MissBreezy

On 7/19/2023 at 8:18 AM, BirdTravels said:

 

The Star is one of the oldest and smallest ships in the NCL fleet. The Prima is the newest with the latest features. 

 

The Prima is purpose-built for cold weather. While people complain that outside decks are less used in cold weather, I don't know of any ship where that is not true. Since we enjoy being outside, wheather on a balcony or on deck, a jacket and cup of coffee makes outdoor seating enjoyable. There are heaters over outside dining areas. The pools and water features are heated. there is an interior lounge. Personally, we also hang out in the Thermal suite looking out over the ocean a lot. 

I was delighted to find out that they can change the temps of those infinity pools depending on the weather! Some days they were nearly hot tub temp on our Iceland cruise 🙂 

You can self disembark at any time was my understanding when we overnighted there. I think they might have asked you to let them know in advance if you planned to do that though, I recall an announcement, but I think that's just so they know you are gone for good.

We did clearance onboard prior to arriving in Reykjavik, the day before on board in the Observation Lounge. Your passport is stamped so you're essentially good to go from the moment you dock in Reykjavik and can get off the boat.

We had a huge price drop on our cruise about 60 days out I believe and when we reached out about that NCL hummed and hawwed for weeks and finally came back and let us know that because the airfare portion of our booking had increased in price, that it offset any decrease in the cruise fare and therefore they would not be extending us any credit relevant to the price drop.

So I guess a slight buyer beware on getting airfare with NCL if you would like to take advantage of price drop credits? 

Just got off the Prima this month and it really exceeded my expectations! I read the reviews and the drama and all that (those are still valid points!) but our experience was a dream. We didn't experience lengthy bar line ups, noise in staterooms, bad customer service or difficulty in getting space in any venue except for two experiences:

- One cold sea day we tried to go to Indulge at noon (our mistake) and struggled to find seating but we did find some. Every other time we found a spot right away.

- Syds and Improv but that's a given at this point. We knew going in that unless we planned to queue in advance that we weren't getting in and that was the truth but we were prepared for that.

The crew was awesome, everything was clean and everything we needed we got.

Our cruise was actually overbooked by a bit so she was FULL FULL on a cold weather cruise and I wouldn't hesitate to rebook my next cruise on the same ship 🙂

We just finished this itinerary at the beginning of July in a forward balcony cabin 11710 and we LOVED having the balcony. We are Canadian but IMO we had the most beautiful amazing weather, not even any rain in Geiranger . The only day we really didn't care to use our balcony was the day we crossed the North Sea from Norway to Iceland and only because of the wind. Even on the days were the seas were a little rougher we barely felt any movement, we felt it more in the aft than anywhere else.

TRUST ME you want a balcony for the fjords, plus with such high mountains on each side you don't get much wind in that passage at all the water was like glass it was incredible. It was nice not having to stay up late/get up early in the mornings and stand on Deck 8 to watch sail in/sail out, we got a Starbucks or a cocktail and enjoyed the view 🙂

I think our coldest day was in Akureryi, it was 10C with some wind and every other day I was sweating to be honest, even Reykjavik was 17C and sunny 😳

Does anyone happen to know if NCL will provide garment steaming upon request (for a fee is fine)? My partner and I are getting married at the end of our cruise during an overnight and I imagine our attire will be a little crinkly after travelling 😬

If so, who is the best person to ask about this? The stateroom attendant? TIA!

35 minutes ago, Diver2014 said:

We are also flying to 'London' (Heathrow) with NCL's air this summer.   We've always flown to Heathrow in the past.  We chose to take National Express bus to Southampton on our own and then stay at a hotel on the waterfront the night before the cruise.  Works well for us.  

Appreciate your experience as I was just pondering National Express yesterday! I booked a second refundable hotel at the airport just in case the timing is wonky with the flights but hoping to transfer to Southampton and stay there the night before rather than Heathrow area 🙂

21 minutes ago, KeithJenner said:

Southampton is mainly domestic (I believe that it has a few very short haul flights to places like Ireland or France). NCL won’t fly you in to Southampton.

 

Gatwick is a possibility, but it is most likely to be Heathrow.

This is what I kind of assumed with it being a smaller airport, thank you for confirming that!

Hello! I'm hoping this isn't too annoying of a question but couldn't find it answered elsewhere. We are sailing out of Southampton this summer and have booked our flights from Canada with NCL on the promo with a 1 day deviation on each end. The one thing NCL couldn't tell me though is if their flights would likely have us coming into Southampton or London. Does anyone have experience with this? Do they typically aim to have you arrive in the port city you are departing from?

I'm only wondering for the purposes of booking hotel or transfers, the other bits of the mystery don't bother me too much 🙂 

Thank you!

4 hours ago, Hezu said:

And worth remembering that there is never absolute guarantee for seeing auroras. First, there has to be suitable space weather, which may not occur every night on the latitudes where Reykjavík is located, although it is sufficiently north that the phenomenon is still reasonably common.

I'd also add to this, that even in September there will still be quite a bit of midnight sun left (it may not get dark enough at night for long enough to see them) I live in rural Northern Canada and our lighting conditions are very rarely right for aurora outside of the dead of winter, I maybe see them once a year 😬

Hi all,

We are planning to visit the Vatican next Wednesday and my husband and I are having a disagreement as to whether we should buy advance tickets or not.

We plan to go around 1pm as our flight gets in late morning. Are lines still very long in September? Does it help that were going later in the day?

I want to maximize our time there but my husband doesn't want to buy tickets in advance for no real discernible reason other than to possibly give me another thing to worry about! Lol

What say ye? Advance tix or roll the dice?

