sanger727

The goal of an employer isn't to work their employees harder. The goal is to provide a better service to the customer. At an expensive restaurant, you should receive better service. Also since they have fewer tables that is a smaller number of tips so to balance it out, the tips should be higher.

No, airlines are not comparable to cruises in this situation. If your airflight is overbooked they will move you to a flight later the same day or the next day. Once the cruise leaves, it's gone for several days and there's no option to rebook someone. If overbooking becomes a problem, they will contact people ahead of the cruise so they at least don't fly there.

If you wait staff is simply "bringing" you an $80 dish, you aren't going to the right restaurants. In restaurants I've been to, a restaurant that serves $20 dishes and $80 dishes are night and day. For one thing, the more expensive restaurants have fewer tables per server so that they and provide better service. They also hire more experienced and skilled wait staff. The $20 restaurant is entry level. The $80 restaurant is not.

I usually take doxycycline. It is a malaria preventative and is also an anti-biotic.

I don't believe any cruise lines are taking a cut of the gratuities to add to their bottom line. I have heard on some lines, however, that some of the gratuities go to a "crew welfare fund" that does things like crew parties. So, that might be interpreted as the cruise line taking a cut, but it's still being used towards the crew.

There is absolutely no proof of vaccine needed. I've gone to several countries with malaria and was always advised to take prophylaxis. I think that right now the vaccine is only recommended for children living in countries with high spread of malaria. I don't know if you could even get it in the US, WHO recommends R21/Matrix-M vaccine for malaria prevention in updated advice on immunization I personally wouldn't take malaria meds for Mexico or Roatan, but that may be worth discussing with your doctor.

I personally don't find it unreasonable to have a "quiet" area of the ship. People have suggested that ship libraries are quiet areas. If you go to the spa, usually the relaxation room is a "quiet" area. I believe "the hideaway" on ships that have it request that it is a quiet area. Designated quiet areas are a good idea, everyone has their own idea of what a fun cruise is. Expecting that you can walk into a random lounge for quiet and another person who wants to take a cell phone shouldn't do the same is unreasonable. They are taking their cell phone call in there for the same reason you came in. No background noise and not many people around.

I don't know what to tell you. If you choose to connect to cellular service while are at sea without a cell phone plane; all of your charges will be from cellular at sea. If you purchase a cruise plan like this, ATT is paying cellular at sea on it. All of this is completely unrelated to the ship's wifi plans.

The idea sounds neat. But I agree that this should be a couple you know well and would spend time with outside of cruising and don't go into it with the idea that you are going to "hang out " all week. Planning a couple dinners together and meeting up for drinks a few days would be reasonable. Expecting them to change any of their plans to accommodate what you want to do with specialty dining or excursions isn't.

No. They pay cellular at sea. Cellular at sea is a completely separate company from cruise lines. I believe cellular at sea uses satellites for their network.

Yes, the packages are cruise ship specific. You are connecting through cellular at sea; not using the ship's wifi. You do not need a wifi package for this.

Here is what ATT says: Your AT&T Cruise package will activate 9 to 11 nautical miles from shore. Once you’re at sea your device will display Cellular at Sea, wmsatsea, 901-18, or NOR-18 when you’re connected. Your AT&T Cruise package only works at sea. You’ll want to add AT&T International Day Pass to stay connected throughout your adventures at port and on land. So it will only work at sea, not on land. You will not need the ships wifi, but everyone who wants to use it will have to have their own cruise package through ATT If you do this you will have to be really careful about having cellular on while you are at sea, but turning it off once you get to that 11 nautical miles from shore point. Once your phone connects to the local network you will be charged $10 under the travel pass. The nice thing about wifi is that you can always leave it on. So you dont' have to remember to turn it off and on.

I agree with this. Not quite the same situation, but we booked a hotel/airfare package through a TA. On the day of the flight, it was cancelled. The airline didn't offer any substitutions besides flying out a day later. We found another airline with a flight that we could make. We confirmed with our original airline that since they cancelled the flight, we could get the first leg refunded. That was where the problems started. The airline offered us a ridiculously small refund. What they kept referring back to was the low class and price of the ticket our TA bought. And there was absolutely no way to determine how much of our package price went to airline tickets.

That app you use for sms texting is the correct app. It will use the wifi connection to text between iphones. It does this all the time when you are at home, uses data instead of sms, you just wouldn't notice.

A loud conversation or children can cause as much noise and disturbance as a cell phone conversation. I don't think the cell phone itself is the problem unless people are playing videos or music without headphones. And it's a little unfair to be annoyed that you found a quiet spot to relax and someone ruined it with their loud conversation. They also found a quite place to have a conversation where they disturbed the least amount of people. I could be on board with a "quiet area", But it should apply across the board. No music, phones, loud talking, kids running around, etc.

