The Traveling Man

I agree wholeheartedly. The ship could be late arriving in port. Clearance to disembark could be delayed due to a medical emergency or an error on the ship's manifest. Taxi drivers could be on strike. The train could be delayed or cancelled for any number of reasons. The point is, do you want to run the risk of missing your connection simply to save a few minutes or a few dollars? You're on vacation. Why intentionally leave yourself open to the stress of potentially missing your flight or your cruise? The odds that a problem will occur may be low, but why risk it? Allow plenty of time, enjoy a beverage or a meal while you wait, and chill out.

Yes, that has been our experience at most UK ports, including two Transatlantic cruises disembarking at Southampton. On our most recent cruise to Southampton last September, however, we were delayed for almost two hours by Customs officers (or perhaps they were Immigration officers) who carefully examined the passports of everyone exiting the ship. The ship was cleared for disembarkation at 7:00 AM. We left our stateroom a couple of minutes after 7:00, took the elevator down to the gangway deck, and found ourselves in line behind about 1000 of the 3000 passengers on board. It was almost 9:00 AM when we reached the taxi queue outside the terminal. Our cruise experience may have been a rare anomaly, but I mentioned it as a caution to the OP, who has chosen to plan a very tight schedule for travel from the ship to the airport.

Actually, the big hang up on that cruise seemed to be Panama. Most of the other countries that we visited allowed US citizens to visit with any form of government issued photo ID. Panama required that we carry our passport - no photocopies accepted.

Rome, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona...

Thank you. That's good to know. Things can be quite different in the US. We were on a closed loop cruise on the Sky this February from Miami to Panama, Colombia, Costa Rica and other countries before returning to Miami. US Customs agents took more than two hours to process all the passengers returning to Miami.

What I said is that many airports request that passengers arrive three hours before the departure time of the flight. Some state this as a requirement, although sometimes that may be interpreted simply as a strongly worded request. There are several airports, though, which do close their check-in counters two hours prior to flight time for international flights. We have encountered this in Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris. We have never been late for check in at any of those airports, but we have seen them close the gates behind us and have seen other passengers who arrived after us being turned away.

Our cruise was from Copenhagen via Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France on the Prima last September. The OP's cruise on the Dawn is scheduled to depart Southampton with stops within the EU at Le Havre, Zeebrugge, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and two places in Ireland before returning to Southampton. Our itinerary was slightly different, but included many of the same ports of call. I do not live in Great Britain, so I will defer to those who do as to the customs of British Customs. It seems reasonable to me, however, that the OP might possibly encounter some of the same delays that we did upon arrival in Southampton.

I hope you enjoy your trip and that all goes well for you. It sounds like you have your plans in order and that you are comfortable with close connections and a tightly scheduled itinerary. I likely would not want to cut it so close. On our last cruise arrival in Southampton, delays with Customs meant that it took two hours from the time we walked out of our stateroom until we got into a taxi. It usually takes less than an hour. We had allowed almost two hours, which meant that we were a couple of minutes late to catch our National Express bus to Heathrow. Fortunately we had planned on getting to the airport four hours early, so we were able to make it to our flight. If we had planned all of our connections as tightly as you have, though, we would have missed our flight.

The cruise originates in Vancouver, not a US port.

Google Wikipedia "missing dollar riddle."

The bigger issue might be the less than two hour arrival time at the airport. Most airports in Europe recommend, and some require, an arrival time at least three hours prior to your flight's departure time. Some airports will refuse to check in passengers who arrive less than two hours early.

Both my wife and I are Diamond. We receive two dining coupons, each good for dinner for two people. If Platinum member is traveling with a first time NCL guest, they also get two dining credits. Maybe NCL could make some changes there.

I never have tried it at restaurants, so I really can't answer your question. The Prima is the only NCL ship on which we have been turned away at an entertainment venue, though. We don't find a need to do it very often. We usually make reservations for shows (only required on the big ships) and arrive a half hour or so before showtime to find a seat and enjoy a cocktail.

