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They do that on all of those ships, epic is the only one with an actual bar and even there the bar tender is only there for a couple of hours each evening. Escape, getaway, breakaway, bliss, etc. it’s just a member of wait staff that comes in and takes orders at about 5pm or whenever the solo gathering is scheduled, you would just about get your drink in time for the trek to whichever dining room the solos group is going to.

I’ve booked my mother into a solo balcony for our cruise in January, at the moment I’m still booked in a studio but if the balcony price drops considerably I will switch. The studio lounge is useful as an escape when the weather is not conducive to hanging out in an outdoor space and the rest of the interior spaces are crowded with others escaping the weather. The only missing convenience is a bar but I believe the studio lounge on the Prima class ships have some booze on tap that is covered by the drink package unlike the wine machines in the other studio lounges. I have purchased the thermal spa pass on my last few cruises so didn’t hang out in the lounge at all really. I’m debating buying a vibe pass for the next cruise, if I was going without any relatives I most likely would go for it, but my mum along with possibly an aunt and uncle from each side of the family may be coming too. They used to charter small yachts and sail themselves but there’s been a few joint replacements recently so they’re more willing to do a cruise.

Check the free at sea + package costs… I know for me it made more sense to get that than just the wifi upgrade. If it is a case of just the wifi some folks knock a day off the cost if you wait until after embarkation day to do the upgrade but have to avoid using any of your minutes until then.

You’re of a similar vintage to my late father who was a massive fan of The Beatles, The Eagles and dire straits. In the early 90s the 2 tapes he had in the car were the eagles and dire straits, and drove the surfer kids he brought to contests demented by playing them over and over so they brought their own choices in self defence. He let me stay up all evening for Live Aid’s London stage and through until Phil Collins made it across the Atlantic and onto the stage in the states. He always had an opinion on the music I chose to listen to and did not approve of boy bands who didn’t play any instruments. Personally I can’t stand rave/dance music which came along in my college years, by the time it completely dominated the set lists at nightclubs I had reached my limit of tolerance for it. I do enjoy anything I can sing along to from most eras though and at howl of the moon there have definitely been tunes that I didn’t recognise which obviously didn’t make a splash on this side of the Atlantic. What does wreck my head at howl of the moon is if the musicians are so busy showing off what good instrumentalists they are they forget to bring the audience along. There were trios like that on 2 of my cruises and headliners was a ghost town as a result.

Yeah it was mid October, and I’m Irish so the weather on the cruise was very like home. We got incredibly lucky with the weather in Seattle for the couple of days before the cruise, glorious sunshine and mild temperatures. But it was pretty drizzly and cool at all the Alaskan ports.

Ditto .. Tourism is a huge industry in Ireland and we all found out the impact it has on our daily lives when Covid happened. Pretty much every place with a substantial tourism industry knows exactly the impact of stopping tourism will have after what happened with Covid in the very recent past. So if the locals are saying they don’t want cruise traffic until they’ve sorted out the impact of a natural disaster I’d be inclined to listen to them. They’re not saying stop forever, they’re asking for a temporary stop until the risk is reduced.

I got notified of that change a couple of weeks ago for a cruise in January so it was well before the final payment deadline.

I’ve just checked the entertainment option for Norwegian Getaway in January. It’s 2 gameshows, million dollar quartet and Howl at the moon. I know howl will not be in the theatre and sometimes involves a queue to get a seat, standing room only or very poorly attended. Does anyone know when the next cast rotation is happening for Million Dollar Quartet on Getaway? I’ve been on a couple of sailings with brand new cast which meant their performances were all in the second half of the week. I saw choir of Man on Escape and am heading to London to see the longer version in a few weeks, the cast on Escape were promoting a run of shows on land in the states and a bunch of ads popped up for the London shows on my social media feeds during the summer. I enjoyed six but the buddy I had with me on that cruise didn’t like it and we’re both gen x. I also saw guests get highly offended at Rock of Ages and Priscilla on previous cruises. It seems like some of cruise ship audiences have a pretty low tolerance for anything “modern” unless it’s a singalong type show. Only 1 cruise I’ve been on had a substantial number of young families all the others had almost entirely over 21 guests.

