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It's free with Cunard!
quote:Originally posted by Malcolm @ cruisepage:I note that Fred Olsen will offer 'Traditional' Afternoon teas (pocelain pots, finger sanwiches, pastries and scones with music) across all of the fleet by the end of May. However there will be a charge of £5.95 per person!It's free with Cunard!
Not just Cunard. Afternoon tea is complimentary on every cruise line I have ever sailed. Charging for it, especially on a British cruise line seems very petty.
Ernie
quote:Originally posted by Frosty 4:Recently here in the US we have "The Tea Party" entering into politics. Formed to complain about taxes and the BS politics we have!!F4
The Tea Party movement has nothing to do with afternoon "Tea", it refers to the Boston Tea Party which was a rebellion against British taxes on the American colonists.
quote:Originally posted by Linerrich:The Tea Party movement has nothing to do with afternoon "Tea", it refers to the Boston Tea Party which was a rebellion against British taxes on the American colonists.
Tea Party today is the brainchild of corporate lobbyist and former congressman Dick Armey. Essentially they got the right marketing and brainwashing campaign to the angry aging white person not happy with the changes in the world around them; like Archie Bunker, remember the song "those were the days".
By use of peer pressure, half truths, distiortions, and empty promises they dupe this type of person into believing that we can eliminate taxes and shrink government while keeping services such as police, fire protection, air traffic control, highways, medicare, social security, and safe cruiseships at the same time.
The Tea Party was quite vociferous against health care reform, against their own interests, but did not protest the excesses of Wall Street, in favor of their interests.
Big disconnect here.
PS: They make Rueben Goossens look like an amatuer.
quote:Originally posted by desirod7:Tea Party today is the brainchild of corporate lobbyist and former congressman Dick Armey. Essentially they got the right marketing and brainwashing campaign to the angry aging white person not happy with the changes in the world around them; like Archie Bunker, remember the song "those were the days".By use of peer pressure, half truths, distiortions, and empty promises they dupe this type of person into believing that we can eliminate taxes and shrink government while keeping services such as police, fire protection, air traffic control, highways, medicare, social security, and safe cruiseships at the same time.The Tea Party was quite vociferous against health care reform, against their own interests, but did not protest the excesses of Wall Street, in favor of their interests.Big disconnect here. PS: They make Rueben Goossens look like an amatuer.
A big High-five and a Hallelujah. Singing out the truth. Set'm straight!
quote:Originally posted by Frosty 4:I don't drink tea or coffee. I just wondered where the afternoon tea came from? I do realize that it seems to be a British thing.Recently here in the US we have "The Tea Party" entering into politics. Formed to complain about taxes and the BS politics we have!!F4
I believe the Tea Party IS the "BS" politics!
Tim
Was it not they rebelled against the British by throwing crates of tea off the ships they were being loaded onto into the harbour - thus tea party ?
Of course if I recall from school it was at night thus would be Evening Tea rather than Afternoon tea ?
I can't believe that given the type of pax FO appeal to they don't currently offer afternoon tea, if not quite bizarre. Charging for tea is I have to say nickel and diming in the extreme.
Anyway sod the tea it always clashes with pre cocktail hour but I wish they would bring back the boujon (spelling?) in the morning.
Fred Olsen do offer afternoon tea at present but this is a deluxe service they are charging for !
quote:Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:mike saFred Olsen do offer afternoon tea at present but this is a deluxe service they are charging for !
This is no excuse especially since a lot would pass as 'deluxe' by Fred Olsen standards. They should offer a proper afternoon teatime without extra charge. Anything else is pathetic.
It's sounds B.....t
Greetings Ben.
Either fares will have to go up or we will eventually see completely a la carte cruising where the fare covers accommodation and possibly entertainment but everything else is pay as u go, all restaurants etc being extra tarrif a la carte menus just as they are on the high street. Perhaps NCL will be first ?
quote:Originally posted by mike sa:Well it seems one of 2 things will happen.Either fares will have to go up or we will eventually see completely a la carte cruising where the fare covers accommodation and possibly entertainment but everything else is pay as u go, all restaurants etc being extra tarrif a la carte menus just as they are on the high street. Perhaps NCL will be first ?
Don't forget that prices for cruises went down during the past decades. 'A la carte' cruising like it exists aboard some ferries is perfectly adequate for a mainstream cruise line where a low fare is a selling point (don't forget that one can charge for entertainment too). Of course, for a cruise line like Fred Olsen it's ridiculous and actually stupid to introduce an extra charge for afternoon tea - even if it's an enhanced version.
As far as I can remember there was a lot that could be enhanced aboard Fred Olsen ships concerning food and service. Maybe they should simply do that without introducing extra charges and improving afternoon tea might actually be the pefect start for such an effort.
Although Olsen still offers some of the most intimate ships sailing from UK ports, there is plenty of completion from bigger ships. They need to tread carefully!
quote:Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:Perhaps by not serving a proper lunch on sailing day it does give some of the crew a break and time to go ashore !
I doubt that. It's more likely that they are very busy during the turnaround.
quote:Originally posted by desirod7:Tea Party today is the brainchild of corporate lobbyist and former congressman Dick Armey. Essentially they got the right marketing and brainwashing campaign to the angry aging white person not happy with the changes in the world around them; like Archie Bunker, remember the song "those were the days".
