blackwing

People can view the same cruise differently. Just as in life, some people view things with a "glass half full" attitude while others are "glass half empty". The OP is very obviously a half-empty person who is generally pessimistic and negative and will find every thing to complain about. There are lots of these types of people on every cruise. Of course he should have the right to post his opinion, but others can also share their experiences and discuss as to why they don't agree with him. The one thing I do agree with him is about the scooters. There were a lot of scooters on our cruise. Most are very kind people. However, there was one lady in particular that I came to recognize. Every time I saw her, her jaw was clenched and set and she had this look in her eyes like she was in the Monaco Grand Prix. When you see her on the opposite site of the room, watch out. Because she was going at full speed and didn't care whose toes she was going to run over. She was an anomaly, but I do understand the context of OP's comment.

Yes, this is particularly helpful. My son has food allergies, and on our two earlier NCL cruises, they made sure to give us a set time and a set table with the same waiter every night. The waiter got to know him and how to handle his food. At the end of each night, he brought us the menus for the next day so we could pre-order his food. They would prepare his food separately in advance and ensure there was no cross contamination. NCL does a great job with handling allergies.

There's always various vegetarian options available on the menu. I think vegan however is another story, and if you are vegan, you should probably call ahead and ask for options. One day at lunch in the MDR we sat next to a vegan lady who was having what sounded like a protracted and painful conversation with the waiter who didn't seem to understand what she was asking for. She asked for the veggie burger when it wasn't on the menu that day, and she kept on insisting that it should always be available. Finally I believe her order ended up being "Veggie burger if available, no cheese or mayonnaise. If not, then BLT without bacon or mayonnaise. If not possible, then a Caesar salad without the cheese or dressing or the parmesan crouton." It sounded to me like the veggie burger would have had to be a special request if it was requested on a day in which it wasn't widely available. The BLT is made in advance and it wasn't good enough to simply remove the bacon or scrape off the mayonnaise because some of it would still have touched the bread. Caesar salad, sounds like she basically just wanted lettuce. My daughter and I are both fairly lactose intolerant and we made sure to always have plenty of lactaid. It's interesting to me that RCI gave you a vegan menu when you mentioned being lactose intolerant, there should be plenty of options on a regular menu (meat, etc) that aren't vegan but don't have dairy.

We ate at Ocean Blue on Getaway. We were at sea so the Waterfront seating was closed. The family in front of us had a reservation but were mostly in shorts and T-shirts. There was some discussion between them and the host and I think the host prevailed. The family got seated at the Raw Bar.

I'm curious about the "Goodbye NCL and maybe cruising forever" part. OP willingly embarked on a transatlantic cruise in April. Weather wasn't great, there were no "I sailed the Atlantic" t-shirts in the gift shop, food and passengers were slightly strange..... and because of that, he's swearing off cruising forever? I do sympathize about missing Gibraltar. But missing a port can happen on any cruise.

I'm wondering if OP can clarify if the fees were purely to select any regular seats or if he paid for extra legroom or something like that. Is the nonrefundable part because it is booked through NCL? Because our last trip to Europe, BA changed our flights. I had paid $50 per seat to select seats on the original flight. I applied for a refund on their website and I got it. But they said I had to wait until after I got home and after the date of the flight had passed.

My teenaged kids are both addicted to Tik Tok and You Tube, they waste so much time watching these stupid videos. Before we went on the cruise, I told them that each person gets 150 minutes of internet to do whatever they want - check email, play games, try and watch things. When the 150 is done, they will have no more internet. My kids learned to do other things on our cruise. They downloaded free games to play on their phones before we left that did not require wifi or internet. Still spent time on their phones but they weren't constantly watching Tik Toks. I guess it depends on how addicted your son is and whether he is willing to listen to you. My kids complained about not getting the unlimited internet and the option I gave them was that they could either come on the cruise and have 150 minutes, or they could stay home with grandparents and wifi. They both chose to come on the cruise.

I am curious about the responses that the FAS specilaty dining is non-transferable. On our recent cruise, we were a family of four booked into two cabins. Daughter and I were booked in an inside (one meal each) and wife and son were booked in a balcony (two meals each). On one night, all four of us went to Ocean Blue. The hostess asked for my card and wife's card, so we used the inside cabin's one day of meals and one day of the balcony's meals. On another night, wife and I went to Le Bistro. I made the reservation in my name. When it came time to pay, wife used her card. They deducted the two remaining meals left on her card. In reading the responses here, that meal technically should have been my son's. They should have known that I wasn't him since the reservation was in my name. I guess they either overlooked it or didn't care?

Since it was purchased on your behalf with actual money, it should be considered refundable. As far as casino, from what I have heard, you can use your onboard credit in the sense that onboard credit is used anywhere on the ship. The money is applied to your account. You purchase something onboard, it is charged against your account. However, with the casino, just be aware that if you make a purchase in the casino (i.e., buying cash/chips with your onboard account), I believe it incurs a 3% service charge.

