Cruise Talk Central » Announcements

Cruise Line Tipping Policies Update Complete

Cruise Arizona — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:52:17 +0000

OK, we apologize for the computer glitch that “ate” our new updates to our tipping policies page, but we have it fixed and now the Cruise Line Tipping Policies page is now “really” updated. Please let us know if you have any questions.

Carnival’s New Dress Code: Now Permitting Shorts In Dining Room on Casual Evenings

Cruise Arizona — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:00:22 +0000

There is great news for all of you who prefer a more casual cruise and disappointing news for those who prefer some of the more formal traditions of cruising. Carnival has just updated their dress code to allow dress shorts in the dining room during the casual evenings. They are no longer requiring a coat for gentlemen on formal eveings.

Here’s the quote from their FAQ’s on their website:

“Is there a dress code for the dining room?

Depending on the length of the cruise, either formal dress or casual resort wear is required in the Dining Room. The dress requirement for children is the same. For those not wanting to dress up, the Lido restaurants are open nightly (with the exception of the last evening of the cruise), and have a casual dress code.

Cruise Casual Dining Dress Code: Gentlemen – Sport slacks, khakis, jeans (no cut-offs), dress shorts (long), collared sport shirts; Ladies – Casual dresses, casual skirts or pants and blouses, summer dresses, Capri pants, dress shorts, jeans (no cut-offs). Not permitted in the dining room during the Cruise Casual dinner for ladies and gentlemen: gym shorts, basketball shorts, beach flip-flops, bathing suit attire, cut-off jeans, and sleeveless shirts for men.

Cruise Elegant Dining Dress Code: Gentlemen – Dress slacks, dress shirts. We also suggest a sport coat. If you wish to wear suits and ties or tuxedos, by all means we invite you to do so. Ladies – Cocktail dresses, pantsuits, elegant skirts and blouses; if youÃ¢â‚¬Ëœd like to show off your evening gowns, that’s great too! Not permitted in the dining room during the Cruise Elegant dinner for ladies and gentlemen: shorts, T-shirts, beach flip-flops, bathing suit attire, jeans, cut-off jeans, sleeveless shirts for men, sportswear, and baseball hats. ”

Personally, I think I’ll still stick with the more formal cruise lines. I just enjoy the opportunity for the whole family to dress up and also enjoy seeing other passengers dressed up. However, I know that this will be a big relief for many potential cruisers who have stayed away from the whole experience because they don’t want to dress up.

For our full list of multiple cruise line dress codes please see our Dress Codes Page.

New Cruise Videos Posted: Celebrity Mercury Mexican Riviera 2006

Cruise Arizona — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:13:24 +0000

We have put together some more great cruise videos for our readers. These were filmed during our late 2006 cruise to the Mexican Riviera. There are port tours of Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, Acapulco and Zihuatenejo. We’ve also included our favorite part of the cruise experience, the Sail Away Party! We have combined the lovely song “Time To Say Goodbye” as performed by the cruise ship party band “Locomotion” with other footage we shot leaving the port of Mazatlan to give potential cruisers the feeling of what its like to be onboard.

Also, our Sail Away from the port of Puerto Vallarta which includes footage of the pilot boat bringing a straggling passenger to the ship about a mile from port. We think that all our our readers will thoroughly enjoy these videos.

Results In From Our Beverage Poll

Cruise Arizona — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:18:23 +0000

The results from our most recent poll “When You Cruise, What is Your Average Daily Beverage Bill?” are in.

$20 to $50 – Hey, I’m not driving (31%)
$50 -100 – Those wines with dinner add up (20%)
Less Than $5 – Don’t drink much of anything (20%)
$5 – $15 – a few drinks, specialty coffees or sodas (19%)
Over $100 – How did I spend that much? (11%)

What I found most interesting, was that the respondents who spend less than $5 and those who spend $50-100 were evenly matched. The fact that so many cruisers spend less than $5 demonstrates that passengers don’t necessarily have to spend extra once on board. Most cruise lines have plenty of free beverages like simple coffee, juice, punch, and ice tea. These cruisers don’t have to worry much about being hit with a huge on board spending account bill at the end of their cruise. Or perhaps they just prefer to spend their money on other extras like the casino, on board shopping, excursions or specialty dinning.

