Sailing12Away

$500/pp in non-refundable OBC. Same compensation was given to us as the 3BR, which also isn't fair to them. So 1K total, when we already have 1300+ in OBC between TA, stockholder benefits, and various other such. In my letter back to them I asked them to please look at our account to see we already had an excessive amount of OBC and didn't want more. Told them it should be 10% in FCC instead to be anywhere close to being a fair compensation. The point of the trip was having the private hot tub. $500 OBC doesn't help us get into a different room with a private hot tub. FCC would help though and guarantees we're spending more money with them, so not sure how they could see that as a bad thing.

Too lazy to look up these others, but at a quick glance they look decent as well (prices listed are the listed prices on NCL before FAS, taxes, etc and are per person): I looked up the RT out of Marseille and the final price for an Epic Haven aft penthouse is $4200.... so yeah, these are all great prices if you ask me. Well below our $500/pp/day price point.

If I was going to Iceland in 2 days I would have jumped on this deal. One way from NY to Quebec on the Joy. https://www.ncl.com/cruises/JOY9NYCBOSPWMSYNCHALBIQUE?itineraryCode=JOY9NYCBOSPWMSYNCHALBIQUE

For my NCL trips, I've used the same PCC once she was recommended to me by a fellow traveler. She's always been able to find extra coupons, OBC, or hidden promos that I'm eligible for that I didn't know about. Or if I had expired coupons has found ways to make them no longer expired. She does some fancy shuffling on her side because the trips that I've booked with her have been pricey Haven ones, as well as referring other folks to her. So since she always finds some bonuses for us, I'll keep using her for NCL trips. Our upcoming Prima one we booked on our own due to time sensitivity of the booking (those H4 cabins were getting snatched quick) then transferred to a TA who offered egregious OBC (1K+ that the PCC would never be able to match). I personally can't stand them though and will never let them touch a reservation of mine ever again - but my buddy loves them and doesn't like my PCC - so to each their own. For that TA though, NCL told me about my non working hot tub 3 days ago, TA still hasn't said a word to me.... Got my flight info from NCL about a week before the TA shared it with me.

Where is your trip going? That's more important than the time of year it is sailing. Weather in Alaska in June is very different from the weather in Mexico in January. Inside the ship it is warm, like walking in a mall. You may need a light jacket or sweater if you wander around outside depending on where you're going, but generally speaking you only get your jacket and gloves when you leave the ship. Free entertainment all day and night throughout the ship. They have some big headliner shows in the main theatre usually at 7pm and 9:30pm I believe a few nights on the sailing, smaller venues will have comedians or smaller singer groups. There's always some trivia, bingo, games, contests, etc going on in the atrium area every day. At night there will be a place for late night dancing. Every day you'll get a flyer in your room (or on the app) of the listed activities for the next day. Hours, locations, and what is happening so you can plan out your day. Sometimes I find the app easier to just see 'what is happening now' and you'll see your options so you know which direction to head in.

When the renderings and hubbub about Prima came out 2.5 years ago, we were hooked from the first drawings we saw. NCL casual vibe, with a slightly more polished and upscale look, largish sized ship but with a smaller passenger count.... So the day bookings opened up, we snagged an H4 Haven owners suite for an Iceland and Norwegian fjords trip. Then the renderings became actual photos, and folks who were unfortunate to book those rooms on deck 10 got screwed over as NCL took away their private hot tubs and didn't change the room category or pricing. We were lucky as we booked on deck 12, and have been counting down the days (we now fly to Iceland in just 2 days) until it was our turn to experience first hand how good or bad Prima really is. Got an unfortunate letter from NCL a couple days ago 'regretting to inform us....' that our hot tub on our deck will be undergoing "maintenance" during our trip and will not be available for use. So I think that stings a bit worse than the folks on deck 10 who had time to either change rooms, change sailings, cancel completely, etc - than us, just a handful of days out being told we can't use it. Folks on deck 10 will probably have extra lounge chairs or a bigger outdoor table. I'll have a hot tub staring at me that I'm not allowed to use. I spoke with someone on our sailings FB page and they have both of the 3BR owner's suites booked, and got the same dreaded letter about their hot tubs. I'm thinking that NCL is just having a hard time keeping them hot enough and instead of dealing with daily complaints from the 8 rooms that have them, they're just turning them off to keep the gen pop ones in use? Who knows... maybe those are out for "maintenance" too. Never personally owned a hot tub so I don't know, but I find it odd that it takes 16+ days to do maintenance on something... Fair warning for anyone on the sailing after us - your private hot tub may still be undergoing "maintenance" too until Prima makes it to warmer waters. So we're bitter, the 'compensation' offered by NCL is laughable, but trying to make the best of it. This trip will be interesting as hubby & I are in the H4 (with a non-functional hot tub), my sister, BIL, and their 12yr old twins are in a family ocean view, and we've got fellow 🐀 friends traveling with us who I believe are in a standard balcony. We'll get 3 completely different perspectives on this trip of how good/bad Prima is. From the super fancy Haven room, down to 4 people sharing an ocean view, and some stuff in between. Regardless of the hot tub disappointment, as I always say, someone else is cooking, cleaning, and making me fancy cocktails. NCL will lose money on us with the drink package, especially since we're in an OS with the extra boxes of water and cans of soda coming our way. Very port intensive trip (which we love), so lots of new places we'll be visiting to put pins in our map back home. This will not be a 'live' review per se as I'm far too lazy to keep up with that. I'm on vacation with family and friends, priority #1 is enjoying my time with them and the views around me. But our last trip to Canada I was able to keep up with a lot of the day-to-day just using my free minutes and data plan on land. So I'm guessing this will be similar. I'm mostly going to try and post on things that are important to us as a reminder for myself when we try out Celebrity in November for the first time so the comparison between the 2 will be easier to reflect back on. If anyone on Prima now can chime in about the status of the hot tubs (public and private ones) that would be curious... and I'll let the rest of you know in 3 days if it's just the private ones or every single hot tub needs "maintenance" during our specific sailing and we're just the lucky ones.