Of course once the heavily taxed Baby Boomers retire there won't be nearly enough money to pay for 1/2 of what people have come to expect from the government. Social Security, Medicare and the massive government health care plan will consume most of the Federal budget leaving little for other services. Today the Feds spend something like $1.30 for every $1.00 they bring in in taxes and the tax roles will begin to shrink in the next few years as Baby Boomers retire. We can also only borrow so much from China to pay JUST the interest on the national debt and forget about tackling the ever-growing debt itself!
Here in CA (Greece on the west coast) we are seeing the future and it ain't pretty. We were broke even before the 'Great Recession' and are now 20 billion in the hole w/the current state budget and it will grow even larger next year.
The highly-tax Baby Boomers or 'angry old white people' are now retiring and according to the LA Times there are few people to take their place in the well-paid and heavily taxed skilled workforce. The public schools can't seem to graduate more than 40-50% of their students and the ones that do graduate in the large urban areas where most of the students are enrolled do so at a 9th grade level of proficiency! How are all those totally unprepared kids ever going to pay the higher taxes required for all those lavish government programs?
Even our left-leaning LA Times has written on numerous occasions that CA needs fiscally conservative representatives (GOP or DEMS) in Sacramento to clean up the mess (sound familiar??)
There is only so much money to go around and the pie is getting smaller every year. Fasten your seat belts-it's going to be a bumpy flight!
quote:Originally posted by lasuvidaboy:There is only so much money to go around and the pie is getting smaller every year. Fasten your seat belts-it's going to be a bumpy flight!
We had a budget surplus under Clinton. The Iraq war is costing a billion or so dollars a day. Unskilled people with low paying jobs do not bring in the tax revenues of highly skilled and highly paid people. If I am not mistaken Calif has a strange law that a budget must be passed by 2/3 legislature?No wonder the state is ungovernable. New York State has massive deficits especially with an inept governor and dysfunctional legislature.
It was Cheney who said "deficits never hurt Reagan"
Third rail: tax the churches, mosques, and synagogues
quote:Originally posted by Ernst:I doubt that. It's more likely that they are very busy during the turnaround.
Ernst
I have done turn rounds and a couple of hours ashore can often be arranged on turn round days without a lunch to be served !
quote:Originally posted by Neil - Ex P. & O. S. N. Company.:I have done turn rounds and a couple of hours ashore can often be arranged on turn round days without a lunch to be served !
Working practice umpteen years ago! are not what they are today!
Anyway FOCL do indeed serve lunch aboard on turnaround days. Not in the UK though as one does not embark until the afternoon, but when arriving before lunch overseas one does and when as we experienced last, one has an afternoon flight back to the UK, one is not turfed off ship in the morning but can stay aboard and enjoy lunch until departure for the airport [as in our case it was 16:30, so 'Afternoon Tea' was had as well]. This is not mean Malcolm
A. Tea ime on FOCL has never been a pretentious sit down and be served with white gloved waiters, but tea/coffee stations around ship. A cuppa with fruit, usually huge melon slices/biscuits/sandwiches/cakes. Then they introduced the Grand Tea Dance which was popular.
I will go once to these things to see what they are all about, but do not care if they exist or not, nothing is needed to eat between lunch and dinner. It may well be free on Cunard, but try finding a seat within an hour of the 'event'.
Elsewhere the rose coloured glasses lament on the loss of Afternoon Tea which should they say be free, yet a week or so previously it was commented by the same tints that cruising today is the same basic price as it was 20/30 years ago - so what does one expect? All the same benefits for the same money with no account for inflation?
Cruisers today are not those of old and to get them aboard in the first instance the lower the basic price the better. They have no idea about AT having been free or included previously, or even that it was served. Someone commented how a passenger thought the daily programme was super on RCI, wonderful of them - having no clue this is done on every line and always has been.
If there had been a charge for this that pax would have known no difference and might well have paid $1 a day for the priviledge of having one. Now there's an idea for the bean counters
Pam
quote:Originally posted by desirod7:We had a budget surplus under Clinton. The Iraq war is costing a billion or so dollars a day. Unskilled people with low paying jobs do not bring in the tax revenues of highly skilled and highly paid people. If I am not mistaken Calif has a strange law that a budget must be passed by 2/3 legislature?No wonder the state is ungovernable. New York State has massive deficits especially with an inept governor and dysfunctional legislature.
Actually the 2/3rds rule is the only thing that allows many people to remain living here. You have to realize that we are ruled by far-left loons (I mean really inexperienced far-left loons!! ) that would be called socialists in even old-school liberal parts of the country. They literally have no clue on how to run the 6th largest economy in the World other than running it into the ground. If these idiots had their way (and they have done incredible damage in the last 25-years), they would tax and regulate the state to beyond the breaking point and have no regret doing it. That is why we were broke and borrowing heavily well before the recession hit. An example, the entertainment industry has been leaving the state for years and that is our last big business in SoCal and the state and local governments don't seem to care. You get rid of the 2/3rds rule and the lunatics would really be running the asylum. Our Dem and GOP leadership in the 1960s and 70s kept the state in the black, built the freeways and the best state college system in the country. After governor Jerry Brown allowed the state workers to unionize (do I hear conflict of interest??) the fiscal problems started and today we have billions (yes billions) in unfunded pension liabilities. 22000 state workers are holding the state hostage and more and more taxpayers are saying enough! As posted, even the left leaning LA Times now wants fiscal responsibility. That is why many are calling CA Greece on the Pacific.
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