Our family falls into the $50 to $100 range with a big chunk of that being spent on wine with dinner. My husband and I really enjoy food and wine pairing and splurge a bit on the cruise to enjoy some of the better wines. My daughter and I sometimes will have a fancy coffee or tea from the specialty coffee bar. In addition to the hot beverages, we also enjoy sodas. The kids usually get a soda card which is $5 a day. We buy those at the beginning of the cruise but I figured the cost into my daily total.

The most popular answer turned out to be $20 to $50. It is kind of hard to quantify what that might include. It could be two glasses of the more expensive “by the glass” wines or champagne or one moderate bottle of wine. It also could include 10 beers at $4.50 each. It also could include specialty coffee and sodas. One nice thing about being on a cruise is that passengers can enjoy an alcoholic beverage without the worry of driving a vehicle. Some passengers can take this philosophy too far, but most passengers maintain their decorum and just relax completely. Hence, spending a lot doesn’t necessarily mean excessive alcohol consumption.

Now for those of you who spend over $100: How did you spend that much?

Server Move Complete

Mr Papa — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:20:38 +0000

The server move is complete! If you are seeing this post, you have successfully made it to our new and improved location. Hopefully, this will correct the recent rash of cpu exceeded errors that we have been seeing. As always, please use our support forum or contact page for any issues that you may be having with the site.

More Server Updates Coming

Mr Papa — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:04:09 +0000

Sorry, we are going to have to do some more reconfiguration here at Cruise Talk Central. The server move we did last week was just a band aid. Users are continuing to see cpu exceeded error messages during busy times. Viewership and traffic continues to grow and we have to adjust to meet the demand.

Today, we will be moving to a completely new server in hopes of stifling those stupid error messages. During the move, the site will be unavailable for a short bit until your Domain Name Server information with your internet service provider has propagated. During the move, we will be putting up a maintenance message on the site. When you are able to reach the new site, you will be greeted with a new welcome message.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Merry Christmas From All Of Us At Cruise Talk

Cruise Arizona — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 17:10:01 +0000

Merry Christmas to all or our Cruise Talk readers! I hope some of you are enjoying a cruise right now. It is has been about 26 years since I’ve done a Christmas cruise, but I remember how magical they can be. For those of us that are enjoying a Christmas at home, I hope that you have a great cruise planned for the upcoming year. May your day be filled with gifts of joy and happiness.

New Cruise Videos Posted

Cruise Arizona — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:16:04 +0000

We are pleased to announce that we have added some new cruise videos here at Cruise Talk. These videos are some of the highlights of Celebrity Mercury Alaska Cruise this past June.

A few of my favorites are: the whale watching, Skagway excursion and the Hubbard Glacier video. I hope all our Cruise Talk members and readers enjoy them too!!! Please let us know what you think though our forums or comment features.

Alaska Cruise Videos

New Cruise Talk Central Look

Mr Papa — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:42:05 +0000

Welcome to the newly redesigned Cruise Talk Central. In an effort to continually improve the user experience on our website, we have relaunched the site with a new look and styling. In addition, we hope that you will now find the information here at Cruise Talk Central easier to locate and then use.

The previous site design presented an awful lot of information on the front page, but its appearance was very text driven with a long skinny or tubular look to it. For some information, you had to scroll down a long ways just to see it. with the new design, a more traditional magazine style look, the same content is available, but its more readily at your fingertips.

We hope you find the new Cruise Talk Central look appealing. Tell us what you think with a comment here on this post or in the forum. We would love to hear your thoughts. As always, welcome your feedback!

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New Cruise Talk Central Website Design Coming

Mr Papa — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 11:09:34 +0000

Well, its been close to a year with the current appearance of Cruise Talk Central. It’s time for a change once again. While initially happy with the appearance of Cruise Talk Central after the current redesign, we have become less and less satisfied with each passing day.

We have received some user feedback that the site was too “tubular”. That is, the site was too narrow and too long. Users had to scroll way too much to see the whole site. While the site had some nice appearance features, it really wasn’t as usable as we had hoped.

Hopefully, this new design will answer the critics and our own dissatisfaction. We should be launching the new Cruise Talk Central look in the next couple of days. When we do, it will likely cause the site to be down for a couple of hours. Visitors to the site will be greeted with a site maintenance message. When the site is fully operational again, the maintenance message will be gone and the new site will be visible.

We hope you enjoy these continuous improvements to Cruise Talk Central. As always, we welcome your feedback and welcome your contributions here at Cruise Talk Central.

