The Traveling Man

Most likely they either will confiscate them and return them to you at the end of the cruise or else they will charge you a corkage fee and let you keep them. It’s possible that you may slip them past the security check, but then they may take bags to the “naughty” room instead of delivering them to your room. If they do, you will need to claim them and probably have to pay the corkage fee at that time.

We also have done it on board. The Guest Service Desk did in a snap on a cruise where my wife wanted to take some tours while I just wanted to explore the towns on my own. We walked straight across the atrium from Guest Services to Shore Excursions and the sequence of who was listed first on our account was already changed. That way she got the discount instead of me.

Yes, but in most cases the points required to move from one level to the next are about double the points needed to reach the previous level.

Thanks for the info. When we were on the Pr1ma on the cruise after yours I didn’t try to connect, but heard one the crew members tell someone that it was not possible.

NCL usually requires everyone debarking to be out of their room by about 8:30 and off the ship by 9:00 or 9:30. We have sailed into Civitavecchia four or five times and have never had a major delay in getting through the terminal. You can take a taxi from the pier to the railway station for about 15 Euros, or you can take the port shuttle from the pier to the main gate and a city bus from there to the train. You’ll save a bit of money with the bus, but it’s a lot more hassle. There are ticket kiosks at the station to speed the process.

The V!va is probably arranged the same as the Pr1ma. I can’t be sure about Haven stateroom TVs, but in the regular cabins last year on the Pr1ma it was not possible to connect other devices via HDMI.

Diamond was added last year as a stepping stone between Platinum Plus (now called Sapphire) and Ambassador.

That is scary. Prior to COVID, NCL took in about $5 billion per year and had expenses of about $4 billion. They were shut down, with virtually no income, for about 18 months. They should have been able to reduce their costs during that period, so they should have been able to get by with about an additional $5 to $6 billion. Oh wait, I forgot that Frank Del Rio still got his salary and bonus.

I haven’t pored over an NCL annual report in a couple of years, so I wasn’t aware of how big their interest obligations were. So you’re saying that the annual interest is $0.5 billion per year? That would seem to suggest that their debt is around $5 billion. That’s about as much as their peak annual gross revenue prior to COVID. That’s scary debt levels.

Thank you for your thoughtful and insightful remarks. We sailed on Pr1ma’s second cruise last September and can confirm most all of your misgivings about it. We are on the Dawn at present. Several of the officers on our ship were on the Pr1ma last year and they confirmed many of the negatives you noted. One comment in particular caught my attention. You said that since this is not NCL’s first time running a cruise ship, they ought to have been able to do a better job of it with the Pr1ma. During dinner with one of the senior officers this week, he remarked that the Pr1ma had been designed by an architectural design team which had no previous shipboard experience. He particularly noted that they failed to include adequate provisions for transporting supplies to the various bars and restaurants and then removing waste products without having to go through areas open to passengers. I hadn’t thought of that, but I do seem to recall seeing crew members on the Pr1ma carting trash down the hallways sometimes. He noted several other design features which simply are convoluted and make things more difficult for the crew. He said he has hopes, however, that they fix some of things in time for the V!va, Aqua, and Bella.

With 19 ships, NCL’s total capacity is about 55,000 pax. At $30 per person per day, that comes to more than $1.5 million per day in interest. Is it really that much?

When flying from a European airport back to the US, you bet we do. Most airports in Europe ask that you arrive three hours early for international flights and some cut off the check in process a couple of hours or so before departure time.

Only 70?

What might you anticipate in the way of additional benefits for this new tier? What could NCL offer beyond the free cruise that Ambassador already gets?

We have managed to get to the airport from the port by 9:00 AM a couple of times, and have never encountered any problems. Sometimes, though, ships are delayed coming up the river from the Gulf, and some have had delays in debarkation. I wouldn’t recommend a flight before noon.

We are on board the Dawn. The Cruise Next director just now mentioned that Aqua has been announced as the name of the next ship. Following that will be the Bella. I’m not sure how NCL intends to substitute special characters for alphabetical ones as they did with Pr1ma and V!va. Anyone want to speculate? Maybe @qu@ and 3ella?

We have sailed with NCL on 30+ cruises and have eaten in specialty restaurants well over 100 times. We usually make our reservations weeks before sailing, but sometimes need to reschedule once we are on board. On a few occasions we even have just dropped in without a reservation. The status of available seating in the restaurants is posted on monitors around the ship. Although there have been a few instances when everything is fully booked during the peak time, roughly 6-8 PM, most times that we have checked the board there has been availability at one or more restaurants at various times of the evening. You may not be able to get your choice of your favorite restaurant, but usually you can get in somewhere or another with little delay. Even on cruises that are overbooked, i.e. more than two persons in some rooms, we have found some of the specialty restaurants have plenty of available space, particularly on the first few nights of the cruise. I do recommend making reservations in advance, of course. If your plans change, then the next best option is to rearrange your reservations while on board, but still a day or two before you plan to visit the specialty restaurant. If all else fails, however, you usually still can find somewhere with availability if you're willing to wait a bit.

