McDebbie

Whew, made it to page 22.

Gambee, do you think you would be willing to sell any of your pictures? I am looking at some of the illusion pictures for my living room. I have tons of the beach, ships, etc myself but they just don's seem to fit the style I am looking for. When you get a chance email me at da77@bellsouth.net and also I think you might want to think about them for the Las Olas art festival next year. (me first though)

OMG just watched the sail away video on page 9 because they WON'T let me watch at work! (dogs) It was great. Back now to catch up on more...

P.S. DH's first question was "what kind of camera" and I told him not to go there. :D Then he said you should get paid for this. Carnival owes you promotional $$.

Wow, nice work. But why do I keep reading these posts?? I already KNOW the package isn't for us but I'll be plugging the numbers with DH tonight 'just for fun'. With a drink... :D

Great review and pictures. Can't wait to come back later and catch the video that I can't get at work... :D

I believe you can take sealed food, yogurt, cereal, something like that. But I might be thinking about what you can bring back on... :D But why would you want to? This is the chance to savor great new foods. I'm sure the ports board will have lots of recommendations for places to eat and snacks to grab.

DH got one today and was pretty excited... but I, being a faithful CC reader remembered this thread! :D This one looks like a check and has the NCL logo all over it but on the back of the "check" (which has no amount) it says it is a promotional offer from IIG Promotions and "may" require attendance at a 90 minute presentation. Age, income and marital status requirements apply.

Dead giveaway for a timeshare promotion....

Port restrictions, travel date restrictions AND cruise must be taken prior to receiving air fare. hahaha, that was pretty funny - the print ad makes it sound like you can get the airfare to the port to travel.

For what it's worth, the offer number was 3777 and the phone number 855-733-7139 for anybody who wants to check it out.

When going into Glacier Bay we went up top but leaving we made sure we were on our aft balcony. The ship makes a very slow turn around and we got to see everything back there plus much more as we were leaving. DH has some fabulous pictures of birds flying by the ship with the glacier in the background and then the birds perched on an ice chunk.

And as the others said, the wind is really blocked back there. We were able to sit out on the balcony without coats for much of the cruise. (early September)

Not worth it for us. We like to have happy hour on our balcony and it would be a pain to go get a drink, go back to the balcony (aft) go get a drink, go back to the balcony... DH drinks mostly beer so he just gets a bucket and I get the bar set up to be in the room.

As first time cruisers though I doubt you will be spending much time in the cabin even if you do have a balcony so it may be very well worth it for you.

Great review, love all the pictures! We won't be getting Vibe passes because DH is not the type to sit around in the sun so curious about your thoughts on H20 also. Looks like your poor hubby got quite the sunburn too!

Thanks for the insight. We booked this last week. We are a short distance drive.

 

We too are not partiers. But it is a good quick getaway cruise to sample the suite life before our seven-day cruise next year out of Tampa.

I think it is going to spoil the suite life for you. :D There are so many fewer suites on the Sky that you get a lot more attention than on some of the larger ships. And don't worry about the rowdy crowds, you can go right from your sweet suite balcony to Cagneys for breakfast and lunch.

The forward hot tub is really nice, most people never discovered it. And we found that the first 2 nights the dining rooms were pretty empty, I think the partiers couldn't make it to dinner. ;)

DH and I got married on a beach in Florida, me in a long casual wedding gown and he in tan dress pants and a Hawaiian shirt. A year later we went on a cruise for the 1st anniversary and I wanted professional photos of us in our wedding clothes. Of course it was formal night that evening and my DH was a little out of place in his Hawaiian shirt among all the tuxes and suits. We didn't even think about it until we were sitting down. :eek:

I live in S Florida and have sat on the turnpike for more than an hour when there was a wreck. And remember that Ft Lauderdale has the port security that each vehichle has to go through, not like just breezing into the port in Miami. If I were you I would think maybe leaving an hour earlier, you can always take a nap in your cabin later when you are on board.

