sanger727

No amount of convenience is worth being pounds wise and penny foolish. Cruisers that can afford to cruise without a strict budget also tend to be people who don't pay $1,000 extra for an all included package when all they really want is coffee in the morning and a glass of wine at dinner.

Yeah, I was mostly speaking about NCL and Celebrity but I should have clarified with American cruise lines. But just wanted to make sure that the daily service charge and beverage package service charge didn't get mixed up.

There is a big difference between gentle walking and wheel chair accessible. If you can't walk at all you are greatly limited by lack of wheel chair accessibility at tour sites and may also not be able to get into a standard van/bus.

Ok, to clear a handful of things up. 1. All cruise lines charge a daily service charge to cover your state attendants and waiters/waitresses. Norwegian also charges an extra gratuity on the "free" beverage package which is what the OP quoted at $690 for the week. Celebrity does not charge anything else for the "free" beverage package- but you can expect to pay a higher fare rate than with no add ons 2. for free you get ice water (tap) anywhere on the ship at any time lemonade, ice tea and a variety of self serve flavored drinks in the buffet at any time Milk and fruit juice in the buffet at breakfast The rest of the drinks listed (ice tea, lemonade, coffee, etc) at all meals The real reason to bother with the drink package is - soda, specialty coffee (cappucino, etc), bottled water, and alcohol.

Wait, is it $45 per day or $45 per sailing. $45 per day is an incredible rip off. $45 per sailing may not be depending on how many port days you have. To use unlimited international data on my cell phone plan is $10 per day; but that is only for one person. For 4 people to get use for 3-4 days is a decent deal.

The best way to do a US to Europe flight is to try to sleep on the flight, but no matter what; plan an active first day. Sightseeing, drink coffee, stay on your feet. That night you can go to bed a little early and you'll adjust to Europe time usually the next day. For me the bigger question is how much sightseeing do you want to do in London. There is alot to see so I would consider the pre-cruise days as part of the vacation. Come in as early as it works for your schedule, but no later a flight on Monday. Give you two days for travel delays and adjust, and then will be cruise ready on Thursday. But, you may as well come in the Friday before and have extra sightseeing days.

There seems to be a lot of overlap between people who ask the stewarts to empty their fridges and are getting the mistake charges. I wonder if there's a connection there. We have never removed items from our minibar and have also never been charged for anything. Maybe it could be as simple as a stray coke that rolled out of the bag mid cruise.

We have never sailed in anything above a balcony. When you are on here and see everyone talking about blue and the retreat areas, it sounds like you'll be missing out on alot. But in reality, as far as I can tell, those areas are near the cabins that get them. They are not on the beaten track of the ship. So, I've never noticed an area that I did not have access to. In the regular day to day of the cruise, you'll never see those areas so wouldn't even know you were missing out.

I think there are actually two topics here. 1. People who cruise for the people - as in people who enjoy cruising as a vacation style because it's an atmosphere where you tend to meet people at dinners and shows and develop friendships. While we don't, I completely understand this preference, especially if cruising as a single. 2. People who travel to other countries to meet the people there - I wouldn't say we travel to other countries to meet the locals. But we love getting off the beaten tourist track and experiencing the local like a local. We have also had many trips where the locals completely made our trip for us. So no, wouldn't travel to Italian because meeting and Italian is on my bucket list. But would thoroughly enjoy meeting a pleasant local while we are there.

I've not booked a cruise with it but have used echeck for multiple things. You just give them your routing number and account number and they take the money directly from your bank account. You aren't likely to need to charge back a cruise so not sure if that should be much of a consideration. However, it comes down to how big the discount is for cash balanced against how good your credit cards are. Some credit cards off good rewards and some travel protection that could outweigh your savings.

Eh, once someone smokes a cigarette they reek of the smell for quite a while. A group that smokes is unpleasant to be around in an inside environment. Not suggesting that there is a good alternative other than smoke free cruise lines. But as a non-smoker, it is immediately apparent when someone who smoked recently walks into a room.

how do you know that princess didn’t handle it? Are you expecting them to report back to you on their investigation/discipline of an employee? They could have asked the stew why he/she entered your room and they had a perfectly valid reason.

