markeb

Uber has killed taxis and limo services for non-business (and a lot of business) trips. And you may well get one of the car services' drivers making the Uber trip. BTW, Google maps will show you an estimate for today for Lyft in their app. Uber won't be much different.

That's an impossible question to answer. What wine would you bring onboard? What wines do you normally drink? There are menus posted with various wines by the glass that "should" be available. They're generally $10-12/bottle wines. Drinkable, but nothing spectacular. But they could be what you like. If you're driving to the port and looking to bring a $75-100/bottle retail wine onboard, then bring it. But unfortunately no one can really answer your question.

I have to confess that I pretty much go with Hendricks and a vermouth rinse. I'll vary between olives and a twist of lemon. And I find it criminal when I order a dry martini and am asked what vodka. This never happened to the other fella! (OHMSS)

OK. The app works before boarding and uses your Celebrity credentials. The Wi-Fi uses your folio number. But what about the other aspects of your reservation and shipboard accounts through the app?

Probably a silly question, but if you're using the Celebrity app, especially onboard, do you just share a logon? Or do each of you have your own logon and add the reservation? They didn't have an app the last time we were on Celebrity! I really don't know if there are instances where we'd want to do something separately, or if you can even have two sessions with the same logon credentials. I've never tried to create a logon for her under her own Captain's Club number, so I don't know what that would do! All our logons are randomly generated for security (yes, I've been hacked in the past). We have to share a logon for our baseball tickets, but not for airlines, for instance. I'm traveling with my wife, so it's not a security concern, just not best practice, and a PITA to type in a 20 character complex password on a second device... Thanks!

The posts only go back a couple of years now. Was that 2016? That was a bizarre weather year on the East Coast. And I remember being guilty early of thinking it might work, but the Philly folks were looking at their local weather and saying find another flight "now"! And then I think we all piled on, and you beat the rebooking rush and made it! Not without challenges and some bizarre routings, but you made it. That was an example of CC at it's finest. No 100 post threads about dress codes/recommendations/etc. or what is or is not in a drink package, or available on the ship. I honestly think that was the best of the CC community, and it ultimately worked out for you!

I don’t think I’ll forget that. I think half of us on the East Coast were on that thread. It looked possible for a couple of hours, but the snow prediction kept getting worse. Crazy time for you!

You're going to be running and looking at highlights either way. I believe there are either 1 or 2 Van Gogh paintings in the Rijksmuseum; there are no Rembrandts or Vermeers in the Van Gogh museum... There's probably more history and art history in the Rijksmuseum, but even at 2 hours you're only going to touch the surface. The Night Watch is brilliant, and the various stories behind it may be worth the visit. And there's more than art at the Rijksmuseum. The collection of ship models was amazing. This includes the archives of the Department of the Navy. Many of the models are scaled builder's models for the construction of naval vessels. I'd always recommend both, but I'd probably go to the Rijksmuseum if I could only visit one. But look online and plan your visit. It's going to be rushed...

If you’re in the retreat, odds are your butler/retreat host will deliver room service. There’s no reason to dig out a fiver; add something extra at the end. I’ll avoid the argument that that’s not an above and beyond in the retreat; we’d add extra. Random guy from food service, retreat or no, $3-5.

What do the terms and conditions say? I haven’t looked, but I bet they give them the right to substitute without recourse. And arbitration. And the only real obligation of the corporate officers is to the shareholders. Do I think it’s right? No. Do I think it would be great PR to cut the price? Absolutely. But I don’t know how many quarters they can go without a decent return on equity, and liquor is one of their biggest sources of revenue. There’s a thread going about buying RCG stock. It’s largely dropped in value (up from a low) and hasn’t paid a dividend in a while. Can they cut a revenue stream?

I guess I tuned out on the news article when he equated regulating theme parks, sporting events, etc. with cruise ships. The state and local governments establish health requirements for facilities in their states. The CDC's authority is on interstate and international travel. We can have a long philosophical and technical discussion on continuing to test on cruise ships (and get us both warned!), but implying the CDC did this to the cruise industry and not all these other venues ignores the simple fact that they can't regulate those other venues. (And for the record, even with a lifetime in various public health functions, I'm not sure what the pre-boarding testing is accomplishing either. Early on, yes. Now, just not sure.)

The first time you're stuck in the cash line while everyone whizzes through the EZ Pass land, you'll get an EZ Pass. Or be proactive and live vicariously through my bad experience... 😀

🤥

Are there street level crossings or pedestrian bridges? Can’t remember. Always thinking about stairs and elevators with bags!

