And then there is coffee

Different cruise lines do different things as perks for their loyalty members. I know that I just mentioned yesterday in relation to towels. For me, given off-spring in University, a hot tub in California and currently dogs in the house – those towels have been a great take-home perk.

But on ship? Perhaps those critical items for most cruisers boil down to two item categories (alcohol & caffeine beverages). Those of you who don’t do either can just skip down to the bottom of this note.

Royal, when they added additional lounges for the loyalty program with ship renovations starting ~2012 hit a gold mine in their Diamond Lounges. Not only were they offering a free happy hour (3 hours) to guests above but there was a lounge to relax in. More interesting to me – they installed restaurant grade WMF Coffee machines that could deliver a latte, cappuccino, expresso or coffee from grinding beans through hot steamed milk with a press of a button. For those of us who are tea drinkers – a side spigot delivered extremely hot water.

On a number of the other ship lines – you don’t get a nice coffee machine unless you are sailing in a suite. On others, they are included, but you have to go somewhere to have it made and handed to you. Me? I like being able to wander in at 0330 in the morning and get a decaf something. I know how to operate the WMF machines – where to add milk, beans or how to empty the grounds.

Imagine my dismay when I found the Freedom has new and different machines installed.

shiny and new

and then I looked at the front –

double row of order buttons

you have four choices in both caffeinated and decaffeinated.

But you can’t get just steamed milk (think for hot chocolate). And there is no spigot for hot water. They bring thermoses of hot water – but it just isn’t at a decent temperature for more than an hour and I certainly don’t expect them to replace the hot water every hour…

As several of you have noted – all lines are doing small things to cut costs. If the coffee machine needed to be replaced, eliminating a separate button for milk and one for hot water probably saved money. And it will decrease the amount of milk used.

The ship list in port today – Cozumel – included us, Carnival Paradise, Celebrity Equinox and also allegedly a second Carnival Ship as well as the Navigator OTS.

Having been here before and not having much of any need to shop – I obviously had time for cross-stitch and audiobooks….

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About Holly

fiber person - knitter, spinner, weaver who spent 33 years being a military officer to fund the above. And home. And family. Sewing and quilting projects are also in the stash. After living again in Heidelberg after retiring (finally) from the U.S. Army May 2011, we moved to the US ~ Dec 2015. Something about being over 65 and access to health care. It also might have had to do with finding a buyer for our house. Allegedly this will provide me a home base in the same country as our four adult children, all of whom I adore, so that I can drive them totally insane. Considerations of time to knit down the stash…(right, and if you believe that…) and spin and .... There is now actually enough time to do a bit of consulting, editing. Even more amazing - we have only one household again. As long as everyone understands that I still, 40 years into our marriage, don't do kitchens or bathrooms. For that matter, not being a golden retriever, I don't do slippers or newspapers either. I don’t miss either the military or full-time clinical practice. Limiting my public health/travel med/consulting and lecturing to “when I feel like it” has let me happily spend my pension cruising, stash enhancing (oops), arguing with the DH about where we are going to travel next and book buying. Life is good!
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6 Responses to And then there is coffee

  1. Christiane says:

    Good morning Holly !! Greetings from Vision. We are the second day in Muscat on our first cruise of 3.
    I guess we are alike when it comes to coffee. Here we still have the good old WMF machine. I don’t know if they have different coffee on ships, this is kind of bitter, needs a lot of milk.

    Enjoy the day … and the coffee ☕️

    • Holly says:

      Yes – in spite of central ordering it seems that there are several variety of beans that get purchased. To top it off – they can adjust the grind so that it uses more or less coffee….

      I wouldn’t mind going back to the Vision – but I really don’t care for cruising in that area..

  2. Donna says:

    I share the dismay about the new coffee machines..if not milk, at least hot water….

    • Holly says:

      It means it is not worth bringing along decent tea. And then there is the shot of expresso, a lot of milk and a whole packet of hot chocolate mix that is no longer an option.

      The Concierge says that they put in a complaint every week and count up the number of passenger complaints about it….

  3. Cat says:

    Not being a tea or coffee fiend I am beginning to get alarmed. Where’s the drinking water? We cats like to lap our water! 🙂

  4. Sandy & Pat says:

    We’re doing Freedom on a trans atl this Apr.
    not happy about new coffee machines

    T Y 4 the heads up

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