Roll call of gifts I had received so far from The 80s Cruise:
Fanny pack
Sun visor
Sunglasses
T shirt
Latest speed test
We made it to our anchor point for Cabo San Lucas.
I went to the ECP Q and A session way up on deck 14 in the Cosmopolitan Lounge. This was very interesting, very informative, and better than I expected.
JT the cruise director hosted and passed around the mike so we the guests could ask the senior staff some questions.
From left to right we had Brett (hotel director), Chris (executive director), and Joey (production director). They had very interesting stories. All, including JT, had backgrounds in the cruise and/or charter business, and have been with ECP for a while.
Yes, JT does work for the charter. Keep that in the back of your mind; I’ll come back to it later.
Two questions were asked by JT first as they had been asked of him multiple times by multiple people during the cruise. First was how they pick the ship and the itinerary. No surprise here – everything counts and it gets worked on quite a bit in advance.
The second question was what they do the rest of the year. They mentioned decompression immediately after this cruise, then on to work on other cruises – either planning or operating them.
Then came my questions, two of them. I started by noting that the Mariner OTS was moving to Galveston next year and would not be available in Port Canaveral in 2025. I wondered how they were going to reconcile this. Chris said the 2025 cruise would probably stay in the Caribbean, but didn’t commit to anything beyond that. Everything is in the cards and I was asked to stay tuned for more news.
My second question was about solo pricing. They offered only a 50% single tax when I booked. It was also available for those who booked onboard, but there was an overall limit on how many cabins they will sell to single travelers with that reduced tax. Interesting.
We had about 50 people in the lounge, and a good portion of them asked other questions on various subjects or gave the ECP staffers compliments.
* They’re probably not going to do outside excursions with artists again. Too much can go wrong with outside vendors, and they’re happy with the on ship opportunities provided.
* There are more cruisers here from the east coast as compared to the west coast. The shift between last year and this year didn’t change things much.
* This cruise didn’t sell out, but last year’s did. That surprised me, because it seems more crowded this year.
* The survey from ECP is very important to them and was mentioned multiple times. One of the acts on next year’s cruise, Air Supply, was mentioned many times and they finally got them.
* They tried multiple times in the past to get Devo and they finally got them this year. They performed yesterday evening. No, I didn’t go.
* I found a fellow passenger in a Weird Al shirt. He was nice enough for me to take a photo of him. I’m not sharing it, sorry.
Moving back to the UDC for just a minute. Their cruise director Jason is not employed by StarVista; he is one of their contractors. StarVista didn’t have a Q and A like this on the UDC. I think the executives and Jason would probably have been SHREDDED because the future of the UDC is in doubt and the guests would have demanded answers that Jason and StarVista management probably didn’t have. It would have been fun to see.
I’ll give you with a picture from the Cosmopolitan Lounge overlooking the back of the ship:
Cabo San Lucas was a tender port. We had to take them to the port and back.
On the way there, I saw something that I hadn’t seen before. While we were sailing along on the tender, there was a crew member walking around with a tip jar. While I appreciate service personnel and the opportunity to make as much as possible, I thought this was too aggressive for my tastes and was turned off by it.
I had an excursion to see the sights in and on the way to San Jose del Cabo, about a 40 minute drive away.
We stayed in the bus the whole way there. We stopped in the central plaza and we were on our own for roughly an hour and a half. There were several places to shop and eat, and of course much to see:
I bought a few souvenirs here and eventually we left and headed back to the tender boats. BTW, this is a much more common, subtle, and all around better way to ask for what you want:
In the evening I went to one of the side arenas to see 80s tribute band Jessie’s Girl. The crowd was roughly the same as watched Autograph in the same arena last night, which is to say not too many. They did get more people on the dance floor. No surprise, since they played many of the big hits of the 80s and played them well. The only act they played two songs from was Journey. I’ll see a dedicated Journey tribute band on the Ruby Princess in a month.
Anyway, good job guys and gals!
That ended the exciting events from yesterday.