Sailing12Away

If NCL can have 20+ Haven staff members standing around waiting to personally escort passengers onesies twosies onto the ship, they can reallocate them elsewhere during non-peak Haven boarding times and *gasp* ask the Haven guests to take a seat and wait 15-20 mins to be escorted on in a small group - or let us walk on our own. Some of us don't need/want that escort. I'm saying they need to drill down into the why. Why were folks particularly upset at port xyz on this particular day. When they have data that suggests a true problem, look into ways to resolve it. If that means renting additional folding chairs - so be it. If it means someone sets up a cup of water station when you get into the terminal building like they have at each port of call when you return to the ship - so be it. If that means asking someone to print out a neon sign that says "Priority boarding this way" because the existing signs aren't big enough, so be it. If it means working with the port staff to better educate them on the workflow and process for their cruise line so there's no confusion about what is/isn't supposed to happen, so be it. Not for me to fix their problems when I don't know for sure what they are. But if organizations like Disney can figure out "if you're standing here you have another 2hr wait before you get to see Mickey" then I'm sure NCL or the port crew can figure something out as well.

I intentionally don't book it because I know I wouldn't like the solarium. I want a 'real' balcony, so I don't book rooms that don't have one.

Not sure why you're so fixated on specifically NY embarkation ports. I never claimed to be an expert in them nor was I trying to say that my solo trip out of one means that it's the standard/norm/whatever for every trip every time. My point was simply that if there's a problem at any embarkation port where consistently the line at guest services once folks get on board is an hour deep more often than not - NCL should be looking into the reasons why. There will be things they can control or account for or compensate for (more chairs, cups of water, clearer instructions on where to go, estimated wait times, etc), and there will be things they can't (heat, rain, capacity of the building). But they don't have to just accept it as what it is and continue to sail out of there.

Like I said, my one trip out of NY we got out of the Uber and walked onto the ship in under 30 mins. My folks who were not in Haven had a similar experience, so it's not because we skipped any lines that regular folks would have to be on. As we were walking on the ship we looked over to the terminal and I even took a photo of my folks as they were walking on. They came completely separately from us, went to the normal security lines, etc etc. As for there not being any other options - that's nonsense. You've literally named two other nearby ports with Brooklyn and Cape Liberty. Can NCL move in there overnight - of course not. But looking at cruises scheduled now, there are plenty of days where nothing is scheduled - meaning NCL can claim that spot if they wanted. Especially if they were doing one way trips where you didn't need an opening on the front and back end.

That's all well and good for NY, but I don't remember seeing a ton of complaints about that port. So even though that's where I live I wasn't suggesting they change that one if that's what you assumed. Only sailed out of here once and there were no hiccups. The point though is that they can do it. Not overnight, but with planning and research there are other options. Simply telling a city you're working on a 5 year plan to never come back will either make them cheer or potentially change some things around. Either way a win because if a location doesn't want you there you'll never get good service from the sub contacted teams who have to "help" you.

Right, but doesn't NCL get to pick and choose which ports they use? If they consistently have issues with poor customer experience at a particular port for whatever reason (not talking the one off due to mother nature or weirdo things), isn't it in their best interest to stop using that port to avoid the complaints they know will come from guests? In the lab world, we can pick which reference lab we want to use for tests we don't perform ourselves in-house. It's actually a requirement of the primary lab to annually review and evaluate the performance of the reference lab we use to ensure they're meeting our requirements for client satisfaction, accuracy, timeliness, etc. Cruise industry isn't as regulated on some things as the lab world, but I would imagine it's got to be some sort of KPI/metric somewhere in some bean counter's quarterly power point. No? Am I over thinking this?

