SpainAlien

16 hours ago, jsglow said:

There will be lots of families as @mz-s says.  Will they be well behaved and happy? Your guess is as good as mine.  We used to sail Thanksgiving as a family when our kids were young. I certainly don't remember 'rowdy'. And I very much appreciated that our kids had many other teens to meet and hang with for the week.

 

Here's what I do know. The ship will be crowded and the cruise will be expensive. We sailed during the holidays then because we had to as we were not parents willing to take our kids out of school. As a retired couple these days, we now avoid those school breaks like the plague. (Just kidding but only a little.)

 

I see that you might be coming from Spain. Why don't you plan on a 'Christmas present' to each other in early December or mid January instead? Less hassle, lower airfare and cruise fare, and more relaxing. Just my 2 cents.  Enjoy whatever you decide.

Thank you for your input.

We both work so the Christmas week is easier to take time off and if we are here we will end up hosting Christmas (again). The elders of the family are still capable of taking themselves off to a restaurant for Christmas day, the younger ones now have a baby of their own who will be 1 year old next year so they will enjoy a Christmas at home instead of having to come to us. We just thought it might be nice to be in the sun with a drinks package, no cooking and no washing up for once

I am curious to know if there are any events, carol singing, grinch appearances, etc

Having just completed another lovely Christmas at home for the whole family my husband and I feel it's time to plan a trip away for next Christmas, just the two of us.  We have never done a holiday sailing before and we are just curious what we could expect on Carnival Magic out of Miami, will it be heaving with rowdy kids or just full of happy families celebrating together? Will the food be worthy of the celebration? Will there be any special events onboard?

Your input would be very much appreciated  

13 hours ago, flyo said:

Sorry could you tell me if the wifi onboard is any good? is it now starlink? was terrible when I was using it in may.

Sorry but we didn't get the wifi package. Being from Spain we just used our sim cards in the ports all of which were covered on our plans

23 minutes ago, sjpo said:

Thanks for posting these images. I noticed that, on the Dining Options, it did not mention the MDR as open for lunch. Was that only on that day or was it a norm throughout the cruise? Thanks

The MDR is only open for lunch on sea days from 12-1.30

6 minutes ago, sjpo said:

Thank you 🙂 Oh, it seems it can be opened... is that the case?

No you can't open it but the cover closes if required

3 hours ago, sjpo said:

Thank you for your review. Very helpful. I am booked on the Christmas cruise from Buenos Aires and also got a cabin on deck 4 (4558). Does your has a porthole as well? Thanks

Yes, we had a porthole cabin, we were 4606

No, not in a standard balcony cabin I'm afraid.

Final note, the films on the TV are pretty good and you can see the programming on the Onboard Info channel,  just wait for the screens to cycle through and it will be there.

Summary

The best onboard entertainment was provided by Excell

The best food onboard was served in the main dining room

The best room steward onboard was ours

Of course all these observations are subjective and other people may have different opinions.

FYI:  Because the port stops in Morocco were cancelled each cabin received $50 obc for guests 1 & 2. When we lost Funchal too some people went to guest services and complained, they received $10 obc, those who didn't go to guest services did not get the $10 obc. 

We have now been advised that due to the harbour pilots' strike we are due in to Lisbon late so the queue at guest services is quite long because folks with early flights are worried.

On 11/12/2023 at 7:41 PM, www3traveler said:

When you have the time could you please post the list of the Officers both Bridge and Hotel?  Thank you

 

Have a wonderful cruise.

Officers:

Captain:  Mario di Leo

Chief Engineer: Renato Krpina

Staff Captain: Divo Pulitika

General Manager: Tony Winkler

Cruise Director: Elizabeth Hackett

F&B Director: Esteban Chorro

Beverage Manager: Alphanso Robinson

Restaurant Manager: Kerwin Miller 

Executive Chef: Noriel Alicaway

Executive Housekeeper: Jude Pereira

Guest Service Manager: Ana Maria Haza

Shore Excursion Manager: Emir Didik

Youth Program Manager: Jeanel Cindy Gabriel

Cruise Next Manager: Camilo Castro

Casino Manager:  Edward Barrientos

Please find below the last days Freestyle Dailies

We were an hour late docking in Malaga today, I'm guessing that we were at the back of the queue behind Celebrity Infinity and MSC Seaview.  Some folks were quite upset because they had full day excursions arranged to go to Granada.

We went to Cagney's last night and honestly we were disappointed. The quality and presentation just wasn't as good as the MDR. 

I am attaching days 5-8 of the Freestyle Daily for your info

We're back in port today so I've got internet again.

We enjoyed a meat lovers pizza to share in La Cucina the other night and the following night we went back to use my Latitudes voucher where we both enjoyed mozarella caprese salad followed by fillet steak, the tiramisu was disappointing obviously made with synthetic cream rather than mascarpone.  

We have eaten in the Versailles dining room most of the time but also O'Sheehans and Garden Cafe.  The food has generally been very good although not always to our taste being from the UK we are not used to so much sweetcorn or spinach lol.

