The Traveling Man

It was under renovation for more than a decade !!! We were there both before and after - what a difference a decade makes.

We were let in early eventually, but only after two line monitors had told us to wait. A manager allowed us in. You may be correct about tickets going on sale on the first Thursday of each month, but my recollection was that they became available on the first of the month, regardless of the day of the week. My memory may be faulty.

Unlike the Panama locks, the ones in Amsterdam do not raise or lower ships so much as prevent the tidal surge from rolling up the banks of the river and flooding the city. We have passed through the Amsterdam locks several times and I have never noticed much of a rise or fall during passage.

It's about 1-3/4 miles from the cruise terminal to the Anne Frank House, about a 35 to 40 minute walk. Be sure to make your reservation and purchase your tickets in advance for the Anne Frank House. They usually are quite strict about allowing visitors inside only at the time shown on their ticket. Also be aware that the port authority sometimes places restrictions on the ship's movement through the locks, meaning that NCL may have to change their estimated arrival or departure time by an hour or two from the published itinerary. Be sure to allow ample time both before and after your visit to the Anne Frank House in case the ship's schedule is changed at the last minute. We visited the Anne Frank House years ago when we stayed in Amsterdam for several days. Last year we wanted to go back because they now have expanded the visitors' area to include an interpretive museum with many additional exhibits. We made our plans to visit there last September during a port stop on the Prima. The scheduled sailing time was 5:00 PM, so we booked our tour ticket for a 1:00 PM visit, thinking we would stroll the city and have lunch before our visit to the Anne Frank House. Amsterdam was scheduled for day 8 of our cruise. About day 6 on board we received a notice that our departure time had been moved up by two hours, IIRC. We skipped lunch, went to the Anne Frank House early, and begged to be let in early so we would have time to take it all in and still make it back to our ship. After two ushers flatly refused, we managed to get the attention of a manager who graciously allowed us in early. Had it not been for her intervention, we either would have missed our tour or would have missed getting back to the ship on time. Plan carefully.

When we have disembarked at Seattle on previous cruises, the announcement was that we should be clear of our stateroom by 8:00 and off the ship by 9:00. There were some stragglers who pushed the edge of the envelope, but the crew seemed anxious to have the ship clear by 9:00.

We have sailed to and from Amsterdam about ten times, including half a dozen with NCL. Each time the ship docked at the main cruise terminal located a few blocks east of the central railway station. NCL does list two ports for Amsterdam, the one near the city center and another near the coast, several miles from the city. The few cruises which dock there, however, specify "Amsterdam (Ijmuiden)" on the cruise itinerary. If the itinerary simply specifies "Amsterdam" then the ship will dock at the city center. All of the Prima itineraries currently on the website for Northern European cruises with a stop at Amsterdam specify "Amsterdam" as the port, not "Amsterdam (Ijmuiden)." It will be a short walk from your ship to the train station, where you can board a tram to explore the city on a number of different routes. Do an internet search for "Amsterdam tram" for info on routes, rates, and attractions.

Your experience is similar to ours. We have used points for an Ocean View to Balcony upgrade seven times and double points once for an Inside to Balcony. Each time we were able to specify the Balcony stateroom we wanted. On most occasions the best Balcony subcategory we were eligible to receive was one or two notches down from the OV or Inside that we had booked. An OA was upgraded to a BB, for example. Getting a savings of $4000 for 60,000 points works out to almost seven cents per point for you. That's far better than cashing in 10,000 points for $100.00 in OBC. That would only get you a penny a point! We usually save our points and use them for upgrades on longer cruises where the price differential between OV and Balcony staterooms can be thousands of dollars per person. IIRC the best deal we ever got was about 13 cents per point, or roughly $4000 for 30,000 points. Since those points were earned at a rate of three points per dollar spent with NCL, that works out to a return of about 40%. Beats the heck out the "what's in your wallet" card's two or three percent cash back.

I agree with your comments about the atrium. The overlapping or overhanging decks result in poor sight lines and poor acoustics for those wishing to find a seat on the upper levels to hear the music on Deck 6. Syd Norman's as well as the comedy club have far too few seats to accommodate the crowds who line up trying to get into the shows.

We have submitted bags of laundry on the first day of our cruise, the last day of the beginning leg of a B2B, and just about every day in between. Only once in more than two dozen times has the laundry been returned later than the following day. If you request hangers on the day when the laundry special is happening, though, they may run out of hangers and return your shirts folded instead. Other than that, though, the free bag offer seems to be good any day of the cruise. YMMV.

My wife and I were on Prima's second ever revenue cruise this past September, so we'll cut the staff some slack for the difficulties we encountered. The ship is of a significantly different design than other NCL ships, so it is understandable that they had not yet gotten a feel for how to best make use of the facilities. That said, however, the ship has an unusual flow. Many of the venues are too small for their intended use. Some of the lounges where musical entertainment is performed have poor sight lines, poor acoustics, or seating that is strangely arranged. NCL is trying out a new set of menus on this ship. Unlike other ships where the selections vary from one day to the next, the menu choices on the Prima remain the same throughout the cruise. There may be enough variety for a short cruise, but several have posted on Cruise Critic that the selections seemed quite repetitive toward the end of longer cruises. I might be willing to give the Prima a second look, or perhaps try the Viva, but it's probably going to be a one and done experience for me.

