HeatherLynne

1 minute ago, babydaryl24 said:

I think the companies are doing this ahead of tomorrow's meeting so that people contract for later dates..

 

So when the President suspends all travel this weekend through  maybe June 1st... They get to keep the money of those who rescheduled..................................

What do you mean exactly? Like if Pres bans travel after this weekend, if you've already rescheduled then you're stuck and if you have an existing res for soon then cruise has to refund?

8 minutes ago, LisaLisa87 said:

 

We're sailing with our 16yo DD, which is another factor in all of this. Missing additional school during her junior year would not be ideal, but luckily her school has an established e-learning program and she'll have her school-issued iPad with her.

 

We are also planning to take wipes and sanitizer and will thoroughly wipe down all the surfaces in our room and around our seats on the plane. Not sure how much that'll help, but like you, it'll make me feel better! We have a minisuite booked, so at least we'd have the ability to get fresh air if we're confined to our room for any length of time.

Our teens have school issued chrome books. Maybe it would be a good idea to bring those. Then they could log in with google classroom and stay caught up on some work at least. I hate to bring them with us, but it might make us all feel better. Our schools are doing deep cleans and talking about the possibility of closures as it is, so they may have experience with running classes fully online by the time the cruise goes anyway. What a weird situation to see unfolding right now! Oh, and we have a mini suite too. I got that wrong. Not that it makes much difference. I love to cruise with a balcony. Extra glad we have one this time.

We cruise in April with 2 teens. I would reschedule for a cruise next year in a heartbeat if it were an option. A full refund would be even better. But since they are not offering anything like that yet, we're still planning on going. We leave from a port near where we live so we will take a car service to the port and back instead of risking leaving a car in a parking lot for weeks if quarantined. We are planning on taking extra weeks of medications with us along with sanitizer. And we were just talking about bringing Clorox wipes and spray with us for our room too. In reality, I know it won't really help to clean our room, but it will make us all feel better in that space at least. I've also cancelled our upgrade offer in case we decide to cancel last minute. I don't have insurance and don't want to be out additional $$. We have a balcony room booked which will be fine for us.

We're all healthy so I'm not worried about the sickness itself. I'm worried about being trapped in a quarantine somewhere besides my house. For now we are in a sit tight and wait mode. We're hoping things will take a turn for the better between now and when we leave. 

Thank you all for your responses! I'll look into the links you provided.

24 minutes ago, shof515 said:

no. you can get CFAR and better polices by buying a third party insurance from http://insuremytrip.com 

Thank you! I'll look into that.

I know there have been some talk of the CFAR insurance, but I don't see that listed as an option on our cruise summary. The only insurance offer we have available to add to our book is this Essentials Travel Protection. Is it worth it? Factors to consider, we are local to the port, so no travel disruption as there are multiple ways to get to port from us. We are in our 40s so not a high risk age for most health issues, and we're traveling with 2 teens. I would consider the CFAR but I can't figure out where people even get that option from NCL. I see it listed on the website but not in my cruise summary. Thanks!

My plan is to order the liter bottles to the room and bring a smaller reusable water bottle with me so I can fill it from those liter bottles. That way I'm only carrying the amount of water I want with me.

Just curious if teens need to be registered when we first get on the ship. Can they just show up to events we see in the dailies that sound fun? Do they need to register for specific events?

I have an excursion already booked through NCL online for GSC. Will I get a tender time automatically assigned, or do we still need to go find a time ticket somewhere?

Thank you all for your answers! Much appreciated.

9 minutes ago, Liljo22 said:

 

The Haven Courtyard only sleep 3.  Its the Aft and Forward facing balconies that sleep 4.  In those its a double sofa bed for 3rd and 4th guests.  

Meaning sleeping side by side, correct?

9 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

What suite category did you book?

Booked a mini suite with a couch for 1 kid and pullman for the other, their preferred sleeping arrangement. We have the opportunity to bid on a haven. However, I wanted to know how the beds work before bidding on anything. I was curious if there are any havens with a similar set up. Another room I saw, not sure if it was NCL or RCCL or Disney, they had the couch that had a normal sitting surface for 1 bed, then a pull out lower trundle for the second bed. That would work well for us as well.

