Sailing12Away

Yeah, but that's it, just the one option and it's an upcharge. I can buy the whole bottle here at home for $50.

Just look at a map though before you decide which option to go. Embarkation is usually at the Pan Am port, which is not in Old San Juan. If you wanted to do shopping and explore the old SJ area, a hotel in that location may be better and just leave your bags with the hotel at checkout. Explore, shop, wander, then return to the hotel and have them help call you a taxi to get to the Pan Am port. Or, get a hotel near the Pan Am port and explore that area the night you arrive. In the morning, drop your bags off at the ship, check in, then get a taxi over to wherever it is you wanted to explore and shop. But you'll need a taxi to get back. We stayed in Old San Juan, had a full day exploring the stuff over there. Walked around town in the morning and then shared a taxi to the port with about 6 other people who stayed in the hotel with us in the early afternoon. There was the one couple who dropped their bags and went back out again, but the rest of us walked onto the ship and started our vacation.

I thought we were dropping the practical engineering approach and going strictly off of 'fun to have' regardless of 'practical' or realistic?

We're brining a bottle of port and ice wine along with a bottle (or 3) of bubbly on our next trip in February. Lots of wines on board to pick from, but NCL is desperately lack in those 3 categories.

No on the dividers, like everyone else has said. For the restaurants, you'll get 15 different opinions. Go peek at the menus now once you get your reservation. They're all on the NCL website as samples, or if you search through these forums you'll find maybe the most recent versions that are hot off the press. Look at what is offered and see what calls out to you the most. Encore is a great ship and the views you'll have from the aft will be amazing.

Reach out to guest services ahead of time. They can have the DI water ready for you and can advise on the extension cords. My BIL used one in an oceanview cabin without issue, but I didn't ask about his specific set up and if he brought his own extension cord.

Yes, it is allowed. We've done it at other ports where we picked an early check-in time, dropped off our bags, went through check-in, got our keycards then left. Came back later on and just had to go through security again before going right on the ship. Last time we were on the Epic was a few years back, but there was a couple that shared a taxi to the port with us. They dropped their bags with the porter then hopped right back in the cab without even checking in. Fun guys, they knew how to party!

Looking at images of the Epic main pool area since I'll be hopping onboard next month. Not many loungers to be found in that water fountain areas between the pools. My funky design would be to invert those 2 pools so they're "up" and not "in", and the teal areas around them would be the lazy river to sit and float around. Folks that want loungers for the sun can have a deck above the pool area that wraps front to back and doubles as a walking/running track. They missed the mark with Aqua - should have been completely focused on pools and water activities. Hidden grottos, wild water slides, indoor pools, outdoor pools, mega jacuzzis, swim up pool bars. Then they could have gone a different direction for whatever the next one is and focus on crazy adventurous stuff like the race cars, ropes courses, true lap pools, big gym & spa stuff for folks that like that sort of stuff. Make little niche ships specific for the target audience they're going after rather than a mediocre half assed attempt to please all.

Other thing with NCL - if you don't like the answer, call back in 5 mins and talk to someone else. We have a trip coming up next month and wanted to add 2 more guests to our cabin (listed as fitting 6 guests, we only have 2). First person I talked to said no, we couldn't add anyone else due to fire code blah blah blah. Called back and talked to someone else - no problem, got the extra 2 guests added to our cabin. Call 2 when they said we could add them they gave me one price, but it was higher than expected so needed to confirm with the new guests that was ok. When I called back for the 3rd time to move forward with it, price had already changed and gone up. They told me "it changes by the minute". I literally LOL'ed to them and just did it anyway. But yeah... 3 different calls, 3 different answers and prices.

For those in favor of the lazy river/pool concept - take a look through google of the DGI Byen circular pool in Copenhagen. Surely NCL can modify this idea a bit to fit on the pool deck with a central pool for those looking to do laps or just soak, and the outer fun zone for lazying and meandering.

