Yllek

On 7/7/2023 at 9:53 PM, queen_kathy1 said:

I have tried to live chat with HAL as I wanted to book the spa for the second leg of my upcoming 14-day cruise to Norway and the chat agent was of no help. She told me I could only do this once on board, I can only book the first 7 days in advance.

I am on the 29 day Rotterdam Baltic/Transatlantic cruise and we have the same issue that we can only book the thermal suite for the 14 night Baltic segment.  I called and was told the same thing that it is a known "glitch" in their system and that I need to go to the spa when we board and the spa staff will be able to fix the booking for the whole cruise.  We were a little concerned that we could not book for the entire trip but it makes us feel a little better that this is normal for HAL.

We are Bill, Arthur and John and we will be coming from Seattle to go on the Epic transatlantic as well.  We did a transatlantic on the Norwegian Getaway a few years ago and the LGBT events were so active the cruise director ended up having to find a bigger venue to hold the meetup each night.  We made several friends we are still close with.  We are hoping this cruise is just as active.

 

The Norwegian Star and the Norwegian Epic are doing nearly identical cruises.  The only differences are the embarkation and disembarkation ports.  We will be in the same ports of call on the same day the rest of the cruise.

The Navy Frontier Pier is in the cargo area directly across from the Pan American Pier.  I think it is only used for overflow when the Pan American Pier Terminals are full.  There is a map showing the approximate location on post 10 from this old thread:

 

Recently we booked a Transatlantic on the Jade in a non Haven 2 bedroom suite. A few weeks later we received a thank you card for booking the suite. We then changed the reservation to the Epic Transatlantic in a Haven 2 bedroom. We just received a new thank you for booking the Haven suite. Both thank you cards were similar with the only changes being a blue border on the suite thank you and a gold one on the Haven card. The Haven thank you stressed the 24 hour butler and had a gold foil haven seal sticker on the envelope. They are the same size and the only outside difference was the sticker. NCL probably just sent the OP the wrong card. Either way we thought it was a nice touch to get the cards from NCL.

 

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Some online travel sites show our TA, some don't. Similarly for the port schedules some show. Trouble is, we don't know whether these port schedules are built from the cruiselines' websites or the port schedules on an official port site.

 

So, while trying to find actual port sites I stumbled onto cruisecal.com .

 

You're not going to like this as it shows our TA split into two pieces but it does fit given the open calendar at 4/22/19:

 

Norwegian Jade

14 nts 4/22/2019 Miami, Florida to 5/6/2019 Barcelona

6 nts 5/6/2019 Barcelona to 5/12/2019 Rome

http://www.cruisecal.com/portal/ItineraryLookup/tabid/2918/Default.aspx :mad::mad::mad:

(select Jade from the drop-down box)

 

I guess we'll find out sooner rather than later.

Ugh! I will keep hoping that the cruise cal site is wrong, especially since it does not have the April 12 cruise cancellation taken into account.

The cruise timetables site does show the NYC to Rome itinerary still but some of those ports look really busy. Ponta Delgada on May 4th shows the Jade, Epic, Star plus another cruise ship. I don't know if you can squeeze a mega ship plus 3 normal sized ships in that harbor. I guess we just have to wait and see what NCL does from here but I will keep hoping for the (NYC) best.

 

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Jade April 12 - 22, 2019 sailing is cancelled.

So now there is a blank slate April 12 - 28, I wonder what's going on ?

The cancellation of the April 12 sailing actually makes me feel better about our New York departure. Because of that silly law about carrying passengers between 2 US ports the ship will have to visit Aruba, Curacao or South America between Miami and New York. I did not think there was enough time in the 6 days between the end of the previous cruise and the beginning of ours to make it down there and then back to NY. Now with more time between cruises the charter makes more sense to me.

 

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Itinerary is not clear between departing Lisbon and arriving in Cadiz:

 

Mon Lisbon, Portugal 10:00 am 4:00 pm

 

Tue Seville (Cadiz), Spain--- Overnight

 

Seville (Cadiz), Spain---7:00 pm

 

Wed At Sea------

-------------------------------------------------------

 

Overnight ?

 

Can anyone clarify, NCL website doesn't help.

The funky way the itinerary looks is one of the reasons I initially questioned if this was a mistake on NCL's website. While I have held my spot on the cruise I will hold off on reserving nonrefundable things like flights until the itinerary looks a little more complete online.

 

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Yllek, I'm really grateful to you for finding and sharing this great looking cruise. I've started the Roll Call only b/c the cruise wasn't listed, however, since it's really your baby, would you like to organize the Meet & Greet?