Thanks for the update. I knew that the Star gone into a scheduled dry dock to replace one of its Diesel engines a couple of years ago. They had to cut a gaping hole in the side of the ship to get the old engine out and the new one in. That was a planned service outage, not a spur of the moment repair as you encountered. I did not know that they had continued to have Azipod problems following the Melbourne overhaul in February of 2017. Thanks again.

May you live in interesting times. I'm not sure if that is an ancient Chinese blessing or a curse, but it seems appropriate for the Star. Thank you for your story about your Star struck adventures from 2016. We boarded the Star a few weeks after you, then again after first spending a few weeks back home. Those were some very memorable cruises. Unfortunately, they were memorable for much the same reason as yours. Let's hope you don't have to live through something like that again. Once the Star completed its summer assignment in the Baltic in 2016, it set forth on a series of repositioning cruises which were billed as an "Around the World" journey. Actually, it was planned as an out-and-back from Copenhagen to Australia and back to Athens. Things started heading south, both literally and figuratively, in December 2016. Leaving Singapore, the Star lost propulsion in one of its Azipod propellers. The Diesel engines and electrical generators continued to work fine, but the electric drive motor in one Azipod failed. The ship limped along at about half speed for a month while engineers tried to solve the problem. At half speed, of course, the Star was late getting to many ports of call, while some other planned stops were cancelled so the ship could catch up to its planned itinerary to arrive on time in Hong Kong. Back in Singapore around the first of January 2017, they managed to get the damaged Azipod working again. Great! Back on schedule. A day after leaving Singapore, however, the other Azipod failed, so it was back to half speed and more ports were missed as the ship limped its way to Sydney, where a fresh shipload of passengers were waiting to board. My wife and I were among those new guests. We accepted the fact that we would be missing several of the ports we had been looking forward to visiting, but NCL's offer of partial compensation for the cruise was enough to lure us on board. Things went well enough until we pulled out of port at Melbourne. Around 2:00 AM on 10 February 2017, everything on board the Star suddenly became eerily quiet, as the ship went dead in the water in the Tasman Sea. It took a couple of days for tug boats to drag us back into Melbourne, where after several days both Azipods were repaired. We were back to sailing "full speed ahead." We were so far behind schedule, though, that we had to make a bee line for Auckland, missing all of our planned intermediate stops in New Zealand. We stayed on for the following cruise, which took us to Singapore. So far as I know, the Star hasn't missed a planned port since then as a result of propulsion failures, so let's hope your next trip on her will be uneventful. I hope my story helps you put into perspective how, in the great scheme of things, a minor annoyance like a delayed cruise shouldn't put a damper on our enjoyment of life. Cruise well, and enjoy your time.

@ChiefMateJRK I just thought of an exception to the general rule about Sapphire Latitudes members being able to skip the line. Last September we traveled on Prima's second ever cruise for paying guests. Maybe it was just because the ship was new and the crew had not yet worked out all the bugs, or maybe because some of the entertainment venues are smaller relative to the passenger capacity as compared with other NCL ships, but we were turned away at a couple of venues. We were told that on the Prima, everyone who did not have a reservation would have to wait in the standby line. Sapphire members were not allowed to "badge their way to the front" as on other NCL ships. Many folks have posted on other CC threads about the Prima that the lines for Poor David's and the comedy club would start forming more than an hour before showtime and that those who arrived only 30 minutes early usually were out of luck. We have sailed on more than ten other NCL ships since making Platinum Plus (now called Sapphire) and have always been able to go to the front of the line on each of those other ships, even without having made a reservation.

We got to Platinum after just eight cruises, but two of those were two week long voyages. That was long before NCL started handing out double and triple Latitudes points like they were Christmas candies. Today it's quite possible to get to Platinum in as few as four cruises. Our ninth cruise, first as Platinum, was the second leg of a B2B on the Dawn. We got off the ship in Quebec as Gold and got back on board later that day as Platinum, having accrued all the new perks and benefits of our new Latitudes status.