"messenger" is the default application on iphones for texting. If you have an iphone, there is built in internet messaging called "imessages". These messages only work iphone to iphone. If you need to text iphone to android, you would need sms to use the regular messenger app. You can also communicate with other various apps that have messenger features like facebook, whatsapp, etc. To do those you would download the app and create an account. You can call over wifi if you enable that in the settings. It's under "cellular". Then turn wifi calling on. So, if you enable wifi calling, while connected to wifi, voice calls on your phone will work exactly the way it does at home If you are connected to wifi, you phone will send/receive text messages from other iphones like it does at home. The only thing that you would have to do something different for, is if you wanted to text an android phone.

One idea you might explore if you want what you originally had. Given that the rep made a mistake in the quote - would NCL downgrade you back to your original room with the original perks for the original price?

There are two things being discussed here. 1. NCL offers calling and texting through their app for a cost of $9.95 per device. You would put your phone into airplane mode and turn wifi on. You would not use the browser to "log into" the wifi. Simply by turning wifi on, you are connected to the intranet and can use the app. You wll only be able to text other people who have the app. It won't use imessage, it will create a funky number for you within the app 2. There is a glitch in their wifi intranet/internet setup. Some people find that if they turn wifi on (and again, not use the browser to log into the internet), imessages are able to come through. This is unintentionally and is never guaranteed to work. My personal experience on my last cruise was that I occasionally received imessages but I couldn't send any out. 3. If you want to be able to use you phone the way you do at home, you will have to purchase the unlimited internet package.

This is an incorrect statement. Their pay is contractually guaranteed. Some of that contractually guaranteed pay is made up of tips. This is the same situation in the US with tipped workers. Tipped minimum wage is like $2. Actually minimum way is like $10. Wait staff are guaranteed by law to make at least $10 an hour. They have to declare their tips and if somehow they average less than $10 an hour, the restaurant has to pay the difference. Cruises operate the same way. Workers will not have zero income if everyone pulls their tips. However, they make more than the contractual minimum if everyone leaves their tips on.

We base it on what we are doing. If it's a water or active excursion, we leave it in the safe. If it's an excursion where I can wear a purse the entire time, we bring them.

We had a wonderful tour recently with Alexander and Roberts. The tours are small, I think up to 12 people. But they will go if they have at least 4. That's what happened on our tour, me, my friend, and another couple were the only ones on the tour. We went to multiple cities and were met in every airport by a tour guide and escorted through. The tour was in Peru with machu picchu. The other couple was disabled and unable to explore machu picchu. At the last minute our guide was able to procure an extra guide. That way one stayed with the disabled couple and walked them through the flat areas and the other one took us on the full tour. I can't recommend them highly enough.

The customers are expected to tip sufficiently to pay both the wait staff and the back of the house out off the same bill. So when you tip 20%, the server only gets 14%. When I was a waitress, I had tables that cost me money because they didn't tip and I still had to tip out the back of the house. What do you mean by you were off the boat 3 out of the 7 days? Were they port days or were you late joining the cruise? Your auto gratuities cover the dining room staff, Stewards, and other back of the house staff. On a port day, you still most likely have breakfast and dinner on the ship and your room still needs to be cleaned. That doesn't create much less work for the ship's staff that you have lunch off the ship.

You can't compare the price of a re-routed itinerary a few months aware to an established itinerary that has been out for a year plus. Of course this one is dramatically cheaper - they have to suddenly fill a ship with a new itinerary, at an unideal time of year, in an area that is near a war. That doesn't mean that a typical greek island cruise is 75% less than a typical holy lands cruise. If the opposite had happened - a war broke out in greece and a greek cruise was re-routed to Israel, the price would still be unusually inexpensive to fill a ship at the last minute with new cruisers.

It's no ones business. But, it seems displaced to be mad at the cruise line for applying standard cancellation fees instead of at the family member who waited until after final payment to bring up a medical issue that they had known about for four months. I'm assuming she was unaware of the cancellation fees and dates. From the standpoint of knowing they needed to cancel, 2 days wouldn't have made much difference either way.

the reasoning behind that is that the server in the nicer restaurant provides better service than in the cheaper restaurant. If that’s not the case, then they probably shouldn’t get a full tip. But when you start adding expensive bottles of wine to the bill, that can get excessive. A $200 bottle of wine isn’t more difficult to serve than a $50 bottle of wine.