BirdTravels

We disembarked in Miami last Saturday. CBP was not using the "normal" facial recognition system. They were checking everyone and everyone's passport (like the old days). Non-US people had to wear big "IMMIGRATIONS" stickers and were routed to other lines. Someone in front of us got pulled to secondary inspection leaving us with no CBP officer serving our line. It is strange that they are hassling closed loop passengers on a cruise ship with 100% accountability.

Haven/Suite guests are now "allowed" to carry their own food. On our cruise in August, we were told that we would be "breaking a law" if anyone caught us carrying our own food,,, and not having our butler carry it for us. One night, the Haven restaurant manager carried our desserts to our room, which was just outside the door of the restaurant. Another day, a waiter carried our left over sushi up to our room so that no one would see us with plates in our hand.

It is a smaller, older ship. A class of ship that we all "grew up" on. It does not have all of the entertainment that the newer, larger ships have and features that make it feel more "old fashion". I am not taking about race tracks, etc. Just different entertainment venues with different live music every night. If it was an itinerary we liked (like the British Isle or Baltic), we would sail on the Dawn. If it were to places with other larger ships (like the Caribbean), we would pick a bigger, newer ship. We last sailed on the Dawn on a cruise from Boston to Quebec. The small ship worked a lot better in the small Canadian ports up the St. Lawrence.

Agreed. Keurig is a gimmick and not designed to pour a good cup of coffee, regardless of what pod you use.

Since you can use your vouchers in any restaurant, wine should be available in all restaurants except Onda and Palomar (who have a sustainable wine list). Post-restart, they had the pre-pandemic wine list, which they had a lot of supply chain issues provisioning. (We had been on our 3rd or 4th choice before we found a bottle in stock on cruises right after the restart). Now, they have cut the list down to a few selections.

Regular rooms (including mini-suites/club balcony suites) have a single serve Hamilton Beach available on request. Not K-Cup. Uses round filter pack. Full Suites/Haven Rooms have Nespresso

Pro Tip: Check-in times at the port are assigned on a first-come-first-serve basis as part of online check-in. If you want an early check-in time, doing your online check exactly at Day 21 midnight edt will give you the full selection of times. By Day 20, early check-in times will be sold out.

In the past, kids that broke curfew were escorted to Security and parents had to pick them up (just to emphasize to parents that it was their responsibility to abide by the rules).

The Joy used to use La Cucina for their Suites Breakfast/Lunch dining room. And outside of meal time, the Suites Concierge used to have a desk in the atrium.

On recent cruises, we have paid $339 for 7 days. We would not sail without a thermal suite pass, so if we booked an aft balcony, we would get a pass to go along with it.

This is the "normal" email that they send out right now. The email basically says that you did not get an upgrade as part of the normal process. Pre-pandemic, that would be the end of upgrade process. What they are saying is that with COVID and a lot of last minute cancellations and no-shows, they will fill those rooms, if they decide they want to go through the effort, on embarkation day. We got our final "denied" email about 90 minutes after departure.

Day passes are sold at the discretion of the Spa and normally only on slow port days. If the weekly passes are sold out, the Spa may not sell day passes. Our our cruise last week (not the Jewel), they sold day passes on port days for $99/day,,, it probably will be a bit less on the Jewel.

This is "normal" right now. With a lot of COVID cancellations, they continue to process upgrades with all of the late cancellations and no-shows. We got our final "unable to upgrade" email about 90 minutes after sailing.

Normally means that you entered a bad credit card number when you bid.

You will pay taxes in some US ports. Not ALL.

Both perfectly reasonable gratuities an in line with what we would do. We tipped our room steward $100 last week. Merry Christmas NCL.

It works like food republic and sushi. 4 items off the menu.

Dining reservations, if you have not made them all at 120 days prior to departure. Comedy show reservation. We do the same thing, stay down near Disney Springs and driver over in the morning, dropping our car rental at the port. But, we always get an early start to be at the port by 9:30ish.

The locker rooms were [very] small. Personally, I never used the locker rooms. I just plant my stuff on a lounger and go and enjoy the saunas and steam room. Some people ran into the locker rooms to get a robe, but it is not a place to hang out. I see a lot of discussion on cold weather cruises. "The sun deck is cold in Iceland" or "My balcony was too cold on the TA". I am not sure that this would be any different on any other ship in the world. If fact, when we sail TA, we normally take an Ocean View room because we know that there is little/no balcony time. The Prima is purpose built for cold weather cruising with heated pools and water features. Outdoor areas have heaters (red circle below). Does that mean that all of the passengers will be outside in the cold... definitely not.... but some will. There is lots to do inside and the daily activities are adjusted when passengers are likely to be insider more.... just like any other cruise ship in the world. I would have no issues with taking a cold weather cruise on the Prima.

If you are cruising later in the season to the Dawes glacier, it is better to be on the port side. It is actually better to be out on deck from the time you leave Juneau until you get to the glacier, but if you're in your room for while, the port side will have more views. Other than that, you are far out to sea moving from/to Seattle to Alaska and once in the fjords, either side is o.k. We normally spend a lot of time out on our balcony in the evening watching for sea life (whales, dolphin, etc.). I am attaching three links below so you can see some of the Dailies. These are my live posts from Alaska cruises: 2021 Encore to Alaska (no Canadian stop due to COVID restrictions); 2019 Joy to Alaska; 2018 Bliss to Alaska. In 2022, we sailed to Alaska on RCL (oops).

Yes. The casino is open. On departure from Seattle, the casino won't open until you are out of Washington State and Canadian waters. So, it will open between 8:30 pm and 9:00 pm. During the cruise, the casino will be open shortly after leaving each port. On return, the casino is normally closed on the last day as you approach and enter Canadian and Washington State waters for arrival in Victoria.

We were on a cruise in August and ended up stopping to lend assistance to two refugee boats off the cost of Havana. We took them back to Miami with us.

The NCL Upgrade Advantage is almost identical to the RCCL Royal Up.

That is incorrect.

Yup. Saw that. If you aren't doing your job, time to clean house.