CruiseMH

I have been in all three of the se cities/ports last year. The question is: what exactly do you want to know ?

Without having read all the postings in between: It seems that the NCL checkin process is not always accurate regarding the proof of citizenship. I will be on a cruise to Italy,Greece and Malta,so completely within the EU. For me as german citizen my ID card would be absolutely enough. But when checking in ,the NCL site insisted on a valid passport.I had to input the data of my passport. I didn`t have any other option to choose from.

there is a huge amount of nightlife on the Epic. Practically the whole ship is full of live music, dancing and singing.

Wow, this reduces the number of cruise ships docking simultaneously from seven(max. eight) to five.

At least Antalya was a turnaround port for the german-marked-based cruise line TUI cruises a few times in the past. So in general they should be able to handle it.

It might be kindness, but apart from that its the law ! You have to react to SOS calls.

The greek islands do have enough capacity for cruise ships and tourists. November/December are off-season,so docking space won`t be a problem and with a few weeks time in advance arranging enough excursion capacities should also be not a problem. At least much easier then egypt or Turkey.

Load factor doesn`t equal revenue ! None of us has a real exact overview of how the booking situation currently is and even more important how the average price per day per cabin has changed or developed. Yes, at first look it seems it went up...

Everything up to 50-Euro bills is not a problem. But 100-Euro bills ..well..they might(!) be accepted but the people won`t be happy about it at all.

this is normal for the big ships of NCL. Thats why usually the main shows are shown several times during each cruise.

The only way to get NCL to bring back the big shows and cancel all these game shows is not to participate. If the theater(or whichever location they are doing them at) is always empty then NCL will understand that it was a bad idea. But unfortunately the majority won`t do that.

I know what you mean,but especially different countries are hard to compare because prices are subject to the local market conditions. So same cruise line with same itinerary can have very different prices when booked in different countries. the info regarding P&O surprises me a bit but is also very interesting.

I didn`t mean that they will include it.I just meant they will increase the fare price and keep the DSC as it is. If the average DSC paid per guest is not 20 USD/day but only e.g. 14 USD, then they will raise the cruise fare by these 6 USD/day = approx. 40 USD/week. The ones that opt out the DSC will pay the same price at the end.And the ones that pay the DSC will pay more at the end. What i want to say is that requesting to waive the DSC might mean that you pay less at that moment but sooner or later you will pay for it anyway....

It doesn`t matter if they call it cruise fare,DSC or whatever.At the end the only thing that counts for NCL is the total income amount. If from now on 80 % of the guest would request the DSC to be removed from their bill it would only take weeks until the cruise fares would go up by approx. the same amount that the guest are asking to be removed. At the end you will pay the same amount.

A good and serious excursion operator will cut the tour to bring you back to ship in time. The good ones even give you a written garantuee and will pay the money if you miss the ship and have to get to the next port.

GRT and double occuppancy are the best facts to compare ships regarding its size. They are of course not perfect because they don`t say anything about the amount of public space on the ship.(which is the part of the ship most passengers use most of the time) But the only thing i wanted to point out is that the Prima and the Jewel are far away from being the same size,they are not even close. 😉

The Prima Class is 50 % bigger (by gross tonnage and double occupancy capacity) than the Jewel class ships. 😉 NCL won`t have a chance against MSC. Reason is that the cruise fleet of MSC is only a very small part of the total fleet of MSC: The operate more than 400 (!) container ships (of which 50 are also owned by them). They are making billions with their container ships,so they have enough money to build new ships in an extreme short time.(two new ships per year) and can offer prices which NCL simply can`t cause MSC doesn`t need to make the profit with the cruise ship that NCL has to make.

the big productions shows were never a unique selling point. At least RCCL always had the same quality of entertainment(if not even better),not sure about other cruise lines so far. The question is whether a change from freestyle to fixed dining is an improvement. 😉

Sorrento is nice but not THE place to go. I`d rather prefer to go to Capri again or the amalfi coast again then going to Sorrento again. And i`m really wondering why Jetsetter2023 complains about the time waste at tourist traps and at the same time buying things from there. If nobody buys anything these tourist trap wouldn`t be a part of the tours anymore. Maybe they would be 5 USD more expensive but at least you would see more from the country.

Doing something WITH the kids? At the same time at the same place ? Don`t tell that all these young and modern parents these days. 😉

I personally don`t think they will switch to fixed dining just for cost reasons. It might be cheaper, but freestyle dining is one of the if not the main differentiator from other shipping lines. They will not give us the most important thing that differs them from their main competitors.

this is something one should think of BEFORE having children. There might be situations or longer time periods where i can`t do what i want. OP seems to care more about what he wants to see regardless if this is suitable for his/her children or not.

I`m sure that the number of people that are deciding against NCL and for another cruise line with "fixed dining vs. freestyle dining" as the only or main reason is extremely low and not sigificant for any such big decision for any cruise line.

If that is the case and it has to be europe than i would suggest more a UK/France/Belgium/Germany cruise than a med cruise. Cause all of the interesting stuff you can see in the med is connected with a lot of walking up- and downstairs,several bus rides,etc. So nothing that kids in that age really are happy with. 😉 On the UK,France,Belgium,Germany tours you can see nice old cities with much less walking and especially much less up and down. Norway would also be more kid friendly than the med.

There is a bar but it is only open during the solo traveller gatherings(approx. from 5 til 6:30 pm)