See ya on the new website design!

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Server Crash

Mr Papa — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:37:01 +0000

Unfortunately, we lost a server drive this evening and have had to restart with some data backups from this morning. I don’t believe any data was lost, however, if you registered a new account here at Cruise Talk Central today, there is a likely chance that the account was not recovered in the process of utilizing the backups. Sorry, but you will have to re-register your account.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

©2012 Cruise Talk Central. All Rights Reserved.
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New Tipping Policy Page

Cruise Arizona — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 04:15:44 +0000

Here at Cruise Talk Central, we like to make cruise planning as easy as possible for all our readers. In response to a request from our readers we’ve now added a page that contains the tipping policy information from most of the major cruise lines. In summary, most cruise lines have a suggested tipping amount of $10 to $14 per day per person. In some cases this is an automatic charge, with passengers having to “opt-out” should they choose to tip with another method. Other lines require passengers to “opt-in” for the auto tipping. Most lines, even with auto tipping, allow for passengers to make adjustments to the amount should they deem necessary. Only the most upscale luxury lines include the tips in the cruise fare.

Tipping Policies

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Announcing The Cruise Talk Central Forum

Mr Papa — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 04:40:33 +0000

Cruise Talk Central is happy to announce the launch of our Cruise Talk Central Forum.

In the past year or two, we have resisted adding a forum simply because its been done before and we don’t really want to “compete” with the big cruise forum sites. However, we have had many requests for a mechanism for folks to ask questions or seek help. Our blog style format with comments really doesn’t support that kind of discussion.

Thus, we have decided to launch a forum, albeit a small one. Initially, we have created four fora (proper plural for forum) for our readers to interact with. These initial fora are:

Ask A Question – A forum for readers to ask questions and get advice or answers

Cruise Stories – share a cruising story or experience with us

Cruise Talk Central Announcements – A forum for Cruise Talk Central to make announcements

Website Support Forum – A forum for folks having website issues

If you have a question or are able to answer another reader’s question, we hope you will join in the discussion in the Cruise Talk Central Forum.

It’s worth adding that both users and guests of Cruise Talk Central are allowed to post in the forum. However, forum posts by guests are moderated and will not show up immediately. This unfortunate step is required to keep a bunch of spam from showing up in the forum. Forum posts by registered members of Cruise Talk Central are not moderated and will show up immediately. As always, feel free to register at Cruise Talk Central.

I must also note that the forum is not complete yet. I still have some theme matching to do. However, we received two contact forms in the last couple days asking for a way to ask questions, so I wanted to get something up quickly. Hopefully, the question askers will come back and post in the forum. I will be completing the theme matching over the next few days.

©2012 Cruise Talk Central. All Rights Reserved.
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New Dining Preference Poll

Cruise Arizona — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:24:05 +0000

After so many responses to our Cruise Planning poll, we have just set up a new poll about dining preferences. You can view the results of the cruise planning poll, or any of our previous polls, in our polls archive. The latest poll results show that Ports of Call, Price and Cruise line are the most important factors used by passengers when selecting a cruise.

Our new poll asks your preferred dining options. In the old days of cruising, passengers had two choices for dining – first seating and second seating in the main dining room. Cruise ships were not the huge purpose built luxury ships of today, so they just didn’t have many dining options.

Gradually cruise lines have begun adding alternative dining options. Most lines have an evening alternative to the main dining room. Some have upscale alternative dining with an extra charge. Some lines have price included buffets, or sushi bars, or a pizza and pasta station, or even casual full service dining with an up charge. The newest trend in cruising is no assigned tables, venues or times. NCL has pioneered this trend calling it “Free Style Cruising”. Their marketing material tells passengers that they have lots of choices and can do what they want, when they want. Princess and RCCL have followed this trend by offering some open seating on their ships.

I have always been perfectly happy with assigned dining times, venue, and services offered with the traditional dining with one exception. That exception is that I prefer second seating, but when I cruise with my kids, the first seating really works better over all for us. The one part I don’t like about early dining is on port days having to rush to get 4 people ready for dinner by 6:00. Other than that exception, I really like having the same waiter, sommelier and assistant maitre’de every night. This set up gives the opportunity for the diner to receive highly personalized and individualized service. The wait staff gets to know you and learns of your desires and needs. If guests have a large group, then they know they don’t have to wait for a table or wonder what time to get together for dinner. Generally, the entertainment options for the evening such as shows, music, dancing and theme parties are scheduled around the dining times so that guests don’t have schedule conflicts. I like dining in the main dining room so much I have only twice in all my cruises chosen a different options: once in the specialty dining room and once using room service after a late excursion.

