ev98

Thanks for the heads up - we’ll be on Discovery Princess in a few weeks and definitely good to know about the changes.

Does O’Malley’s count as casual dining for the purpose of Princess Plus?

Wow, popular sailing! My wife and I will also be on this one, leaving for FLL early tomorrow. Also interested in comparisons to HAL, which seems to have fairly reasonable pricing for their all-inclusive package.
 

We also got a rejection notice earlier today for our single minimum bid (standard IV to AquaClass IV) - best of luck to anyone still waiting. 

Without getting too much into it, taxi/Uber/Lyft/van from the hotel direct to PortMiami are not feasible for our party on this trip - I've used those options before and would certainly prefer them. 

If we can assume in good faith that the Carnival transfer is already arranged, I appreciate that this is not an optimal choice - just trying to get the best information I can to make this leg of the trip as good of an experience as possible.

We're taking the Carnival-sanctioned MIA to POM transportation for our July cruise, and are flying in a day prior to the sailing. The somewhat convoluted process (which we've done before when sailing with NCL) is to stay at a hotel close to MIA with a free airport shuttle, take the hotel shuttle back to the airport on the day of sailing, then board the cruise-chartered coach bus from the airport.

Complexities aside, the Carnival website indicates that guests arriving prior to their sail date, like us, must show up at MIA on the actual date of sailing no later than 11:00am and meet at either baggage claim #1 (Terminal J) or baggage claim #22 (Terminal D). My questions for this esteemed group are:

If you had to pick which terminal to meet and wait for the coach bus at, which one would you pick (D or J) and why?

(eg: do the buses start at one terminal, then collect guests at the other before proceeding to the port? Is there better signage or more available staff at one or the other?)

And:

This is our first cruise with Carnival and we will not be paying for early boarding; is it worth showing up for the coach before 10am? 

(This one I'm thinking "yes, be there early regardless"; as the day goes on it's possible that shuttles going back and forth experience delays, or if the coach gets stuck in traffic, etc.)

Thanks for any input - I know we'll likely be fine either way, but if anyone has feedback I'm interested in hearing it.

(originally posted in Florida Departures forum, but it was highly suggested I try here for Carnival-specific info)

21 minutes ago, capriccio said:

Since your questions are very much Carnival specific, you will probably get more responses on the Carnival board

Thanks, I'll post there as well if it's not too much of a faux pas. I debated doing just that, figuring someone would redirect me here - but you're right that this is highly specific to one cruise line and their (contracted) operations.

We're taking the Carnival-sanctioned MIA to POM transportation for our July cruise, and are flying in a day prior to the sailing. The somewhat convoluted process (which we've done before when sailing with NCL) is to stay at a hotel close to MIA with a free airport shuttle, take the hotel shuttle back to the airport on the day of sailing, then board the cruise-chartered coach bus from the airport.

Complexities aside, the Carnival website indicates that guests arriving prior to their sail date, like us, must show up at MIA on the actual date of sailing no later than 11:00am and meet at either baggage claim #1 (Terminal J) or baggage claim #22 (Terminal D). My questions for this esteemed group are:

If you had to pick which terminal to meet and wait for the coach bus at, which one would you pick (D or J) and why?

(eg: do the buses start at one terminal, then collect guests at the other before proceeding to the port? Is there better signage or more available staff at one or the other?)

And:

This is our first cruise with Carnival and we will not be paying for early boarding; is it worth showing up for the coach before 10am? 

(This one I'm thinking "yes, be there early regardless"; as the day goes on it's possible that shuttles going back and forth experience delays, or if the coach gets stuck in traffic, etc.)

Thanks for any input - I know we'll likely be fine either way, but if anyone has feedback I'm interested in hearing it.

6 hours ago, Wannacruise81 said:

Looks like MSC Meraviglia is expecting more passengers on the 2/27 cruise. Just finished our online check in and it says to arrive at 2pm 😳😳

I also had a 2pm embarkation time assigned for the 2/27 Meraviglia sailing initially, but then checked the mobile app a few days later (Profile > My Cruise > scroll down to Embarkation Info) and it was moved half an hour earlier to 1:30pm.

