NikkiDee-Canada

Any tips for nice quiet places to hang out? I had my "go to" locations on the Breakaway in December (Waterfront lounges, the circular lounges up on the highest deck of the ship, etc) and am hoping to find some similar areas to hide away to read a book or just relax in the sun. I know the Dawn is much smaller, so I'm curious as to what it may have that is similar. I've done FAR less research this trip, than the last. :)

The ramps are ridiculously steep. I have zero mobility issues and found it hard on my knees climbing up. Which resulted in our party of 11 making minimal trips back and forth. We had a few that stayed in the cabana all day, and some that stayed at the beach all day. Anytime someone DID go up, you'd hear the rest of the group yelling "Oh bring me down a mat, bring me a beer, bring a towel" because nobody wanted to make the trek back up the ramp of doom. :')

We had booked it for our trip in December, but much to our disappointment, missed it when the ship was rerouted due to a medical emergency onboard. What I CAN speak to is the fantastic customer service. I sent them an email as soon as the captain announced that we were diverting to Cozumel, and within minutes, the owner had written back to indicate that they had already initiated a full refund, and a moment after that, sent a bulk email out to all other guests on board. The refund was in my account within 24 hours, if memory serves correct. Absolutely zero issues, and I totally plan to book with them again if we ever head back to Costa Maya. I've heard nothing but great things about their service.

We did it on the Breakaway in December, and won! Apparently one other group had won before us on our cruise, and it is so rare for them to have two winners that they hadn't even brought prizes for our group. It was definitely challenging. Some of the puzzles were a bit "out there" and there was a trick to it. We had a group of 8, including my 12 and 14 yr olds. I think it helped to have the kids, because they looked at things from a completely different perspective, and solved a couple of the puzzles on their own, that were beyond us. :P

It was a lot of fun, but could definitely get frustrating depending on your group. You can select members and build your own team, but if you don't have a full 8 people, they add individuals to your group. We had a group of 6, and luckily the two "stragglers" they added to our group were a huge asset.

If you've done an escape room off-ship before, it's a different experience. Usually escape rooms are just that, a room with built-in puzzles that you have to solve to escape. This one was held in the Big Top where cirque takes place, so it obviously had to be temporary. They dealt with this by using props. You receive a bag of props which includes various puzzles, but no real instruction on how it all fits together. Around the room were 5 posters and 3 carnival-style games. Each one of them was a clue to the final solution. Some of the puzzles were quite tricky, and we almost messed up at the end because the final solution has something to do with colors, and the guy on our team reading the solution seemed to be a bit color-blind! Either that, or the lighting made it hard to differentiate between orange and red. Watch for that. :)

NCL's online booking/reservation system isn't great, and I'm hopeful that they will work out the kinks over time. There were all sorts of "glitches" with the bookings for our last cruise, beginning with mixed up names (so confirmation emails came in my kids' names - not a huge deal), followed by a massive spam of emails about the itinerary change, and ending with reimbursements for a cancelled show, x5 even though I paid for 4 (turned out I ended up with one of my mom's reimbursements, and then had to work out sending her a payment + exchange rate, once we were home.) Just bizarre stuff. Nothing earth shattering, just inconvenient. I also prefer to use my smart phone, and found that I would get different rates coming up on my phone, versus doing it on my laptop. Same room, same details, different amounts. Odd.

I, too, have had better luck with simply using a PCC. My strategy for my next two cruises was to go through the online booking system, price it all out, then call the PCC and explain what I wanted. If they quoted a higher price, I just read through the online booking in front of me and told them I wanted that price. Everything (so far) has gone smoothly. I've learned not to trust their online system, though that shouldn't be the case. Hopefully as time goes on, and with changing demographics, there will be a bigger push for them to fine tune their online system so that it works flawlessly.

We are booked for April, and are mainly doing our own exploring except for the last day. We booked an excursion through the ship because the timelines will be tight, and we don't want to risk being left behind. :) We figured this would make good use of the last day. We'll just need to be sure to get any desired souvenirs the day before, while we are out exploring. :)

Yep - they took all the info before we were even on a ship. It was not portrayed as optional. Everything was set up before we got on the ship. We linked the credit card to our account, deactivated the kids' room cards for spending, waited for them to photocopy some travel documentations for the kids, got our room cards, and were on our way.

We have one booked for this coming December and I'm super excited. We stayed in a regular balcony cabin with our three kids this past December (one child was signed up for my parents room "on paper" but stayed in our room). So we had two teens and a 6 year old, plus the two of us, in a room meant for 4 people. It really was a non-issue. The biggest problem was lines for the washroom. =P But for the most part, the older two went wandering as soon as they woke up, used the washrooms elsewhere, and we just staggered our showers.

