Adventuresabound

Hi All! We are usually NCL cruisers but have recently booked a winter cruise on Harmony. We are super excited. I've been scrolling the forms but am still a little confused about dining. If we do one of the packages can we reserve in advance? I was under the impression you couldn't reserve for the unlimited but for the others you could. When I looked at the 3 night package thought it also says a res would be made for us night one or two and the rest could be made on board. So does that mean no reservations with any package? Will we end up having issues getting reservations for times and venues if we have to wait until we board?

Also as a bonus whats your fav thing to eat on Harmony?

Thanks!

Following along, thanks for posting!

Following, thanks taking the time to write it up :)

Great tip !! Just called and booked Cagney's for NYE

Glad you got it! See you aboard :)

Just tried to pre-book dinner reservations for my NYE cruise on Escape. December 31st is unavailable for booking in the 3 main and all specialty restaurants.. I doubt they are all sold out.

I booked last week and that date was missing. I called up NCL and they were able to book it for me and it showed up online a minute later.

Excited for your review!

Officially Hibachi is excluded from the dining packages. We were able to get it included in March on Oasis. YMMV.

Thanks for the quick reply

do they accept the package there or is there an additional upcharge?

We rented our own car which worked out way better. We used a GPS tour guide on our phone which only cost a few bucks.

First night there was only one show, every other night it was 7 and 9 with a game show or equivalent at 8.

If you are interested in doing a ship tour I would recommend the pitions cruise in St. Lucia. We also went to Carmabola (spelling?) beach in St. Kitts and really enjoyed that.

We walked around town a bit in Martinique. None of the excursions interested us, however the rum there greatly interested us and we brought a lot of that back home with us. We also found the locals to be friendly and helpful- despite the language barrier. One woman assisting with transfers gave us some advice on the best local rums and remembered us when we came back and excitingly told us we were going to get all our friends wasted when she saw what we bought.

In summary- St. Lucia go see the Pitons (also have heard good things about the volcano), go to the beaches in St. Kitts, and in Martinique walk around buy a french pastry buy a bunch of rum and be back on the ship for lunch.

You can also rent a car and just go yourself. We rented cars mostly and loved it.

We did the the sunrise tour as one of our two excursions. It was foggy and we saw nothing. However I think that was the exception.

We had Mark who just went on vacation. He might be coming back to the Gem. We found him to be excellent.

Thought some might be interested in the plan for those currently on the Gem. We are docking around 1am in Barbados. Four flights are scheduled on Friday and three flights for Saturday. All are charters flying to Newark. All guests will need to clear Immigration on board the ship on Friday. Three flights leave Friday morning, one flight Friday evening and three flights Sat. morning. Everyone was assigned a flight/departure time based on post cruise information submitted to the ship on Thursday morning. Luggage needs to be outside you room by 10pm for morning departures.

 

Now here's the kicker, the departure times (leaving the ship) for Friday flights are 3:30am, 5:30am, 6:30am and 5:30pm. Immigration processes starts 1 & 1/2 hours before departure (that's 2am for the first group).

Sat departures at 4am, 5am, and 6am...but these folks will have already cleared immigration on Friday.

 

Breakfast buffet will be available beginning at 1am

 

No news yet for those folks that can't fly.

 

 

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any news on repair situation?

Having spoken to people at other lines, I don't think people appreciate the issues being faced by the cruise lines in terms of scheduling. Not only has a significant amount of docking space been taken offline, many ports still haven't issued firm notice of when they will be available and if they are available what facilities they will have.

 

Meanwhile all of the lines are scrambling to book alternative ports where available, and even if a berth might be available there may not be excursion vendors with capacity. Logistics departments are completely overwhelmed.

 

As they can lock in itineraries they will post them, but until they can get everything confirmed, people have to be patient. The reason you don't know where the Gem is going is probably that they are not sure themselves.

I totally respect the magnitude of what needs to happen and how much work there is in putting together new itineraries. What bothers me is they are using the excuse of needing to schedule "earlier cruises" when in reality they have scheduled the bigger ships through the end of the year and most recently the escape into next year. Its not really right for them to do that and leave people on an October sailing in the Gem still unsure about where they are going.

We loitered around a bit and probably got out of our room by 9:30. We were told to take our time and we let our steward know he could just kick us out when he needed to as technically we were supposed to be out by like 8. We were able to have breakfast on the balcony and left when we were ready. He was busy with the rooms around us so I'm guessing he had plenty to do before getting to our room so he didn't feel the need to rush us.

I'll be really disappointed if they do a FL cruise, at least reroute us to western like everyone else.

We are on the Dec 2 Gem and I think its frustrating that other ships at the end of the year have gotten updates but people at the end of oct are waiting still.

I think the Gem might be the only ship that has not been updated at least through the end of the year.

Le Bistro was by far the best. Cagnys was disappointing. If we went again we'd do Le Bistro twice.

We did the Captain Zodiac Snorkel, best snorkeling we did in Hawaii, the staff was really fun and we also saw a ton of Dolphins. Then we had lots of time after to walk all around Kona and grab beers at the brewery.

Does anyone know if you bid and have the bid accepted if you can then bid again 2 levels higher than your new upgraded cabin, or is it just from your original cabin?

Right now, since Escape is the only ship sailing Eastern itineraries it is the same as all itineraries switched to Western. You can rest assure that as other ships get back to the Caribbean they will all be sailing Western itineraries. The islands in the East are devestated, and not likely to receive cruise ships for a minimum of 8 - 9 months.

There are other ships sailing the eastern route now-November. The ships out of NY and Boston might also be rerouted. We are on the Gem early December and I anticipate they may re-route us.

No chance going there as they are too far away for a 7 day cruise from Miami. It would need a 14 day cruise from Miami.

 

Your itinerary is now Western Caribbean as it has been announced by NCL.

Could someone link the announcement?

No home ports have been "devastated" yet....yes....ports of call are in horrible situations. You will go north...New England, Canada, etc....

I don't think they're sending anyone north in the winter.