Will you settle for plinko? Think I have a plinko drinking game somewhere in the attic... Mystery shots can be fun 😊

You are more than welcome to come for a visit and take care of my shoveling. Our liquor and beer stock is plentiful, and I think you can help put a decent dent into the inventory so we can go out and buy more. I'll even let you into the good stuff 😉🐀. The sky poop has started again today, just when the sidewalks were clear enough to safely walk the dog without slipping and sliding everywhere. One of the owners suites has a fireplace - maybe the Joy? Certainly a nice touch for the cold weather ships visiting Alaska. We have a small one in our tv unit so definitely something they could incorporate for the fancy Haven rooms to make them a bit fancier and homey. I'll add my vote for a lazy river concept around the main pool. Can have little bridges to walk over the river and get to the center pool area with loungers all around both sides. If every balcony room had it's own private hot tub - no need to worry about having a bunch of public ones, so there's your space for the lazy river. In all honestly though - I just want to see more ships create a space for night sky viewing. You're out in the middle of the ocean with no light pollution - except for the one you create yourself. Why can't there be a spot aft that isn't flooded with spotlights everywhere and comfy day beds so we can lounge and watch the stars? Surely they can make night sky friendly lights so others can see us without blocking the stars.

You'll get a ton of different answers depending on which of us NY'er you ask. I prefer JFK, but if I fly at the right time of day it's because I'm only a ~15 min Uber ride away, whereas LGA is more like double that and can be even more with traffic. Haven't been to LGA since the renovation, so it may be nicer than my memory recalls but haven't given it a new chance yet. It will also depend on where you ultimately end up staying. But assuming you went directly to the cruise terminal from the airport (or your hotel was near there), LGA is about ~35 min Uber/taxi ride away and JFK is nearly double that. It's much further South (peek at the map), so you have to drive the whole up/down through LI to get up and over into Manhattan. Taxis though do a flat rate from the airport into NYC from JFK - so ~$70 from JFK, LGA is metered and since it's closer will be a bit cheaper (~$35). Flights into LGA tend to be a smidge cheaper too, so if you're saving a few bucks on both the flight and car ride, it can add up. Price it all out and see which is better for your dates. Outside of personal preference some of us have, there isn't a big difference otherwise.

Pool is definitely there now, someone on FB had posted pictures. But every time I try to find that post it's buried in tons of other stuff and I can't find it.

Yup, but the dogs on there need to stay in kennels and be of a certain size. There's actually a few dog friendly cruise lines. Not many of the mainstream ones that we're familiar with, but they are out there. https://www.bringfido.com/blog/are-dogs-allowed-on-cruise-ships/

I have never had my wine (or beer for that matter) held. Only the hard liquor is kept in storage until the last day. With the drink package, your bag of wine will be flagged when you get back on the ship at security. Just show them your card which shows you have the drink package and you can take it to your room. Only the hard liquor will be held back. We've done this many many times, both at embarkation and at ports of call. Wine, cans of beer.... all fine. Only the booze was kept.

Yeah... we had lunch in American Diner for free as Haven guests on the Joy for our PC trip. So nothing to do with Jewel class ships.

We (semi) joke all the time that our dog would love to be a cruise puppy. She would work as a chair holder like at the Oscars and such, holding onto your pool chair while you get a snack at the buffet in exchange for a 10% cut of your munchies. We honestly looked into sailing on Icon just for the fact that there's a dog on board. Ours isn't a tiny yappy lap dog though. She's a beefy 85lb mushball and honestly probably wouldn't do well on the ship. But nice to dream. In reality though - NCL needs to look into having different classes of ship for the different groups of consumers that want to sail with them, rather than trying to make a one size fits all approach. Have your big mega ships with your go karts, water slides, virtual reality, ropes courses, etc etc etc for the families and big kids who enjoy those things. Then have a floating spa oasis with lots of pools, hot tubs, peaceful quiet serene promenades with lots of nooks and crannies to snuggle up with a book or a nap in the sun for those looking to just escape. In all honesty, I want NCL to put out a small ship to compete with Celebrity's Flora to hit up all the little nook & cranny islands that you can barely see on a map. Places these mega ships can't go. Intimate places that many of us adventurers would love to visit, but becomes time/cost prohibitive to get to. Port intensive, itinerary focused luxury yachts that focus on the destination and not the ship itself. Places besides just the Galapagos. If they were to put out a ship like that.... whew.... talk about a game changer for us at least.

