Christmas hassle

A new rant, again as a video...

It seems Companies House are more of a pain in the arse than I realised. Not just new ID crap on "confirmation statement" but also for anyone that is a PSC and not a director on anything company it is 14 days from start of month of birthday. Worse, it is not a deadline, it is a 14 day window - you cannot confirm ID now, you have to wait for the right moment, FFS. Why?

But also hassle with Wex and Royal Mail and Amazon (again).

When it a "30 minute guarantee" not a "30 minute guarantee"?

Well, when it is pizza hut...

How do I read that?

If they are 10 minutes *over* the 30 minutes? then that clearly makes this a "40 minute guarantee" as nothing happens at "30 minutes" in any way does it?

Just be honest!

Or is it that 10 minutes after order? Or 10 minutes after forecast? They are saying one hour to me now, so is it magically now a 70 minute guarantee?

A "30 minute guarantee" would have pay out for exceeding "30 minutes". Simple as that. Not "10 minutes on top of that". I mean, why not a "2 hours late" clause on top, it is meaningless.

The guarantee is clearly a "40 minutes" guarantee, as no recourse or penalty for delivery within 40 minutes and there is some (£10 off next order) when beyond 40 minutes.

This is bullshit - be honest. I think I'll file a complaint to ASA (like that matters)...

P.S. to be a tad less ranty!

The "30 minutes" is not meaningful in any way but as the headline. If they had a choice of customer A in 30 minutes and customer B over 40 minutes, or alternatively both A and B over 30 but within 40, they would choose the latter. They would be negligent not to. Only the "40 minutes" actually matters to anyone. The break down of that as "30+10" is purely marketing hype and IMHO dishonest, sorry.

Pre-order

A pet hate of mine is the use of "pre-order".

It's an "order" - ordering someone to send some goods. Yes, if they are not available yet they will ship at some time in the future, but it is still an "order". It is not something you do "before" (i.e. "pre") ordering, i.e. that later you then "order" it. It is the whole and complete "order" right there and then.

The latest site to annoy me on this is Satechi.

So...

• They say "pre-order", annoying.
• They say "Ships in 1-2 days" - WTF, wow, I am ordering just in time. Cool
• They then say "Available on January 5th 2018"

Two of those statements appear to contradict. How can it ship in 1-2 days if it is not available for another 9 days!

Seriously, I got as far as "Ships in 1-2 days" and ordered, expecting in, you guessed it, "1-2 days".

Actually, I am not sure it had the "Available on January 5th 2018" when I ordered on 15th Dec. I am not even convinced it said "pre-order" as that would have rung alarm bells for me. Annoyingly they even offered a choice of shipping with how long they take, and I paid for the fastest one, believing the timescales quoted. Indeed, now, they have the product title as "Aluminum Type-C Clamp Hub Pro(Available on January 5th 2018)" but my order confirmation only has "Aluminum Type-C Clamp Hub Pro", so I am guessing they realised the error of their ways and made changes.

Also a tad annoying that they charged the card instantly, knowing they would not be shipping for weeks. No, not just an authorisation, it is completed card payment now.

Anyway, it will go nicely with the new toy that Santa UPS man in hired van finally delivered this morning.

I really am starting to lose my rag with @Barclays

I still do personal and business banking with Barclays, but have several other accounts now "just in case".

Tip: I recommend people have spare accounts and cards, and companies like Monzo and Starling are excellent ways to do this. Put £100 or so in there for safe keeping just in case your own bank screws up.

This may be seen as slightly 1st world problems, but it is just getting so frustrating.

Last week I decided to give all the kids some money for Christmas. Generous dad that I am. They all have shiny new Monzo current accounts so I could simply do a fast payment from my Barclays on-line banking to them.

I take security seriously, and one thing I did was make absolutely sure I had the correct account details. Copy and paste is your friend here. The Monzo app can share bank details over iMessage at the click of a button and no re-typing. I can copy/paste that to set up new payees. I sent £1 to each and confirmed it arrived, and at the right child. I say child, the youngest is 22 this year!