We have done this cruise a couple of times. I would recommend booking an shore excursion tour through NCL at each of the tender ports to ensure priority boarding on the tenders.

We have been to Hawai'i twice. The first time we rented a car and drove to the top just before noon. When we were on the PoA, though, we took a bus tour at sunset. Our bus pulled into the parking lot at the top with a half-dozen other 45 to 50 passenger buses. The traffic each time was heavy, but the buses had no trouble getting around. It does get cold up there, though. A ski jacket, gloves, and a warm hat are really needed. We actually saw a few folks in beach wear, shorts, t-shirts, and sandals, in freezing temperatures and wind chills in the teens.

1. No, take your pick. 2. Not entirely. There are several appetizers and several main courses which are the same in each, plus each restaurant has a few specialties available only in that restaurant. 3. Yes, there are no traditional early/late seating times. It's anytime dining on Edge class ships. 4. The food is excellent and there should be a sufficient variety to suit most palates even on a long cruise.

The Epic peculiarity most often mentioned on Cruise Critic is that the bath facilities are located in the stateroom, not in a separate bathroom. The shower stall and toilet are located near the cabin door, one on either side. They are enclosed by frosted glass sliding doors. The sink is located near the foot of the bed. There is a curtain which may be drawn between the bed and the bath stalls, but it does not completely block out light or sound. Someone using the bathroom in the middle of the night will likely awaken the other passenger in the room. Haven suites feature tradition bathroom arrangements, but Balcony and Inside rooms do not have separate bathrooms.

We were on the Sky a couple of weeks ago and the BTS tours were available.

Actually, the quotation is "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

During the discussion, Bar Harbor city manager Kevin Sutherland noted the capacity of cruise ships currently booked to visit Bar Harbor in both September and October of 2023 already exceeds the new limits. Sutherland said the excess ship arrivals would be allowed in 2023 because they were booked before the agreement was approved. However, he said the city had already begun telling cruise lines that moving forward it wouldn't take any new docking reservations for ship arrivals during those months. So the result is that cruise lines which already have scheduled port stops at Bar Harbor in 2023 will be allowed to visit there, but that the full force of the restriction would not go into effect until 2024.

Thanks for the info. We were on the Celebrity Beyond a week ago and I don't recall that being offered. If we had opted to skip the evening service, though, we would have missed out on the pillow chocolates, so an extra Captain's Club point might not have offset the loss of the chocolate!

We were on the Sky 6-17 February. Can't say why you were asked to pay for your photo. We always have received ours at no cost, delivered to our stateroom a day or two after the dinner.

Can't remember off the top of my head, but we have been to Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, La Quinta, and a whole bunch of independents over the past couple of years and have been offered a choice at several of them. Usually it's just for multiple night stays and sometimes its an option for daily service, every other day service, or weekly service. I don't recall encountering the option at Marriott, Hilton, or other similar hotels, so it probably was with some of the second-tier spots.

Some hotels have begun offering different rates for maid service vs. no service. Perhaps someone familiar with hotel experience can comment on that.

We were on the Sky last week and had dinner with GM Jean-Michel. It was only the third or fourth time that a photo was taken of the group. As on previous occasions, though, a copy was delivered to our room the following day without any charge.

That hasn't been our experience. We've had dinner with 28 different NCL personnel. There have been ten 4-stripe officers (five GMs, two Captains, two Chief Engineers, one Staff Chief Engineer), ten 3-stripe officers, six 2-stripe officers, and two others (a casino pit boss and a gift shop manager).

We have done five B2B cruises with NCL. September 2016 Dawn Quebec February 2017 Star Aukland February 2018 Jewel Sydney April 2018 Epic Barcelona May 2022 Getaway Southampton On two of these we had the same stateroom on both legs of the cruise, while we had to change rooms on three of them. When we changed rooms, we left a bag of laundry in our room, with instructions to return our clean clothes to our new room number, then packed up the rest of our belongings and left our packed bags in our first room with tags indicating our new room. Our cabin steward saw to moving them to our new room. On the trips where we kept the same room we didn't bother with packing anything, but just left everything out just as we did every other day on board. On each occasion we were given new key cards and tags to identify us as back-to-back or continuing passengers. We either took a shore excursion or just walked around town on our own. When we returned to the cruise terminal, usually as late as just an hour before departure time, we showed our B2B tags and were waved on past the check in lines. We usually had to show our passports as well as our cruise key cards, but generally did not have to spend much time with the customs officers. We never tried to stay on board, preferring to explore the port town. I don't know if we would have been allowed to remain on the ship.

Thanks for the info. It seems that the cruise itineraries available under these terms are a bit limited, whereas using the points for upgrades can be done on just about any NCL cruise. As a ballpark estimate, paying outright for a balcony room for two passengers on a seven day cruise might run a bit more than $4000. Using almost 228,000 points works out to a value of about two cents per point. Redeeming for OBC gets you just one cent per point. We have redeemed 30,000 points on an upgrade from OV to Balcony on a three week cruise where the cost differential was almost $2000 per person, or nearly $4000 per room. That comes to 13 cents per point. I think I'll stick with redeeming my points for upgrades.