Carnival Says its Monitoring Guests, ACTOR PARTNERS WITH PRINCESS, Odyssey Still in Belfast

well this one wasn't on my bingo card for 2024 carnival comes out and publicly says uh they're they're watching their Cruisers and and as a special treat you're being invited to watch the Cruisers too this one's wild plus Ray Donovan Ray Donovan's got a new lior for a cruise line and uh you remember the life at Sea vill Odyssey three-year World cruise that was supposed to kick off earlier this year well the question is has it kicked off I've got an update Cruise news and My Views let's talk about it hey hey hey what's up everybody Welcome to La loga I am your host Tony here with the latest Cruise News and Views for your face for your face on Friday Friday the 29th of August 2024 and I guess this is officially Labor Day weekend so shout out to all of the women out there that are going to be in labor this weekend I'm pretty sure that's what Labor Day is for it's a celebration of Labor okay maybe it's not pregnant women it's editing Tony here yeah it's the 30th it's the 30th I never know what day it is I have a calendar right in front of me too it's the 30th still Labor Day Labor Day the carnival story I'm going to split it into two parts I'm going to tell you what they said said about them watching people and then I'll tell you what they said about them wanting you to watch people so uh the beginning here's the hubub bub there is a lot of drinking that goes on on Carnival Cruise Line and there's been some sort of debate between the people that get the drink package and people that don't get the drink package the people that get the drink package are saying that they are more heavily scrutinized than the people that don't get the drink package when it comes to consuming alcohol now the way it works is you pay for the drink package on Carnival and within a 24-hour period you can have 15 alcoholic drinks and then unlimited other drinks that aren't alcoholic but every time that you swipe your card to get your alcoholic drinks that goes against your 15 drink total and they're watching that really closely they're using a computer they're using a computer to know when you've hit your 15 drink limit and the people that get the drink package are saying well that's not fair because it seems like people that don't get the drink package they're not being monitored as closely and they started crying about it they started singing in their beer saying we like to drink but they're watching us so closely what about the people that don't have the drink package they can do whatever they want mostly I think that's the song they wrote about well here what happened is enough of a a stank was raised about it that uh one of those officials over there at carnival I forget his title I'm going to go check that real quick but he had an official statement it was Chief Communications officer Chris you guys know him right chief communic officer Chris he saw all the hubbub bub going on around this discussion and he came out and he just wanted everybody to know and I'm going to summarize it that Carnival is watching Everybody Carnival is watching Everybody when it comes to alcohol consumption they've not only got the computer system that monitors how many drinks people purchase but they got they got boots on the ground they're on the streets they got eyes and feet and hands everywhere they've got human monitors in the form of bar Enders and servers and security and people that work on the cruise ship part of their training is to keep an eye on people when they're consuming alcohol and trying to help understand whether they've consumed too much and whether they need to be cut off now I'm really confused as to why this is even a conversation and that the chief Communications officer had to weigh in of course businesses that serve alcohol are watching their patr friends to understand whether or not they can continue to let them drink it's a serious thing it's been serious for the longest time I waited tables back in the 1990s I had to go to a class before I was allowed to sell alcohol and a big push of that class was to understand whether or not people had had too much alcohol and whether or not I was going to serve them their next drink it's part and partial for the hotel business for the bar business for the restaurant business for any place that serves alcohol they are watching in you now that's the people that work for the cruise ship but they also had a special message for us fellow Cruisers I'm going to save that till the end now before we get to the next Cruise news story I got to tell you a secret that I've been keeping I'm just a few weeks away from traveling to Italy for a very special trip that's about all I can say about it but the reason I want to tell you about it is because that trip comes with a unique problem that the sponsor of today's episode heow has helped me solve now the problem that I struggle with almost every time that I travel internationally is access to mobile data mobile data to upload post to social media 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your first eim purchase make sure you download the AO app to do that or you can click the link in the description below thank you Arlo for sponsoring today's episode all right Cruise news Story number two do you know Lev shriber leave shriber leave shriber he played Ray Donovan on that epic TV show with the same name Ray Donovan not to be confused with the John Voit character in that show Mickey Donovan Mick hey Mick what a great TV show it I liked I liked it a lot but uh one of the things that was a Hallmark of that TV show is they did a lot of drinking and whenever they would consume alcohol because they were Irish I'm assuming uh Donovan yeah they were Irish they would say schan slan which uh is spelled like this but I think it's spell I think it said chancha but it means Health it means health and that's what they say when they would do cheers well now Liv has an alcohol of the same name an Irish whiskey and you may be saying well that's good that that's good that Ray Donovan's got a whiskey what does that have to do with cruising well uh princess has picked up this new whiskey line and they're going to be carrying on their cruise ships as part of their premium liquor offering so that's pretty cool if you like Ray Donovan if you like his whiskey if you like Princess Cruises if you like to say schan you can um you can do that now on a Princess cruise ship what's Wild is when it comes to these whiskies the opinions about what's