jermeg

Thanks for the help all!  We really appreciated all of the helpful info!  We are home and had a great time minus the COVID I got as a parting gift!  

My youngest turned one a week before we cruised so we were set for her no matter what in terms of sea days!

We took the wonderful advice on waiting to board and arrived at the port maybe 11:40?  We basically walked on minus a small line at security.  We had no problem booking reservations while on board including changing our dinner plans last minute. For those curious, it was really only reservations for specialty dinning, the show (choir of man) and the escape room.  The rest was first come first served sort of thing.  The escape room was really fun though!
 

Also we did stop at GSK and it was fine.  It was a ramp to get on/off the boat and while we didn’t use it, there was an elevator to get between the two levels on the tender.  I held her in a carrier and my husband had the stroller folded up.  Next time I wouldn’t bring the stroller to that port at all though as it’s mostly sand.

cruising with kids was fun and we will do it again,  but I think our next one will be just the adults 😂

44 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Are your kids large enough for the go-karts?

The younger two are not but my oldest is.  He’s 14 and very excited about it 

6 hours ago, cruiser2015 said:

They don't do reservations for comedy shows, just a couple of the major productions in the main theater.

I can't speak about the karts. I'll know more in 6 weeks, on the Bliss. 

Oh I didn’t realize that!  Thanks so much!

4 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Remember that GSK is a tender port which will be difficult to do with very small children.  You have to be able to descend down a metal staircase on the OUTSIDE of the ship to loading platform.  Then you have to step across and down a couple of steps into the tender.  You probably would not be able to manage carrying a stroller down the stairs or back up.  Might be a good day to stay on board.

 

Also remember that NO SWIM DIAPERS are allowed even in the Kiddie Aqua Play area. 

Thank you!  We are prepared that the baby won’t be able to swim.  
 

Great points about the GSK tender though.  Perhaps I could use a carrier for her instead.   I’ll do a bit of googling to visualize it.  I have done that port before (without kids) but I have zero recollection of the details lol. 

18 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

You might do better remaining in your hotel room until they force  you out, probably around 11.   By the time you travel to the port, the terminal will probably have cleared out and you should be able to board with little or no waiting.

 

One other thing, you said 'infant'.  Are you aware that the infant must be at least six months old on embarkation?  There is no leeway.

Thank you!  She’s just about to turn 1 but I appreciate the information! I’ve heard some horror stories about people not knowing that!  Including someone who as able to board and then kicked off (can’t recall if that was NCL or not)

9 hours ago, kitkat343 said:

It depends.  If you want to embark or disembark early then you might want to consider it because those times are generally preferred.    It's easier on my family to embark late, and by then there are usually no lines.  We also disembark late, which is not generally the preferred time and so we can easily walk off the ship.  

 

Also, what are your plans in port and did you want to get an early start to your day?  For my family, if we have a whole day in port we generally find it better for our kids to start a tour no earlier than 9:30 am,   If that's an hour after we dock, we can easily just walk off.  On the other hand, our last NCL ship was late getting into Puerto Rico, which was an afternoon docking.  Disembarkation was not organized well, and we arrived at the fort 5 minutes before closing and were denied entry.  So a priority disembarkation might have  made a difference in our entrance (we knew it would be close, but the afternoon docking left our options very limited, and we had anticipated that the kids would really like flying kites outside the fort so they had a good day anyway.).  Ship tours also have priority disembarkation so if you are planning on taking those you would have less benefit from priority access.

 

Since you are traveling with small children, please note that ordinarily I would strongly recommend private tours for just your family if you are touring cities or historic sites (as opposed to visiting beaches.  If you are just going to beaches you are probably fine on a ship tour).  We took our 2 year old on a Baltic cruise, and because we were able to control the itinerary (stopping and giving him breaks and ice cream/treats whenever he got overwhelmed we were actually able to see all of the major highlights of St. Petersburg.). But with NCL, you need to be especially careful about checking the cancellation policies for your private tours since there may be issues with NCL cancelling ports.  Also, please check recent cruise critic reviews of your ship to see if there have been any recent substitutions of ports on similar itineraries on your ship.  With small children, you'd need to research backup ports if those have been occurring on your itinerary.  On my cruise, the DR was cancelled, and I'd also needed to research the backup ports of Nassau and GSK so we'd be organized in case we went there (we just had a sea day but those were the substitute ports on similar cruises).  Not all itineraries are affected by this, so researching recent reviews of your ship will show if that itinerary is an issue for NCL.

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for all of that really helpful info. Some of it I had not considered so I appreciate it!

When you board later, do you find it harder to get reservations for entertainment like comedy shows and the go karts?  We are on the encore and apparently it’s full or close to full.  Without that issue, boarding late does sound appealing! 
 

We are sailing to DR, St Thomas, Tortola and GSK.  I’ll research the back up ports for those!  Thank you!

Thoughts on whether priority access is worth is on a full sailing out of miami?  Traveling with two young kids in tow (infant and 3 year old) so considering that it might be worth it?

I'd love to hear people's thoughts and if you used it before any tips!

Thank you!

Thank you all for the tips!  I had no idea one of our balconies was a bit longer so that’s a perk!

really appreciate the help 

Thank you both!  Super helpful!

Hi all!

We booked on Encore shortly and have stateroom’s 11310 and 11906. Wondering if anyone has any experience with those rooms?  Curious about the balcony size and the layout of the rooms (eg bed vs couch by the balcony) or any other info!

I googled for room tours but couldn’t find anything for those!

thanks so much!

Thanks for the review! We are staying in a large balcony on the Escape in a few weeks! Really looking forward to it!

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Thank you so much everyone for all of your thoughts, tips and advice! We really appreciate it!!

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Hi All! A friend and I are traveling on our first cruise on Glory in February. Currently we have an interior to be assigned room. I have done a lot of research and am trying to figure out if having a balcony is worth it.

Has anyone upgraded their room after booking? Do you just pay whatever the current price is on their website? Is anyone ever allowed to upgrade when you arrive at the ship?

Thanks everyone! This forum has been an amazing resource for us!

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