thedarklord

27 minutes ago, nhtravels said:

I have to agree on this!  Loved Zacapa 23 in our drinks.  We were just on the Panama Canal sailing and were in Guatemala.  Did a tasting at House of Zacapa.  Ended up leaving with 6 bottles!   

 

The Haven bartenders will definitely know how to use your upgraded beverage package!  Just ask them for recommendations.  Cheers!

Sadly not in the Haven on this cruise, I am going to miss the Haven bar though, the bartenders there are so good.

4 hours ago, Lionkingrichard said:

Ask for a double Zacapa 23 rum in any Rum drink. Think fruity, beach/pool drinks. They will look at you Funny until they see your card. That's a $55 drink in case you wonder. 🥰

Thanks, I’ll definitely give that a try, I’m very partial to fruity rum based drinks!

We've all seen the list of cocktails that are included in the premium drinks package, my wife and I have made a healthy dent in that list in the past!
On our next cruise, we're going to try upgrading to Plus (it's only a 3-nighter, so a more cost sensible way of trying it out).
Anyone got any must try drinks they can recommend with the Plus package, we'd like to abuse the extra cost as much as possible!
 

We're sailing in about 3 1/2 weeks, and upgraded from an interior to a club balcony yesterday. Our PCC couldn't match the price I was seeing online, so I called the call centre and they were able to upgrade us with no problems at the expected price.
We couldn't go from interior to standard balcony, because the cost would've been the same (triggering the cancel/rebook process), but because the club balcony was £80'ish more expensive, that was enough to allow the upgrade to proceed
The lowest cost on the bidding process was £80 each I think, so that would've been at least £160, with no guarantees.

Many thanks for all the help and advice, sounds like it shouldn't be a problem which is reassuring to hear.

Much preferring to just wonder into town and do our own thing, we've never been on a ship organised tour before. However, on our upcoming cruise in April, we find ourselves needing to use a ship organised tour right now for French and Italian ports apparently. Never having taken one before though, I realise I don't know the answer to what is probably a really obvious question to someone with more experience!

We're travelling with friends on this cruise, so in total there are 5 of us, across 3 different bookings. If we all wanted to do the same tour, is there some way of making sure we're in the same group, same coach? Getting off the ship in various ports in the past, I've seen loads of coaches all doing the same tour, I assume people are told "You're on coach 119, you're on coach 120" etc., or can you just get on the first coach with space for your group? Or would we need to speak to the shore excursions desk to get this sorted?

Good spot, that's pretty disappointing. So not only have the increased the cost, they've also decreased the benefit.
Sometimes I regret liking the freestyle approach NCL have, it very much makes me lean towards them for cruises. This sort of gradual erosion in the package though makes me more and more interested in other lines - do any others have something similar to Freestyle?

France as well? Huh, that's a surprise, I didn't realise that was true for France as well, don't see that mentioned on https://www.ncl.com/uk/en/travel-requirements-by-country, just the requirement for Italy

We're doing a quick 3 night cruise in April, which has a day in Naples. Do NCL/Italy still require you to do ship-only tours, or has that requirement ended? One of the people in our group found an FAQ saying it was still required, but knowing how good NCL are at updating their website, it's tough to know if that's still the case, or if they've just forgotten to update an old page!

Used this a few days ago, got the 'You just used your Norwegian Cruise Line offer' email from Amex a few minutes later, so looks like it worked OK.
I was lucky - I was going to pay the final balance on our cruise the day before, forgot, and then noticed this in my offers the next day. If I'd remembered to pay the day before and then seen the offer, it'd have been really annoying!
Only had £530 left to pay on the cruise as well, so only just qualified!

Our PCC tells me that she can book our cruises (we're UK based) through either the UK office or the US office, after I moaned about the fact that UK based bookings can't benefit from price reductions, & can't cancel without losing deposit.

So my question now is - are they any good/compelling reasons why we're better off booking through the UK versus the US? I know that we'd be subject to currency fluctuations affecting the price we pay if we booked through the US (though if that got too onerous, we'd presumably be able to cancel and get our deposit back anyway), but is there anything stupid/fundamental I'm missing which which mean booking through the US is not the better option normally?

Just had a chat to one of the cruisenext people on the ship. She confirmed that the rules changed recently meaning you can no longer use non refundable credit for the purchase. She did confirm though that the credit you get for purchasing them can still be applied to the cost. 

We're on the Jade right now, and thinking about buying some more cruise next certificates. 