the best is as probably as diverse or more than trying to figure out what the best cruise line is but uh these celebrity alcohols seem to be popping up all over the place and you know again I don't drink but I I do like that actor so it does seem to work I I am kind of motivated to go oh what's that I don't really even drink but I would like to see what the Ray Donovan Liquors like it's a marketing man it's such a such a wild such a wild thing I think I'm going to make my own chocolate milk or powdered water that's what I'm going to do powdered water just Add Water yeah the Tony bee powdered water uh guaranteed to keep you hydrated as long as you just just Add Water okay uh let's talk about uh Belfast in Northern Ireland they're working on a ship over there and we're not talking about the Titanic did you know that the Titanic that's where it was built Belfast and I went on a tour of the Titanic Museum there and they said a lot that when it left B Belfast it was in good shape which I thought is a kind of a morbid and funny joke to tell but uh not only did the Hop On Hop Off person say that but they also said it at the Museum she was in good shape when she left Belfast uh but that aside there is another cruise ship that is being worked on in Belfast right now and we're talking about The Villa V Odyssey this is the old Fred Olen Brar cruise ship and this is the latest attempt to have a residency at se what happened with Villa V Odyssey is they sold 15-year residencies to people I think some of them like close to a million dollar but you could also get into a 15-year residency for $999,000 and then a monthly fee they were supposed to set sale on a three-year World Cruise back in May and well they've they continue to be delayed because as we speak here they they're still not sailing and there's a lot of people that have been several months over there in Belfast waiting for the cruise ship to leave Belfast for its three-year World cruise and it's a wild scenario I've seen some videos of people that are going through this process it seems like V is giving them access to the cruise ship I've seen a couple move their stuff in and then they go over and they eat their meals and they play trivia and they watch movies and they hang out on the cruise ship but then every night they have to leave they have to get out they have to get off they can't stay even though they paid all of that money um yeah that's again I I applaud the effort I applaud what they're trying to do I think it's fantastic had to have this residency at sea but man again I think if it was me laying out the money if I was putting the duckets on the line I would want the thing to be fully baked before I went and spent months on end in in Belfast um not that anything's wrong with being in Belfast but just that's it's got to be frustrating I watch the videos of the people and uh I've watched a couple channels they all seem to be in really good spirits but uh and it's me probably reading into it but you got to feel like deep inside they're like what the heck is going on here um yeah they're supposed to go out maybe this Sunday or the SE trials or something they had Rudder issues and a gearbox issue and um yeah Mama's got a Squeeze Box daddy never sleeps at night and this Villa V Odyssey is still trying to get through uh all these hoops of inspections to to get these people out to see so crazy craziness Cruise news story number four would you like to be wasted away in Margaritaville would you like to do it for a discount well like I mentioned at the beginning of the show it is Labor Day shout out to moms that's not that's I know that's not what Labor Day is for I just think that's funny in my mind uh margarita is having a 50% Cruise sale between now and September the 3 and so I think it's cruises all the way up into 2026 they have those two ships they've got the one that's going out of West Palm the Margaritaville at C Paradise That's the older ship that they have and then you know had the new recent Margaritaville at Sea Islander that's cruising out of Tampa doing Western Caribbean cruises 50% off of those cruises and the third and fourth people sell for free so honestly if you've ever wanted to book a Margaritaville at c Cruz this would be a great time to try it out get yourself a discount all right let's close the loop on this Carnival story we covered in the beginning that they've got their employees watching you monitoring your alcohol consumption again I don't think that should be a surprise to anyone but my favorite thing that was said in the announcement that was put forth by Chief communication officer Chris was this little nugget uh not only do they have their employe is looking out but they they want to they want to deputize the guests to be snitches I I just wanted to use the word snitches I I really don't please don't hear me being critical of this but um you know they finished up the announcement here saying now some guests may be creative and figure out ways to drink uh and never really interact with a server or a bartender right so the people know that the employees are watching them that's why the security team is part of the plan if you ever have any concern about someone's alcohol consumption please quietly point that out to a member of the security team sounds a little snitchy no I think it's see something say something it makes sense uh I I do want to Advocate this I've had a lot of people when I talk about these guest interactions lately say I'm just going to tell the person off or I'm going to take it I'm going to Batman the thing I'm going to vigilante take it into my own hands there's a process in place y'all if you see somebody belligerently drunk don't get in their face and start saying stuff to them do you remember the story where the guy in the theater got in the drunk guy's face and got smashed in the head with a glass that's what happens the better course of action is to quietly say something to the crew staff so a great reminder from the uh Chief Communications officer Chris uh as to what to do when you're dealing with people on a cruise ship U Carnival doesn't want you to take it in your own hands so everybody needs to you know take off their cow and their rubber suits and not be Batman just want to say thanks again to AO for sponsor ing today's episode make sure you download that app or check the link in the description stay informed with everything going on in cruising by subscribing if you dug the show hit the like button Tony for L look till the next time we'll see you on the Leo bye