Our trip in Italy was quite a fiasco with the trains. Going to the cruise we used a private company with a tour beforehand in the morning. But when the cruise ended we thought we would use the trains to get to Venice. Took a shuttle to the Civitavecchia train station and from there it was easy to tell which train to get on to get to Rome. But had to lug suitcases up/down stairs and help MIL along. When we got to Rome for the transfer to Venice it was a nightmare. There were only 4 tracks where we were and none were labeled for Venice. Finally realized we had to walk all the way to the other main station area. Again, lots of stairs, no elevators we could find, long walk, and hard to figure out where to go. By the time we found the board with all the listed trains, it was now a run (literally) to get over to the correct track, and then again, 2 flights of stairs up with all the luggage. A kind man saw me struggling with 2 bags (mine and MILs) and took one up for me, but we missed the train by about 2 minutes. So had to hike it all the way back to the central part of the station to figure out how to switch our tickets. Turns out you couldn't, so we had to buy all new tickets to get to Venice - at an extra ~400 euro expense. Going from Venice to Florence was a bit easier as we had figured out the system by that point, but when we left Florence to go to the airport again we missed our train because the stations are not very accommodating for elderly slow walkers. That one wasn't as big a deal as that ticket was a special one for the airport and you could take any train with it, but again, annoying doing the 10+ min walk only to miss the train because MIL can only walk so fast. So yes, the trains are an option - but not for everyone. Another reason to pack light if you're not doing direct car service pickups/transfers.

We've been in 16021 and in Feb/March was in 16019 next door. Both are perfect and amazing. Steps from the concierge, restaurant, bars, lounge, pool.... anything you can need. No noise issues at all. We prefer 16 with less steps to the bars.

I too was grossly disappointed in the misleading title. Was hoping you could now get a growler to go, or order beer by the growler similar to wine by the bottle. As for the Tracy Arms excursion, I too put my vote in that it's worth the price. Super close up, and on our journey we saw so much wildlife on the way there that I have over 1K pictures of seals, whales, eagles, and everything else Alaska has to offer. When we were near the glacier, the crew pulled up a smallish iceberg on board for folks to hold and take photos with, then a separate smaller one that they put into a blender and made margaritas with. Nothing colder or fresher than that.

It's one voucher set per every 2 platinum members in the cabin. If there's 2, you get one set of vouchers to use together for the 2 guests. Last trip we had 3 in the same cabin, all 3 were platinum and above. We got 2 different sets of vouchers to use between the 3 of us.

Lovely as in the experience and service they provide was lovely and enjoyable. Gets the order correct, anticipates needs for refills or clearing of plates, nearby when we're ready to flag them down for the check... Nothing at all to do with their looks, I don't recall ever in my life using the word lovely to describe someone's appearance.

Thanks, I'll keep checking every now and then. There has to be more than 1 excursion being offered on an 8 day trip.

We came in 2 days early and stayed here: https://treviromesuite.com/ Walking distance to the fountain, coliseum, and various other things to see in Rome. Day of the cruise we booked a private tour (http://www.tiberlimo.com/). They picked us up from the hotel, took us to Hadrian's Villa and Villa D'Este, then stopped for lunch, and finally dropped us off at the cruise. Perfect day where we maxed out seeing things in Rome and made it to the cruise without any issues. We had a driver and English speaking interpreter/guide.

It's called being denied entry to the embarkation terminal and waiting outside. Happened to me in both Seattle and LA. So they can do it if/when they want to. Impossible to say which changes came about from folks complaining here on CC or in their post cruise surveys as I'm sure folks of the notion to complain are doing it in both spots. But the idea of having a fixed MDR menu on Prima only lasted a few months. The confusion over the Latitude meal vouchers and which restaurant you could or couldn't use it in changed to be anywhere at any time. Those are recent ones that come to mind. Whether folks say it on social media sources or directly back to NCL, as long as their voicing it somewhere that's better than folks who grumble grumble and expecting change to happen when you don't even ask for it.

Poor ship design. There's no other good indoor spots for folks to camp out and set up (according to them), so they hog those spaces. The worst were the folks doing it in the in Indulge Food Hall on Prima. The seating in there was even more limited than a buffet area, and unlike the buffet you HAVE to be at a table to even order and get food (unless you find a seat at the truck, but then you can only order from that 1 truck alone, which defeats the point of a food hall). NCL needs to just give staff the authority to recognize the difference between a crowded eating venue and people needing seats to eat, vs a quiet time of day when anything goes - and to enforce appropriately when needed.