I re-sent my tickets from the website (which also initially had a 2pm time on the PDF) and they changed to 1:30 as well. Not sure how strict they're going to be - I have pretty much nothing to do before that, and would like to get lunch onboard - but I've also been stuck outside at Port Canaveral before and it was a pretty boring experience.

So, yeah, this cruise might be a bit busier than earlier in January/February. Hopefully it's a reasonable number of passengers such that they staff the bars and other venues to stay open late, but not so many that it feels crowded. 

I've been somewhat following this thread, and just wanted to note that in my cruise ticket package for a sailing on Meraviglia out of Port Canaveral, February 27, 2022, the health questionnaire does ask if you have received a COVID-19 vaccine within the last 6 months, even if you only got the first dose.

This is an especially interesting placement for the question on the form - every question above this one, presumably the correct answer to board the ship is "No". 

In my case, I received a (third, booster) dose in late December 2021, so I'll be answering "Yes" to the question as it's written, and hopefully there are no issues at the port.

I'm wondering whether this is a generic international form for the scenarios described above  - because everything else written from MSC at the moment only requires two mRNA doses or one J&J dose. 

@BennyBrun Thanks so much for the live review! We unfortunately had to cancel this exact sailing and I am pretty down about it. We've rebooked for April but I will vicariously follow along and wish best health to you and your travelling party.

Some questions if you get the opportunity, and don't mind:

• Is your cabin one of the ones with a sofa only, "trundle bed" or a "single sofa bed"? There were a few missives when Edge launched as to whether using the "trundle bed" was like sleeping in a drawer, but I know a lot of people on the roll call were only parties of 2 and might not be in those rooms. On some deck plans this is listed as "single sofa" or "double sofa".
• What does cash pricing look like for bottles/draft beer at Craft Social? We will have the "Always Included" package so I think we can get things up to $9, but wondering whether it's worth upgrading to the premium package onboard (despite one of our party not drinking much - I'm sure my wife and I can make the upgrade worthwhile if there's a decent beer selection.)
• Firsthand experience with Eden entertainment? (I know you said "no shows" - but is that everything, even later in the evening?) I also don't like intense audience participation.
• Do they have pen pricing in the Montblanc store readily available, or is it one of those "if you have to ask you can't afford it" situations? 🙂

Enjoy your voyage!

Thank you for the incredible review @sunsetsoon! I can definitely see myself being that guy in a few years threatening to sleep in the galley. Helps to put it into perspective.

I can confirm I recently booked a BF balcony GTY for a sailing on Joy. We were assigned a BA within 48 hours of final payment, so not a bad upgrade at all. BD, BC and BA were all marked as GTY as well. There are still B8's available, but similar to the B2/B3s the only advantage seems to be connecting staterooms. 

Best of luck for an (actual) upgrade!

Tonight's beer selections. I'm back at work tomorrow, but needed to clear out some of these from the "main" fridge. These were all selections recommended by a beer-tasting webinar for the fall season - some were good and some were undrinkable.

First and not pictured, another Block Three - the style was a "table beer" and it was unremarkable, almost a bit sour. Will likely not buy again.

Muskoka Harvest Ale

Fairly average.

Broadhead Night Shift Stout

Highly recommend. I need more stouts and porters in my life. There may have been a small amount of spillage.

Grand River Brewing - Highballer Pumpkin Ale

This was a "please remove this from the fridge" choice, my wife hates pumpkin-based drinks and I merely tolerate them. 

On 1/4/2020 at 2:26 PM, ceilidh1 said:

Since Carnival charges in USD, the exchange rate on the purchase was 1.34. I literally called and cancelled the day they charged me but it took 3 days for the refund to show on the credit card. The refund rate was at 1.22.....so I'm out almost $100! Seems like a bit of a rip off to me - I know Carnival doesn't set the rates, that's down to my bank...but not sure if I have recourse through the credit card company or not? The charges should never have happened in the first place so it feels kind of crummy that I'm losing money on the refund?