Ahh, that makes sense. Good explanation. I won't bus my own table on my next cruise which will hopefully be soon!

You can even text people with iPhones back home on land for free, as long as you are on the wifi. Make sure you are on airplane mode! If you aren't on airplane mode and pick up the "Cellular at Sea" or whatever it is called, there could be huge charges from your phone company as you will be on data roaming. Get on airplane mode. Get on the wifi. Then you can text for free to other iPhones. If you want to hop on the internet and use your 150 minutes you will have to push the "Internet" button on the app. Make sure you log off, or turn off the wifi momentarily, otherwise the minutes could keep running.

I would call them and ask them. I would ask them if they can give you the 2nd day since you are in a balcony now. Or ask if you can "cancel" your original booking and rebook at the new price. Ask them to waive the cancellation fees since you aren't really cancelling. And honestly, if the first agent says no, call back and hope the next agent is understanding.

I would consider booking one balcony and one inside across the hall. Your older kid is 21 so the two kids could be in the inside cabin by themselves. Otherwise each parent could take one kid. Halfway through the cruise, switch cabins so both kids get to be in the balcony cabin for about half the cruise. That's what my family of four (two teens) just did on Getaway. It's obviously more expensive than squeezing four of you into a balcony cabin, but you will be a lot more comfortable. Think about when you do land trips and four of you are in one hotel room. Biggest issue for us is always that there is only one toilet. We've started booking two connecting rooms when doing land trips. The extra space is needed.

If no one was there, I placed my dirty plates and cup in the bin with the other dirty dishes. When someone was there, they either took the items from me or I just put them in the bin myself. The crew said thank you, every time. I saw a few others bussing their own table as well, and the crew looked appreciative.

We were on the 3/24 - 3/31 Getaway sailing. We only ended up getting two days in Bermuda because of rough seas. On the first day we took a taxi to Warwick Long Bay. It was pretty deserted. Saw two man o' war on the beach, although I think they might have just been the float sac because I didn't see any tentacles, I actually thought they were packing material at first. Then we walked the path to Horseshoe Bay and saw all the little beaches in between. Stayed there until about 4 and then took the public bus back. Day two, I wanted to go to St. George but the ship was departing at 6 so in order to make it worth it, I wanted us to take the 9:30 AM ferry The next ferry was 11 or 11:30 I think, and it takes an hour. The last ferry back was at 3 or 3:30. I thought taking the 11 wasn't worth it because it'd be two hours on ferries for three hours of walking around. I got outvoted on the 9:30. So we just stayed in the Dockyards area and walked around the shops. I heard from some that went to St. George that they were disappointed, a lot of places were closed. If we had a third day I would have insisted on going to either Hamilton or St. George.

It's the place where the workers bring all the dirty plates, etc. Looks like a cubicle with wooden walls. There's several throughout the buffet. On Getaway, one of them is very close to where that automatic wine dispenser (that no longer gets used because of FAS I presume) is.

For some reason, as soon as people step foot on to a cruise ship, many seem to turn into lord and lady of the manor and every crew member on board has become their servant. People treat the buffet like a sit down restaurant. I think it is more like a counter service / fast food restaurant. At McDonald's or Chipotle, you get your food, you find an empty table, you sit down. You eat. When you are done eating, the natural thing to do is to take your trash and baskets and utensils to the garbage can, where there is also a bin to collect items that aren't disposable like plates and baskets and utensils. Why doesn't this get done by more people at the buffet? The buffet staff does go around and collect empty plates from guests. But if I was ever done and there were no staff around, I would take my dirty plates and cup and utensils to the cleaning station. Hardly anyone seems to do this. In addition to cups in the elevator, how about the cups and plates in the hallways? Some people don't even place them right outside their door, they push them out a little so half of the plate is in the pathway. Is it so people can trip over them? I never left plates or cups in the hall, I would always leave on the balcony. In an inside room, I just left on the desk. People seem to love to leave cups and plates all over the place. I don't know why people seem to like to leave bowls of melting ice cream at the top of the stairs. Or cups in the elevator. One time I saw two teens walking towards the stairs. There was a crew member in the area who was cleaning. One kid actually took his drink glass and set it down against the wall and then kicked it over in front of the crew member. The friend actually said something. He picked up all the ice by hand and put it back into the glass and apologized to the crew member, saying "I don't know why he would do something like that, sorry". That kid has good parents.