 

I'd be happy to help but feel like you should have first dibs on this.

 

Please join on the Roll Call thread: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/show...5#post56439115

 

 

Hope to see you there,

Connie

Thank you for setting up the roll call. Unfortunately with work I will not have much time to give the Meet & Greet the attention it deserves. I will be glad to assist but until I get to those lovely relaxing sea days I won't have all that much free time. The NCL sits is showing 300 days to departure and I will be counting them down.

I am still a little leery of booking not knowing what the ship is doing between the 22nd and the 28th and the weird way it appears on NCL's site but I am going to go ahead and book. The combination of the itinerary and the price is perfect for us. I hope it stays out of New York so we can visit family before the cruise.

 

We did the Getaway's transatlantic last spring and loved it. There always seemed to be something going on. There were only around 30 children out of 4000 passengers. The only thing we didn't like was when we got to the ports and there was chaos when 4000 people were trying to get off and on at the same times. We prefer the Jewel class ships so we are excited to try a transatlantic on the Jade.

 

We were able to price out airfare back to Seattle for around $650. Njkate if you are able to stay in Rome to Tuesday or Wednesday and you are willing to connect TAP Air Portugal has one way flights to JFK for less than $400 and to Newark around $430.

 

Now we just need to wait to see if NCL changes the itinerary.

I just stumbled on an April 28, 2018 transatlantic itinerary for the Norwegian Jade from New York to Rome. It does not come up on NCL's site when you enter transatlantic as the destination. You have to enter the Jade and April 2019 to find this cruise. The itinerary does not show free at sea or any other promotions. It looks like the previous cruise ends in Miami on April 22. It also looks like the itinerary might be incomplete with no arrival time and saying there will be an overnight in Cadiz all on one day.

 

Is this a mistake itinerary? Would there be a reason for NCL to move the Jade from Miami to New York for 1 itinerary and have nothing else scheduled for the 6 days inbetween? The prices seem really reasonable but I do not want to get my hopes up and book if NCL is just going to pull the itinerary in a couple of days.

 

Any advice on if it is a waste of time or if this looks like this itinerary looks legit to book would be appreciated. Thanks!

I was just on the Getaway's eastbound crossing and found the age group to be much younger than expected based on previous reviews I read. Most of the people we interacted with were in their 40's and 50's. There were only 24 kids on the ship. It certainly was not a spring break party cruise but it did not feel like a retirement home either.

I was also on this cruise and while there were some issues to my perspective this cruise was nowhere near as bad as the original poster said. The first week was warm and sunny with clam seas. I watched as the ship tried to dock in Ponta Delgada and with the bow and stern thrusters going on full the ship was still being pushed towards shore. The wind had waves crashing over the breakwater. The port looked tight under good weather conditions and we did not have good conditions. In Brest NCL had gangway on deck 5 and 7. As the tide went out deck 5 dropped below the level of the pier and could not be used leaving a single steep gangway from deck 7. As you can imagine 4000 passengers trying to use one gangway caused a linup. At no time did I ever see more than 20 people on that gangway at any time and I was on the line for over an hour. Once the tide came back in the deck 5 gangway was reopened and the line was cleared in 1/2 hour and we were able to leave on time. Ultimately it was poor port infrastructure and the tides that caused the Brest issues. The propulsion issues heading to Southampton caused us to be 5 hours late arriving. The UK immigration officers were supposed to board in the Azores but since we did not dock they could not preclear us and from what I understood they would not send a team to board the ship in France. When we arrived there were only 4 immigration officers for 4000 passengers that UK Immigration required must be checked. We would have been better off skipping the UK and going to one of the continental ports that were not requiring this type of passport check instead. We did have to skip Zebrugge which was a bummer but we got an overnight in Rotterdam which was a bonus. The complaint about the shows and specialty dining being booked is common for this class of ship. We pre-booked the 2 main stage shows and our specialty dining on my NCL before we left and by checking with the dining desk we were able to change our dining plans mid cruise with little fuss. Overall I thought the food and service were a step up from our previous NCL cruises. The buffet was usually a zoo but I find this to be the case at peak times on almost all ships. This was one of the friendliest and most social group of passengers of any of the cruises I have taken and we had a blast. Ultimately the crew did their best they could with some bad situations they were dealt but much of the issues were beyond their control. Unfortunately any cruise ship with 4000 people will have crowds and uncomfortable bottlenecks. I came away with an overall positive experience and I feel sorry the original poster was effected much more from the issues we experienced. I hope they are able to get some resolution to their liking.