alwalaska

Have you seen if the other main dining room has a separate line for reservations that is well marked? On a prior cruise, some people with reservations were jumping the line, but I felt awkward doing that. Most of our reservations are in the other dining room because you can wear shorts.

Thank you all so much!! Clark, I will be very careful to not fall asleep while browsing. It is good to know that I have to choose to login. I will be very careful about logging out. The main thing about the CC being free is so that I can update others in case our photo scavenger hunt plans need to change.

I'm sailing soon and I have never used the Latitude or Free at Sea minutes. I will have my laptop, tablet and phone with me. Hubby probably will not want to use his minutes, or only a very small portion of them. We are both platinum and have the Free at Sea package on an 11 day cruise in an interior cabin. Can someone tell me how this all works? When I run out of my minutes, can I log out and log in as hubby to use his minutes? All I could find was "one device at a time", so can I log out on one device and in on another later? Also, someone mentioned that Cruise Critic is now free and doesn't use Inernet minutes when on the ship. How do I do this without accidentally use minutes? In the past I always just put my phone in airplane mode and stayed unplugged, but since I have the minutes this time, I'd like to use them and not come back home to as many old emails to deal with. Thanks!!!

I'm loving your review. Can't wait to see what comes next. Thanks for taking the time to write all of this up.

Thank you so much for sharing all of this info. I can't wait for next week.

The Dawn is currently showing on both Taino Bay and Amber Cove's schedules for all 3 visits in January. So far, reports on FB of passengers that were onboard that the one before the one you are showing here docked at Taino Bay and this one docked at Amber Cove. Someone's estimate that maybe TB is less expensive and that could be it. I know when I was researching the draught on the Dawn to see if the Dawn was closer to the Sky (seemed to consistently go to TB) or the bigger ships like the Escape, and I was surprised to learn that it was almost identical to the big ships, so I guess it is a toss-up from a sandbar safety standpoint.

Yeah, I think HAL is owned by Carnival corp, so that doesn't bode well for the Dawn and the Gem. Some people have been rerouted to GSC. Good luck and have a wonderful cruise wherever the ship ends up going.

Me too, but as far as Puerto Plato goes, it seems like the Dawn is not going to dock at La Taino. When the most recent sailing boarded yesterday, they were given a letter saying the port has been replace with Puerto Rico. I checked the schedule and Amber Cove will have 2 ships on the day they were supposed to be there, so at least that part of the theory is still standing. I really wish NCL would tell people BEFORE they get on the ship.

I hope you are right. I was trying to find the draught on the different ships, but it is not easy to find. It looks like the Sky is about 18 inches better off than the Dawn and the Dawn is only 6 inches better off than the Escape, unless the info I found was wrong.

The question is, other than the Sky, what is considered a smaller ship? We're on the Dawn in Feb and as far as I know, it has not been to Taino Bay yet, but our cruise hasn't been updated officially to Amber Cove either. Luckily (??), I don't see any other ships at either location on Feb 11, so hopefully we will make it to at least one of the two ports. I ended up booking a private tour rather than depending on being able to walk into town. Not giving NCL extra money just because they can't keep people informed.

I'm wondering if that is because it has not been updated yet. I do not think any of the large ships will dock at Taino Bay until the problems (narrow channel or something) that led to the damage on one of the ships last March is fixed. I've heard of a couple of cruises lately where they simply missed Puerto Plata or were changed to another port. One was told "civil unrest" which is possible, but not likely since there wasn't anything I could find in the news and the other was told "unknown" reasons. It seems like NCL is very low on the priority list for Amber Cove and only 2 ships can dock there. The Sky has been reliably hitting Taino Bay but is has a smaller draught that any of the other ships trying to call there. I'm curious to see what happens on Christmas with the Dawn since that is the ship we will be on in February. I guess we will find out when we get on board. So far, we are still going to Key West, but I realize that may change as well since the December sailings all had Key West cancelled.

I believe they both have pools and shopping areas, but I believe Taino Bay is the "new" one and Amber Cove was recently redone. I'm not positive though.

Any the Christmas in July sales.

We are booking an all-day taxi tour ahead of time. It is $120 for the two of us, and if we up it to 4 people, it is $140. Either way on the math for just a taxi to Puerto Plata, I'm feeling pretty good about our decision to book a taxi for all day on a cost basis. We are going to the cable car and then a short city tour and hopefully a quick stop at the fort and lighthouse.

I'm looking at them as well for Feb 14, 2023. Having them right at the pier seems like the easiest way to go. We rented from AVIS previously, but I can't find a location at the pier, even though the Advanced Car Rental thread mentions it.

Thanks for the explanation. That is crazy though. I think a lot of people get caught up in the bidding process and stop thinking about the overall price.

Thanks for taking time to post your info. I wouldn't affect any official excursions since they are only 5 miles or something apart, but Taino Bay is walking distance to both a fort and the old town while Amber Cove is neither. Even with the $50 off one of us, we typically don't do ship excursions.

That's sad. I was thinking about not booking anything and walking in Feb. Who is telling you Amber Cove? Did they change your itinerary officially? When I called NCL, they said Amber Cove had a different designation in their system then Taino Bay. It was actually considered a "different port", but that we wouldn't know until 2 weeks before sailing which location it would be.

Thanks for posting. That is good news for us since the Dawn is closer to the Sky in size than she is to the Escape and Getaway. When you have time, would you mind sharing your thoughts on the port area?

Thanks for the update. Needing the foreign port totally makes sense.

Sorry you didn't get to go at all. Was there ever an explanation? Did you just get another sea day?

I'd love to hear your Puerto Plata news when you get back. We sail in Feb in the Dawn. I hope they figure things out by then.

So, what happens with live bidding wars. I'm new to all if this.

We've been to St Thomas before, but haven't visited Paradise Point, or Charlotte Amalie. We want to try and do these 2 things. We're there in Feb from 11-7 on the NCL Dawn and I'm guessing all aboard is at 6. If the planning site is right, we are one of three ships and we're all at WICO. One is 200 people and the other two are around 2,500 each. The other good size ship is there 8-5. 1) Are there long lines to get back down from Paradise Point late in the day? 2) I'd like to take a shared taxi into Charlotte Amalie, but be dropped near the 3 queens statue, not down near the waterfront. Will this be possible? I have limited walking distance, so I trying to start at the top of what I want to see and walk down. 3) Will I be able to find a taxi to return to the ship? 4) If I decide to do Paradise point first, will there still be shared taxts to head over to Charlotte Amalie?

I'm enjoying your review. Thanks for sharing. I'm interested to see what happened to DR.