You will not get your fight info until after final payment, usually 30-45 days before your trip date. If you find flights on your own that you're happy with for either the same price or just slightly higher than what NCL is charging you, just call NCL and cancel the flights through them. No changes can be made after final payment.

2021, shortly after the reopening. So maybe it had more to do with that than anything else.

We're on this sailing and fine with the change. It would have been great to get all the way up to Isafjordur, but the overnight allows us to eat in town and book a Northern Lights hunting tour that evening.

As others have already said, yes, it is free and you can poke around and view things. But if you're trying to rely on it to post a live review, not likely. And if you want to upload photos - forget about it. It was so slow on our last trips I just gave up and pretended it wasn't free. Our cell phone plan includes unlimited data when on land, so the free minutes are usually sufficient for me to use while at sea if there's something I have to do or look up or post away from land. But I'm far from a professional travel blogger or someone even concerned with 'having' to post live reviews.

You'll probably hear different stories, but the Haven priority boarding only happens once you get into the terminal and past security and all checked in. Depending on the port for embarkation, some are more strict than others. When we sailed to Alaska out of Seattle, they were checking our boarding passes and wouldn't let us into the building until it was within 30 mins of our stated embarkation time slot. So it didn't matter that we were Haven and as soon as we had our room key could board the ship - we couldn't even get into the building to get our room key in the first place. So long story short - but yes, you do need to still pick an appropriate boarding time to ensure you can get into the boarding to board in the first place. But once you're inside and checked in, your time slot doesn't matter at all - you'll be allowed on the ship as early as you want once it is cleared and ready for passengers.

If you need laundry before the 'special' is officially advertised, you can always check with guest services. Since it is offered on just about every cruise, at a minimum they'll be able to tell you how many more days you need to wait, if at all. You can also do more than 1 bag at that $29 price if you need to. For folks who are platinum, it's technically one bag per platinum member. So if both folks in a cabin are platinum, you're entitled to 2 free bags (one per person) on every sailing. Going to be testing all of those options on our upcoming trip to help my sister & her family of 4 as we'll have the bigger thicker Haven bags and 2 for free, while they're in a regular room with the smaller bags. So planning on taking their heavier thicker items with our laundry bundle.

There's also a coffee only package option. So if you want 2-3 fancy mocha frappa latte chinos, that may be a good option for something you're actually going to use. $13/day - I have no idea how much those foo-foo drinks cost. https://www.ncl.com/onboard-packages/beverage-packages

Yes. NCL doesn't use private charter flights. So whatever is available to the public is what is available to them. Sometimes there will be flights not listed because they're sold out, but it will give you a general idea. If 90% of flights from Charleston will get you in between 7 - 9am, most car service companies will be fine with that estimate and updating it to a more exact time 30 days before your appointment date.

You mean for cruises that are docking in Bordeaux proper? I don't know. Our trip docked in Le Verdon which is where she's based out of. Bordeaux proper is a good 1-2 hours away from there.

You're waiting to book your airport transfers until you have your flights? Why? Any company worth their weight in salt will take your reservation now with an estimate on the arrival time, and once you get the actual confirmation of flights will adjust accordingly. Do a mock booking - if most flights are getting you in at 6 - 8am, tell them that. They will be flexible once you've got it on the books and gave them a deposit. That's exactly what I did for our upcoming Iceland trip. Said I think my flights will get in between 7 - 9am, so pickup around 9 as an estimate, and we bumped it to 9:30 when I got the real flight info. No issues at all.

If you booked air through NCL, the transfers are typically included already for a fee. You can cancel them if you want and get that money back. With a large group, depending on where you're traveling to/from, it's easier, faster, cheaper to do your own transfers. Going to your trip the transfers will make you wait at the airport for other flights to come in before they pick you up. Going from your trip, if you don't get a big head start you risk missing your flight due to delays at customs and long lines. We no longer book the transfers - would rather get there when we're ready instead of having to wait for others.

Look at photos of the balconies, there is literally no room for 4 chairs. # of guests in the room only affects the number of sleeping spots, nothing else.

Depends on what you would enjoy more. One closest to the living room is closest to the private bar and has a better shower I think. One closest to the deck is still nice and gives you direct access to outside, and the bathroom is still lovely. Both of those rooms have an enormous walk-in closet. Whoever ends up in the middle room should be getting a discount if you ask me. Still a nice room, but definitely not fair to ask those folks to pay the same as the folks in rooms 1 or 3. Closet is a walk-through, meaning you can get in from the entry hallway and go through the back of it into the other hallway just outside the bathroom. Or rather you can access the closet from both sides I guess is another way to look at it. But that bathroom is a standard balcony cabin bathroom, nothing special.

Yup, our Panama canal trip there was a special daily for lunch & dinner (not sure about breakfast, don't think we ever ate up there for breakfast) for both the app & main. Don't get your hopes up too high though, it was usually just a course from the MDR options that day. It was still nice though to be able to mix things up. My only complaint with Haven dining is having to pre-plan so many things in advance. I don't know what I want for dinner at 2pm. Many times I just ordered off of the kids menu because I'm a PITA and don't like fancy stuff.

A for effort!

Outside on the lower deck.

Entry way and hallway to the final bedroom, closest to the outer deck.

This is the smallest bedroom in the middle.

No, but I'll put a bunch of them here.