There was plenty of room in the balcony cabin for all of our stuff x5, including suitcases (under the bed) and snorkle gear (top shelf of closet). The family oceanview has a ton more storage, so I'm excited about that. :)

Looks like you'll be fine in that room. You really don't spend much time in the room, really. With our crew, there were only ever 1-2 people in the room at a time, aside from overnight. We were all doing our own thing.

The cabanas are great! Yes, book early, as they definitely sell out. Not sure how reimbursement works if you skip GSC, but I'd assume it's OBC (I paid for the cirque show ahead of time with credit card, but when it was cancelled, they gave me OBC instead of reimbursing my credit card).

The large cabanas include:

-big sectional sofa

-two loungers

-two club chairs

-a hammock outside

-a shower in the back (great for washing post-beach sand off your feet)

-four floating mats

-food credit (we got charcuterie and shrimp - so good)

-mini fridge (we kept it stocked up with beer that we requested when we got there, as we all had the UBP)

-towels (no need to lug any off the ship)

-ceiling fan, which helped with the heat

Also worth mentioning that it's considered an excursion, so you get priority tender. This is a fantastic way to make the most of your day.

With the UBP, we had the waiter bringing us an endless stream of drinks for our group. They also offered to bring us food from the buffet, but we opted to get our own so we could wander and check out the rest of the island.

If you like music and are planning on bringing a speaker on the ship, bring it to the island for your cabana. This is the one thing we regretted leaving behind, and will remember for next time. There are several outlets in the cabana, so you can charge your cameras/phones if need be.

Ultimately, GSC was our favourite of the six ports we visited. The cabana played a huge part in this!

OK, thanks for replies, everyone. I think I'll try calling NCL to fix it, since this issue affects some people's mail from NCL later on. My other friends also going on this cruise in a separate cabin did NOT have the mystery address-switching issue - I guess NCL has computer gremlins that mess things up randomly.

Definitely try it, but don't count on it "sticking" either. Our bookings were all royally messed up this past December. I called NCL and they fixed it all for that booking. I made a new reservation upon our return, for our next trip, using the same information located in my account (as it had saved all the previous guests). Low and behold...the confirmation email came...in my 12 year old son's name. :') I told him he's on the hook for the bill!

We've been really excited to try the Bliss and were thrilled to see that it's coming to NYC (drivable for our family of 5....flying adds a massive cost). That said...what are the odds of them adding a third and fourth guest sail free perk, seeing that it's a new ship in a new location. Slim to none? I did a mock booking and it's not currently an option. We can't really justify the nearly 10k CDN cost. ;p Anyone have experience when other new ships have been introduced? Or should I just hush up and wait and see? :)

These two quotes are concerning:

Selvam, however, has since been tried and found not guilty by a jury in Miami, despite an affidavit of support filed by an FBI agent which stated that Selvam acknowledged that he touched the girl’s “buttocks and pubic region with his hand, skin to skin, while the minor victim was sleeping on the bed.”

Not guilty, even though he admitted to it? :eek:

The Herald adds that reports of sexual assault among cruise passengers is not uncommon, but rarely do they involve staff members.

Yikes. I guess this makes sense. But still sad that people have to worry about this even while trying to enjoy their vacation. Keep your kiddos close! :(

OMG - we dealt with the same thing with our PCC. Wonder if it's the same person. She mailed us her card (on magnets), which happened to have her personal cell number on it (not indicated). Of course, that's the number my sister tried calling one weekend when she was trying to work out some logistics, not even thinking twice about it, as it was the number on the card. The PCC flipped out at her for bothering her on her personal cell on the weekend.

She was impossible to get a hold of as we worked out the details for our three room bookings, through email or phone. At one point, there was a decent price drop (likely due to the rooms not selling, because of the itinerary change post-hurricanes). I called to see about getting a price adjustment or OBC, which she had previously suggested I do, and she was not responding. I called NCL directly, and they took care of it right away. I passed the info onto my sister, so she could also call. She called the PCC, and it resulted in three "wall of text" scathing emails to me about how dare I give my sister false information, and several phone calls (which I did not answer), from 10pm to midnight. The voicemails were not repeatable. :P She was just awful. We called NCL the next day and switched to a new PCC. It was a nightmare. My sister was totally traumatized by her end of things. Really unfortunate.

Sorry for the hijack, just wanted to say I feel for you. Call and request a switch. Our new guy is great!

As others have stated, the prepaid service charge takes care of your daily tips. You can pre-pay them before the cruise via credit card, or pay for them at the end of the cruise (you will see them accumulating daily on your onboard account, so don't panic when you see the weird charges). It's a great method, as you don't need to worry about bringing cash to tip - it's all taken care of ahead of time. Some people choose to bring cash to tip extra for their room stewards, or the bartenders (hoping for better service) but it's not necessary. Hope that helps!