Tip: Send a test payment to new accounts / payees to ensure no typing errors.

Four payments worked, the fifth is blocked! I get a text saying they will send me a text ?!? Then a text saying reply (to a 5 digit code). Sadly, I know my comms are special, but I cannot text a 5 digit code. I was hoping they would call - they have done in the past - with an automation that asks a couple of silly questions using DTMF replies. I could have coped with that. But nothing.

At this point I have 4 kids saying "thanks dad" on the group chat and one saying "WTF? Why not me?". Explaining the bank issue still makes them wonder, I think. So not happy. So I called Barclays.

It took over 70 minutes to sort, and only because I ended up saying "look, either you believe I am me and so approve this, or you don't and I go find a real bank from tomorrow!". So sorted, money transferred, yay! I made him stay on call until I confirmed it had arrived.

Next day, call from anonymous number saying they need to talk to me about the transaction. Well, I spent 70 minutes on the phone to Barclays fraud already, and I told them so. I was not doing it again. So they blocked my on-line banking. WTF? By the way, if you call from an anonymous number, I reserve the right to SHOUT AT YOU! Take note, Barclays. I may even swear.

Thankfully we have quite a good business banking team, and as this meant I could not get to business accounts either, so they sorted it. Very annoying.

So we come to yesterday...

I am planning to make a moderately expensive purchase, on a card. I won't go in to details, but suffice to say I am really confident Barclays would block it. That, in itself, is a sad state of affairs. So a new plan...

I have a Starling Bank account now. They confirm they have no limit on card spending and it would be fine. So I try to transfer the money to Starling. I had previously set up the beneficiary and sent a test payment and checked it was all correct. Same copy/paste trick. The payment comes up saying:-

OK, pain in the arse. Does not say contact fraud team. Does not say much, but does say scheduled for 14th, so good. Just delayed. No text. No call. No message. Nothing.

This morning nothing. No record of the transaction. Not showing as rejected on the tracker. Nothing. So I move the money out of that account and send a message on on-line banking explaining what I had done and asking for an explanation. No reply yet.

Pissed off.

Barclays: You need to show "pending" or "delayed" transactions and a status. It is totally broken for them to not show anywhere on your system! If there was fraud, the real account holder could not see there were pending fraudulent payments and query them. It could also easily lead to people duplicating payments (I have done that in the past when I did not see the "delayed" message). Really, fix this now.

Anyway, what next, well suddenly on-line banking is not working. WTF?

Again, I contacted the business team. I was not amused. The account manager put me on a conference call with the on-line team. They faffed about a lot - even though she validated that she identified me (and that was a lot of faff, for good security reasons) they then wanted to further identify me with pin sentry crap, which I did. The account manager was not amused with that - she had done her job and they messed about for no reason.

They ask about the transaction and if it was genuine? I explain it was, and how annoyed I am that it did not happen. And that they can cancel it now, as I'll transfer by other means (BACS direct submission, takes 2 days but just works). So good, all identified and confirmed.

She says I now have to speak to their fraud team to re-enable on-line banking. WTF?

I just confirmed NO FRAUD, it was not FRAUD. IT WAS ME! So WTF would I have to speak to a fraud team? No, they were not budging. The account manager is still on the call!

At this point I lose my rag (how unlike me?), rattle off how many hundreds of thousands are sat in the business account and say I want that in cash at the branch tomorrow morning. i.e. I have had it with Barclays. I have paid my mortgage off now, and can easily break all ties with Barclays at the drop of a hat if I have to, both myself and the business. The "account switching" stuff means that even those few people paying us (A&A) by BACS will not be inconvenienced if we start banking elsewhere as the payments get redirected.

Surprisingly (ha!) the account manager steps in rather sharpish at that point and suggests that I can hang up and she will sort it all. Well done to her, 10 minutes later, she has.

Who are they protecting?