On most cruises, in most specialty restaurants, you occasional can find an opening when you can just walk in and be seated after a brief wait. Most of the more popular dining times will already be reserved, of course, but you usually can find a opening.

They usually have the house band on hand for a half-hour or so playing dance music, although I don't recall anyone ever getting up to dance. They sometimes offer hors d'oeuvres, but lately that has meant cheese cubes on toothpicks and not much else. They introduce some of the senior officers. In the past many of the officers would hang around and schmooze with the guests, but recently they seem to make a dash for the door soon after the introductions. Frequently the CN Director will introduce any Ambassador Latitudes members on board. On the Pr1ma last September in Norway there were about a half-dozen Ambassadors who were recognized. My wife and I are a bit short of Ambassador, but apparently we were the most senior Diamond members on board. We had sailed with the CN Director on a couple of previous cruises and she remembered us from those sailings, so she also introduced us. I was quite surprised she did that, but it was a very thoughtful gesture.

We have been to Alaska on three different NCL ships, the Sun, Jewel, and Joy. The next time we go, it almost certainly will not be with NCL. Maybe Celebrity, maybe even Holland, but not NCL. NCL ships usually dock well outside of town at several ports in Alaska, meaning a sometimes long bus ride to get where you're going. It's disheartening to get off the bus in Ketchikan or Juneau, only to find several ships from other cruise lines docked right in town. You're going to have a couple of sea days traveling to or from either Seattle or Vancouver, so you may want to look for an itinerary of more than a week. That way you may be able to have a greater percentage of your time in port rather than at sea. I have sailed on the Bliss and the Edge and loved both of those ships, but have no knowledge of the others you mentioned. For me, though, the driving factor would be the itinerary. Look carefully at the arrival and departure times for each port stop, where your ship is slated to dock, and which glaciers you will visit. As others have advised here, avoid any ship which is not well suited to cold weather cruising, e.g. the Pr1ma, V!va, Sun, and Sky. Also keep in mind that Alaskan ports are rather small, so sailing on a mega-ship with 4000 of your closest friends may overwhelm the port facilities at several of your stops. The smaller ships also may be able to sail closer to the glaciers.

I agree that $120 for a BTS tour seems awfully high, but as a Latitude member you are entitled to a free BTS tour. The Cruise Next staff members know in advance exactly how many Platinum, Sapphire, Diamond, etc. members are booked for that cruise. They have, or should have, records of how many Latitude members have signed up for BTS tours, Dinner with an Officer, Wine Tasting, etc. on previous cruises, so they ought to have an excellent estimate of how many will want to partake of each benefit on every cruise. This nonsense that they are fully booked and have to turn you away is just that, nonsense. Put your foot down. Show them the website page which promises you, as a Latitude member, certain benefits. You have paid for them by your loyalty. You have paid NCL thousands of dollars for the cruises you have taken to achieve your level in the Latitudes program. NCL owes you. I certainly understand that sometimes safety issues, such as COVID precautions, might require NCL to suspend certain activities such as the BTS tour, just as rough seas sometimes require that a port of call must be skipped. Poor planning on the part of the Cruise Next staff, however, is not a valid excuse for denying you a benefit to which you are entitled. OK, now I'll come down off my soap box. I also agree that the Latitudes Party is not as much fun as it used to be. It now seems more like an opportunity for the Cruise Next staff to make a sales pitch to a captive audience. Not only have they discontinued the door prizes, they also used to serve some wonderful hors d'oeuvres. Now you're lucky to be offered some cheese cubes on toothpicks. In the before time, when few if any passengers had a drink package and each beverage came with a charge to your account, the free cocktails at the Latitudes Party had some real value. Today almost everyone has a drink package, so once again there isn't much value there.

I never have taken the paid tour, but have gone on the free tour for Latitudes members on several different ships. We were specifically told that photos were not allowed anywhere along the "I-95" corridor. We have never had problems taking photos in the galley, laundry, backstage, or anywhere on the bridge. The bridge is no usually a part of the Latitudes BTS tour, but we have been invited there on a few occasions.

Creepy on so many levels.

Exactamundo.

How many stopovers and airplane changes will you have between Anchorage and Love?