Sailing12Away

You can check with your PCC (if you have one). If there's a current promo for double points, they may be able to add it on for you with a rebooking.

There's potato chips on board. When we sail Haven, I usually have an endless bowl in the room that the magical fairies replenish way more times than they should. But during lunch, you could probably ask at any of the restaurants, depending on what you order I've seen them come out with sandwiches at times. We always joke that we need to bring our pup with us and turn her into a cruise puppy (she's 6, but we still refer to her as a puppy). She would camp out at the buffet all day and volunteer as a chair hog seat holder in the sun on those loungers. She's a beefy 85lb hound mix. It's on the Joy, so depending on which ship you'll sail on next and when it should be there. My thoughts exactly. I've had folks tell me they know what 'good beer' is only to tell me that they drink Corona... Are we talking Left Hand Milk Stout? Sweet Baby Jesus? Goose Island Bourbon County?

I think it's a combo of things, but when you first contact guest services and all they talk about is confirming that you agree to the costs it can be off putting for some. Then when you confirm there is no mandatory charge, only if you elect for 'consultation' - and when they show up they try to make you sign a form with your test also agreeing to extra costs (which are also optional and not mandatory to sign), it's confusing for some. Combine that with the stories of how folks get treated once quarantined and the lack of info or misinformation shared... I get why people self test. I'm fine with self testers, provided they don't go and continue to spread their germs to others. Self confine, wear a mask when you leave the room, and don't get on an enclosed bus to sneeze over everyone else. I was told infection control would contact me, they never did. The only reason I had any info relayed to me at all was because my hubby was talking to the Haven concierge for info, and he would pass it on to me from the concierge. No one told me any rules for disembarkation other than 'wait in your room for us'. At no point did anyone even tell me to wear a mask when retrieving my food deliveries or when leaving the ship. Half the staff that came to delivery my meals wore a mask, the other half didn't. So again, NCL didn't even bother protecting their own employees from known positive guests. Minor nit picky things, but I was only allowed to order from the MDR menu or room service menu. Only on the last day did they tell me I still had a specialty dining credit and could use it to order food from anywhere I wanted. But no one bothered to provide a copy of any menu to me, so I had no idea what the options were for anything other than family/friends texting me photos while at port. Plus if I wanted a can of soda, they wanted to charge me $5/can despite having the drink package. They ultimately refused to give me cans and brought 2 glasses of soda with ice saran wrapped over the cup opening - which melted into watered down soda within 5 mins. I didn't even bother trying to request an actual cocktail to be brought to me. I'm glad I was in a large Haven room at least, but lost out on every perk associated with it on those last few days. I certainly didn't want to risk anyone else getting sick, but come on, don't give me a hard time about asking for 1 can of Sprite each day when I'm allowed so much more. You penalize people for doing the right thing, and they're not going to want to comply next time.

On the Joy, as soon as you call guest services to inquire about testing they tell you that testing is free if you have symptoms or feel ill, but if you want a "medical consultation" (whatever that is) it will be a minimum $200 charge. I'm guessing a lot of people with symptoms decline any testing or anything if it's mild as soon as they hear there's a potential charge involved, which leads to the problem of folks quickly spreading it around to everyone else. From talking to folks and seeing comments in the FB sailing for that cruise as well, on the official record there were 10 passengers that tested positive. However, within the first few days of folks getting home and getting tested at home, that number was easily triple if not higher. The biggest issue I have with how NCL handles things is that no one knows the rules and no one is transparent in all the rules. I'm 100% convinced I picked it up from the passenger sitting behind me on an excursion who was hacking up a lung and sneezing the whole time maskless on the bus. Within 2 days I had a bad cold with a nonstop runny nose. Asked for a test just to make sure so I could continue on my way guilt free and it came up positive. No one else in my travel party was required to be tested, and as long as they relocated to a separate room they could go about their trip without any testing or quarantine at all. In talking to the medical staff, they admitted 10 people "that we know of" who were positive, but suspected a much higher count but couldn't force people to be tested. Even if they're sneezing, coughing, runny nose, visibly showing symptoms of something.... they couldn't even ask them to be tested. This was our 5th trip since Covid, no flights involved in this one despite flights for the others, 3 vaccines each, and blamm-o. Hubby tested positive with a self kit when we got home that day. Was it horrible, no, but 3+ weeks later I still can't shake it. I test negative, but there are days when I'm still symptomatic. We'll certainly handle our next cruises differently. But it sucks when folks don't do the right thing and then get tons of other people sick as a result. Just because it was a mild cold for you doesn't mean it's going to be short or mild for the rest of us. Stay the 'eff in your room and wear a god darn mask if you're sick.