My brain immediately went to this, when Homer got to design his dream car.

Look at post #4 above which quotes the NCL policy verbatim. So long as the room is connected to the parents room, the young adults can be in there by themselves.

If you're looking for a good bargain to try out Haven, the Epic is the one to keep an eye on. Our first full Haven experience was on Epic and that made us a believer. We were originally in a mini suite (club balcony suite) and prices kept dropping. Cost an extra $100/day to move into the 2br suite and it was worth every penny. Epic has way more 2br suites than they do the standard studio rooms - so those tend to be cheaper than the smaller ones. Don't be afraid to have that extra room for your luggage - we've done it before ourselves and up until 5 mins ago were planning on doing that again next month. Have friends that decided to tag along in the closet and join us. Thanks for sharing the photos. Hopping on board in ~40 days so getting excited to see what she looks like since the last time I was on board several years prior.

Suite guests do not get specialty dinners for free. The majority of NCL guests choose the free at sea promo which includes a few dinners, but that has nothing to do with the cabin booked. I have never seen people eating meals out by the courtyard pool area. I would never want to sit out there and eat my filet while someone is swimming right next to me. That's just.... odd. Maybe a quick lunch bite from the snack menu, but not dinner. Have also never felt the Haven areas to be crowded on the bigger ships, so I guess it all depends on your particular sailing.

Reach out to NCL and ask about wheelchair assistance at the port. We did it recently on Celebrity with my MIL and it was a breeze. The walk is too far for her to get onto the ship, so as soon as we got to the porters we asked about wheelchair help, they already had her name in their list and whisked us all away. I'm pretty sure NCL has a similar service available. Service was free, but there were a lot of handoffs of her between staff - one to get inside the terminal, one to get onto the ship, and they had another that then took her all the way to the safety check-in and her cabin where her rented wheelchair was waiting for her. So a lot of tipping along the way if one feels inclined, but she didn't have to struggle at all and started the vacation off on the right foot. As for check-in - if you're not concerned about being "first" to get onboard, I would definitely agree with the folks saying later in the afternoon is 'better'. If the ship is scheduled to leave at 4pm for example, I would aim to get there around noon. Still gives you plenty of time to wander the ship before you leave, but avoids the crowds.

2 of the specialty restaurants on the Pearl are flat rate. So if you were truly worried about meal quality in the MDR those are 2 inexpensive add-on options. Not sure how long ago your last NCL trip was, but quality changes with each trip. So if you didn't like the meals on one trip, don't immediately discredit a restaurant on the future trip without giving it a try. You can peek at the menus now to get an idea of what might be calling out to you to figure out if it's better to pay as you go, or add on extra dining credits now (slightly better pricing to do it now ahead of the game). Here's your specialty dining options on the Pearl - we've eaten at them all and they've all been fine for us. https://www.ncl.com/cruise-ship/pearl/whats-on-board/specialty-dining

Border of Nassau & Queens. I think the delivery service apps are more regulated in the city though. We were at a brewery earlier in LIC and ordered some Mad for Chicken delivery to soak up the beer. Less than $10 in taxes, fees & tip... whereas my pancakes from less than a mile away were nearly double that. For pancakes. Korean fried chicken all day every day I guess. We have a fairly expensive non-NCL trip coming up in October, and another non-NCL one planned for Mardi Gras 2025. Not that we're moving away from NCL per se, but we follow the itineraries that hit places we want to be and NCL seems to be missing the mark for our desired market area. Or at least our market area and budget. Keeping my fingers crossed that NCL offers up a decent Japan itinerary with an Okinawa stop in 2026 that won't cost an arm & leg. Found a great trip that hits China, Taiwan, South Korea & Okinawa, but it's for March of this year so not doable. I just can't bring myself to pay Haven prices on a smaller ship that doesn't even have a Haven at all.