niborHS

A question about Luminae, now that you all made it sound so appealing, are there seatings, or is it open seating? If open, is there much of a wait? We also almost always book suites. Regular rooms to me are like those little number puzzles, not to be politically incorrect or anything, but chinese puzzles if you don't know what I mean, "I'll stand by the door so you can get into the bathroom". I say that the only people who say the cabin you have doesn't make a difference because you aren't in it much anyway, are the ones who have never stayed in a suite. 

1 hour ago, tbugstwo said:

Yes, there is a separate dining room for people traveling in suites on Celebrity.  Suite restaurant is Luminae.  On a short Alaska cruise, I would skip the specialty restaurants and enjoy the food and service in Luminae.  You will not be disappointed.

Thanks for letting me know. I finally found it on something when I logged into Celebrity. It sounds like we could be getting very good meals in Luminae, which you have confirmed. 

Sorry if this has been asked before, Cruisecritic seems to have eliminated the option of searching a particular message board category. We will be sailing on the Eclipse in June. We are in a Celebrity Suite. My husband booked this through Mollydooker Wines, it's a special cruise group they are running, so I have no travel agent to call. He claims that now Celebrity has special dining rooms that are only for guests in Suites. If so, is this true, and what dining room is it? I have searched their site and don't see anything about this. We are also trying to decide about whether to take a 3 Specialty Restaurant package. This is an Alaskan cruise, and there are 3 nights that are inside passage cruising, plus the first night, so the 3 night pre-booked restaurants could work. Any suggestions on this would be great too. 

On 8/16/2018 at 2:57 AM, Ashland said:

Ketchikan book the Bering Sea Crab Fishermen Tour directly with them on their website...the kids will love it.

 

If you decide to do the Lumberjack show instead...again book directly on their website.

I just looked on their website, they are offering this tour for $179 discounted through April, for this excursion. Through Celebrity it is $169. I am a little surprised at that, however with your great review of it, and my husband's love of Deadliest Catch, I definitely think this is the excursion to choose there.

I used Instapark, it was around $50 for 4 days in an indoor lot, with Instapark, Best Parking. There was a free shuttle to the port, however, there was a long wait, the van holds about 9 people, and most cars had 3 to 4 people in it. We took an Uber there, which cost very little. On the way back, it says to follow the instructions the driver gave. Well, we didn't take the van there, so called their 800 number, that didn't answer and had a full mailbox, so we took an Uber back, but because of some kind of issue at the exit, it cost a lot more going back to the parking lot. As far as it being un-safe, that is not true at all. 

I just came back from a 4 night cruise on the Jade where we booked a Sail Away rate, which was the only choice on this, so call it sail away or GTY, same thing. I don't know the exact date it was assigned, but when I logged in 17 days before it was there. I was offered the choice of bidding on the upgrade, which I did, but I am sure others bid more, and there were very few mini-suites available. We were probably better off location-wise with our Sail Away balcony cabin. It was a great location, aft close to the stairs/elevator, more towards mid-ship than aft. We decided that with the $19.80 per day they would charge for the privilege of unlimited drinks, it made no sense for the difference in price, and there were enough options for dining without paying specialty dining. We had a bottle of wine each night at dinner, and either 1 or 2 drinks per day, and they are just not expensive enough to make it worthwhile to get that perk. 

My sister-in-law and I were looking for an inexpensive getaway that worked well with her vacation schedule, and the 4 night on the Jade worked perfectly. Our cousin decided to join us, and we figured that for 4 nights, we could manage in a balcony cabin, with the small sofa turning into a bed. It is definitely tight, but it worked! We chose the Sailaway rate after figuring out the other choices for more money. We decided that the food would be fine without specialty dining, and we wouldn't drink enough to warrant the unlimited beverage package where we would be charged $19.80 for gratuity. We ended up with cabin 9138, which was a great location and easy to get to, and it cost us each $432. We had to miss the private island because the seas were too rough to tender, so they credited us all $23 in port fees, so actually it was $409. 