As you may know I get very frustrated by this crap, and I had this on the call I had with the fraud dept, that they say they are protecting me! They even had the cheek to say "you had a lot of fraud last year". No, Barclays had one big fraud last year accepting a card holder not present, no address check, old, replaced, card number in a foreign auction house without questions, and gave me hassle over it. I had no fraud!

Also, from news stories, if I did have fraud - if someone convinced me to send money to a bogus account, the bank would not protect me. They would say they did what I asked, and tough.

If any of this actually protected me and not the bank I would be a lot happier about it. It does not.

Who are Monzo and Starling?

Monzo and Starling are some new banks. Both are now proper banks, and very similar way of working. Both embrace mobile banking apps as the primary way to interact with customers. Both tie to a card (MasterCard debit) as well. Both allow instant blocking of the card, and use on-line chat from the app to resolve issues. Both seem to work.

Monzo have aimed mainly at consumers, and have only just sorted their full banking licence. Starling seem a tad ahead of the game and have some things Monzo do not. Both have APIs and web hooks. Monzo web hooks seem better so far, as Starling not sending payer account details.

We are looking at a business account with Starling as soon as they start doing them - the payment services API looks good, and do have the data we need. It will allow some new A&A services I am sure.

In some ways I found Starling a tad more slick, but then I started with Monzo when it was just out of alpha, and experimental and not even a full bank yet. So maybe unfair to Monzo. I actually liked the anonymous card from Monzo - they should allow a card with any name on it, or none.

With Starling I got the app from the apple app store, and went through the steps. All very simple and easy. Like Monzo a photo of ID and short video recording. They were slightly slicker in some of that than Monzo, but very close.

Unlike Monzo, at that point, I had an account number and a simple click through to add to Apple Pay. Within minutes of downloading the app I had a working Apple Pay on my phone and even an overdraft limit (which I have no plans to use). That was impressive!

The card arrived today, a couple of days after applying, and even that was slick...

Pull the tab and you get the card...

Very nice. I may have to look in to how they do that for A&A router cards :-)

I have not had a simpler bank account opening since I was a student in a university branch, and in those days the slick thing was handing you a temporary cheque book (un-named) on your new account, on the spot.

I have given the Barclays team the challenge of providing a decent API for inbound fast payments. We'll see. If they do, maybe I stay using them.

Right now, it is really close, and one more stupidity from Barclays and we leave them...

Epic fail? Thomas Cook and Norwegian Cruise Lines

I have just returned from a 7 day cruise of the Mediterranean on the Norwegian Epic. It was meant to be a family holiday this time, but my wife was ill at the last minute (she is getting better and I have to thank my daughter Louise for looking after her this week). We have insurance for her, but she insisted I went anyway, and so it was myself, daughter, her partner and his mum in two cabins.

I'll do a more positive post on the holiday itself separately I expect. Herculaneum was interesting (and hot). This blog is about the problems, and gotchas for anyone planning such a cruise.

Short story?

Simply put the holiday is sold as "all inclusive" so that you have "simplicity and relaxation", the idea that an all inclusive holiday means you don't have to worry, or even budget for "tips", it is all included. In practice everything you do needs checking to see if included or not, all the time, and there are a maze of complicated and confusing exceptions and rules and mistakes making the cruise a serious of annoyances and arguments from start to finish. Nothing is "simple" or "relaxing" about the rules and exceptions you encounter all day and every day.

Premium All Inclusive

The headline is simple. Always included are alcoholic beverages, soft drinks, bottled water, unrivald [sic] dining, entertainment, service charges, gratuities and more... Sounds perfect.

What's more, Premium All Inclusive is now included in your cruise fare, so not some optional extra. That is even better.

Unfortunately the truth is far from that - apart from the restrictions in the various packages (which I cover below) there is one huge gotcha right at the start. It is subtle, and I would not have noticed it. We booked through Thomas Cook, and asked for the best package, and they said nothing about this difference...

I have put them side by side from next years cruises on the NCL site...