That was the one we were on! Our stingray excursion was canceled due to the crazy waves. We did the turtle farm excursion instead. By the time we got back (with a couple hours to spare before we had to be back), it was a ghost town with locals yelling “Back to the ship! Back to the ship!” holding signs for their cabs. We wandered for a bit and hit up diamond international as my daughter was collecting charms, then found a souvenir shop that was open. Spent a half hour or so watching the waves. Then succumbed to the locals’ pleas to take us “back to the ship!!” Lol.

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What ship were you on?

 

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Norwegian Breakaway.

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We are from Ottawa and traveling to Boston in April for the Norwegian Dawn cruise to Bermuda. We are hoping to drive down the day before, and are trying to find a hotel we can park the car at for the week. We did this in Syracuse for our recent cruise out of NY, and were able to keep the car there for free for the week, as we had a room booked for the beginning and end of our cruise.

We've never been to Boston, and are having a hard time finding a hotel with any availability. Any thoughts?

Fantastic, thanks. I knew there must be a board for these kinds of questions!

I hope this is ok to post! We are from Ottawa and travelling to Boston in April for the Norwegian Dawn cruise to Bermuda. We are hoping to drive down the day before, and are trying to find a hotel we can park the car at for the week. We did this in Syracuse for our recent cruise out of NY, and were able to keep the car there for free for the week, as we had a room booked for the beginning and end of our cruise.

We've never been to Boston, and are having a hard time finding a hotel with availability. Any thoughts?

Already did that, after my first cruise consultant bombarded me with harassment, including 4 gigantic emails, and two midnight phone calls to express her anger that my sister called to inquire whether she could receive the same OBC (due to a price drop) that I had received. It was absolutely ludicrous, and a bit scary. Norwegian set us up with a new guy who was great with wrapping up the details of our first cruise. But he's been totally non-responsive the past couple of weeks to my 2 emails asking to book this second cruise (maybe he's off for the holidays!)

That said, my dealings when calling Norwegian directly have been nothing short of fantastic. The customer service is always great, and when there is an issue, they have fixed it quickly. I just must have the worst luck when it comes to cruise consultants. :')

Update: Phone works best. ;) But it begs the question....has anyone else had issues with the Norwegian Cruise Consultants? I'm 0 for 2, in terms of customer service and/or sanity.

What do people find is the easiest way to book a cruise? I was going to go through the online booking, but would like to book with a promotion for double points, and don't see anywhere online where that would be added. I tried emailing our Norwegian Cruise Consultant that was sporadically in contact with us last time, but he has been MIA, and hasn't responded to my last couple of emails asking if we can book!

For those with experience, should I be able to book online, and then beg for the double points later? I think the promotion ends on the 31st and we don't want to miss it. Hmm, maybe that's why he's not emailing back. :P Going to try the "old fashioned" way and give them a call. :)

We were there a few weeks ago on a Sunday. The excursions were all running (well, not the day we went, but that was weather related), but the rest of Grand Cayman was pretty much shut down. There were a handful of shops open, but not for long. If you had an excursion that was returning on the later side, there was no opportunity to buy souvenirs in town. A lot of people seemed surprised that the ship was stopping there on a day that it traditionally shuts down. We are newbies, so we had no clue about this until we got there, and the tour guide leading our excursion mentioned it (by saying "Normally I'd offer to drop you in town to shop, or take you back to the ship (we were on the far side that day due to weather), but everything will be closed by the time we get back.")

I'm on the Breakaway on the Dec 3rd cruise out of NYC, and am actually happy to hear that the client-base is loud and fun. ;) I'm traveling with three kids, so anything to overshadow my crew is appreciated, haha.

As a first-timer, I was surprised to find out about the beverage surcharge for the UBP. We almost chose another perk, actually, as our beverage surcharge was $228.46CDN pp for our 12 day cruise (total of $456.92 for the two of us), which was a bit of a sticker shock. But when we spoke to the TA about it, she explained that really....that's less than the cost of two drinks per day. So if we are going to drink more than 2 drinks (and based on photos I've seen of the size of the cups, even I can manage that with my low tolerance!) then it's well worth it.

I can't imagine ever spending the money on the UBP for our cruise length, if it weren't free. It was like $1600CDN per person. I don't spend that much on alcohol in a year, at home! Or even two years! That's the price of another trip! :o

We are up to two elves and the elf dog thing, and they will all be joining us on the trip. I plan to make little fake key cards on lanyards for them, and to head to the room on my own to unpack while my husband distracts the kids.

As for how to set them up, I bought a kit at the end of season last year for half price, with all kinds of accessories to pose them with. It takes up a small footprint, so I think I can stick everything into one zippered bag to hide from the kids. One of the things that the kit comes with (that you could easily purchase) is a roll of string. I'm going to get some magnetic hooks for the walls so that I can stretch the string across, as our elves often like to zipline. =P

Other than that, I really have no specific ideas haha. Just move them around from day to day, with the plan to keep mine only in the cabin.