 

 

That's brutal! From my experience you don't have much recourse; we ran into a similar situation in the Dominican Republic where we signed up for an excursion (through WestJet Vacations, no less) and one person paid on their Canadian credit card. They told us to meet at the wrong location and so everyone missed the event. Our representative pushed through a refund, but we (and you) are still out the difference in exchange rate - if it has gotten worse between initial charge and refund, plus the 2.5% foreign exchange fee on most Canadian credit cards. Thanks, Visa and MasterCard!

The only way you don't get hit by this is if it's a pre-authorized transaction that hasn't "settled" (often shows up at the top of transaction histories online in gray/italics), but then the merchant cancels it before the final "capture" of funds.

If you're booking with a company like Carnival that charges in USD, consider a USD-based credit card, or one with no foreign exchange surcharge (Rogers and HomeTrust have no-fee options for this.) I recently got a USD-billed card from TD Canada; we save our US money and cheques in a "borderless" account, meet the minimum balance, and then the card and an authorized user card is free. End result is that US purchases can be paid off in USD, without getting hit on the exchange conversion premium every time.

Anyway, this is going into my upcoming pre-cruise planning review, since us Canadians get bent over on pricing for a lot of things.

On 12/31/2019 at 6:40 PM, sid_9169 said:

 

Rick stopped doing Live Reviews when the CC app disappeared... I cruised with him once on his very first NCL sailing on the Escape a couple of years ago. When the app went away, doing Lives grew much more tedious...

That makes a lot of sense, hard to commit to the significant effort it if the posting process is painful. I remember you were pretty frustrated in at least one of your reviews due to the combination of the forum instability and the onboard Internet.

Tapatalk (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkpro.activity&hl=en_CA Android, https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/tapatalk-200-000-forums/id307880732 iOS) might be a reasonable alternative. I was able to log in to CruiseCritic with it - but have no idea how it would perform on a ship connection or a thread with lots of pictures.

On 12/31/2019 at 12:28 PM, luvcruzing said:

Have you thought about maybe taking two umbrella strollers? Wearing the babies in carriers every day for a week just seems like a lot to me. Or maybe at least taking just one umbrella stroller and switching off.

That's an excellent idea. My wife found someone selling two of them that lock together for transport, so I went out tonight to pick them up and they were in great condition. 

18 minutes ago, pebbles1102 said:

For some reason cruise life rick disappeared from the rccl boards

Rick has been very "on-brand" for RCCL in the past year, just taking a gander at his various social media profiles. Very corporate marketing style with frequent use of the "#ComeSeek" hashtag.

I imagine something like his last "pineapple" or "Ashley Madison" threads here, even though I thought they were excellent, might not match the brand image Royal wants to portray.

I'd be happy to eat my hat on this one if it meant another quality thread - I've never sailed RCCL and it's good to hear about other cruise offerings in the same tier.

18 hours ago, ceilidh1 said:

My kids have been cruising since they were 6 months old - our first cruise was on a 650 passenger ship to Alaska. My daughter was the only child onboard. She got so much attention from everyone! In fact, I have only ever had one negative comment about cruising with kids - we were sitting outside the buffet area and a lady walked past and loudly commented "Ugh. We can't sit out here. There is a young child".....I just ignored her, but another passenger said "What's wrong? Are you allergic to youth?". LOL. Cruising is by far the easiest vacation to do as a family and with children, and cruise lines are becoming more and more family focused. I'm sure you will all have an amazing time!

Thanks for the words of encouragement! I just booked NCL transfers today, trying to sort out how to get everyone to and from PortMiami. More expensive than Uber/Lyft, but I would rather take surge pricing and the mess that is trying to find your driver at disembarkation out of the equation, at least for the upcoming trip.

