waste that we as passengers see. I certainly hope half is an overestimate. Food costs are increasing, labor costs are increasing, and all the cruise lines are in horrible debt. I think they're making interesting choices that may or may not play out.

You can, but I wouldn’t. If you carry it on, if there’s a question they can visually confirm it’s wine and you’re on your way. You can go directly to your cabin and drop off your carryon, then explore the ship. If it’s in your luggage, and there’s a question when the screen the bags, your luggage will be delayed until you can go to open the bag and confirm what’s in it.

I think the key is what interests you. Manhattan is very much like London. It's on the go constantly, offers amazing museums, great live theater, and world class restaurants. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for instance, is amazing, but it's also huge (and not free). Central Park is huge, and a fun place to just wander. And of course there are the observation decks at Top of the Rock and the Empire State Building. Lots to do, not a huge amount of time. The Circle Line and a HOHO bus would give you a great overview of the city. Like London, the HOHO is not a great means of transportation, but is a great overview of the city. There are good neighborhood restaurants and bars around the city, and there are world class restaurants and bars, if you're so inclined. Not quite as simple as popping into the local pub, but certainly possible. Fodors is a great start. One thing about Fodors is it is (or was last I looked) organized by neighborhood, so sometimes there are attractions that cross neighborhood lines but are only blocks apart, so it helps to look at an actual map. And as stated, share your interests a bit and we'll give you some things to consider!

What time will you get to London? Will you have been to Windsor pre cruise? There really isn't much to do at Heathrow, so if you're there for a full day, it's likely to get pretty boring. However, it's pretty close to Windsor, and if you don't go to Windsor pre-cruise, then it would make a nice visit post cruise. The Heathrow hotels "might" be more open to a long extended checkout (or worth looking at just paying for the second night if you really mean evening...). If you're wanting to spend your day in London itself, I'd be much more inclined to just stay there and enjoy London. Staying at Heathrow to taxi/Tube/Express into London will take a decent chunk of your not very long time.

Check on the air. All three airports BWI, Reagan, and Dulles) serve Baltimore and Washington. And NCL may be better able to do an open ticket.

What are your interests and how are you traveling? Is this the 13-15th weekend (don't want to recommend something when I know it'll be a zoo)? Are you flying back out of BWI on Sunday? Monday? Open to traveling from Reagan? With two days, I'd stick with DC. If you want to see the classic sites you have some chance of a decent or better than decent place to stay on a weekend in the city. All bets are off if there's a special event, which is why I'm asking about dates. If you want to see the Mall, a couple of Smithsonian Museums, maybe the National Gallery (well worth it, BTW), etc., my first choice today would be the Penn Quarter. That's the area around Capital One Arena (it's third or fourth name change since we've lived here...). There are a number of hotels in the area, easy Metro access, and from Capital One you can walk down 6th or 7th Street a few blocks and be on Pennsylvania next to the National Archives (another nice stop) and a fairly easy walk across the Mall to the Air and Space Museum. And a wonderful view of the Capitol (it's a longer walk by far than it looks...) Close to Union Station if you take Amtrak or MARC (Maryland commuter rail) to DC. It is a fairly long walk down the Mall to the Lincoln Memorial, reflecting pool, Jefferson Memorial, etc. With no easy Metro. There are tour buses, but I've never used them. Do some research and ask questions here. For hotels, look at all the chains. Your "suburban" hotels like Courtyard, Hampton Inn, etc. are here, but they can be as expensive as a full service hotel. The first two I'd price, on a weekend, are the Hotel Monaco (Kimpton/IHG) and the Marriott Marquis. The Marquis is the convention center hotel, and if there are no events, it can be a good rate. Although "good rate" these days has a 50-100% difference from good rate in 2019. The Monaco is a really short walk to the Mall, and there are a number of nice to very nice restaurants on 7th Street (Oyamel, Jaleo, others) and you're about a block from Ford's Theater and directly across the street from the National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian Museum of American Art, one of the hidden gems of DC museums. "Official" DC becomes a ghost town in the evenings and weekends. In that area, I'd probably look at the American History Museum, Natural History Museum, very quick look at Air and Space (you'll be there all day if you're into it...), and maybe a quick visit to the National Gallery (great museum but big) and National Archives. Walk or take a tour bus by the White House and the Ellipse, etc. With two days there's no way on earth I'd deal with getting to and from Old Town. Love Old Town, but no. And as previously stated, if you take Amtrak from Baltimore to Alexandria, you're stuck in an empty train for 30-45 minutes at Union Station changing from an electric engine to a diesel engine. If DC itself is too expensive, look at Pentagon City and/or Crystal City. Easy Metro access to DC, but it will take time and you don't have a lot of that. They are on the Yellow Line which will drop you in the middle of the Mall, and you can take the Blue Line to Arlington National Cemetery. You'll have to balance budget with time. Recognize that a lot of tourist sites close fairly early. And allow time to get to whichever airport you're flying out of. Come back and ask more questions! But give us your actual dates...