One is "7-Day Western Mediterranean from Barcelona" and one is "7-Day Western Mediterranean from Barcelona - Fly & Cruise". You would expect the difference is "Fly", i.e. the latter is more expensive and includes flight and transfer, simple. This is presumably what Thomas Cook thought.

The prices are different, yes... Starting from £809 for the cruise, and starting from £1,176 for the fly+cruise. That is £367 per person for flight and transfer which is a lot.

But spot the other difference, the cruise has "specials" including "Premium All Inclusive". Yes, that thing that is "included in your cruise fair" seems not to be included in your cruise fair on the more expensive fly+cruise package. What the hell?

I really think Thomas Cook should have advised us properly - clearly if we want the best package, then this is not it. Indeed, it would be a better package, and cheaper, if Thomas Cook had also booked us flights and taxi transfer. That would also have been much more flexible, allowing a better seat on the plane, and a taxi that met us. As it was - departing we had to wait nearly an hour in a hot and humid airport for our transfer bus, and returning the transfer bus meant leaving at 6am and waiting nearly 5 hours in the airport. Yes, last week there was some strike, but not this week, and if we had a taxi we could have changed it and not had to be up at 5am (4am UK time) on our last day!

Even so, it does not excuse the fact that NCL state clearly that Premium All Inclusive is included in the price of the cruise. I really think we need to get Trading Standards to look at the whole thing.

Our first real clue to this was when we got the confirmation. Oddly, we did have several of the parts of the Premium All Inclusive, but not quite all. Spotting what is missing is hard as you don't know what is itemised normally. However, we did spot that in my cabin, only two people had the "Ultimate Dining Package" and "Ultimate Beverage Package". Why is that even an option? Why would one person not have things (especially if they are "included in the cruise fare")? Thomas Cook said NCL had made a mistake and NCL said Thomas Cook had booked it wrong, and we told them to just sort it, so the new confirmation showed the extra package for Mikey's mum. Yay!

Water

The "Premium All Inclusive" is pretty clear in its headline, "always included: bottled water". However, that is not the case. It seems that the "Premium All Inclusive" includes a bottle of water per person per day in the cabin...

Now, we know this because my mate Mike was sneaky and booked his family holiday as the 7-Day Western Mediterranean from Rome, and surprised me by being on the next table in the restaurant when we were docked at Rome! He had kept it quiet for months. It was a great surprise and we then joined him and his family for various meals and activities until we left today. Nice to see Mike and his family again and a nice surprise.

Mike had two adults and two children in the 2 bedroom cabin, but he had 28 bottles of water in the cabin at the start. The difference is he booked flights separately (and more cheaply) so just got the cruise not the "fly+cruise".

However, even he found that bottled water is not in fact "always included", in spite of that very clear headline on the web page. They even try and trick you when you go for a meal as they start by saying "Would you like still or sparkling water?" - both choices are an extra charge, you need to ask for the tap water (which, in ship, is good quality water). Other than the water in the room, all bottled water is charged - very misleading!

It does seem a very strange restriction as you can drink as much alcohol as you like, but not bottled water. Why do that if not just to annoy people?

Coffee

This brings me to the next restrictions which are even more confusing. Some coffee is included, it seems, not sure if included anyway or included in the "Ultimate Beverage Package", but not charged. E.g. my pot of coffee with my breakfast.

But Mike's son got a coffee from one of the various outlets on the ship, and was charged! This is because "Specialty coffee" is not included! Except, apparently, it is, when having a meal in the restaurant!

It gets worse, Mike's cards all have "UBP" (Ultimate Beverage Package) and "+C+J". He asked what he "C" and "J" are and was told "Coffee" and "Juice". OK, so why charge for coffee? Well no, even the "Coffee" add on to "UBP" does not include specialty coffee?!?

We are left wondering how many types of coffee there are and what coffee exists that is not in "UBP" but is in "C"?

The problem is, if you go to pretty much anywhere on the ship that serves coffee and ask for a coffee, what you get is apparently a "specialty coffee" which costs extra.

There is one extra coffee type - the room has a coffee machine with pods of coffee, which I know are expensive normally. Mike did not use it for fear it would be another charge and another argument. From what I can tell that is included!