We are going to try and do it without a stroller (which is just a behemoth device when you need carrying capacity for two) and just wear the babies in carriers. Time will tell if that is a wise decision. 

To everyone else - I certainly appreciate the warm welcome. I figured I'd share my first beer of the evening: Mauve, a sour raspberry. Sours have been quite popular (at least in my area) this past year, although they are somewhat controversial - not everybody likes the taste. I find I can usually only have one before switching to something else.

I've had this thread in various browser tabs since Sid's Encore live review had a link to it (although I've lurked a few more of the threads before that), and have finally burned through all 280 pages over the past little while as time permits. This is, I feel, a reasonable accomplishment - for those of you who've seen Rick and Morty, one of my favourite lines is "we should start our stories where they begin." 

Congratulations to everyone on keeping this topic alive. I'd like to check in (yes, yet another Canadian) and will be following along, contributing what I can, as we head into 2020. 

My wife and I discovered cruising in 2015, and at this point I will do pretty much anything to be back on a ship with a drink package - but no WiFi. I work a fairly technical job so having no access to the Internet ends up being a positive for me. After the cruise, that's when I put in the time to review them. Not in one of those clickbaity YouTube videos - text and photos only.

Our next cruise is in less than a month now on Escape, and will be a new experience; we'll have our twin daughters along with us, which was a fairly life-changing event for us earlier in the year. I know a lot of people don't want to be around babies, or say not to bring them on cruises, but my position is that a) we'll try and be respectful; if a baby is crying we'll solve the problem and b) we'll be doing the same thing we'd do on a weekend at home anyway, just with the advantage of many bars and unlimited food a couple decks away.

May everyone's 2019 wrap up as best as it can, and best wishes for the new year to be filled with sippables, ships and satisfaction - in whatever way you choose!

Thanks for posting this review. I also appreciate the travel preamble, especially the train journey. 

How many people would you say were at the Meet and Greet? It looked fairly well attended.

On 11/17/2019 at 11:35 PM, shadowmeboy said:

I asked my favorite question. What is your favorite restaurant to eat at onboard

Do you remember the answer that you got? Just curious - Bliss has quite the selection of restaurants but we saw a lot of senior officers in the Garden Cafe fairly regularly.

1 hour ago, CruisingNole said:

OBC offered through TA essentially covering entire DSC.

Isn’t most onboard credit offered by travel agents the non-refundable kind, which can’t be used for daily service charges?

https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/travel-blog/how-to-onboard-credit

“Note: Onboard credit has no monetary value and is non-transferable. It may not be used toward onboard service charges or pre-purchased activities.”

Regardless, $150/person with drink package is quite the deal. Wish I had that option coming from Canada. 

Thanks for posting, just happened to see this thread. There were apparently two roll call threads for this sailing, this is the one now linked to by the tool:

And this is the other one:

I've posted in both threads to cross-reference.

Anyway, no email here yet (booked through TA, so that may make a difference) but can confirm new itinerary is showing up as of today in MyNCL - it must have changed over yesterday afternoon or this morning, since I'd just booked specialty dining at noon Eastern yesterday.

It looks like NCL has reduced the flight surcharge to $0 for certain departures from Toronto Pearson/YYZ. I am looking at taking advantage of this offer for a December 2019 or January 2020 cruise from a warm southern US location (thinking Miami, Port Canaveral, New Orleans). 

The catch here is that my wife and I would have two infants with us, each at least six months of age (https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/cruise-faq/age-requirements). Of course, bringing kids this young will have its own set of challenges, but there is actually a method to my madness. We are thinking a low-pressure Caribbean route with no shore excursions as a "trial run", to see if a planned 9-day Baltic cruise in June 2020 is even fathomable with two babies. If this cruise is a disaster, we learn our lesson before final payment and delay the Baltic one until they're older. 

My question: Has anyone used the NCL Free/Reduced Airfare offer, and been able to include a lap infant for no charge/a small charge? (rather than the full ~$400+ CAD per person...)