Our first time was with one other couple plus the Captain and General Manager in Le Bistro. Another time it was just the Chief Engineer, my wife, and me in Cagney's. On the Joy in Alaska in 2019, my wife and I shared a wonderful evening in Le Bistro with the GM and Cruise Next Director. We had sailed with each of them previously, and each of them had greeted us by name on embarkation day. Our most recent Le Bistro dinner with an officer was a bit different. There were four couples plus four officers at a huge table in an alcove in Le Bistro. Because we were in a separate room, though, there wasn't enough background noise to interfere with our conversation. The table didn't break down into multiple smaller discussions. It was a delightfully slow paced meal, giving everyone plenty of opportunity to contribute to the discussion. We were joined by the GM, Chief Medical Officer, Cruise Next Manager, and GM's Secretary. All but the secretary were senior officers.

I enjoy the experience more when there are no more than a half dozen guests. About half of our dinners have been like that, but recently NCL seems to prefer "the more the merrier" approach. Several of them have been dinners for 12 or more, usually with two officers. The problem with that is the physical distances and the ambient noise level make it difficult for everyone at the table to hear what's being said. That leads to multiple conversations, the persons seated next to the officers dominating the discussions, and others feeling left out. One of the advantages of getting to know the senior officers is that it increases your chances of dining with a senior officer in a smaller group. It also increases the odds of being invited to Cagney's or Le Bistro instead of the MDR.

We learned about this back when Sapphire was still known as Platinum Plus. On our first cruise as P+ Latitudes members, we waited in the standby line for a comedy show. When we got to the front, the host said "Oh, you didn't have to wait in line. Next time just come to the front of the line and we'll let you in ahead of the others." We have used this perk several times since then.

Sapphire and above also get priority seating at shows and restaurants. So let's suppose there still are a few seats left in the comedy club when they finally start seating some of the hundreds of folks who have been waiting an hour in the standby line. A couple of Sapphire Latitudes members who don't have reservations walk past those in line, straight to the check in counter, show their Latitudes card, and are admitted ahead of those who have been waiting. Does that sound like a benefit that you might enjoy? You indicate that you don't consider dinner with a random officer to be a great benefit. While it's true that sometimes dinner with officers includes senior officers while others are rather junior, there always are opportunities for having engaging conversations with them. I understand that many Latitudes members can't see themselves enjoying, or even tolerating, spending time with a ship's officer. Many of us, though, do look forward to this benefit and really enjoying getting to know new friends. The list of ship's officers with whom we have shared dinner may not be typical, but we have shared dinner with 19 senior officers (three or four stripe), seven junior officers, and two non-officer contractors. The conversation fell a bit flat during a couple of those dinners, but many of them were quite enjoyable and exhilarating. You also did not mention the Sail and Sustain Mixology Experience as a Diamond level benefit. Some of the cocktails offered are a bit unusual, while others are quite tasty. The biggest attraction of this perk for us, though, is the opportunity to schmooze with other frequent NCL cruisers. It's fun to compare notes, share stories of favorite places to visit, and learn new tips and techniques of ways to improve our cruise experience. NCL has updated and modified the Latitudes program several times over the years, added new categories, tweaked the benefits, and changed the requirements for other perks. It's reasonable that they may change them again in the future, so perhaps they may respond to your suggestions.

They serve a lot more than spaghetti. The best steak I've ever been served on a cruise ship was in La Cucina on the Epic.

Actually, yes there is. They just call it Jefferson's Bistro, but the menu is the same.

One notable difference from the Haven on some of the larger ships is that the Star lacks a true Haven courtyard area with its own dedicated restaurant, etc. Haven guests on the Star are invited to breakfast and lunch in one of the specialty restaurants (Moderno of Cagney's IIRC). There isn't a separate Haven restaurant for dinner, though.

I'm sorry to hear about your difficult experience. I'm amazed, though, that NCL offered any amount of compensation. As @CDR Benson indicated, it seems most unusual for NCL to offer anything under the circumstances other than to provide your medical treatment, make an attempt to notify the other members in your sailing party, and present you with an invoice for services rendered. As a frequent NCL cruiser, I would have been gobsmacked if NCL had offered even a bottle of wine or an additional dinner in a specialty restaurant, much less 1000 Pounds for your troubles. Glad to hear that you had arranged appropriate travel insurance that covered the cost of your medical treatment, and wish you a speedy recovery.