It has occurred to me that many of you may have no idea who or what
Cruise Critic is. If you go to http://www.cruisecritic.com/
you will see a not very elegant interface (at least using Firefox; with Internet
Explorer it looks a lot better!) and a wealth of information about ports,
ships, news—you name it to do with cruising. And nary a critical entry anywhere,
never mind the name “Cruise Critic.”
You can find reviews—most by real people, not professional
reviewers—of ships and of ports; you can buy a cruise or plan a cruise; there
will be news articles, often as the cruise-related news is happening—that’s how
I found out about the Costa Allegra; and there are “Boards” or forums where you
can share ideas or plan to meet on board your ship with like-minded people;
There is an area for new cruisers; there is an area for your specific ship and
for the part of the world you’re cruising to; there is a special interest
cruising forum; if you want to know what cabin B433 on the Sun Princess looks
like, there may be a picture of it. There is even a thread about weird things
seen on a cruise ship. You do have to join the website, but it’s free and so
much fun! Even if you’re not going on a cruise, it’s fun to daydream about
going.
If you’ve looked at my checklists and thought I was nuts, I
have a friend who just emailed me his spreadsheet for his two-month trip to
China. I am so jealous! He is absolutely meticulous and thorough with his
planning and he puts me to shame. I think I’m going to brazenly copy from him.
I can hear my husband already, hitting palm to forehead and saying words to the
effect of, “what is she going to think of next??!!” Of course later he thanks
me for getting him into various interesting (my word, his is “weird”)
situations.
Our ship is based in Australia, as you probably know by now,
and so Australian customs are in order. One is no tipping. Well, what that
means is that the tip is not added to our shipboard account as it is on most
other cruise lines ($10-12 per person per day). For us, on a 104-day cruise,
approximately $2,288 (funny, that's almost exactly equal to the onboard credit we have in our account). I won’t go into the Why-don’t-they-pay-them-a-living-wage
argument, but what I am interested in is, How much should we tip? I don’t want
to tip too much, but I also want to reward good service. I’m not Australian so
it’s difficult for me to know exactly what to do. On an American ship I would
tip the $2,288, distributing it to people who served us. I actually LIKE having
the tip put on my shipboard account because I know there are lots of people I
never see who take care of my needs behind the scenes and that way they will share in the money.
And I don’t have to get those little envelopes and lots of cash and try not to
miss anybody on the cruise who assisted me in any way.
A last thought: What is it about Finland folk who are
apparently searching out my blog in droves? I do not know a soul in Finland but
I have, depending on the day, more people viewing my blog from Finland than any
place in the world other than the US. Finland and Australia viewers are pretty
much tied. Today there have been 175 Aussie viewers and 171 Finish viewers. Don’t
get me wrong, I love having lots of people view my blog, but I am so curious as
to why, Finland?