I gave them a pretty open ended request of an Irish one not from u2, they offered Galway girl on condition that some one came up and did some Irish dancing. A few went up and my fellow solos sent me up knowing I was Irish and I duly showed the difference between an Irish person and a wannabe who thought they knew Irish dancing. I only did Irish dancing to age 12 but I am from a rural area in the west of Ireland so there’s usually at least one set dance at every wedding.

I stuck with booking via NCL, and did the discover Alaska’s whales. The cruise the week prior to mine had all the excursions cancelled due to the weather and the week after the ship didn’t even make it to port due to high winds. We got exceptionally lucky much to the delight of my buddy who had done a whale watching excursion in South Africa but saw no whales. This time we saw at least 5 humpbacks that the guide on the boat could identify. Definitely wear waterproof pants and coat if you want the best chance of taking photos and want them to keep the windows open. I didn’t see any sales agents at the pier throughout the cruise. Because the NCL ships are the only ones sailing and a lot of companies would lose their seasonal staff as they went back to college they either don’t have sufficient demand or don’t have sufficient staff to offer booking on arrival. we also saw a pod of whales behind the ship on the way to Victoria, great view from the thermal spa! You never saw so many people move that quickly in there as those whales were doing full breaches.

You picked the wrong person to try that one on as I have issues with lavender too. As an essential oil it can be a significant irritant. But it isn't usually as all pervasive as stale smoke, when lavender is a pervasive scent you'll find a signifcant number of people having a reaction (either feeling sick, or having hayfever type reaction) to it so usually it isn't normally at a level akin to stale smoke. The only time I have to worry about lavender at the level to cause an irritation on the ship is in the Spa treatment rooms. I have to give a heads up that lavender not be used if i'm booking a treatment.

be careful about the dates you pick so it isn't spring break as those ships will be full of families at that time. I usually cruise in January with the odd one at different times. The closest I got to spring break was a february cruise that coincided with spring break for France and Quebec so there were hundreds of French speakers aboard.

Unfortunately some of us get physically sick from the smell of stale smoke. My parents thought I had motion sickness as a kid but once I had my own car and it came back from a service with the smell of smoke from the mechanics I realised it was the smell that was responsible. We always used my father's car for long trips and he was a smoker. Back then smoking as allowed on public transport too. I don't have issues drinking certain types of vodka but the smell isn't a problem.

I’m hoping the lingering smell will gradually reduce if they aren’t going to change out all the soft furnishings that absorbed that smell over the years. They need to douse the whole area between the forward and aft elevator banks from deck 6 to 8 in the strongest anti-smoke scent blockers they can source.

I've found you can usually get it at the whiskey bar on each ship. I know the first time I had it was at a dinner show on Getaway and I've been hooked ever since.

even something like a business card works in those power slots, I've used the card hotels give you the key in for those slots in hotels for years.

MDQ is probably a new cast and they typically schedule those sorts of shows to the back half of the cruise so the cast get a chance to rehearse in the theatre. As for the background smoke smell the only way to get rid of that, quickly, would be to rip out and replace all the soft furnishing and carpets. I'm hoping by the time I sail in January there'll have been enough cleaning rounds to have reduced it.

The studio lounge on Escape is nice and open on a single deck unlike the Getaway/Breakaway/Epic. There are usually some snacks there, and a coffee machine the coffee addicts seem to adore. You can get hot water from that machine as well to make tea or hot chocolate. There is usually a chilled water dispenser and some fruit. The first day you will probably bump into other solos who are checking out the lounge, then there will be the solos meet up. It seems like there is now a standardised program across all the solo hosts with some of them adding other activities. The one gotcha about the solo meet ups is that they will be at the same time every day regardless of the port times. The meetup on embarkation day may be a different time to the rest of the meetups and may clash with sailaway or other activities on the ship. No matter how busy the ship there's a good chance you will come across other solos from the initial meetup throughout the sailing. It's good to get to recognise the faces so you might spot them on excursions to sit beside on buses, etc, or when the buffet is super busy you can ask to join them. My very first cruise was as a solo on the Escape, I am still in contact with 2 of the other solos from that trip and I booked my second cruise within a week of getting home. The Spice H2O over 18s sundeck & bar area on Escape has a synthetic stone grotto with cold water to allow you to cool off from time to time.