Oh, and "J" for "Juice" does not cover freshly squeezed juice. But juice out of the plastic bottle is included in the "UBP", so again, what juice exists that is not in "UBP" but needs "J" add on?

Drinks

The "Ultimate Beverage Package" covers alcoholic drinks, and these are "always included" according to the headline on "Premium All Inclusive". Well, sort of..

The main rule is drinks up to £15 per drink. It seems an odd rule - if I want a shot of a 12 year aged whisky I would pay the extra $1.75 as it over $15. But I could drink Southern Comfort all night for no charge. I suppose it does discourage people ordering bottles of wine and bottles of whisky so maybe not that daft. Most drinks and cocktails are below the $15 so not really an issue, but odd.

If that was the only rule, it would make sense, but as I say, the bottled water, and the coffee (unless with a meal) is excluded, and so is freshly squeezed orange juice, but also, it seems, cans of soft drinks like pepsi and red bull are excluded too. We started to wonder if they make it up as they go along! More confusing was when the cans were allowed as the mixer tap was playing up!

OK, so we have some clue on this, what of the mini bar? We established that the self service coffee in the room is included, and the mini bar has small alcoholic drinks under $15 which would be included if we went to the bar and got them, so that is included, right? Wrong! The mini bar is charged. Yes, you can go to the bar and get a drink for free (included) but not to the mini bar!

OK, what of sending the butler to get drinks. He can take the room card and get them and bring to room. Well, no, apparently that is not allowed either. The butler is not charged for (as part of Haven) but the drink is!

This led to some concern when the the Haven lounge, playing cards, nowhere near the bar... One of the bar staff found us and asked if we wanted a drink. They took the card to the bar, got drinks, and brought it all back. Apparently that is included. But the butler doing the same (and from some rooms that is a shorter walk), it not included?!?!

To top it off, Mikey's mum got stung for drinks because her room card does not say "UBP" on it. Now, we got Thomas Cook and NCL to add that for her, so it should be on the card, but the bar staff were adamant, and charged her! It was the last night and I was sick of this. We had not had issues with meals and no "UDP" on her card, oddly.

Meals

The other thing that is part of the "Premium All Inclusive" is the meals. [Update: Reading the terms the specialty restaurants is part of Haven, not the Premium All Inclusive] Well, the whole ship has a lot of restaurants, and many are just included for all guests. Haven has one just for Haven guests and that is included. But there are "specialty restaurants" that charge extra. We had "3UDP" on the card, which is three meals in speciality restaurants.

Why three? There are a lot of restaurants, and if they were simply all included we may try a different one each day, and quite possibly would only use three in specialty restaurants. But by limiting it, we had to plan things and think of things. It was Mikey's birthday and we decided to go to one of the specialty restaurants for that. This meant that 8 people were now planning dinners to ensure they had one of the three inclusive meals left for that day. You had to think about stuff and plan instead of relaxing.

The other quirk was when Mike joined the ship. He did have the "Premium All Inclusive", clearly (he has the water!). Now, he was wary from the start (after being on the last cruise with NCL), so asked the concierge to explain it all. The concierge explained the drinks (though not all of the restrictions by far) and the meals and that it was three specialty meals, but that did not include the kids. He said it is only two per cabin. Well, oddly enough, that is what we had - why is that even an option NCL?

Mike was not amused, and the kids heard this, so when the kids were not there he ended up spending a long time arguing it with the concierge - how stupid is it that they don't get to go eat a meal with the kids, or more to the point that the kids now felt they did not want to eat in those restaurants as it meant running up a bill for dad! The concierge basically said he could not fix that, he did comp a show (remember, "Premium All Inclusive" always includes "Entertainment", but shows somehow cost extra!).

However, he then realised that the kids did have "3UDP" on their cards, so the concierge had basically lied when he said it was only two per room. OK, maybe not intentionally lied, but it shows that even the person working on the ship helping guests does not have a clue how the crazy system works on NCL ships!

