bluesea777

The lifeboats are tucked in so you should be able to see the sea below from your balcony anywhere on ship.

Actually I’m on the STAR sailing in CALM seas enroute to Akureyri Iceland from Longyearbyen Svalbard! Fantastic cruise so far all way from Tromsø Norway. But we have friends housesitting for us and they have been having good weather albeit some rain.

After seeing the two itineraries, I would pick the Escape one - more southerly route, and warmer!

With 30 NCL cruises under our belt, and 7 TAs .... We prefer smaller ships (like Pearl et al) for port intensive/few sea days, no matter how long the cruise is. For the TAs with lots of sea days we prefer bigger ships - Epic and above - more space, more dining venues, bars, activities, etc. We did one TA on the Jade (sister ship to Pearl) and we found the ship a bit too small for the 14 days TA with many sea days. But we went on the Jewel (another sister ship to Pearl) for 19 days Singapore to Sydney and loved it.

Means the rescue/medevac helicopters cannot land, so they use cable/winch to ferry people up/down.

Not with the Samsung Galaxy A models - they do not have pop out for the SIM cards!

That was what our friend did last year, but be careful the free wifi are often unsecured. He is so happy with his new S phone now that he'll enjoy it more!

No, Airalo will NOT work on Galaxy A models, at all!! Get the S model, Airalo works on these S models. Last year a friend cruised with us and he had the A model and Airalo didn't work and we found out the A models do not support eSims. This year, he swapped his phone with a S model and we were able to load Airalo on his new phone and get it to work. We fly out in 3 days' time! May I add, my DH, DS, his GF, other friends and myself included, use Airalo a lot and they work good! We are able to reuse the eSims when we revisit the country or region. Just buy and activate the top ups. When you're on the airplane and on airplane mode, turn off the active esim first and turn on the next esim (make sure you've named each esim accordingly, e.g. Home, USA, North America, Europe, Portugal, etc). This way, when you land and turn off the airplane mode, the esim kicks in (usually a minute or 2) and you're good to go. We are in Bermuda, BTW. Our ISP/Cell offers unlimited roaming at $13 per day - no thanks!! - and we need to make sure the Home esim and data are completely turned off before we land in foreign country or we get incurred the first day's roaming charge!

Place towels on floor around overflowing toilet and when wet, take photos with your phone and go down to Guest Services and show them the photos.

One way cruises are OK I think, but maybe they charge taxes on R/T cruises out of Barcelona. I read about this (the R/T ones) last year. Our son will be on the Escape R/T Barcelona this coming November.

Escape’s last dry dock was in Oct 2022. Maybe they’re revising her itineraries and possibly home-port.

The world's most Northernmost botanical garden is not in Akureyri but in TROMSO, Norway, that is way above the Arctic Circle. About 99% of Iceland is below the Arctic Circle.

No, better to switch to the week after. No embarkation/disembarkation fiasco.

@jrt.mom @tcmagnum Available only on Epic, Breakaway, Getaway, Escape, Joy, Bliss, Encore, Prima, Viva. Older ships do not have dedicated Studio Lounge or Studio cabins.

Prima is DOCKED ... first visit to Isafjordur this year, and first time docked. No, correction: it's Prima's first time to Isafjordur ever!!