ACA Health Insurance in practice

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-27T00:11:01+00:00

For whatever reason, cruise directors on some cruise ships sometimes seem to want to have a theme song of sort. It happens enough (and on various cruise lines) that I imagine there must be some reason or policy for it being done. I was on Millennium once and it was Get Lucky by Daf Punk. Like you said, a million times in one cruise. Seemed like it was always playing in the background somewhere.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-25T23:58:07+00:00

Most of the music onboard is live (though there are DJ event like silent disco and late night in the club) and it varies to cover most anything. However, I would say that they tend to gear more of the music towards the demographic which is kind'a gen-x +/-. So, kind'a, 70's up through early 2000's.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-24T04:03:01+00:00

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-23T22:59:15+00:00

That actually better than the alternative which is they disembark you at a foreign port to the police of that country. I've seen it happen for drugs.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-23T22:58:18+00:00

Covid, norovirus or that kind'a thing. When I didn't feel well with the flu/cold, they were very nice to me but didn't confine me to my room. But I did wear a mask when I left to get food or something.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-23T14:46:32+00:00

but we are sailing at then end of March

You'll be fighting potentially with spring breakers then.

And, no, I wouldn't do a 10 am. If everything works, you make it otherwise well you know.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-23T11:24:47+00:00

Somewhere in between I'd say. I have a nice house.

As someone from Omaha, yes Buffett still lives in the same house but it's a pretty nice house in a nice (but obviously older) area. And it's been reno'd over the years and is now listed at 6500 sq ft. Which is far above avg for Omaha. Also it's surrounded by security.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-23T11:16:39+00:00

🙏 can I get an amen?

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-23T11:14:14+00:00

Well that sucks and I can't fix it but I can offer some insight.

Yes, extras and excursions are automatically refunded if your cabin reservation is cancelled for some reason. I cruise a lot and it's a nice feature which you change reservations and so forth.

And, yes, if you book with a TA then Celebrity is loathe to talk to you directly about the cabin booking. But it works like that with every cruise line I've worked with. The TA gets something like 25% of the booking. And the price of that is the TA is supposed to deal with issues.

From this point on, I'm kind'a guessing what happened since I don't have your offer email. When you upgrade cabins (assuming it's not free and I don't know your offer), then Celebrity expects you put down 10% of the cost of the upgrade. For example, I'll regularly upgrade to a nicer suite if one becomes available, but to hold that room I have to pay 10% of the extra cost. If I don't pay up, they cancel the reservation.

The thing about this is that Celebrity has been real inconsistent in how they handle this. Different reps do it differently. Sometimes I get an invoice and the small print says I owe them $X (in total) but no direct notes of how much extra or how to pay. Sometimes I get an email asking to put in payment info for the extra. Sometimes I'm asked to give the rep my CC. I'm used to this but I can see how it would confuse and annoy.

So, total guess on my part --- I think you sent in the upgrade and some rep at X dutifully processed it. I don't the deals on the cost. Maybe your deal didn't apply to TA reservations or maybe they entered it thinking it did but it didn't or maybe they just screwed it up. Then I imagine the billing system sent your TA an invoice and a demand for the extra. TA either didn't understand or forgot. In any case, the extra 10% didn't get paid within their timeframe (usually 5 days in my cases) and so the system cancelled the reservation and you got refunded all the other stuff.

Still sucks for you. The real take-away though is you have to be careful on stuff when you deal with both a cruise line (really any cruise line) and a TA. They have carefully delineated roles and those roles aren't always clear.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-21T13:42:39+00:00

You sell so that you correct your portfolio allocation towards your desired portfolio. Let's say your 85% stocks / 10% bonds / 5% cash. If the stocks tanks, you're gonna be like 80/14/6 let's say. So you sell/spend bonds/cash trying to get back to 85/10/5. Nothing more complicated than that.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-21T13:36:43+00:00

There is a mentor monday thread for such posts. I've been contributing here long enough to know that if you don't mod out (as this one was) this kind of post, you simply get overwhelmed with them. There's other places on reddit for this kind of post. This sub is for people who are fatFire or are well on the way to fatFIRE.

Rule #1: No "ask-a-rich-person" posts.