Update: It occurred to me, the "Premium All Inclusive" is "Always included: Unrivald [sic] Dining". From what I can gather this does not include the specialty restaurants, they was because of Haven. But surely the "standard restaurants" are at lease "rivalled" by the "specialty restaurants"? Otherwise, how are they "specialty" or worth more money. That means the claim of unrivalled dining is not true.

Leaving the ship

When you get to the end of the cruise you leave the ship in the morning. People are put in different colour bands, and have luggage tags. The Haven have "gold" tags for priority.

What priority means is the luggage is all lined up in an area of the dock before you get off, and you can quickly find your own. At Barcelona, anything but priority meant the luggage carousel like an airport, and lot of waiting even when you are the first "colour".

There is another option! We found this on last cruise, but it apparently is on all of them: "Easy walk off". You just take your luggage with you and leave. You have flexibility of when to leave and you don't have to go hunting for your luggage. Even better, you don't have to pack everything but one set of clothes, toothbrush, tooth paste, shampoo, medications, phone charger, in the bag the night before and then carry all of that with you when leaving. I packed my marmite so did not have any on my breakfast, idiot!

In this case, as we had the transfer to airport, we were told we had to be on the "red" tags, which are 6am. The Butler confirmed that the gold tags could not be used as they were 6:30am and the bus would have left. He did not even mention "easy walk off".

In the morning, what actually happened, is before 6am was "easy walk off" only, i.e. no luggage was in the dock yet. We could have done that had we known! At 6am they called "Priority" (the gold tags) first. The priority luggage was all there on the dock and easy to find - we'd have seen our bags clearly as we came down the escalator if we had used the gold tags. Eventually at 6:05am they called "red", which we found was on the "blue" carousel (well planned there) and we had to wait ages for it. As I said, the transfer being so early meant nearly 5 hours waiting in the airport after a stupidly early start. Had we booked a taxi and our own flights it would have been cheaper and simpler by far.

Basically, never book a fly+cruise with NCL - it costs more - is more hassle - and has fewer inclusive benefits.

Shopping

[update, added this section] One other thing worth mentioning - they charged 21% VAT even when at sea, which is odd, but did not seem subject to other EU laws such as the price tags showing VAT inclusive, and sale prices actually having been sold at full price at some point, or even that you cannot have an "all sales final, no refunds" policy.

But even the discounting was devious and meant to catch you out. They started with 40% off the ticket price, so I suggested it was still a bit much, and she said, OK I'll give you another 10%. But I saw what she did with the calculator - took of 40% then too off 10%, so total discount was 46% not the implied 50%. That would fool a lot of people too, and the fact she then added the VAT before showing the total makes it less obvious that it is not 50% of the ticket price now. She actually went one step further to convert to £ from $ to make it even less obvious what she had done.

Bending rules?

One of the reasons it was extra confusing for Mike and I is that we did the Norwegian Jade, and there the rules did not seem to matter. This was because we were in the 3 bedroom garden villa - one of three premium suites on the ship - the previous week our suite had Priscilla Presley, apparently! Not only did the butler get drinks (apparently he knew which bar staff were happy to accept him as just getting them as us), we even had one case when in the Haven lounge where I sent him for a bottle of Southern Comfort and he managed that with no charge! The fact that sometimes the rules do not matter makes it even harder to know what rules there are and when you will be ripped off!

Internet

Quick one on internet. The web site is clearer that it is 250 minutes you get now, it used to use words like "unlimited". So, well done NCL on that. On the ship it said if you have 250 minutes you can upgrade to all week (rather than 2% of the week) for only $85. I tried. I was charged the full $205. It turns out that even though the 250 minutes is per cabin, they put it against my wife's name, and when she did not show they cancelled it (no refunds). It took three days and a lot of nagging to get that fixed. It is also filtered like hell, and simply ssh did not work, even on alternative ports. L2TP worked though, and allowed me to have a working Internet connection and even IPv6 whilst at sea. It was 750ms base latency (satellite), dropping to 250ms in some ports (tunnel via US on land connection). Mostly very usable, but occasional peak load and 30s latency some of the time.