I just can't seem to find any pics of haven suites with beds made up for 4 passengers.

I was actually looking for the room with only a couch (and possible pullman?)  for passengers 3&4 in the living room. Not the havens with the second bedroom.

I've tried to find the info online but am not having much success. In the Haven on BLISS, can someone tell me how the sleeping arrangements work for the 3 & 4 passengers? In the Haven where it just has the couch in the living room (not the 2 bedroom family suite) where do both people sleep? Does the couch pull out like a normal sleeper sofa at home, so sleeping side by side? Or is it trundle bed style where 1 sleeps on the couch and the other has a pull out lower level bed? None of them are pullmans, right?

3 hours ago, sdere96 said:

Has anyone tried Norwegian's Priority Access program?  Cruising out of NYC in March and wondering if it's worth the extra $$$ to ensure quick check-in and boarding given we are traveling with my 2 year old son.  Sailed out of NYC in February 2019 and check-in was a breeze (best it's ever been in NYC) and we then walked right on the ship, but this could have been a fluke as other times its been nearly an hour+ wait just to check-in.  Curious to know others experiences with this new program or with check-in in NYC.

How do you book priority Access? Is it only offered to some?

11 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

That was me and that's what I meant. Besides a few water dispensers in the buffet, NCL's water carafes only have enough space to fill the water glasses they stack next to it. You can't get your refillable waterbottle under it. They likely do it by design. 

That's great! I'm glad to hear it. I'll feel more comfortable filling reusable bottle that way.

33 minutes ago, bkrickles1 said:

And I've been told that if you wait until you board and until 12:01am of the first day after sailaway, you'll save $30 and only pay $54 for the remainder of your cruise.

I'm going to be doing this on Sunday when I depart on the Encore.

At sailaway, all of our phones will be put on airplane mode and then just after midnight I'll log on and upgrade for the reduced price. That way I'll only have about 7 hours without internet and I think I can survive that while I'm drinking, eating and exploring. Lmao!

And we will share among me, my daughter and wife.

Interesting. I hadn't heard that before. It's worth a try for that kind of savings. I'm guessing we'll be able to use our regular cell service the day we board the ship, and possible find free wifi or cell service in our other ports. So probably the freebie wifi is fine for us. I wanted to understand how the upgrade worked in case we decide we do need it.

42 minutes ago, egurbi said:

One logged in device at a time per wifi plan. IOW, you could have 75 devices using one plan, but only 1 of the 75 can use the wifi at one time. Log out of the active device and then log-in to the second device. If you want 2 or more devices logged in at same time you will need to buy a second plan. 

That's what I thought. We're definitely good with 1 plan and probably the freebie is enough.

3 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

 

But I've never been one that's fixated on bottled water and much prefer to refill my water bottle with iced water than have a bottle of water. 

In real life, I'm not a fan of bottled water either. You should see my collection of reusable water bottles. But on a cruise, a communal carafe of water makes me nervous because of all the germs that float around a ship with 4000 people on it. I don't want to pour out of something that may have touched the mouth piece of another person's water bottle. Whether or not you could actually get germs that way, I'm not sure.

I sound germaphobic, but I'm really not. However, on a cruise, I sort of am.

5 minutes ago, smplybcause said:

 

Unless you're talking black coffee - both soda and any virgin drinks have more calories and sugar than a soda. So if you consider soda unhealthy than besides water and maybe the juice everything else is more unhealthy than soda. 

My point was not that fancy coffees and virgin frozen drinks are healthier than soda. That's just stupid. All are full of sugar. Juice at least has some nutritional value.

I said a SODA ONLY package is unhealthy. Because it is. But so is the basic drink package without water being included.

My point was that bottled WATER isn't included on any plan except the premium plus, which is a completely UNHEALTHY offering on NCLs part, and that NCL should do better. At least RCCL included bottled water with their drink package, and I could still pay to order more to my room.