I felt that the ship was in excellent shape. There were none of the things I have seen on other ships in the past few years, like chips of paint everywhere, worn carpet, etc. Everything to me was in tip top shape. The Grand Pavillion Dining Room was beautiful, service was very good, pretty much no complaint, except that the sauce served with whatever we had the first night was a little salty. Alizars has the same menu, but is not as large, and people seem to dress down even more for that. One dish at Alizars had a hair in it, and the wonderful Assistant Maitre 'D, Bhye Massood, addressed it perfectly, letting us know that he would speak to the executive chef, and took our room number. By the time we came back to the room, there were 2 bowls of fruit and a bottle of wine waiting. The next night, he found us in the Grand Pavillion, and asked about how everything was, and wanted to make sure all was OK. Maybe he was happy that we took it all in stride, but he did the right thing, and it was greatly appreciated. One night we ate at Jasmine Garden, one of the complimentary restaurants, and it was very nice, appetizers were very good, small portions on the mains, but as you know we could have ordered more. The service was not great, but could have been more of a language barrier than anything else, the waitress didn't seem to totally understand us. One night we went to have appetizers only at Jasmine Garden at 5 pm, then had dinner at 7 at the Grand Pavillion. The wait for the restaurants were between 5 and 25 minutes, not a problem at all because they gave us a pager, we went to a nearby bar area to have a drink and listen to whoever was performing, and never felt as though we waited too long. We were originally thinking of bringing on bottles of wine and paying corkage, but we did not, and there were various bottle of wine for $33 that were quite acceptable. If we didn't finish the bottle, the corked it and held it for us. A few times we brought glasses of wine with us to the show after dinner. 

The show the first night was a variety show. the comedian on board was excellent. He performed for only about 15 minutes the first night, but the other performers who were doing a Mama Mia singing and dancing program were pretty bad. The 2nd night as a full show of the Comedian, Landry. Again, I thought he was hysterical. The 3rd and 4th nights were different Cirque du Soleil type performances, which were very good. The 4th night were only 2 people, and were pretty amazing. After the late show on the 4th night, Landry did an adults only comedy show, that was really not too raunchy, and again very funny. There were various singers performing around the ship from about 5:00 on, some better than others, but all enjoyable enough. The day we boarded there was a band by the pool, and they were really not good, the singer sounded more like listening to Karaoke. 

Overall, something I would definitely think of doing again, which is I suppose the best compliment. 

It is not true that a Rueben with mustard is just a corned beef sandwich. What the Rueben should have, but was in short supply on the one we ordered in O'Sheehans, is sauerkraut. Also, swiss cheese. I like mine with mustard. We had lunch at O'Sheehans, it was really a late lunch snack. We ordered the artichoke dip and something else as appetizers, which they totally forgot. We also had the salads with grilled chicken or grilled salmon, and then shared 2 Ruebens for the 3 of us. Is it great? In my mind there is little to eat on a cruise ship that is really great, but my standards are pretty high. People rave about Cagney's steaks. We did not have unlimited specialty dining, but I looked at the menu. Angus steaks are not worth paying an extra $30 for. I don't eat steak at home that often, but when I do, I only buy Prime, which is far better than what they have.

Thanks 3catnight. My travelling partners asked if I talked to my TA about it, I said even better, I asked on the message board. 

I thought I was the only one who would say The Norway, but I am not. However, I was on the WInd the first year that Roatan and Belize were used as ports, at least on bigger ships anyway, if you want to call that big.

Question for all you experienced upgraders, this is the first time I have sailed that this was an option. We only booked about 2 1/2 months before sailing, on a 4 night starting January 21st. I almost immediately received the offer to upgrade. The lowest price was $25 to upgrade from Balcony sail-away to Mini-suite. I bid $30. If I up my offer, would I be more likely to get it?

Just as a follow-up, we ended up with Cabin 9138, which is fine. Hopefully it will be OK, because it is right above the life boats, but I honestly will not be hanging out on the balcony anyway. It is close to an elevator towards the back of the ship. Still hoping to get an upgrade to a mini-suite though.

Thanks for posting that. Now I have to decide if I want to pay $22 per bottle for the convenience of not having to bring it on board, or buy wines that actually taste good and bring them. When you pay the corkage at boarding, do they allow you to bring the wine to your room? I suppose I can call customer service to ask. One thing to mention to others who asked, I was told if you bring on more wine than you drink, you can get a refund for corkage that you paid upfront. 

I am going to admit right off that I did not read every post here, so I might be repeating something, but you have to think about what you are paying vs. what you are getting. Prices have stayed low on cruises, especially on NCL, and food costs have continued to rise, as have labor costs. The best bargain around is still cruising, no matter what kind of food you get. of course the food is better in the Haven, they are paying a lot more per person. Also, in the specialty restaurants, you are paying extra for a reason. Is it worth it? Maybe not, maybe yes, but think about how the cost of a cruise compares to the cost of vacationing anywhere else, and then say that the food you are getting is not worth what you are paying. And, way back, the comment about salsa with your eggs? I always found having anything remotely related to ketchup with my eggs as pretty disgusting, but then again, in NY we don't really eat salsa with everything. 