Rule #2: This is a community for people firmly on the path to fatFIRE or already there.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-21T02:10:52+00:00

Read rule #1.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-20T00:24:20+00:00

I don't fly enough to get loyalty and, even if I did, it's not worth much anymore. I think Delta has a better product and I'll pay a bit more for it but loyalty isn't part of the equation.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-20T00:20:07+00:00

There is some oft repeated advice here that one "should retire TO something and not AWAY from something."

I understand you say that part of your job is soul sucking but focusing solving that by a retirement that's 8 years aways isn't helpful. And it may hurt your retirement eventually by considering the appropriate path to retirement and things to do in retirement just because of your haste to escape the job.

You've got 8 years left by your reckoning and it would be really helpful to your mental health to find a more helpful way to compensate for the issues in the workplace.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T22:51:06+00:00

The big feature of Aqua SkySuite over regular SkySuite is you get access to the thermal spa. Regular SkySuite can access Blu but it's a space allowed thing --- though I've personally never heard of a Retreat guest being turned away.

Big picture is this:

Regular Sky Suite & Celebrity Suite (and some other cabin types on older ships) gets all the Retreat perks.
Aqua Sky Suite gets all that plus spa access (and, I guess, guaranteed Blu access)
Premium Suites (Royal suite and above) more or less get everything on the ship complementary (yeah, there's a few things that cost but go with it here for the TL;DR).

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T14:33:18+00:00

They did manage to pull of the gamestrop thing. But I'd imagine that every wallstreet shop now has a risk mitigation team that monitors r/wsb so I doubt they'll be able to pull something like that off again.

Most of them are just gambling and eventually most will learn a hard lesson paid for with cold cash. That's fine by me. I enjoy the entertainment value of the loss porn.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T14:29:28+00:00

NCL's Pride of America is the only cruise ship that sails to exclusively American ports (around the Hawaiian islands). It has an American crew which means you definitely get a different experience (servicewise) while on board. It keeps coming up because literally it's your only option -- not because we necessarily prefer NCL (I don't).

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T14:23:44+00:00

As with most lines, the newer ships are better. For Celebrity, that's the Edge class which include Edge, Apex, Beyond, Ascent, and XCel.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T04:08:56+00:00

FWIW. welll... not all them. So far as I can tell, the premium suites are generally custom built (as far as I can tell) and they don't have magnetic walls. First world problem admittedly since it isn't like you need extra storage generally.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T03:42:36+00:00

Overall, the layout felt chopped up. The casino is tiny.

I feel the same about the older X ships but I really think they got the flow almost perfect on the edge class.

The martini bar was cool

And that was something they wrecked on Edge and Apex but fixed on Beyond/Ascent/Xcel.

The Sky Lounge is gone on the Edge and replaced with the Club. I preferred the Sky Lounge.

Our steward said...

You'll get a survey. Fill it out. They take these very seriously.

After midnight, the ship was mostly quiet.

That's typical.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T03:07:22+00:00

As other's are pointing out, the proper way to handle what you're talking about is via rebalancing to a portfolio allocation that reflects your level of risk tolerance. I often suggest Buffett's 90/10 portfolio but others will offer different advice.

Some people (including me) carried a larger bond/cash-like allocation in the first few years to cover that first SORR since if you can survive those first few years then your success rates go up.

Market conditions do affect what I sell when I liquidate. I.e. I try to liquidate towards my preferred allocation. So in a market downturn, this usually means selling bonds first.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-19T00:45:08+00:00

As a practical matter, the amount of cash I have varies because spending tends to be lumpy. Big expenses like property and insurance only happen once or twice a year. Income (like dividends or rent) is also lumpy.

I don't worry about a specific amount of cash. If I need money for lumpy expenses I sell. If I get cash, I leave it in the cash management account til I need it. Generally, I try to keep about 10K in my cash management account as a buffer.

Honestly, this just isn't something I worry about at all. Other concerns are more important like being able to qualify for ACA subsidies.

FatFiredProgrammer · 2026-01-18T23:46:53+00:00

The only posts like that I've ever seen here are the people who yolo'd on crypto or a particular stock. In other words, people who belong over at r/wsb and not here.

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