Most airlines that fly from YYZ to these destinations either have a free rate (Air Canada, WestJet) for "lap infants" under 2 years old, or others charge a small fee (United 10%, AA charges taxes.) Normally I would book my own air, but taking the NCL offer would save us a substantial amount of money, if it was possible.

I would call NCL myself, but given the recent posts about hold times, I figured I would ask the Internet first whether there had been similar successes or failures.

Please feel free to tell me I'm nuts for even thinking about this. I'd also be paying to change flights to one day before and one day after the cruise to give us sufficient weather/buffer/recuperation time.

My review of the same sailing is now live for anyone interested. 

And that's it! I'm happy to answer further questions as necessary. Please check out Steph's review if you enjoyed (or didn't enjoy) mine:

As well as her nicely curated collection of dailies and other documentation from this sailing:

Post-cruise wrap-up

Line-cutting

Disembarkation morning is definitely the worst part of any cruise for me; I often don't sleep well the night before and then there is a flurry of activity before I'd prefer to be up. After grabbing a quick breakfast in the buffet (and watching Ivan chase away seagulls from people's plates, which was impressive), we once again leveraged our favour with Armando and met him in the Sugarcane Mojito Bar area to get a preferred walk-off experience.

He walked our group to the exit just outside the photo gallery, where we then had to somewhat awkwardly inject ourselves into the middle of two large lines that were merging onto the passenger boarding bridge. It probably did save us fifteen or twenty minutes of winding lines, but we still did have to run the gauntlet of port union escalator and customs in the Miami terminal.

Once outside, we were able to get into an Uber and proceed onto our next destination in South Beach by 8:50am, which I considered pretty good timing for having breakfast. The South Beach portion of the trip isn't especially related here, but the fare was only around $13US from PortMiami on Dodge Island, and requires an interesting circuit of the freeways to get on the correct bridge.

Must-haves are really nice-to-haves

I was very pleasantly surprised with Sky, especially having recently sailed on the newest Bliss behemoth and its "goes-to-eleven" activities. It's almost unfair to compare the two ships in terms of feature set, but NCL has done a great job of bringing some of the nicer touches from the megaships to a vessel half the size and twenty years older.

The consistency with venues and amenities across the fleet, rather than being boring, is actually reassuring. We were lucky that the dry dock efforts were timed well with our selected dates, and the public areas weren't made into a complete assault on the senses (unlike some competitors).

I've said in previous reviews that there are some definite must-haves for me in terms of future cruises (Waterfront, different destinations, longer cruise) and this vacation on Sky basically didn't meet any of them. That didn't turn out to be a bad thing, though! The Great Outdoor Cafe was a decent destination in the evening for sea air and drinks, the Spinnaker Lounge had plenty of seating, and acquiring a chair for an afternoon read was entirely possible on the pool deck.

Key West is a unique port, and one that I would like to explore. It's quite unlike Grand Cayman or Nassau, where I'd need a much more compelling experience to bother tendering or forgo the comforts of the ship. So really, all that leaves is the length of time as the true detractor for me. A five-day cruise - especially with no sea days - is both too short and feels quite busy.

Final thoughts

I think we would sail Sky again given the right circumstances, but it won't be in the next couple of years. Its Cuba routes aren't a huge draw for us (Canadians don't have as many travel restrictions, so it's less of a novelty to go there on vacation) and Sky currently tops out at 5 day sailings. I'd recommend it as a good way to get started with cruising. For those with a more strictly metered set of vacation days, you could still fly in the day before and be back home in less than a week.

I'd also like to thank whoever at NCL was responsible for our VIP upgrade, since I'm still not certain what we did to warrant the premium service. It was entirely unexpected and acted as the "icing on top" for our vacation. We don't expect the same treatment in future, but certainly wouldn't turn it down if it happened again!

Our remaining CruiseNext certificate from Epic has already been applied toward a 9-day Baltic Sea cruise aboard the Norwegian Escape, but that's still over a year away. In the meantime, I'll keep looking for a way to get back on the Waterfront...