Suggest you post this on the British Isles/Western Europe board. Lot of info on hotels near the port area. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/148-british-isleswestern-europe/

Interesting article. Did you read any of it? The next line is: "With staffing problems sitting near the top of the list of challenges, increasing overall compensation is a logical move." Nothing in the article vaguely suggests the cruise lines are using the gratuities to increase margins. The clear intent of the article is that the cruise lines are going to have to pay more for staff, and that raising gratuities is part of that effort. The article goes on to ultimately discuss cruise lines that roll all compensation directly into the fare. "Lines that currently package gratuities in their cruise fares include Silversea, Seabourn, Regent Seven Seas, Virgin Voyages, Azamara, and Scenic, the latter even including tips for onshore tour guides and drivers."

Hate to make an iceberg reference on a cruise board, but, that's the tip of the iceberg. That's only the customer facing side of the process. MDR: Multiple orders come in for the same dish at roughly the same time and can easily and invisibly be batched for preparation. 10-15 plates of the same item can be plated for different waiters to deliver to different tables using one basic set of chefs and assistants for consistency and efficiency. Repeat for another 10-15 plates of a different menu item. Etc. One set of dining room staff delivers and overseas table service in a relatively small operational area. I don't know their kitchen staffing levels, but its not insignificant. RS: From previous posts on this subject, it's a different galley. A totally different, and duplicate, set of kitchen staff. Looking at the app, a largely totally different menu. Some common items, like salads, are probably prepped separately for the MDR and RS galleys and for the every day items in Blue and Luminae. Otherwise, individual orders from random quadrants of the ship and random decks. A dedicated order taker (more than one, clearly). A fair number of cook to order items that can only be batched to a limited extent (maybe they hold burger orders for 15 minutes to batch multiple burgers). Deliveries to multiple locations. (I've never done evening room service so I don't know if they batch deliveries; I assume they do to some extent). The kitchen staff likely has to be proportionately larger than the MDR to offset the timing uncertainty and the difficulty batching orders. Clean up and bussing is notoriously inefficient, as noted by the trays in the hallway. Food waste, other than the "order one of everything" crowd, is in the kitchen and invisible. The high staffing required for largely made to order should minimize waste and there's very little on the menu that could be reworked. It's not just what you see in the dining room. And those same moving parts are being repeated to some extent in the buffet. Which I'll argue is why you don't see as many cook to order items on the OVC currently. You need cooks to cook to order, and they're cooking in the dining rooms, specialty restaurants, and room service.

Only quoting you because yours is the last comment on this! I don't know why this even gets discussed. I just go with the concept that tips are split according to the agreement between an employee and their employer. Or groups of employees. If someone gives more to a specific person because they think they deserve it and that person has to share, they still got more than they would have if you hadn't tipped them.