It appears that their current "sale" price includes a non-refundable deposit. You could look for cruises that don't qualify for the sale. Or see if they can charge you a non-sale price if you call to book.

generally speaking, you are only permitted to order drinks for yourself with your package. If you are caught sharing them with your group, your drink package can be revoked without a refund. Everything else is so line dependent. Some lines are unlimited and some have a total number of drinks a day limit. Some lines make everyone in a cabin purchase it and some don't. Some lines include it in the booking for a higher booking price but less cost than purchasing the package outright.

It's standard practice that when a cc is branded under a retailer, the business is still entirely handled by the issuing bank. Any fraud alerts or credit card issues would be handled by mastercard or bank of america. NCL would only get involved in point or reward redemption.

As long as you are ticketed on one airline to your final destination its a "legal" connection. The only time you can end up with a illegal connection (and likely wouldn't be covered by insurance) is if you booked the connecting flights separately. So CVG to ATL on one ticket and then ATL to MIA on a second ticket. Those tickets are a bad idea no matter what. You couldn't check a bag since it wouldn't go on to your final destination. You are also SOL for the second flight if the first one is late. As long as you are traveling on one ticket, the airline will get you on a second flight even if it's late or the next day.

No, but they do when they can. As evidenced by people on those threads who have been in that situation. They do said that if there are delays they will work with the airline to get you on a new flight or a flight to the first port on the itinerary. Holding the ship 30 minutes is a whole lot cheaper than that so most likely they will if they can. As far as getting you to the next port, I believe that's all the OP is asking for. Some level of service other than booking the flight and walking away. Either working with the ship or the airlines to get the cruiser to the cruise. And no, that's not an unreasonable ask. and NCL just skirts around the fact that they don't do that. Book airflights with them because it offers "safety and security"; except they actually do nothing if there is an issue. There is definitely misleading advertising here.

We rarely fly in more than 1 day ahead. You should be fine with 2. Especially with such a late departure.

This isn't as obvious a situation as posters are making it out to be. Plenty of cruiselines offer a flight/cruise inclusive booking that offers protection to either get you to the ship or to the next port to meet the ship. Carnival's Fly2Fun Air Program | Carnival Cruise Line FAQs: Booking a Cruise + Flight with Us | Celebrity Cruises The fact that NCL doesn't is an outlier. It's perfectly reasonable to expect that this flight booking service would include some customer protection. It doesn't, however, you do have to read all the terms and conditions to figure that out. Their website even includes a refernce to "safety and stability" as a reason to book them. Again, highly implying there is consumer protection involved. Norwegian's Free at Sea | Free Airfare for 2nd Guest (ncl.com)

What? No. You absolutely need probably cause to obtain a search warrant. The search warrant may help you get probably cause to arrest someone. But you can't get one without probable cause that there is evidence of a crime in that place right now. And that's actually alot more involved than it sounds. You have to have PC that evidence of a crime exists, and that it is "here", and it is here right now. If you make a case for all 3 of those, no search warrant. They really are not as easy to get as people are making them out to be.

A video chat can be all of those things. And no, it's much more difficult to obtain a warrant, especially if there is no suspected crime. Again, if this is a "natural" death as Carnival is claiming, consent is never an issue. No one has anything to hide. The loved one wants this to move forward quickly.

Why couldn't he give consent? There is such a thing as video chatting and electronic signatures. All I'm pointing out is the Carnival is the one calling this a natural death, and that does not jive with the FBI getting search warrants.

I've been in law enforcement for 16 years. I have never once needed a search warrant to investigate a "natural death". If the death is natural, the person's cabin mate would have no reason to not let the FBI in to search. Once a person is dead, they don't have 4th amendment rights anymore.

The kitchen is setup to make the current offerings and pop meals out quickly. To do that everything is prepped ahead of time. Asking for calamari on the night they don’t have it would be a major inconvenience.

We haggle a bit; it’s fully expected and build into the price. I don’t beat them down or feel badly about it. Just ask the price and say that it’s too much until they lower the price to what I would pay for the item. I don’t feel badly about it; I’ve never purchased an item where the seller wasn’t grateful for the sale. Buying local in port is a good thing for the community. Getting ripped off isn’t necessary.