Philandjulie

Which ports have they removed?  Eastern Australia is coping dreadful weather in the last few weeks.  We've had cyclones, torrential flooding, tornadoes (which are rare here) and other things happening. It basically hasn't stopped raining for over 2 weeks.   Maybe it's due to weather and the conditions of the ports that are causing changes.

My own pillow, Vegemite, decent coffee and my fur baby

I thought I had seen that the Sun was coming down to Australia for the season and also the Spirit?  

Can't seem to find definite information on whether or not I can take on soft drink cans.  We're doing a 3 day theme cruise from Brisbane this weekend and was hoping to take my fav soft drink.  Thanks

We have cruised with NCL 13 times (out of 17 cruises).  Their free at sea deal is fantastic and we love how most things are included in the upfront cost.  We have done the Australia/NZ Xmas cruise which we loved.  Mostly though, we have to travel to cruise with them and have done 3 Transatlantics and a few others.  If we didn't really enjoy them, we wouldn't travel that far.  Except for spring break/school holidays, the ages are anywhere from late 20s to early 100s LOL we are late 50's and enjoy the demographics of the ships.

Port fees, taxes, supplies, wages are all higher I think which causes the extra cost.  We find it nearly the same price to fly to either UK or USA and do a TA than to cruise around home without airfares.

No time is really guaranteed.  Our last cruise we arrived in a port about 3 hours early but left early too.  We didn't know until the night before that it was changing.  It does make it hard or organise private tours.  Can't say it has happened to us very often but it can happen

We were on that Prima T/A as well - we did get an extra 5 hours in Iceland though.  That would have involved extra port charges so NCL would have just used the Orkney Islands fees to cover Iceland?  I don't see it was a money grab.

Hubby and I are looking forward to the Prima's Transatlantic cruise - especially since we haven't been able to cruise for nearly 3 years.  The Prima's first cruise was cancelled due to supply chain problems, but does anyone have an update on if the second cruise in early September is still going ahead?  There isn't much up to date information on the Prima's progress that I can find.  Fingers crossed that she is all ready for cruising in September.

The Prima may not even get there at that time.  We are booked on what was to be her 3rd cruise (Southampton to New York).  There was notification that her first cruise is cancelled due to supply issues.  We have our fingers crossed that ours will go ahead but who knows?  Our cruise should be 23 Sept - suppose we will know more in a month or so.

We just got our notice of cancellations by email for the Getaway in April 2023.  So it seems to be alot longer that October this year that cruises are cancelled.

As part of our commitment to delivering extraordinary vacation experiences around the world, and due to the escalated situation between Russia and Ukraine, we've made the difficult decision to cancel Norwegian Getaway sailings from April 15 through and including October 26, 2023. We share your disappointment and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but also hope you can understand the necessity of this action

Our TA cruise and time in Thailand April this year was all cancelled. Had been organised and bought USD, EUR and BHT. Rebooked for 2021 and 2022 but will not be going to Thailand. Finding it hard to exchange the BHT back to AUD in Brisbane. Anyone know if the exchange places in shopping centres are still exchanging or banks? NAB don’t anymore. 
 

REALLY hoping our new cruises can go ahead. 

Our TA cruise and time in Thailand April this year was all cancelled. Had been organised and bought USD, EUR and BHT. Rebooked for 2021 and 2022 but will not be going to Thailand. Finding it hard to exchange the BHT back to AUD in Brisbane. Anyone know if the exchange places in shopping centres are still exchanging or banks? NAB don’t anymore. 
 

REALLY hoping our new cruises can go ahead. 

We were supposed to do the TA on the Getaway on 23 April and received notification of the cancellation.  As it was supposed to be a big holiday for husband's 60th, he is eager to book another TA for next April (and not turn 60 until then LOL).  Last week, we used our last Cruise Next voucher to book a balcony on the Pearl leaving Miami on 5 April 2021 - that was fine.  Today, he tried to upgrade to a Suite and they wanted $2238.00 deposit straight away for it.  With our FCC and the $250 voucher plus the required deposit, this would be more than the actual suite price.  Has anyone else not been able to use their FCC as deposit and part/full payment on their next booking?  We do not want to hand over another $2200 plus have NCL keep around $11K of our money for 12 months.

