bluesea777

Great review and photos, love the Random Observations! Suggest you have the pistachio martini as your nightcap rather than the espresso one! Save the latter as your morning joe … to wake you up more! Enjoy the rest of you pond crossing.

Righto!! Our two b2b Gem Panama Canal cruises go to different ports each leg, so basically our cruise is a 18 day long one visiting 10 ports, plus an overnight in Panama City!! Also, Christmas decorations galore on the Gem!

That's exactly what we're doing on the Gem in Dec 2024. Miami to Panama City and back to Miami, b2b.

The Upgrade Advantage is 3rd party - outside NCL’s jurisdiction.

Guest Services …. There’s a Reservations Desk there.

That's good to hear! Mykonos and Santorini have been added - it's good that you're going in May - before the height of tourist (and ships) season! As for Alexandra overnight can you check out the NCL excursions to see if there's one for Cairo overnight. We took one (yes, pricy, but for our own safety) and it was fantastic - they took us to many sights over the two days and put us up in fantastic hotel on the Nile. Funnily enough so many people booked that excursion and it resulted in 9 coaches. But it was fantastic - we even had an armed guard (in suit) with us on the coach. I'm not so sure about the train .... but if it were us we'd take the NCL excursion over going on our own. ENJOY!!

Following .... You sure took a big risk in flying in on the day of cruise, and a long journey to boot. We were on the Epic 3x, once in 2010 (Caribbean), again in 2011 (westbound TA) and again in 2012 (also wb TA). Loved the ship at the time, but stopped once we discovered the Breakaway class ships. Maybe one day we might return to Epic, but don't know. ENJOY!!

There's no 15 drinks a day package on NCL 😄

Expect an itinerary change email from NCL (if not a cancellation one) for your May 7-18, 2025 cruise. This cruise also includes Egypt. The next two cruises (May18-27 and May27-June6) disembarks & embarks in Haifa.

The two cancelled Epic cruises (Nov 1 and Nov 11, 2025) were disembarking and embarking in Haifa Israel. They will be substituted with new itineraries in due course. Ditto with Viva's 4 cruises (two in May 2025 and two in Sept 2025). See post #1.

Grrrr!!! Just wish it wasn't April Fool's!! We were desperate for that sushi galore at lunch times while on the Viva transatlantic, but the Nama remained shuttered up at lunchtimes.

Welcome to CC! We were in Juneau twice in June 2023 as we were on two Back to Back cruises (Seward - Vancouver - Seward) on Norwegian Spirit. The first time we anchored and tendered in to Cruise Terminal in Downtown Juneau, and the second time we docked at the AJ Dock where there were continuous shuttles ferrying the passengers between the dock and Downtown Juneau (drop off was close to the Goldbelt Tram). I checked the 2024 Alaska cruise ship schedule and can see that Encore will dock at the AJ Dock at 14:30 to 23:00 on Tues May 21st. The ship shown in the picture is NOT the Encore, and it is likely your ship will dock port side (not starboard side as shown in picture). If this is true you'll be exiting the ship via deck 5, if not 4. I would suggest you all meet in the Atrium on deck 6 as a group - there are chairs, bar, Starbucks galore there - suggest you arrange to meet 30 mins before the time you plan on getting off ship. As for the sailaway gathering spot, I would suggest you all meet up in the Sugarcane Bar on deck 8 - great spot for sailaway drinks and there are seating outside on the waterfront. But if it's too cold - go up to the Observation Lounge (deck 15) - there is a nice sized bar up there and great views. Be aware, not all the indoors bars are open at sailaway but the Sugarcane and Observ Bars are open. Check the dailies for the opening hours of bars. Wishing you all the best for the forthcoming nuptials and hope you all have a great cruise! May is a wee early for cruising in Alaska, but hey, the schools will still be in so perhaps the ship won't be 100% full. ENJOY!!

Our passports didn’t get stamped by Israel when we visited Haifa for 2 overnights while on the Spirit 4 years ago. Our passports got stamped by other countries we visited on same cruise though, not Israel.

When’s your cruise? So I can give you some pointers.

Not next year 2025 (Sky will be in Asia), but she will be back in early 2026 to do the same itineraries.