Update: I forgot to mention another scam - if you have the NCL concierge app, it shows you have a "message". To read it you can pay $9.99 for intra ship messaging - it allows you to message others in your party - presumably each person pays. I assume it is a "welcome" message. What makes this a con is that iMessage (text, not media) works when on ship anyway (presumably as the NCL app needs apple push messages) so if you have iPhones you do not need the intra ship messaging service anyway!

Not about the money

It is worth making a simple summary of the actual issues here.

Booking an expensive "Premium All Inclusive" holiday, especially with kids like Mike did, should be hassle free, indeed "simple and relaxing". They can go get drinks, and food, and do what they like, you all can, with no having to think about money or hassle or rules.

By having all these incomprehensible exceptions and rules, and even daft things like the meal thing being only three meals, you have to plan, ask every time what is included, and look out for catches constantly.

The stupid thing is the cruise is $10,000s, and I spent $1,000s in the gift shop, and even $100 for a tip for the butler (all gratuities are included!). The actual cost of the extra meals, or bottled water, is tiny in comparison and there is no way that it is any issue for either group to pay it. But you feel cheated if that happens. You feel cheated if you are charged for extras on an all inclusive package, you feel cheated when mistakes are made, so you feel you have to check what is included and complain when they get it wrong. (In case you had not guessed, money on ship is in dollars)

That is what can easily ruin a cruise, and stop the repeat business they should be wanting.

Lifts and idiots

Holiday rant!

We all encounter lifts (elevators) from time to time. On a cruise ship they are a way of life - almost anywhere you go is on another deck and some are many decks away - so unless you fancy a lot of going up and down stairs you use lifts.

This ship has 8 in the forward section, 4 that go all the way to the top decks (16 and 17).

The lifts always seem slow, and the reason, I have concluded, is not the lifts but idiots.

I just had this, and made the mistake of arguing with the bunch of special people that got on the lift.

I was going up to 17, the top floor. The lift stopped at 16, and people got on. OK, one floor (I would have walked), but no, they were going down!!!

I commented, and they said... yeh, go up then down.

As I tried to explain, this means they pressed UP on the call buttons (presumably as well as DOWN), so stopped me on my journey. If they had not, it would have gone to 17 and I would get out, and it would have gone down to 16 and let them on. They had delayed their journey by the time to open doors, get on, close doors, all on deck 16 on the way up, for no reason. And, obviously, going back down the lift would again stop at deck 16 for, well, them to get on! They delayed their journey at least this much and delayed mine as well.

They were all "chill, you are on holiday", and even commented that the lifts were terrible and slow. I tried to explain that this was primarily because of idiots like them delaying everyone's journey. It fell on deaf ears.

Of course they may even have been quicker if another of the three lifts reached them before mine returned, but worst case they delayed mine, theirs, and every other person on that down going lift, by at least 30 seconds and for no good reason.

It is not the only case, and seems to happen a lot - Earlier I was going up in a lift, and twice, as the doors closed, people dived in to go down, before the lift could move off.

If I was making a lift controller I'd be tempted to simple not accept buttons below the floor on a up going lift, and the converse, so they have to press them again when the lift changes to down going, just to cause them as much hassle as they caused other people. Arrrrg. As a software engineer I'd love to find an "answer" to this, but cannot think of a proper one. (Some interesting ideas in the comments below).

I have seen many other examples even in only one day on this cruise. So often the lifts stop on floors for no reason, and it is almost certainly people doing exactly this sort of stupid thing.

There is however one special case I had never even considered! Sharon (in our party) used the logic that, even though we wanted to go up, as the lift was above us she would press DOWN to, err, make it come down... That is one I doubt anyone could program for, sorry.

P.S.