I know other cruisers have found these innovations in dining options to be just what they needed to improve their cruise experience. I’d love to hear from those of you out there who have tried the other options. How was the service? Did you have wait times? Were you able to eat in the venue you wanted at the time you wanted? How did the relaxed dining options affect your cruise over all? Did you feel less “herded” and more in control of you cruise experience? Did you choose casual dining for the entire cruise and feel like you got your moneys worth? Participate in our poll and leave your feedback in our comment sections. We love to hear from our members.

©2012 Cruise Talk Central. All Rights Reserved.
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Southwest and Bags To Go

Cruise Arizona — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 23:10:39 +0000

I just saw where South West Airlines is offering a baggage check at some cruise ports for passengers flying home on South West. This is a great service because passengers who book their own flights often book flights later in the day to make sure that they off the ship in time to make the flight. What a great break for those passengers in that they now don’t have to carry their luggage around town all day. They are free to spend a little time in their disembarkation port with out having to keep up with their luggage all day.

Full Article at CNN Money

I can tell you from personal experience where this service is desperately needed is at at the Port of San Diego and San Diego airport. When we disembarked several years ago I we headed immediately over to the air port which is only about 5 minute away. We arrived 5 hours before our scheduled flight and had to wait a full hour with all of our 14 pieces of luggage on a cart before we could even check in the luggage. The airline wouldn’t check our luggage any earlier than 4 hours before the flight. It really would have been nice to check our luggage in at the cruise terminal and then do an hour or so of sight seeing before heading to the air port.

The cruise lines do offer direct luggage transfer service with some of the other major airlines, but South West has always been rather independent. Cruise lines do not use South West for their cruise air packages because the independent ways that South West operate. We’ve flown South West twice for cruises out of San Diego because they are the only airline that offers direct flights from Tucson to San Diego. However, we drove to San Diego for our last cruise because I wanted to be able to load up the car with luggage and immediately start our drive home. If South West starts offering this service in San Diego, I’ll have to take a good look at flying again.

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Finally we hear from Windjammer

Cruise Arizona — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:43:49 +0000

Windjammer released the following information today on www.windjammer.com

Windjammer Barefoot Cruises
Lorraine Shaw
(305) 672-6453
Monday, October 8th 2007
Miami Beach, Florida

“WindjammerÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Heart is Still Beating Ã¢â‚¬â€œ Better Sailing Ahead

ThereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s no doubt about it, Windjammer Barefoot Cruises is in the midst of a storm. News accounts and chat rooms have reported tough times for the 60 year old tall ship cruise company with over a million alumni.

Danny Walsh, the grandson of the founder Captain Burke is working with the legal entities that now control the company to breathe new life into her sails. Ã¢â‚¬Å“We are actively working with several investor groups on a viable plan to continue the Windjammer tradition.Ã¢â‚¬Â reports Mr. Walsh.

Friday, critical payments were made to all shipboard staff and other immediate debt obligations are planned shortly. Arrangements are now underway to restart the cruises in the Caribbean and Costa Rica. Essential crew and staff are working to continue vital operations on all the ships in the Windjammer inventory. A communications plan is being developed to alert future customers as to their cruise status.

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Windjammer offers fun-loving adventure vacations like no otherÃ¢â‚¬Â says Captain Paul, is a 30-year veteran of the company. Ã¢â‚¬Å“We are grateful for the loyal support of our alumni, crew staff and vendor as we weather this stormÃ¢â‚¬Â he says. We ask our pending customers to Ã¢â‚¬Å“stay fastÃ¢â‚¬Â and to check on our website, which will be back up shortly for the latest advisories on ship sailings. For our customers booked on cruises in the very near future we regret we will not be sailing including the weeks of October 14 and 21st. We hope to reschedule as many passengers on future cruises as possible. The Windjammer team is dedicated to restarting cruise operations shortly. ”

Our thoughts here at Cruise Talk: Hopefully this means that passengers will be enjoying their cruises and crew members will be getting paid!