Different strokes for different folks. Personally I don't like people (no offense) and don't want to feel like I'm with 5000+ folks together. Small groups I'm fine with, but giant theaters where it takes 15+ mins to even get out of there, and gosh forbid you need an elevator to go anywhere after that - forget it. Same thing with those mega dining rooms - not for me. When we were on RCC last year it was a 5 min walk to our table each night, squeezing around everyone else's tables and chairs and hearing tons of different conversations at one time. There's nothing exciting about large crowds to me, so if NCL is truly moving in a smaller gathering spot in general everywhere on their ships then I'm all in.

Some smootching, a little bit of foul language, a little bit of fighting... If they're mature for their age and you explain it's a show and not real etc etc, they should probably be fine.

We love Marcial. Had him & Veronica on the Encore last year and they both said they would be on Prima. Hoping they stick around for another contract when we sail in 2023 as they were both wonderful.

Ask at your meet & greet during your next cruise, or when you make a new friend on your next sailing. The TA I transferred my Prima cruise to took over a week to make a change to my reservation for air deviations and dropping transfers. If I booked with NCL directly (or through one of their PCC) it would have been done the same day. In my case the revision wasn't time sensitive since we're sailing a year from now, but if it had been I most likely would have lost out on the price adjustment or cabin change. Yes, I have. I can't share how other than I called my NCL PCC and they gave me a lower price than what I saw online on my own. We were upgrading our Star sailing from an MA cabin to a forward facing suite. The price I saw online for the current rate would have made it about a $2500 upcharge, but she was able to get it to us for about only $1400. There was a lot more extra codes in my receipt when it came back, but none of those mean much to me - I just saw I had a better cabin with a lot less of a charge than if I had called NCL on my own. Same thing with our upcoming Joy panama canal trip. Price had dropped a bit from when we originally booked, based on what I saw online for my current room vs what it was going for now, it looked like we were entitled to ~$400 back. Since we were before final payment date I called my PCC. She gave me the $400 off our remaining balance to be paid and moved us into a higher category room in Haven free of charge. The benefit to any good TA or PCC is loyalty. If you give them enough business, they find extra discount codes to be applied or cheaper ways to get cabin upgrades. To me, the benefit of using a good NCL PCC vs that external TA is that I can still do anything at all that I want without the extra step of the TA having to call NCL and tell them the exact same thing I just told the TA - cuts out the middleman.

Sailing into Le Verdon with NCL Star next month and we've been trying to find some wine tasting trips because we can't go to Bordeaux and not have wine. The NCL excursions are very limited and only visit 1-2 places. We found a few private tours, but since we're docking in Le Verdon the price is extremely high (~700 euros for 2 people). In speaking to the private tour companies, they've told us that there is no public transportation in Le Verdon. I find that a bit hard to believe, but what do I know... For anyone who has sailed into this port before, do the cruise ships typically have an option for a 'city transfer' that will bring you into the city proper? When we sailed to Palma NCL had an option for a $5 bus pass that took you from the port to city center, and then when you were ready you caught the bus back. It ran every hour or so on a loop and that was perfect for us. Since those are not expensive tours they typically don't advertise them online ahead of time, but we've found that as an option with both NCL and then again with RCC when we were in Crete. So can anyone confirm if such an option was available on your trips? Or if public transportation is an option? We're fine with just getting into town and wandering to a few wine bars instead of a vineyard visit, but would need to figure out how to get to city center. Or we just suck it up and do a 'lesser' NCL tour, or pay the hefty price for a private one that is more inline with what we wanted to see/do.