1. I am not calling Sharon an idiot, I would not dare, and she would kick me in the shin.
2. Someone (I think Sharon) suggested what I should have done when told to "chill, I am on holiday". I don't know why I did not think of it at the time. They had selected floor 9 (I think), so I should have backed down, apologised, and said yes, you are right - I'm on holiday so a little extra delay should not bother me, or you, and then pressed 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, and 10 before walking off. I suspect somehow a delay in the lift would no longer be something to "chill" about. It would be a tad childish, but hey - I am on holiday - I am meant to be having fun :-)
3. We have now discovered that our cards do something in the lift. They are not needed to get to decks 16 & 17, but they do instantly cancel all floor selections and allow me to select a floor or floors which it then goes straight to. Obviously it is polite to include the other floor(s) that were already selected by others in the lift when doing this I guess. Sounds like a recipe for more fun :-)

Apple TV

Where are we....?

I really have changed everything here. I changed apple ID email address, password, 2FA on/off, family sharing on/off, changed the physical Apple TV, change IP block it uses, and even confirmed the same happens on family sharing on a totally separate network and ISP.

This is down to my iTunes account some how.

I even got this today after buying something, and had to go in again to enter my password (again, as I had to enter to buy it).

Latest is they want an exact time (and time zone) of it happening, so did it on the call to them live, so they have details. We will see...

Talking to apple support

I went through the iTunes email based support, took ages, and no help.

So I called 08001076285, as they suggested, to get support. It is a horrid voice based IVR thing. So I have to say my serial number the first time. This time I said my case number.

Oddly, they are actually very pleasant, so well done on that. I have a dread of calling any tech support normally. I hope our (A&A) tech support does not create the same sense of dread for customers. We have no call gate!

On the first call I explained the issue, and what I had tried. Eventually they suggested one thing I had not ("restoring" via iTunes and a cable). So I have done that now, and hence another call.

I am tempted to publish the call recordings (and annoying hold music). I will have to change my security questions first :-)

Basically, I have tried everything so far...

• Changing password
• Turning on two factor authentication
• Turning off two factor authentication (twice now)
• Removing all devices from account and starting again
• Turning off family sharing
• Factory resetting (many times)
• Restarting using iPhone, and using manual setup
• Using cable to "restore" the Apple TV via iTunes
• Upgrading, many times

Still broken.

They think "something somewhere is asking for an iCloud password, or something" and that is upsetting it.

I removed all devices from my apple ID already, if this is what it is that is mad. I have just logged in to two iMacs and set new passwords. If that solves it Apple are fucking stupid! No way a third party failed login attempt should break my Apple TV. Just broken logic there Apple!!!

P.S. If this works I should do a more controlled test - what if someone just used my apple ID and wrong password, would that break it? If so Apple really are broken!

Serious rants at apple now

Apple TV has gone terribly wrong for me

First off, my Apple TV appeared not to work - I swapped cables, nothing! So I got a new one, same model. Worked! Yay!

Simple enough, though sadly since then the new one did the same a few days later and I now conclude it may be the port on the TV that is being flaky, so on a new port - bugger. I may have chucked out a working Apple TV. Idiot!

However, that aside, the new apple TV is being odd.

Yes, I signed in to iTunes. I have 2FA set up, but that is not actually the root of this issue as I tested today. That all worked, all my stuff shows.

Problem is that every new episode of something I want to watch, even though already purchased, is asking for my Apple ID password, every fucking time.

To start with it popped up on my iPhone as well, so I had a keypad to enter it, but even that has now stopped.

It is making watching anything on Apple TV unbearable and I have no idea why. I have already removed the old Apple TV off my account. I tried removing 2FA (and have since put back). The best I have now is dictating my password for EVERY FUCKING EPISODE!!!

I have no idea why - I even told the Apple TV not to ask for password for purchases, yet it does, many times, and the still asks every time you try to watch every episode.

I will have to ditch it if this keeps up.



P.S. tried all the suggestions, thank you all for them. Finally removed from iTunes, factory reset, upgraded, and re-set-up. Seems to be being sane now again. But really, what a messed up failure mode.

P.P.S. Bollocks, that was fine for two episodes and then again is asking.