NCL shows I can upgrade my wifi to Unlimited from the one I got for free at booking. But when I click on it, it shows $84 but only has my husbands name highlighted. Does that mean his is the only phone/iPad that will be allowed to use it? Or is it a flat price per cabin? Is it that there's only 1 log in, so only 1 device can be logged into to the wifi at a time but we could change whose device that is by logging off one and back on to another?

I'm not sure we need unlimited wifi, since we usually spend our vacations off-line just doing things together. But the free 250 minutes doesn't seem like much time to check in back home when you're splitting it with 4 people in the cabin.

Thanks!

On 1/12/2020 at 3:45 AM, kirsten1526 said:

 

Don't remember what the package price is but a bottle (liter) is about $6. If you want sparkling water, it's not part of the package. I drink A LOT of water too (often 2-4 liters a day) and at least 1 coffee a day. But, it wouldn't have been worth it to upgrade unless we drank the expensive wine and alcohols

Thanks for the info!  Can you also buy smaller bottles of water? I liter bottles seem kind of big to be carting around the cruise while hanging out. And I don't like sharing with each other while traveling in case one of us ends up getting sick at some point. I usually bring reusable water bottles with us on the cruise as well, but I don't necessarily want to carry them around all day. 

I guess I'm leaning toward it probably wouldn't be worth it for us, since our add ons would really be water and coffee. We'd have to drink a lot of it to make that price worth it.

19 hours ago, smplybcause said:

 

Officially that's against the rules of the drink package on both lines (probably all cruise lines that have packages). Ordering drinks with your package and giving them to someone that doesn't have the package (your kids) is strictly verboten. Both lines can, and have, revoked drink packages for sharing and then charged you individually for each drink you had.

 

There will be plenty that have gotten away with sharing, but it's still a risk. On NCL there's also some that when they tried to pay for their kids drinks the bartender/server just rang it up under the adults package anyways. 

 

People sharing drinks as you have are why Royal now requires everyone over 21 in the cabin to have the drink package. I also think it's why NCL has currently changed their free at sea package to include everyone in the room over 21 for the same reason. 

I appreciate your feedback. I never looked too closely at the "rules" of the drink package. And as our kids are part of our immediate family, reservation, and staying in our same cabin, I thought it was fine to get them drinks once in a while too. 

The problem really is that my kids drink bottled water, fancy coffee/tea drinks, and fresh juice...and those virgin fruity drinks because they're like slushies. There is no drink package I can buy for them. And at the $$ of buying drinks individually, it seems like a lot of added cost for a week long cruise and 2 kids. I think it's silly that the ONLY package for kids is SODA ONLY. How unhealthy is that? If it included bottled water, I'd buy it. But it doesn't.

So not sure where that leaves me for our upcoming cruise. "rule breaker" or "high onboard charges payer". lol.

Anyone know how much a bottle of water is to buy without the PPBP? I'm trying to decide if it's worth the cost of $500 (for 2 of us) to upgrade or if I'm better off just order a case or two of water to the room. I'm a big water drinker but would rather not take it out of the tap. Starbucks will also be consumed daily, if all varieties of drinks are included. We sail on the Bliss in April if that makes any difference.

I have a couple of questions if someone doesn't mind answering them. I have an upcoming cruise on Bliss and the beverage package was one of the free perks. I'm not sure if I need to upgrade to premium or not.

1. Can you order 2 drinks at a time on the regular drink package or on the PPBP? On my last cruise (RCCL) hubs and I had the Bev package and we could order two drinks at a time bc we both had it. So I would go up and order our 2 alcohol bevs and then he would go and order 2 virgin daiquiris for our teens. Can I do that on NCL too?

2. Is water included on the "free" beverage package perk? Is it included on PPBP? What is the cost of a bottle of water?? Just regular water, not sparkling.

3. Is soda included on the "free" package?

4. Is Starbuck's really included?? And Can you do the 2 drink ordering if 2 people in cabin have the package?