Yeah. You can bring on better wine without paying a 200-300% upcharge over retail. And Celebrity saves on providing wine in the packages. I'm somewhat amazed it took them this long to realize that!

Quebec City is NOT on the pre-clearance list. Montreal is. https://www.cbp.gov/travel/preclearance?language_content_entity=en

Just saw that. Don’t know that we can get there, but who knows. 2X Rachel Tucker and 1X Jenn Colella. We need another comparison! (Actually want to see Alice Fearn in the West End, but that’s another story!)

Will you get a credit if you pre-pay the bags with the covered card? Is this the Chase card? The program rules and exclusions for the card should spell out how it works. Likely as not you have to buy the ticket with the card, but I haven't run into this yet.

This used to come up about once every 3-6 months pre-pandemic. I guess we're getting back to normal... It's not what the baby is eating. It's what's not being bought by a teenager or adult who could be in that space. I'd take it as an indication, like it or not, that Celebrity's pricing models are going back to fully booked ships. There are limits to how many "humans" can be on the ship, and infants don't buy booze, specialty dinners, etc. You're paying for what they're not buying as extras, although they're not going to say that.

Jeans are fine. They can get hot in the Caribbean, so keep that in mind, but they're absolutely fine.

Supplier B may already be tapped out. Curiosity this morning and hit Google. Because they buy "for export", the cruise lines are able to buy direct and go around the three-tier distribution model (at least for wine, and probably liquor as well). But they went from March of 2020 until the summer of 2021 presumably without taking deliveries (inventory is bad for cash flow). Like everything else they do, it's all proprietary and who knows the details, but if the major producers and brokers have sold their product elsewhere, who do you turn to? Good news is they're not fighting for the allocation from Florida distributors. Good news for Florida from what's in this thread is those distributors have done well in maintaining inventory. Bad news for cruisers is that's taxed product slated for sale, presumably in Florida.

Sure. You change wines and adjust prices. Usually upwards. I'm sure it's complicated by trying to maintain consistency across the fleet, something Total Wine really doesn't do. You can search for wines on their site and find wines that aren't available in entire states, or sections of the country. Some of that's legal (label laws), but some of it's choice. And don't forget Costco, which is a major retailer of wines (and spirits in states where they can sell them). It appears Celebrity didn't have a great plan, but they may have had a plan and couldn't execute it. We'll likely never know. If they wanted 500 (or 5000) cases of Caymus and Total Wine wanted the same cases, and had been steadily buying and selling the product, distributors would probably fill Total Wine's orders. And, again, legally Wagner has no control over that. They probably have some control over allocating product to to say Michigan or Florida, but if the Celebrity order comes out of the Florida allocation...

I hope you don't have to explain that... 🙂

Try Googling "supply chain issues in the wine industry". It's a much larger issue than cruise ships. Nice but short article from Forbes concentrating on bottles and cardboard boxes, but there are other articles that look at other issues, such as shipping delays. I'm sure some of that also impacts liquor (whisk(e)y). I certainly see bare shelves in the state stores here in Virginia. And I know my friend who runs a very nice wine shop has issues getting specific products, but his business model doesn't depend on having a constant supply of a specific wine. And there are folks here on Cruise Critic who are fortunate enough to not see any of that (so far). Then you have the largely legally mandated post-Prohibition three-tier system which just adds another layer of complexity. Using the Wagner family (Caymus) as an example, Celebrity can't buy wine from Wagner in the United States; other than direct to consumer at the winery, Wagner has to sell their wine to distributors, who then sell it to Celebrity (or Marriott, or Total Wine, or your local restaurant). Those other parties have been buying wine for the last 2 1/2 years while the cruise lines haven't, and likely as not they're still buying those wines.

So, despite previous comments on this thread, there's a supply chain issue? Supply chain management begins with raw materials and goes to distribution to the final consumer. I just assume any Sazerac/Buffalo Trace product is allocated, although they're not all. And for the past two plus years the cruise lines have been a horrible customer, and retail sales of wine and spirits have grown. I'd have to guess that Celebrity (and most other cruise lines) have lost their place in line for allocations, and they're going to want a deal. If they don't want to pay what retailers will pay, I'd sell my product to Total Wine or the state ABC stores, frankly, and let the cruise ships stew! Makers 46 would probably be the easiest add to up the whisk(e)y selection. I don't know about Four Roses or Elijah Craig's production, but I've seen both of them off the shelf around here at various times. Wild Turkey 101 "should" be available. And Wellers and Pappy are just an exaggeration.