Thanks for your review, I was on this sailing as well. This was our first time travelling out of New York and it was definitely different experiencing the really rough seas. I got seasick on Monday and my daughter got seasick on Friday. Neither of us had ever gotten seasick on cruises before. I agree with you that it kind of stinks when the weather is cold/windy and everything on 15 and 16 is closed. I put on my fleece and sat on the deck chairs against the window, sort of protected against wind, and did some reading. But it wasn't ideal. We didn't go to anything in the theater besides Million Dollar Quartet and Burn the Floor, so I have no idea what it was like. I had a feeling Wheel of Fortune was going to be a disaster, it's kind of embarrassing that NCL considers this to be worthy of occupying a prime nighttime slot in the theater. This should have been something done during the day there. I'm not a big comedy show fan so I skipped all the Levity Entertainment, curious if they are any good. I really think that instead of Wheel of Fortune, they could have moved MDQ's "Broadway Unplugged" show to the theater instead. There were so many people that couldn't get into the Illusionarium for their two shows there on one night only. The buffet, I was looking for hash browns as well, came here after we got back and see that it's apparently something of a sore subject. Agree with you that the country potatoes were not good. The corned beef hash, I've never seen corned beef hash that looks like that. It seemed like it was the country potatoes with some kind of mystery meat in it. Whatever it was was really brown looking, not looking like corned beef at all. We enjoyed the cruise a lot overall. It was great to spend time together as a family. I would sit on a cold pool deck reading rather than going to work and eating even "ok but not great" food every day if it means we don't have to cook it or wash the dishes.

We were off Getaway last Sunday. I got a few MDR reservations in advance, others I made as soon as we boarded. It definitely made a difference. With a reservation, we were seated right away. Without a reservation, we were given a pager and had to wait about 20 - 30 minutes. There were two host desks at each dining room. One was to line up and get a pager. The other was if you had a reservation or if your pager buzzed.

Because I've seen others who are trying to refill disposable plastic bottles do just that. The opening is so narrow and some think it's easier to just stick the bottle under the spout. It's good that you don't do that, and I guess it makes sense if you don't use ice that you wouldn't have to worry about trying to fit ice cubes through the narrow opening.

Do you stick it right under the spout? Because you're not supposed to. The buffet staff often tells people they need to get water with a glass and fill their bottle from the glass. Seems more difficult to fill a narrow neck disposable bottle with a glass. And you can't get ice into them. While I carried around a Hydroflask because I could put hot tea into it, my kids used their ubiquitous $5 green Gatorade squeeze bottles that many kids who play high school sports have. Refillable bottles don't need to be expensive. You're not supposed to be allowed to bring back any outside food or water onto the ship. I saw security make a guy throw out an entire uneaten wrapped sandwich that it seems like he had just bought. That said, we filled our water bottles on the ship, took them off ship, and boarded back with them and the crew didn't say anything. I was prepared to empty the water but they didn't make us do so.

We were there last week and really enjoyed it. It's the iconic, most well known Bermuda beach. It's beautiful and my daughter and I really liked the rock formations and the little cave/inlet on the right side. However, I wouldn't say the waters are calm, especially if you venture further out. Someone drowned last Wednesday 3/27, so if you're looking for calm, I would avoid. When you are leaving, you can't miss them. The drivers are constantly hawking at you to get passengers. We are a family of four and we took a taxi to Warwick Long Bay (just a little further than Horseshoe) and then walked the path to Horseshoe. Really enjoyable. If you have four people in your party, I would recommend taking a taxi from Dockyards to Warwick or Horseshoe. It costs just a little more, but you get your own ride, and best of all, our taxi driver was constantly narrating and pointing out places of interests and giving us facts about the island and answering our questions. It was informative and well worth it.

Agreed. And you make a good point, she could easily have been booked on another cruise afterwards, perhaps Barcelona to Rome. The daughter says her mom saved $20,000 for this trip of a lifetime, I think that she should be taken at face value. But I still think the daughter doesn't have any right to complain about NCL "dumping" her mom in a hospital alone. Somebody should have been travelling with her. The daughter and son-in-law relied on an Apple Air Tag to let them know where Mom was? What a joke. Mom should have been providing regular updates. They said they noticed that the Air Tag stayed in Sao Tome even though the ship had moved on. They said they didn't hear from Mom until Mom used someone's phone to call them. If Mom didn't have a phone or didn't know how to communicate with them back home, she definitely shouldn't have been travelling alone.

I don't think giddy is the right word. I think maybe disgusted is a better word. For me, I am disgusted at the attempt by the lead couple to blame everything on NCL. I am disgusted at the fact that they contacted media immediately to get their name and photo splashed all across international news. I'm disgusted that the woman claims she wasn't sure if she wanted to get back on board because she didn't feel "safe" about how NCL handled this, but then promptly got on board once it became apparent that NCL wasn't going to give her any additional money beyond the Gambia to Senegal money. And I'm disgusted that even though they are back on board, they are still contacting the media and doing interviews.

It was the 80 year old woman's daughter who said she saved $20,000 for this trip. I'm not sure of the actual cost.