FYI Celebrity Silhouette - I just received a text message and phone call from celebrity regarding our arrival in Venice on the 22nd of September instead of getting in at 10 a.m. We will not arrive until 12 noon this is provided for your information. Has anyone else receive this text or phone call?

 

I have posted this on the Sep 12, 2014 Roll Call, too.

I'm on this sailing too and I didn't receive any kind of notification, I only knew to check our itinerary because of this thread and lo and behold, we are delayed into Venice :)

X is real' good with that communication stuff :)

 

Wich makes me a little nervous … does that mean that there is a problem with an engine ? I don't mind going slow between port but, hope no kids reads these post, lol, but i aways tell myself that in case of emergency, i want to ship to be ABLE to go fast… So i haven't slept good since i called Celebrity a few days ago. I will never refrain myself from flying or cruising BUT , i am scared and own it :-)

 

if anyone could reassure me, i would owe you ;)

I don't know enough about ships to speculate on the reason why the ship is not making ports at the right time. However, my degree is in health and safety and the chances are that if it is a mechanical issue it's one that they have more than likely thoroughly assessed and determined that it is safe to continue on with its scheduled sailings. Especially in light of the Costa Concordia disaster and Carnival's famed Poop Cruise I would doubt they would take the risk of a PR disaster, above anything else.

Try not to worry about it!

We are sailing on the 11nt September 12th cruise on the Silhouette. All of our port times remain the same with the exception of Venice. We arrive at 12:00pm instead of 10:00am coming in from Chania.

Doesn't hurt my feelings, we haven't booked an excursion and even if we did I wouldn't book with anyone who wouldn't accommodate delays or unforseen cancellation. I'm going on a cruise to relax and have a good time and I plan to stick to that :)

Late debarkation and flights are a different story but you would hope that they would try to avoid that as much as possible....

My husband got the birthday email too and I tried to redeem it for our September sailing we booked last fall and they said no :(

Don't feel too bad guys, my husbands is in October and my birthday falls *during* the cruise and I didn't get an email! Lol

We're not CC And this is our first cruise.

Ugh, yes! I've had something drop off of my reservation, therefore increasing the price at least four times. Actually just this morning I got a receipt saying we owed Celebrity $222 even though we made final payment in April.

I called them and they first tried to tell me it was my gratuities because we switched to Select dining but I had already opted to pay for gratuities when were were still on the early seating. I had a final payment receipt stating that we did.

She ended up telling me it was some sort of promotion or discount that fell off (same thing they told me last time) and that in the future if I make any changes to my booking I need to call them rather than do it online because my reservation is finicky :confused:

Anyway, she arranged for a bottle of champagne to be delivered to our room on our first sea day to make up for the trouble, which was nice of her!

Does Sillie still do the "as much as you can fit for $__" laundry bag towards the end of the cruise? My husband is CERTAIN, oh so certain that he can take five shirts and four shorts for a 11 night cruise plus 4 extra days because he can just "wash them" :confused:. I keep trying to tell him that laundry is expensive on X and he needs to pack more but maybe if there's a laundry special towards the end we can compromise :D

This is the B&B we are staying at. It's close to the Vatican and a metro station http://www.bestbb.it/sistine.php

(there are other B&Bs around Rome owned by the group)

We are staying at the Best Sistine bed and breakfast. It's pretty and runs about $200/night depending on the day, sometimes less. We have some extended family stay there and they couldn't rave more about it. Some of their pictures are up on Trip Advisor from 2007.

The B&B is a few blocks from the Vatican. http://www.bestbb.it/en/sistine.php

Hope that helps!

Thank you all for the reviews! We are considering booking PK for a private tour. Do you think the licensed guide is necessary? We do not mind paying for one if it will greatly enhance our experience. However, wouldn't mind saving money too :rolleyes:

 

Thoughts?

 

Thank you!

We have booked PK Tours for our transfer in September, we would have loved to do a full day tour but we are splurging elsewhere :( I have heard that the guides they use are phenomenal though and that they are well worth it for the Acropolis portion.

Anyway, I'm being nosey but I see that your itinerary has you in Istanbul. We booked Private Ephesus Tours (their web address is the same but no 'e' in private) for our Ephesus tour but they also do Istanbul tours. They have been WONDERFUL to deal with and they are very affordable. The cost of the tour includes a driver and a private licensed guide. If you haven't looked into Istanbul yet I highly recommend these guys, they have been a dream to work with so far and have good reviews. I'll do my own review on the Celebrity board once we've actually had the tour.

P.S. Your med report was the first thing I read when we started planning our own cruise and the info was invaluable so thank you!

Oooh, do you get complimentary body wash as well? Trying to save some luggage weight :)

The next step is to analyze the answers -

mostly a - you should be sailing with Celebrity

mostly b - NCL for you

mostly c - should you really be cruising?

 

Note - I couldn't read the original post when replying, so these are just suggestions.

I think there should be an option D where you write a strongly worded email to Michael Bayley's office.

You sir, win 5 internets today.

It only printed out one as well for me (my husbands) but when I went back in there was option to print mine as well so I did.

I know this doesn't answer your new question but we visited Victoria for our honeymoon in September 2007 and Butchart Gardens was BEAUTIFUL. Definitely the highlight of our trip, I can't think of a single negative. EDIT: I somehow skipped over the part where you are in at 6pm. Sorry!! If they are still open my other two recommendations stand! :)

We also went to the Royal BC Museum and it was also wonderful. The exhibits are so well done. I think we spent most of the day there. http://royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/exhibitions/current/

We also visited Craigdarroch Castle and that was also super neat and interesting. Other than that we walked around the central part of town to shop and just enjoyed the scenery.

If the excursion doesn't work out for you, I HIGHLY recommend all of these places. You won't be disappointed :)