Husky1987

Relaxing weekend away with friends in Seaside OR. One of my favorite places on Earth.

On the contrary...I abide by every official dress code on the ship. I just don't happen to give a damn what other people wear. It makes my cruise much more enjoyable not worrying about others when it doesn't affect me.

If... Seriously though. Good for Royal for making a dining space with an actual dress code, unlike the MDR or other specialty dining. Now people who want to wear their finest for dinner can finally dine with like-minded folks.

Now rather than the dress code police making their inane "if you wanna wear shorts, go eat in the Windjammer" argument, the rest of us can just say "if you wanna dress up, go hit the Empire Supper Club."

If you search for and read through a few of the live threads from @CatLadyFemme, you'll find a wealth of information. Her threads are great for how to deal with the crew and RC on food allergy issues.

We were lucky enough to find a place in our same subdivision, basically a one minute drive. We left our chickens at home and they are still roaming freely in the backyard, and I drop by on my way to work and on the way home, and my wife is over there a couple times a day as well. And yes, insurance is covering the rental. We stayed with wonderful neighbors for a couple weeks while waiting through a few days of minor hassle where insurance only wanted to do an initial six month lease (which, understandably, no one wants to do)...but once the contractor told them it would be a year they moved pretty quickly and we were in the rental house within a few days. It's been pretty easy and I dare say (knock on wood) that our insurance company has been really good to us through this mess.

They had to tear over half of the inside walls of the house down to the studs. They started ripping up the inside because they knew they'd have to wait so long for the truss/roof permits from the county. So they could do all that work without permits rather than wait around. No work other than demo was done to the inside thus far. Since the smoke and fire was contained to the attic, they are also replacing the entire roof, including about half of the trusses. This week is supposed to be decent weather (really lucky in the Seattle area in November), so it timed out well to replace the roof. They are in the middle of that now. Once the new roof is on, they can go back to working on the inside of the house. They'll have to replace all the HVAC ducting and electrical that went through the attic. We're basically getting about 2/3 to 3/4 of a new house.

Ripped off the roof and starting work on the trusses…decent weather break this week so hopefully they’ll be able to get the roof on by the weekend. In lighter news, just scored our Alanis Morissette tix for next August. Saw her in St Louis in 2021 and was definitely a top 5 concert for me. She can do such unworldly things with her voice.

Home for the next two days….sportsbook at the Cromwell in LV. We’ll see who loses…I mean wins…more $$$ - me in the sportsbook or my wife at the slots 🤣

Only thing that caught my eye so far is 50% off the Evian 1L package. Think someone mentioned it before at $33.99 for 24. Grabbed that for all the future cruises I could.

And once again the question is how much does the back of house worker make above the $600+ (whatever the number mentioned before) guaranteed minimum from the tip pool that you're telling us they rely on so heavily and that makes the guaranteed minimum "paltry" in comparison? Do you know? Does anyone know? Is it $10/month? $100/month? $1000/month? More?

Not at all. My wife always laughs at my overtipping. I usually tip 20% on the CC for Uncle Sam's eyes and if service was great I'll give the server extra in cash so he/she can keep it off the books if they choose.

By the way, all this from me is coming from someone who has always promoted keeping auto grats, plus tipping cash to bartenders, cabin stewards, specialty wait staff, and WJ bus staff. Hell, my wife has even been known to hand out a good chunk of her $1 bills to people cleaning bathrooms and stair railings. I haven't decided what to do yet, but my thought process has definitely changed with this last bump, and I very well may be one of those auto grat removers and tip all in cash people from here forward.

Also, we have no guarantee whatsoever that any auto grats above and beyond the guaranteed contract pay are actually distributed to the back of house folks.

Except most understand that those back of house positions are contractually guaranteed a certain pay each month, only some of which is covered by the auto grats. Even if every passenger moved auto grats, the cruise line would still be obligated to pay them that guaranteed monthly pay.

It's actually pretty easy during the planning and booking process to not prepay...just don't click on the "pre pay gratuities" box online when you're booking your cruise.

Purely a question out of curiosity...was Royal the first cruise line to do this or was it an industry standard at the time Royal adopted that policy?

Why wouldn't they?

Fun Seattle fact....it's well known that the women's bathroom on the 76th floor has the best views of any bathroom in the entire city. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3gH6j39a5Y

That's awesome, and glad you got to experience meeting and talking with the cast. The talent and ability it takes for someone to create their art (whether it's painting, sculpture, music, , performing, writing, etc.) always amazes me.

Not sure about May, it was open when we were on in August. Wasn't too bad either...

1. Vancouver 2. San Juan 3. Fort Lauderdale

Greg, as a Christmas fan you should definitely do NYC at least once. Between the trees, window displays, Bryant Park Winter Village, and all that, it’s amazing

Just made reservations for a few days pre-Christmas in New York. Nothing like Christmastime in NYC. Trying the Virgin hotel on B roadway between 29th and 30th for the first time, looks pretty nice.

Not sure I can give you an exact time period...but matching yours is probably a good guess. I'd say my first ten or so cruises, so early 2010's maybe?