We went to the Band on the Run show which was a well put together show, the sound levels were off on some mics (some too loud, others too quiet) but overall it was enjoyable. The entertainment around the ship has been of a good quality.

5 minutes ago, Always Cruising said:

SpainAlien - what ports were substituted for Morocco?  We had a sea day and an additional Canary Island substituted. 

We had a sea day followed by Portimao

40 minutes ago, mugtech said:

Any reasons given for missing Morocco?

"As a proactive measurement relating to recent developments in the region "

Delicious breakfast in Versailles this morning except they said that they don't serve Raisin Bran anymore so I got a very nice muesli instead

The maintenance team were out painting the graphic on the front of the ship today, keeping her looking bright and vibrant

8 hours ago, Always Cruising said:

Will you be stopping in Morocco?  We were on the cruise ending Nov 12 when Agadir and Casablanca were cancelled. We received an email a few hours before embarkation Nov 1.   No explanation - lots of theories, though. 

No, Morocco was cancelled a week before the cruise and we lost Madeira because of a pilot strike

Here are the first four days of the Freestyle Daily.  Our port call to Funchal was cancelled due to a pilot strike so today is our first port stop so far: Santa Cruz de Tenerife

The ship is in generally good condition, there have been maintenance teams out revarnishing the railings on Deck 7, I haven't noticed any rusty areas and everything seems to be working correctly.  Some of the carpets on the halfway landings between decks seem a bit worn but are not threadbare.  The food is generally good but I miss the fillet steak at breakfast and lunch in Moderno and Cagney's (for suite guests) which is now NY Strip, it's just not the same.  I also miss the hash browns as I don't like the breakfast potatoes

Our room steward is Gerardo but he said to call him "Ding".  He's really nice and taking good care of us.

We boarded today in Lisbon, checkin was very smooth and quick.  We went straight to O'Sheehans for lunch and had sausage sliders followed by beef chilli and a blue cheese burger, all very nice so we carried on to the apple pie and carrot cake. The carrot cake is definitely a winner but the apple pie was a little sour. 

We are in a deck 4 oceanview cabin which was ready when the announcement came over the speakers. Nice clean cabin with all the leaflets and tickets I would normally expect, shortly afterwards my chocolate strawberries arrived.  All very good so far.  

We are having a little rest now but will go out around the ship later.  

BTW prime rib is on in the Garden Cafe tonight.

If you have any Star related questions please let me know but we are at sea tomorrow and I don't have wifi.

I remember seeing this breakdown on the NCL website the first year I went cruising (2014), it used to be in the FAQs.

Based on current rates that's $4.89 per person for the steward. Assuming 2 people per room and the new normal of 22 rooms that's $215 per day plus the minimal salary. That's good money based on Spanish wages for example.

I have to believe that this will have been redistributed sinve 2014 because I can't believe that he would be getting almost $6500 per month can you?

1 hour ago, richmke said:

On the Epic departing November 8. It is one of the itineraries affected by the conditions in Israel.

 

Originally, the ship docked in Santorini at Noon, and departed at 9:00, and I purchased the Greek Style Celebration that departed at 12:45 and returned at 6:15.

The revised itinerary has the ship tendering at 8:00 am and leaving at 6:00. The shore excursion shows the same time, ending at 6:15.

 

Santorini is a tender port, as well as a Cable Car from the end of the tour, Fira, to the tender port, which can have a line as long as 1.5 hours.

 

Any guess what NCL will do? Moving the start time to 9am, would put the meal part of the excursion around Noon, which is reasonable. Then we would have time to visit Fira and wait in a cable car line.

It will either be adjusted or cancelled. If they don't send you an email about it before you board go and see the shore excursions desk when they open on embarkation day

I do think that if a port is replaced with a sea day you should get your port fees back but it would appear that NCL haven't been doing that of late

10 minutes ago, Jetstreamer said:

 

Errm, no they haven't!  Nothing in the UK advice has changed recently.  They have for a long time warned against travel to certain areas of Egypt (mostly boarder areas), but those are areas most travellers are unlikely to end up.

 

All they added recently, relating to the Alexandria incident (which so far seems isolated) is: "Remain vigilant and exercise caution at tourist and religious sites, as well as public gatherings".

 

Again, no warnings are in place for any areas that a cruise would visit.  Thousands of British holidaymakers continue to fly to Egypt every week with holiday flights operating as normal today.

 

Link: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/egypt

Oh that's odd Sky News announced yesterday that they had but I was travelling so I didn't have time to check 

3 hours ago, Ozmodiar said:

This will be a bit of a challenge for NCL as they were using Haifa as the disembarkation/embarkation port, so not as easy as adding a new port mid-itinerary. From Cyprus, I think the best option might be back to Athens. Not sure if Antalya, Turkey or Alexandria, Egypt could do the turnaround. 

The UK have issued a warning against travelling to Egypt too now

@JIMESOPUS how's the food? The last reviewer had lots of complaints about the food but she was a vegetarian I wondered if the quality was better when you could choose from the whole menu