So would you sail Celebrity if they added $18/day/person to the fare? (Aqua/Concierge. Splitting the difference from standard cabin to Retreat.) Or would they drop off your search engine because of price comparison to another cruise line that kept the price down but expected gratuities? Same cost to you either way... Honestly, I think they should raise the prices to account for gratuities, but they haven't. Their pricing is based on a business model where people pay gratuities. And from past discussions on this topic, some countries appear to tax a gratuity differently from wages, so they might have to raise the fare more than $18 to offset the tax difference. If the entire industry raised fares and dropped gratuities and increased direct compensation, it might work.

So refreshing to have a good old fashioned (more or less) tipping thread, isn't it? You do know that tipping originated in Europe, right? It's actually not a US thing until the mid 1800's. Businesses in the US have tried to eliminate tipping and increase salaries. The employees revolted. They generally received less pay than they were receiving in tips. Yeah, it's a crazy American thing these days, but it's not going anywhere. And since tips are a pass through, not paying them has no impact on the cruise lines bottom line. And you can cruise on Celebrity without paying gratuities. Just book an All Included fare. Exactly the same as those European cruise lines. Charge a higher fare and add the "tip" to direct compensation. Because you're paying it as the customer either way...

Why do you think the cruise line is more of a black box than your local restaurant? Restaurants all have their own policies that are part of their own largely proprietary business model. I'm assuming you're in the US. There are reams of regulations and best practices on gratuities. Other than your little home town mom and pop with one server (and maybe not even there), there's a black box on gratuities. Most of them are pooled. If they're not, the server you gave a $20 tip on a $100 bill is probably giving $8 to the bar for your $40 bar tab, $4-5 to the folks bussing the tables, another $1-2 to someone I'm not thinking of, and "keeping" about $5 for themselves, minus withholding, FICA, Medicare, etc. And in the US, servers couldn't be compelled to share gratuities in a pool with the back of house staff until very recently. In some mid-range (maybe even high end) restaurants servers were making far more than cooks due to gratuities. I won't pretend to understand the tax laws of all the countries that cruise workers come from, but there certainly seems to be a tax advantage to the employee for some of their compensation to be gratuity versus wages. That's one reason not to just roll everything directly into the fare (can probably be worked around). And arguably Celebrity DID attempt to eliminate gratuities and roll them into the fare. Along with the most common extra charge items people complain about. It was called Always Included (I think that's still the term). At least on Cruise Critic, it created a near revolt. So now apparently they're "nickel and diming" everyone not in the Retreat, and people are complaining about that. Suggestions?

There is that. Kind of like sitting in a bar in Sydney on Google trying to figure out whether a tip is expected… And I think a lot of us would argue the CC discussion is its own unique culture!

It's a difference that makes no difference. You're probably creating more work for them. They'll either have to pool the cash (most likely) or they'll have to tip out the folks supporting them (literally dividing the cash in some agreed to formula). I have mixed feelings when tipping extra. I just rarely carry cash anywhere these days, so I've added extra on a check or used the additional gratuity form.

Sorry. I wasn't clear. We were also looking at AQ to a SS. It wasn't a break-even by any means, but the OBC made it much less of a difference (well under the $3K they're seeing today). I know I did the math on the upgrades, but that's been a few days!

Unanswerable. It probably would be to us, because we love Lumiinae, and liked Michaels before the revolution as much as we love the new Retreat Lounge (Equinox). A lot of the choice if personal preference. If finance was the only driving factor, I don't know that suites would sell anyway! Are you looking at all in final prices? On our upcoming cruise from Alaska, the OBC offer was so much higher (and the fare included premium drinks and Wi-Fi) that what looked like a huge price difference ended up being much closer. Obviously some of that depends on whether you can use the OBC and if you want premium drinks and Wi-Fi

Because there's a gratuity on every extra charge food or drink item ordered on the ship. There's a gratuity on the $1 upcharge for a drink. There's a gratuity for specialty dining. There's a gratuity hidden in AI fares, and I believe there's now a gratuity added to drink packages. Someone's already serving you in all those situations as well. Not saying that's right, but that's the reason. A second lobster tail, or extra charge entrée, isn't any different from other items with a gratuity added.