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definitely bring a not-smart watch with you, this is particularly key if your ship master decides to not match port time (rarely an issue on NCL but does happen). I found the quickest way to convince my smartwatch to update to local time was to tell it I was going for a jog as soon as I got outdoors so it would hunt for the nearest GPS signals. My previous fitness tracker could only have the time changed when connected to a laptop or desktop but that was a first generation garmin. My current one is a lot smarter and I can load a time-zone add on to it in addition to getting it to figure out the local time itself. I have a baby-g that I got almost 20 years ago that I always dust off and bring for travel, particularly as I'm usually transiting multiple time zones when flying.

that change in the corkage fee is great to know.. I'll have a couple of days in Seattle pre-cruise so I was thinking i may have to identify any of the local wines I wanted to bring home and pick them up after the cruise. Also if the friend I'm try to persuade to come does so it'll be her 40th birthday on-board so I can bring a bottle of bubbly to celebrate it. For anyone that has experience with the new policy, are you allowed to bring the wine/bubbly you brought with you to the restaurants or is it restricted to cabin use only?

The drink package(PBP) covers most drinks up to $15 value there are exceptions to this rule: bottled water, fresh juices and smoothies, specialty coffees (starbucks) are not covered by the FAS package. you can upgrade to a FAS+ to cover a bigger range of drinks, unlimited wifi, more specialty dining, .. This may be better value than just getting the PBP+ (premium beverage package+). You can also buy a spa pass for access to the thermal suite.

most of the big ships have it, Joy is an exception though.

I was paying the upgrade fee for unlimited internet yesterday (before NCL realise they can jack up the prices with starlink) and was kinda distracted by the FAS+ offer. It was listed as about €273 and I had a serious think about it. In the end I just went for the wifi upgrade and now FAS+ has disappeared as an upgrade option. I'm not a coffee drinker nor too much of a top shelf liquor person and since I travel solo the extra excursion credit is not applicable to me. But I'll definitely keep it in mind for future bookings as it'll probably be worthwhile for the bottled water alone in my case. BTW for those not familiar with EU€ pricing our base fare tends to be a lot higher than you get in $, we also pay for FAS which used to be €99 for a 7day but has now gone up to €149 and yes that includes gratuities. For those that might be curious the Euro upgrade packages pricing for a 7-day cruise at the moment are as follows (AFAIK Gratuities are included due to EU rules): FAS+ €273 PBP+ €234 2 meal specialty dining add on €69 Unlimited wifi €106 Unlimitied wifi w/streaming €173 FAS+ includes PBP+, 2SDP and unlimited wifi, so those 3 alone combine to exceed the price of FAS+.

I'm suspecting the ships sailing from US ports will be amongst the earliest to get setup and I see Prima is sailing from Canaveral in February. It may depend on whether they'll have multiple teams doing the installs or a single team going ship to ship and of course availability of equipment from Starlink.

Interesting I looked at that map a while back and at that stage alaska was showing as "waitlist" but it's now showing as available. I do see a lot of Caribbean still "coming soon" as is North Africa. The southern hemisphere is definitely lacking in coverage but if it looks like ships will be a major income stream I expect we'll see coverage over the oceans to improve rapidly.

Woohoo !!! so by October it should be on bliss.. better pay for the internet package upgrade now before they up the pricing

Have they changed the call button operation on Bliss ? I haven't sailed on her yet but I've been on Escape, Breakaway, Getaway and Epic. On the older ships you had to press the button on both the starboard and port banks of elevators to improve your chances of an elevator coming quickly. If you could just press one to apply to both sides then there'd be far fewer elevators stopping only to have no-one getting on. So the reason no-one got on when your elevator stopped at a particular deck wasn't necessarily because someone decided to take the stairs, instead it's more likely an elevator in the opposite bank arrived first and they got on that one. I've usually had cabins at about the mid deck level between 10 and 12, so it wasn't a major effort to use the stairs when the elevators were busy. about the only time I used them was getting back on at a port or going from 6 or 7 up to the pool deck. This may be the reason I tend to lose weight on a cruise...

Has anyone done a whale watching excursion in Juneau in October ? A few of the companies don't seem to operate in October and I know Gastineau are not running their photo safari option as the daylight is too limited. So at the moment I'm looking at 4 potential options, 2 from NCL and 2 from independent companies Discover Alaska's whales - sold by NCL but is run by Gastineau, this is the most expensive of the options I'm looking at so I need advice on whether it's worth the extra cost (€201) Whale watching & wildlife quest - sold by NCL not sure which company is running this one so if anyone knows please let me know, it might be Allen Marine as they have a tour with this name (€153) both of the below are about $150ish Alaska Outback whale watching experience - Harv & Marv, their other tour isn't running in October or is already sold out. Premier Whale watching expedition - Juneau tours, not sure if this is the company running it or they're a reseller Harv & Marv I'm wary of as their terms say they'll retain the full fee if I don't make it, there's no mention a cruise ship missing port allowance and even if I cancel a month out they'll till hold $50 Juneau tours also says no refunds if cancelled later than 24hrs pre tour

It’s NCL so afaik that’s pier 66, though with NCL these days if it’s cheaper to use pier 91 they’ll switch especially as it’s only their ships sailing that late in the year. the joy of Irish weather is we can get all sorts at any time of the year. We could have the warmest weather in October and snow in May, or vice versa. Last winter was ridiculously mild here with very little rain, this winter it was utterly foul from October onwards. Having been in Portland in March I’m expecting very similar weather to here I.e. completely unreliable.

true but the water promo should be in the codes listing on the first page if not on the second page. btw my latitudes status has changed since I booked the cruise so it doesn’t show the bottle of water I’m due through that.

