Sue Do-Over

Casino offers are based on your total play over 12 months (Restarting in April). If its been longer than 12 months since you sailed, they may offer you a discount instead of a free cabin. We are Pearl/Sapphire in their system, and have gotten discounts on cabins for friends/family who were new to NCL. Those discounts came with the stinky-drinky card, so were worth asking for.

Skip-lagging can be dangerous at the beginning of a trip. The airline assumes that if you 'miss' a flight on your departure leg, you have abandoned the trip and they can/may cancel the return trip entirely. But, since ATL/PHL is your last leg, the potential impact is much less. Sure, the airline CAN penalize you on future travel, but they probably don't pursue the first-timers. Habitual skip-laggers would be the focus of penalties. And, we don't know how long a skip-lag potentially stays on your frequent flyer profile. Weighing the risks, 'missing' that last leg is the least impactful.

Right. Since there is no charge for the regular main dining room, no need to limit reservations. For Specialty Dining, the system will limit the number of reservations (not seats, but bookings) to the number of meals in your dining package. It does not seem to recognize the extras offered to Platinum guests -- but will charge you for add'l bookings over the package count.

OP, note that NCL does not have facilities for you to do your own laundry - you can only send it out. In our experience, passenger laundry is washed in cold water and dried without any dryer sheets. We have not had anything shrink or discolor. Shirts may be steamed smooth, but some items are a little 'crunchy' when returned - neatly folded, of course. Totally agree that a small trash bag to reinforce the paper is a great idea. I also typically toss socks, dainties in a mesh bag. Sometimes they dump the bag to fold items, sometimes it comes back in the same bag (with a laundry tag ironed on). Finding itchy tags a week later is part of the post-cruise fun!

There is a CAS designation on the boarding pass paperwork. But I don't recall anyone really checking for it, and there isn't anything else special at check-in. The players card (to insert in slot machines/ swipe at the tables) and free-drink card are delivered to your stateroom with a welcome letter.

For our July 1st cruise: 2 cabins got their air at 56 days, the rest got ours at 32 days. All the schedules are terrible. Multiple airlines, late (late late) departures and overnight flights to the east coast from Seattle.

Philippines has pretty limited employment opportunities... not a lot of industry or agriculture. Decades ago, nursing and hospitality training schools were established, with the deliberate goal of providing workers to wealthier countries. A big part of their GDP is the repatriated income sent home by those workers to their families (some of whom are raising their kids). An article about getting cruise staff home during COVID tracked the majority of ships back to Philippines. I'm sure it was a huge shock to their economy to have all those unemployed adults back home for an unknown amount of time. (source: graduate course in global health economics)

We have found the breakfast dining room menus to be fairly standard, although brands may vary. Yogurt and cereal brands are their European counterparts. At the buffet, we noticed beans and salami at breakfast on Med and Nordic cruises. Not to say that they aren't available on US cruises, but we first noticed them in Copenhagen. MDR breakfast menu: eggs, bacon/ham/sausage, bread/toast, bagels w lox/smoked salmon, pastries, cold cereal, oatmeal, fruit: melon, banana, grapes/berries. Rotating: french toast, pancakes, eggs benedict. O'Sheehans/Local: American breakfast (eggs, choice of meat, toast, hashbrown nuggets), and ala carte french toast, hot/cold cereals, etc. No salmon/bagel.

When the program first launched, the photographers were hustling guests to sign up for 'free' sessions and assured us that we could buy individual photos. (this was 1994). Daughter & niece got dressed up, and went all over the ship to get photographed. 3 days later, we met the photographer for the presentation... of 24 prints, all airbrushed and perfect, bound into a massive album ... for $2500. Each. There were lovely individual shots in the mix, but there was no way in heck I needed 24 photos of the one daughter (who had just gotten her senior photos taken). Thinking back, I seem to remember that the prints were bound in the album... you had to buy loose prints to frame or give Grandma. After an hour of high-pressure 'negotiation' we were 'permitted' to purchase just 3 loose images for $150. Sister/niece got the same 'deal' from the very exasperated photographer, who took our reluctance as a slam on his skills. He complained that he had spent hours editing them to perfection, and we had wasted his time. Almost 20 years later, and I found 2 of the 3 still in the portfolio, but the third is still framed alongside her graduation and wedding photos. TL/DR: before the session starts, be super clear that you know how the photos will be processed, edited, presented and priced.

I sprained my ankle in Naples the day before our cruise. When embarkation staff saw my ace bandage and crutch, they rushed a chair over to me. Pusher stayed with me through the whole check-in process (took us to special services desk) and aboard, dropping me off right before the scan-bing-security kiosk. Definitely worth the $5 tip!

Cruise lines deliberately do NOT display all available cabins online. They want us to think that cabins are nearly sold out, so we hurry to make a decision. Plus, a portion of cabins are set aside for travel agency partners, casinos at sea, etc. which are then released back into the available pool at final-payment date -- and then shuffled in for the upgrade advantage program. You can call any time to move to another cabin in the same category if any are available. (see the color coded deck plans).

Airlines will often cancel the return half of the booking if the departure half was not used - they simply assume you didn't go on the trip. Ugh.

In our experience (15+ CAS cruises), the CAS desk is at one end, often next to the special needs (wheelchair/ accessible) counter. The check-in associate has no special access to casino hosts/programming, (s)he is simply assigned to that desk for embarkation. If there are no CAS guests in line, that agent will assist the special needs line and/or the regular queue.

I tip $5 with the bag of laundry, esp if the bag is crammed full. If everything is returned in good shape (folded neatly, nothing missing) I will complete a comment card and put it in the empty basket. I always want the workers to see my kind words (and know that the comment cards can count toward their performance ratings). Of course, I have no idea whether the $5 actually makes it to the laundry team, or whether their tips are pooled/shared, but I like to at least try to express my gratitude.

We have used NCL air several times, including internationally, and with deviations. Essentially, plan to wait. Because of the risk of you NOT making embarkation due to a delay somewhere, they tend to book flights that are SUPER early, including overnight flights. You may wait hours at the pier before embarkation begins. Same when homeward bound, we usually end up with later-afternoon flights and spend hours in the airport. NCL Air comes with transfers (bus from airport to pier, and back), but no other options unless you also book the hotel stay. The partner hotels seem to be global chains (Hilton, Sheraton, etc.) near the airport or port -- no quaint boutique hotels in the city center. My advice: book the diversion w NCL and then get your own hotels. Choosing a hotel within walking distance of sights or public transport can offset the 'loss' of transfer $$. In Italy, we have booked Rome in Limo to pick us up from the airport, spent the day touring, and were dropped off at our hotel.