Also, I have read somewhere on here that there is another 20% off the next cruise you book because of the cancellations.  Is this correct?

Thanks - and fingers crossed 2021 is a good one for all.

We have been planning our holiday for over 15 months for husbands 60th. Flying from Australia to New York, doing TA to Rome on Getaway, then flying to Phuket via Singapore for 10 days then home. So many different travel restrictions for different countries, flights and hotels booked and trying to keep up with every country’s travel alerts is time consuming and difficult. Have been upgraded from balcony to Haven Penthouse so really looking forward to cruise. Probably never be able to do Haven again unless a lotto win is in the future👍

Booked everything ourselves without a travel agent so no backup/support there. Insurance will cover costs if cruise or flights cancelled but not before. Luckily we both have enough sick leave through work to cover any quarantine periods.  

BUT it is becoming stressful taking it all day by day and not knowing what to rebook/cancel at this stage. I can work remotely as long as I have laptop.

Assuming a lot of people in same position. Just having to take day by day for next 5.5 weeks. 
 

Hoping NCL will confirm if we are disembarking in France or Spain instead of Rome and then we could check flights from there and travel alerts back to Oz. 
 

How is everyone else dealing with last minute/government restrictions?
 

Take  care everyone and happy cruising whatever happens 😎

Joejoe59 - we are the same.  Just have to go with the flow at this stage.  Flying from Brisbane to New York on 20/4/20 and doing the TA on The Getaway to Rome.  But who knows where we will end up.

I use Paul Mitchell in Brisbane. I have seen that Hairhouse Warehouse has PM for sale and Melbourne has many chemists and salons that sell it. You could google what salons in Melbourne City sell it and buy from them or check out major chemists. I always take my own just in case I can’t find what I want overseas. Even deodorant and soap I take from home. Enjoy being down under and have a great time 

We have found that smaller ships are good for port intensive cruises, and larger ones for transatlantic or lots of sea days itineraries. We did transatlantic on the Star and found that it got a tad boring after 6 days at sea. We then did a Mediterranean cruise on the Epic and had 6 ports in 7 days. We didn’t have time to see and enjoy a lot of the ship. So we we are doing another transatlantic next April on the Getaway and looking forward to having days to explore, enjoy and relax 

We have just called NCL Australia to get a quote for changing our fully paid for aft facing balcony on Getaway in April to a Courtyard Haven Cabin and received zero assistance.  We just wanted to see what the price difference would be and was basically told it was an extra AUD6000.  That was different to the website and she said we can change our booking through MyNCL.  We can’t find where we can change our stateroom type online.  Also, our current booking includes 4 packages, but with the upgrade, we were going for the “second guest 50% off” offer instead.  Due to language differences, NCL did not understand what we wanted.

So question is, does anyone know how to change stateroom type on a paid reservation?  Love NCL but their onshore customer service is terrible.

Husband and I did a transatlantic from Miami to Copenhagen on the Star in 2014 and then the Epic for a Mediterranean straight after. We found that will all the sea days on the transatlantic, we did become a little tired of the Star. There was nothing wrong with it, but in hindsight, the Epic had so much more to do. Next time we would book a larger ship that had alot of sea days, and a smaller ship for a port intensive cruise. Either way though, the Pearl is a great ship (have sailed twice on her), and look forward to trying the Breakaway one day.

We have read about the new South American itineries and wish they would put them up to see. Pretty sure we are going to do the TA on the Escape and hoping to do the SA as well. Just waiting to buy onboard credit next week and use that towards deposit.

We have done 2 NCL cruises, and are doing another 3 B2B next month. We love the freestyle cruising and want to be dedicated NCL cruisers. But living in Australia makes it difficult to do that with the cost and time to fly to either USA or Europe. Hoping they will send a ship downunder soon so we can cruise more often. After these next cruises, we will be looking at Princess maybe to try a Transpacific cruise or one of their South American ones. Have tried P&O and Carnival but they just didn't suit us at all.