It seems this thread is in danger of devolving into another revisit to the divisive "all-inclusive" issue, displacing the more informative and useful Seven Seas Society tiers discussion we’ve been having. Some topics are just going to keep bugging people no matter what anyone says or does about them. Our's (the LCT and Cruise Critic RSSC boards) is the all-inclusive, or rather 'include booze', issue.

Thus, I feel (self-) compelled to remind other posters and readers that alcohol itself is a divisive issue, one that caused a majority of the US population (some have argued: "a very vocal minority"; notice a parallel?) to amend our Constitution ± 85 years ago to ban booze entirely. Well, that didn't work; pretty clearly it made the situation worse, in fact. Aside: it’s too bad those who now insist on a similar prohibition on drugs didn't learn from our nation's earlier experience, but that's a perhaps even more divisive issue, one certainly best left for another time and forum.

RSSC provides space for, and announcements of, 'Friends of Bill W' meetings on board its ships, often scheduled during cocktail hour, because alcohol itself has bad effects on some people. I hope we agree that forcing people who are addicted to alcohol and thus cannot use it at all, to help pay for the rest of us to use it freely, is at minimum a bit perverse. After all, alcohol is somewhat different than desert, although I might be hard-pressed to argue those differences with a diabetic cogently.

I suspect that belaboring the all-inclusive issue in this thread might turn off those at RSSC who have struggled with that issue, and are now reading with attention and interest our musings about the popularity and merits of the various Seven Seas Society tier benefits they've mentioned (floated?) in earlier postings (trial balloons?) My real purpose here is to keep that channel open.