We've got $200 non refundable credit on our account. If we buy 2 cruisenext at $500, $250 obc is automatically applied making our balance $250. My question is: (assuming no other charges) will the $200 non refundable obc be applied to that remaining balance making our checkout balance $50, or can you not use non-refundable obc against Cruisenext, meaning our checkout balance would still be $250, with the $200 obc still sitting in our account unused? 

Hope that makes sense! 

49 minutes ago, julig22 said:

The link is in your edocs.

Many thanks for that, really obvious now I know it's there!

Just now, CruizinKittie40 said:

I was going to try to keep it a secret from my mom but the luggage tags will be different 😕

I'm still trying to figure out where to get hold of the new luggage tags - I know I found them before because I've already printed them for the oceanview, but finding things on NCLs website...we can all share that pain I'm sure!

I just had my upgrade bid accepted for a cruise on the Jade departing on Sunday, but it was unusual!

We were in an oceanview, bidded for a balcony or mini-suite. I just received an email from NCL offering us an S4 2-bed deluxe family suite, or an SM Aft-facing penthouse, including butler and concierge, at our original bid price, which was definitely in the first poor category (and not very far at all off the bottom!)

Jumped on the phone within about a minute of the email arriving, and grabbed the aft-facing penthouse - the 2 bed seems pointless for a couple, and I think the penthouse has a bigger balcony.

I'm absolutely staggered by this, I was pretty much resigned to not getting an upgrade given how close we are to sailing so to end up in this is crazy! I'm going to try to keep this a secret from my wife, it'll be a really good surprise for her when we get to the cabin!

24 minutes ago, Happycrafter123 said:

I have identified a real challenge between the number of drinks I can realistically drink in a week versus those I’d like to try lol!    

I think between my wife and I on our last cruise (which was an 8 nighter), we managed 52 different cocktails between us which I thought was pretty good going!
If you try hard, I'm sure you can manage a respectable number!

7 minutes ago, CardFanDubG said:

 

NCL_Beverage_List.pdf 1.02 MB · 0 downloads

Very many thanks for that, it's much appreciated!

Looks like the pdf that @CardFanDubG shared is no longer available - would someone be able to post it again please?

Has anyone managed to book covid tests for more than one person at Athens Airport? We're flying in on Saturday, for an NCL cruise on Sunday, so I'm trying to book an antigen test for us both for when we land at Athens.
When I try to book though, I tell their website that there are two passengers, it asks me for my details, doesn't ask about the other passenger, and never updates the price to reflect two people. Having typed that, I wonder if each person has to sign up individually, but if that's the case, why ask the number of passengers? I'm probably overthinking this!
Anyway, just curious what others have done when trying to book for more than one person, I can't be the first person to have had to deal with this situation!

I took part in a slot pull on an inaugural transatlantic a few years ago, and was lucky enough to hit the jackpot (a great feeling!).
As I have a British passport (I had to run to my cabin to get it to show the casino staff), there was no tax consideration needed, but they made sure by checking cctv that I was the one who'd pressed spin, and hadn't just switched seats or something to avoid someone having to pay taxes.
 

Many thanks for the help - Lleo does look like a good option. Hadn't considered Airbnb, that could be a good option as well thanks, though with most places having a set service fee irregardless of the number of nights stay, that can make shorter stays more expensive than they'd otherwise be.

Can someone who's sailed on the Jade recently, and had to get an onboard test for onward travel tell me what sort of checks NCL are doing to see if you're eligible for a test? I know they're offering a free test to anyone who's flying directly home, but if you're doing anything else, like going to a different country first, then it's $150 per test. I'm curious really - are they checking your plane tickets first, or just assuming everyone's flying straight home, or what?
We might be flying straight home, or we might be flying to Italy for a week, and we're unlikely to know which until the day before disembarkation (don't ask why, it's long and tedious!), so we're in a 'might qualify depending on where we're going, which we won't know when they take the test' sort of situation!

Hi,
Can anyone recommend a cheap-ish hotel for a one night stay in Barcelona please?
We'll be a group of 5, needing 3 rooms. 3 people coming in from the airport, 2 from the Sants train station. Of course, going to the port the next day.
We don't need anything fancy or luxurious, not really going to have much time for sight-seeing I don't think given the train'll get in at some point in the evening, no idea what time the people flying in will arrive though.

Keen to keep cost low (especially for our single traveller), we really just need something simple providing a decent, clean, safe place to stay for one night, no bells and whistles needed really!

I put a bid in for our Oct 16 cruise on Monday - never received an email saying it was available, I just checked my account after the final payment date and saw the option was there.