upstatenyker

This may be a little late however I did want to post a review of Zara Catamaran and Snorkeling and couldn’t find them on TA. Here goes - my friend and I cruised in July 2019 and chose this excursion. We LOVED it. The boat is drop dead beautiful and appears to be lovingly maintained. The crew was very professional and friendly and provided such a relaxing, perfect afternoon. We’ve been on a number of water excursions and this was the best one yet!  (An added plus was that the crew were very easy on the eyes!). 

Lyft or Uber are also available. Last Friday, we Lyfted to FLL from the port. Without the discount that my husband had received, it would have cost about $30 and with the discount, it cost $21.

FYI ~ there are virtually no Platinum perks on 3 or 4 day cruises. We received priority boarding and free internet time however did not receive priority tenders or the specialty dining.

My husband and I just returned from a cruise to Cuba this past Friday on the Sky which is a smaller ship. We elected to carry off our luggage and from leaving our cabin to passing through Customs, it took about 15 minutes. There were no lines (as I've experienced previously) and it was a seamless process. Just a few caveats ~ we didn't disembark as soon as the ship docked as our flight wasn't until noon and therefore we didn't have to worry about lines and we have Global Entry which probably saved us a couple of minutes at Customs.

After reviewing the options that appeared on NCL, my group of 4 booked a 4 day cruise to Havana along with our flights to MIA. We noted that it was a shorter cruise however were very excited to see that our stay would encompass a day and a half in Havana, as stated under ‘Details’ where arrival would be 8am and departure would be at 5pm the following day. Several weeks later when checking excursions, our individual itinerary noted a 5pm arrival. In speaking with NCL reps, we were told that we should have looked at the individual itinerary that we were considering before booking. This is where I feel that NCL has been deceptive. Rather than stating, ‘Check individual cruises for exact itinerary’, NCL instead shows under ‘Details’, an arrival time of 8am and departure time of 5pm. After speaking with Customer Service reps, I checked the 24 cruises between 6/19 and 3/26. 92% had identical arrival times of 8am however only 50% had identical departure times. Being that there is no consistent time schedule, how did NCL arrive at the decision to advertise the earlier mentioned arrival and departure times? Needless to say, our perception is that the optimal times were published. We spoke with several different reps and wrote to NCL for some form of compensation to no avail and so I'm posting this in order for cruisers to drill down into individual itineraries. I am happy to report that NCL has since changed the arrival time on their website to the less optimal time however want to alert people that this misstatement could be happening in their literature for other ports of call.