Good to hear. I'm intending to fly in a few days early as I'm travelling from Ireland and I prefer to allow a cushion against flight delays as well as time to see the city. Google maps is telling me the walk to the pier is only 12 minutes and I have wheeled luggage, the decider will be the weather... if it's bucketing rain then it'll be cab or uber, otherwise walking should be fine. Though do you know if the pedestrian bridge has an escalator or elevator at the pier side ? From what I can see on Streetview its hard to tell though it does seem to go into the terminal building. I'm hoping to avoid need for Ubers or cabs as much as possible as the roaming charges for the data use on my phone are horrific. A 10 minute drive from Miami Airport to the closest phone store using google maps cost me €40 in data roaming previously.

I wish I could do that but being in Ireland there aren't any particularly interesting cruises departing from here and most flights are best booked months in advance even when going to the continent. I'm hoping when Cobh gets it's second cruise pier setup there might be some ships with warm weather itineraries allowing embarkation from there.

Norwegian Epic in Aruba, Nicko Cruises World voyager in Bonaire, MSC Seaview and RCCL Explorer of the seas in St Kitts.

On the size/weight consideration, definitely consider this. When I was looking to upgrade from my first DSLR (minolta - great build quality) I was choosing between Canon and Nikon as they had the lens range I needed for sports. I'd initially decided on a Nikon for the spec but when I actually handled one in a shop it was an immediate no because the grip was too deep for my hands to hold for more than a few minutes. Hence I went for Canon and have a few bodies and lenses for that kit. However I also invested in a mirrorless Panasonic GM1 which is so much easier for walking around and travel use. The Canon kit is really only for when I need extended high speed range nowadays, so it's getting dusted off for Alaska but for my Caribbean and Mediterranean cruises the Panasonic and my phone were fine. I attended a couple of mobile journalism conferences held here in Ireland and there were some serious photography types at them giving all sorts of tips and tricks for mobile photography. some of the apps they recommended for editing includes: Snapseed and Retouch. VSCO is an app that will let you manipulate manual settings on your phone camera if the native camera app doesn't allow that access. If you want something of similar power to Adobe Photoshop on desktop there is a free editor called Gimp that allows similar levels of manipulation but isn't as user friendly. As an illustration of the pictures from camera v phone.. The first picture below is from the panasonic, and the second is from my phone (samsung S21).

Those pictures are stunning @Crew News I'll be loaning my 4/3's kit to a friend if she decides to come to alaska with me as I feel it's justified to bring my Canon 7D/II kit for that trip, looks like she'll have plenty of scope to get some nice shots if the weather cooperates. I've a similar lens pairing for the 4/3s kit I have and it's what I normally bring on vacation with me as it's more travel friendly. The Canon kits only gets broken out for sports or in the case of Alaska because I'm expecting rain.

BTW on my confirmation the second page lists the add-ons with more detail

hmm just looking at the codes on my booking and the ones on a friend's booking the BROCHURE, CECHOALL and CEPSC codes are on both but when I booked her cruise the Specialty dining had changed from 2 to 1 and her internet minutes are 150mins while mine are 250mins, it's the same cruise and both are studios the difference is I booked January last year and hers was booked in December. So I can see myself having some interesting conversations with guest services.

Interesting .. here's an Irish version which shows the discount/promo codes, obviously no water package on this as I booked over a year ago

I have to say a Matador is my favourite evening drink, on my first cruise it was the special cocktail on the menu for the dinner show. On a few of the ships you can only get it at Maltings. My other old reliables tend to be Dark & stormy, Margarita (any without chili powder are good with me), Mudslide or Honey Lemonade. I did wind up with a Dark & stormy made with Ginger beer instead of ginger ale one night when the bar ran out of ginger ale. The Raspberry guava mojito is my favourite at the mojito bar, I even ordered the guava syrup from Amazon so I could make it at home.

That seems odd for the getaway buffet, they usually have late snacks from 9.30pm to 11/11.30pm I've gone for a slice or two of pizza from there after shows when I had dinner early. The back page of the daily newsletter gives all the opening hours. If getaway is closing the buffet completely that early in the evening they must be dealing with staff or supply shortages like everyone in hospitality right now.

On the entertainment schedule fluctuations, there's always been some changes from normal schedules even before COVID. I had 2 sailings where there was a brand new cast for one of the shows, in both cases it meant that show was only on the latter half of the cruise rather than alternating stagings with the other main show. Then post-COVID I was on 2 sailings of Epic that had cancelled stagings of Priscilla due to individual cast member illness/injuries. Thankfully on the first sailing they managed to get a substitute on-board in time to stage the show before my cruise finished (upside of a Mediterranean itinerary) but on the second one it never got staged(Caribbean itinerary).

Every so often a rugby union outhalf uses the NFL kickers recruitment negotiation tactic to improve their contracts, particularly if they have US connections. Honestly not sure why more of them haven't followed through on it, NFL would be so much easier and much more lucrative for them.

Try being a rugby fan on a cruise ship… I’ve now mastered the art of finding the strongest WiFi on the ship to use the vpn streaming of my Irish tv subscription services . My next cruise is overlapping the rugby World Cup, I’m hoping if Ireland are still involved in the tournament they’ll have the decency to be in the games that don’t clash with embarkation and disembarkation.