We leave at 10:30 to get to the port and we're only 15 minutes away! :D I'm a little nervous until we are actually onboard.

Just thought I would let all of you planners know that Target has 5 pocket file folders in the $1 section this week. I have moved more to electronic means of keeping my planning info but I do like to keep all of the daily papers, photo's ect proctected in my luggage so I still take some kind of semi rigid file.

I bought one of each color for all of my past cruise papers - until the day I get around to scanning them all. Yeah, right - just like the day I get around to scanning all my old photos. :D

Hope this doesn't count as advertising - not promoting Target :) just promoting a deal on plastic file folders!

Oh please! Cruise Critic members never get bored with pictures! :D

We had that same cabin but unfortunately it was during the repositioning from Boston to Tampa during Super Storm Sandy. We never did get to use the balcony much. I don't think I would book it again but I did love that bathroom.

You MIGHT want to take one pair of pants for DH and son that are not jeans if you are going to eat in Le Bistro or Cagney's. Not required but they may feel more comfortable. Open toed shoes for women are fine. Last cruise my DH never even put on his "dress" shorts but that was on the Sky which is very very casual.

Best thing about NCL is the dress code, I wanted to try MSC since they have such good Florida resident rates but when looking at the dress code we both said "forget it". I doubt I will ever see my DH in a tux again <sigh> Oh well, I have the pictures and I personally will never struggle into another Spanx. hehehe

Nice!

Can't get the videos at work but will check them out this evening, thanks! Can't wait to go in October.

Oh sheesh ^^^

If you add the tips to your account the day before you return the front desk staff will normally have added it to the butler or concierge's account by the last day and they will come to thank you. And like the others have said, it is nice not to have to carry the extra cash.

Thanks for the review and all the pictures! Hope they still have the scallop dish in October we we go.

We did 16 days on the Dawn in 2012 and only ate in the specialty restaurants twice. We may have done Blue Lagoon or whatever they call the 24 hour place more than twice... hehe can't remember. I've found the MDR to be perfectly acceptable most times we were there and if not, we just sent it back.

Come to think of it, my worst meal was Le Bistro which we normally love but the sauce they put over my steak was so salty I coudn't eat it. But that went back and a replacement had with no problem.

Thanks for the review and the great pictures! Can't wait to get onboard in October.

Did you book your tour for St Thomas St John through NCL? We would like to go to St John but not sure if I want the hassle of doing it on our own.

Try calling about 10 to a week in advance for an upgrade. During that last week they are upselling everybody so by the time you get to port it will be too late.

It was worth it! They allow you to go really fast so it's kind of a rough ride, but fun. My husband and I were also toward the top of the weight limit on a double so we definitely trailed behind the other riders who were mostly singles. The guides were super nice about us being behind so as long as it doesn't bother you, it's fine. They didn't weight us and I didn't see any place that they could.

 

My biggest suggestion is DON'T GET OFF TO SEE THE STAR FISH! The water is about 3-4 feet deep and you need a lot of upper body strength to get yourself back on the jet ski. It was very cool to see the star fish, but the guides would have brought the star fish to us and I should have let them. I did end up getting back on myself, just as the guides were coming over to help me, but it was not a pretty sight. LOL

This was so us! I had bruises on my legs trying to get back on. :D

We lagged behind too and I found it was very rough on my back when we tried to catch up to the other riders (crossing their waves) I would never do it as a double again, I would get my own.

Your price may be high right now because it is Spring Break time when you are going.

Thanks for the tips and the spreadsheet!

I've found the value not to be quite as good as on a land based vacation. They will charge you an exchange fee so you need to reduce the discount by that much. And I think there was another fee we had to pay.

They would not allow any discounts such as the AMEX or AARP (for NCL) so that was a bummer too.

In the future we will save our weeks and share with the kids for a land vacation and then watch the on line cruise company deals. We recently got a match OBC for the NCL Dash sale and prepaid tips which came to just over $300.