©2012 Cruise Talk Central. All Rights Reserved.
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Celebrity Reveals Some Details Of The Upcoming Solstice Ships

Cruise Arizona — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:05:20 +0000

Celebrity has released a few more details about it’s upcoming new Celebrity Solstice ship.

First, the lay-out, size, and design, of the state rooms have been put together by a focus group of 5 women. The cruise line says that women are the chief cruise planners and the most discerning among passengers. The state rooms will reflect the attitudes and needs of these discerning women passengers.
The Celebrity Solstice website lists the following features for these newly designed state rooms:

Modified vestibule to improve sight lines to the sea.

Innovative and flexible storage throughout the room

Simple comfortable design

Softer Color Pallets

Efficient use of space

They currently have a website running with cgi renderings of the rooms and more information on the features of the Solstice including the “Blu” specialty restaurant, new Aqua Class rooms, and some of the design elements of the new Solstice.

What’s not up on the site is information on all the staterooms, kids program, amenities and entertainment venues.

To find the information on the room classes, I had to go the regular Celebrity site and go through steps as if I was booking a cruise. First, and most important to me, is the size and availability moderately priced rooms that will accommodate four people. There are several room classes: the inside, ocean view, and veranda categories that will accommodate 4. The Veranda rooms are the most spacious at 192 square feet. That is 20 more square feet larger than the room we had on the Infinity, and slightly smaller than the FOV room we had on the Mercury. The Concierge Class and Aqua Class rooms are the same size. The Ocean Views rooms are roughly the same size as the room we had on the Infinity at 172 square feet. The Inside rooms are slightly larger at 183 square feet. For those of you with a bigger budget, they are now offering 2 rooms suits called Family Ocean View with Veranda that have a whopping 525 square feet. I’m sure these rooms will go at a premium price, as opposed to the old FOV rooms on the smaller ships that were only slightly larger and slightly more expensive than the standard staterooms. Sky Suites will have 300 square feet. Other larger suites are available including the Celebrity Suites at 394 square feet, Royal Suites at 590 square feet, and the Penthouse Suite at over 1200 square feet.

I imagine that they will be adding the other information that I was looking for in bits and pieces. My preference is not really a bigger ship with an expensive balcony cabin. So far Celebrity hasn’t convinced me that the Solstice is for me, but they have many details yet to roll out.

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Cruise Talk Central Server Move Complete

Mr Papa — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 19:30:53 +0000

The Cruise Talk Central website server move is now complete. If you are seeing this page with this post, your DNS has propagated and you are good to go.

This new server setup should make the Cruise Talk Central experience smoother and quicker. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. As always, feel free to report any issues with our contact page.

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Cruise Talk Central Moving To New Server

Mr Papa — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:31:02 +0000

Sometime over the next couple of days, Cruise Talk Central will be moving to a new server. We are doing this accommodate the increasing demands on bandwidth and to make sure we can provide our readers with a good user experience. Hopefully, you won’t even notice the move.

When the move does occur, we will put up a maintenance screen stating that the server move is in progress. When your ISP’s domain name servers (DNS) have propagated to the new server location, you will simply see Cruise Talk Central once again. You should also see a new post stating that you are now viewing Cruise Talk Central in its new location. Until, the DNS has propagated, you will continue to see the maintenance screen

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, but it will help us provide a better cruising experience here.

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NCL Adopts New Dress Code – Jeans Now OK In Dining Venues

Cruise Arizona — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:45:49 +0000

I have updated our dress code policies page to reflect the new dress code policy put in place by NCL. Here’s the new dress code information according to NCL’s web site:

Freestyle Cruising gives you the freedom to dress as you please Ã¢â‚¬â€œ morning, noon and night.

Casual attire is perfect for all restaurants during the day – Khakis, skirts, jeans, casual tops, shorts or whatever. Swimwear with a cover-up is fine at the buffet and outdoor restaurant.

For dinner, collared shirts and pants or nice jeans work for guys. Slacks or jeans, dresses, skirts and tops are perfect for women. But if you want to dress up and add a little glamour when you dine out, thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s OK too Ã¢â‚¬â€œ weÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ve reserved one restaurant each night just for that.

For kids 12 and under, nice shorts are appropriate in all restaurants at all times.

If you prefer Jeans and a more casual dining experience, NCL may be the perfect cruise for you and your family. If you prefer to dress up and be around others that are dressed up as well, more formal cruise lines would be a better choice for you.

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