Now you tell me! I pay for almost everything on our Amex Platinum. I was taking a short cruise with my sister-in-law, and decided to put it on another card. On the other hand, for all you Amex Platinum people, my husband had a bad jet ski accident back in 1997 when we were on a cruise. They took him back on the ship, although reluctantly, but Amex Platinum med-evac'd him back to NY. The cruise insurance would have only taken him to Miami. That's one of those great Amex perks. 

Thanks for the comments. The reason for doing the balcony is that we will be 3 in the room, and want the small sofabed. I was offered to bid on an upgrade, so put in for the mini-suite, which I am not even sure is a better choice seeing as they are all below the pool deck. For this one, price is the issue, so I think we made a good choice. We will bring on some wine and pay the corkage up-front, which others have said we can get a refund on if we have unopened bottles, so that's fine. My guess is we won't. I hope they give us glasses, however I have some plastic reusable ones I can always back in case we want some wine in the cabin. Or even on deck actually, so will have to remember them. It's a 4 night cruise, how bad can it be? Famous last words of course. At least we are all easy-going people who will just have fun and laugh a lot. 

Very interestingly, when googling this, I found that there were 2 deaths on other cruise ships this month alone. A woman fell into the water while getting onto a tender, they pulled her out and she was conscious, but then apparently something happened and they couldn't revive her. That was on Holland America. Also, on Princess, a woman fell overboard and died after being choked by a man. DIdn't find anything specific about this ship.

11 hours ago, 4774Papa said:

On our last NCL cruise on the Dawn, we had declined the overvalued beverage packages with the 20% gratuities and I brought my own wine, paid the $15 a bottle.   The wine was exactly what I wanted, not the lame cabernet that is offered on the beverage package.  Also, we spent less on alcohol (including what I paid for the wine and the corkage fees) than just the gratuity charges would have been.

That's what I feel as well. Gratuity on the free beverage package (which we are not taking, we are doing the sail away rate), is $19.80 per day per person. So, more than 2 bottles a day corkage. The other reason I will do this is because my sister-in-law is on a tight budget. We'll go to a wine store in the Boca area where she lives, I will pick the wines, drink what I want, and I will probably pay for them too.

A travel agent should give you exactly what you get direct from NCL. Also, all the companies that advertise discount cruises, are giving you the same discount everyone gives you. the only time you might get a bargain is if it is right before sailing and they are somehow stuck with cabins they booked. I just went through this when I booked today. I priced it on NCL's site. I checked with all kinds of sites that advertise discount cruises. The price was exactly the same. What you get though, normally, obviously not from your travel agent, is personal service, someone to reach out to when there is a problem, at the same price you would pay to book online.

Although the food in the specialty restaurants may be better than the main dining room, you can most likely get much better food at home in a good restaurant than you do on a ship. 

What is the policy about bringing wine or other alcohol on board? I know I can count on all of you who are very knowledgeable about NCL to help me out here.

15 minutes ago, jpcdds6 said:

It will be a little tight, but you're not a rookie. Spend less time in the cabin.

Will definitely do that, and we get along really well, and are all quite easy going.

Thanks for all your great advice. We will be on the 4 night in January. As it turns out, we are going to be 3 women in a cabin. Because of the talk about Deck 11 being a bad one, we are going to take a guarantee balcony, which will be on Deck 8, 9 or 10. There is a small sofa that converts to a bed. We will definitely be tight, but for 4 nights, I think we can manage. If anyone wants to say I am nuts, let me know now. Just to let you know my cruise experiences, I started out in 1994, with my husband, me, and my 2 young children in a cabin. We did that twice. Then started booking suites, first with them, then getting them a separate cabin, while we did things like the aft facing suite on the Sky it's inaugural year, complete with hot tub on the balcony. Once with a friend, we booked an interior on a Celebrity ship because it was a 3 or 4 night, and $199, and we managed. In other words, I always manage, but tell me if I am being crazy. I think we will book today.

Does anyone who has been on the Jade recently have a Daily they can post? Curious what activities they have on board. Are there other things going on in lounges besides the shows? I was on a 3 day a short time ago, but don't remember much about that part of it, otherwise have not been on NCL in probably 10 years. We had been on a number back in the late 90's, early 2000's, before Freestyle. Planning a 4 night at the end of January. Nothing beats the value of this kind of cruise. 

It could be because you have the studio cabin. At the last minute I joined a group of friends, so took an inside knowing that I was paying double. When the price of an outside dropped to what I had paid, I called and they gave me an outside. However, I had booked directly with NCL, rather than through a TA or some other non-NCL website. I have never found a website that give a better price than either direct through NCL or through a TA.