I am hoping some folks here have had experience with either/both of these hotels, Eliza Jane (Hyatt) and The Saint(Marriott) . My travel agent is recommending these two for pre/post cruise. I’ve just succeeded in persuading my mum to come along for my trip in January. We are not looking for a place in the French district as we’re both well past the party hard stage of our lives.

Having experienced the tender process to Great Stirrup cay I prefer to avoid itineraries with tenders if possible. I know I won’t do the Greek islands on a breakaway/+ class of ship if I ever were to do that itinerary. In some ways my work schedule actually works in my favour for avoiding crowds.. I normally cruise in January but have done cruises in early October for itineraries that are not available in January. There are many places that want to cut back on tourist numbers or set additional requirements to help the local area. In my local area there is the most popular natural landscape attraction in Ireland, the day trip bus tours are required to stop in the locale for a meal or a stop for their passengers for 30mins+ in one of the nearby towns. We sell a LOT of our shop t-shirts to tourists. The local residents of Dun Laoighaire in Dublin blocked a proposed cruise ship pier development to discourage cruise ships including it on their itineraries. Right now it’s a tender port and given the weather in Ireland it’s a high risk one. Videos of the tour buses causing chaos in Cobh appear quite regularly and that’s with only 1 pier in operation, there are plans to upgrade a second pier to accommodate cruise ships as second ships have to go to the commercial port in Cork harbour. Tourism has always been a big industry in Ireland, my grandmother and mother both ran B&Bs in their homes at various times due to our proximity to a number of tourist attractions and big festivals. Those housewife run b&bs have practically disappeared from our region now because bus tours day tripping from Dublin have taken over so there isn’t the same demand.

I’ve done the behind the scenes tour on a couple of the NCL ships and they stopped at the recyclables sorting area. The crew are financially incentivised to sort recyclables from the trash collected around the ship. If their storage area hits capacity they then burn the cardboard as it’s the lowest value recyclable material on the ship. I try to keep recyclables in the bedroom area bin and non-recyclable in the bathroom area bin.

I’ve only used CNs as I’ve never seen CFs advertised on the EU website. the very first time I used a CN as a deposit it was possible to use it, and in my case that deposit was about half the value of the CN. Somewhere along the way something changed in the back end such that if I try to use one now it throws an error because the CN is worth more than the deposit. I’ve always had an issue trying to use a CN for a partial payment and that issue has changed over time. Initially it was a currency problem, the website only accepted $ amounts for partial payment but you had to guess what the value was of a € CN. They then fixed the currency issue but now it rejects anything less than the entire outstanding balance. Hence, phone calls whenever I want to use a CN. For the first time ever I’ve had a PCC that has stayed the same for my last 3 bookings. She can’t pronounce her own (Irish) name correctly but at least she hasn’t disappeared into thin air the way her predecessors did.

I’m waiting to see when they’ll jump onto reusable plastic glasses for the outside bars. they’ve just introduced a recycle deposit on plastic bottles/cups and metal cans in Ireland. My local stadium now requires a €1 deposit in addition to the cost of your drink and you get the €1 back when you bring the cup back to the recycle desk, I can’t understand why the cruise lines are not already doing this as the cups are heavier and less likely to blow off the ship into the water. They already use plastic glasses at the buffet beverage stations.

The metal is easier to recycle than anything else and those sorts of bottles are safely reusable as they can go into a dishwasher for cleaning.

I suspect the reason the “new reservation “/“at time of booking” terms are effectively ignored on the vouchers is because their website can’t handle them properly, it has a fit if you use one for a deposit as its not the same amount as the required deposit and it’s hit and miss at handling them for a part payment. I usually end up paying a deposit with my credit card and then calling the support line or PCC to get the Voucher applied. Also I contact my PCC to add the extra voucher when a double/triple up promo is running.