Ixtoras

Anyone know if the "Latitudes reward insider offer" search page is a good representation of the cruises that qualify for bonus points? I've always found it a little frustrating to use - if you click the "log in and view cruises" button (already logged in) it takes you to the normal search page with the "Past guest offer" checked, and gets zero results. However, if you look at the filter options, it does seem that the results "largely" seem to qualify under the current promotion terms.....

We stayed six days in Rome downtown prior to our Escape Transatlantic on Nov 1 last year. There is a lot of good information in the italy ports discussion. Had so many amazing experiences during those days. Rome has a very good bus and metro system that can drop you off near many of the major attractions. A metro pass for the week is about $25 per person. Assuming you are up for walking (and stairs) many of the must do's are all within walking / metro distance. (We averaged well over 12,000 steps per day) I recommend Rick Steve's Rome guide for recommendations for walking tours and descriptions of the attractions. Also would recommend working with one of the reputable tour guides for access to the "main" attractions as they have the ability to skip some of the lines. Have a wonderful time!

We're on an NCL cruise mid April. Unfortunately our Mazatlán stop starts and ends relatively early 7am-2pm. We've done stone island and a resort in the golden zone before, but having to be back by 2 seems like we'd barely have time to get our feet wet. Anyone have any recommendations for something to do in Mazatlán in the morning - preferably not too strenuous / probably not ziplining / horseback riding. I know there's not much (if anything) in the port area itself, so we're considering just staying on the ship. Thanks, Jeff

As others have said above, 15-30 minutes seems a bit of an exaggeration. (Though I'm sure some poor soul has waited that long for a drink). On the Escape, most of the time we got served immediately. I don't think we ever had to wait more than 5 minutes, and that was at the atrium bar during one of the bigger events they had there. Personally, we often frequented the Mojito bar on the Escape. It is "smaller" than the other breakaway class ships, and doesn't seem to see as much traffic as others. The bartenders there were great as well and immediately remembered what we'd had previously and asked if we'd like it again. Lots of rum and mojito options. Tobacco Road / Maltings is the whisky bar, and was also usually very quick service - and they have an outdoor extension right outside the door. With good weather, the couches along the waterfront there also get cocktail service. Both the indoor and outdoor cocktail staff were also very good. The district brewhouse is mostly beer, but the service was always good. Z and Signey were the bartenders we saw the most and the were both great. Spice H20 and the Pool Deck bar can get busy on busy sea days, but there's also a few servers strolling around, and you won't even need to leave your lounger. Tip, there is an upstairs and downstairs pool bar, so if one is busy, try the other. And finally, small tip - if all else fails - way up on deck 18, The Vibe beach club bar actually extends out to the public sundeck on the Port side. On our cruise it was almost always open, never busy, and there's two hot tubs up there that most people seem to forget about. That said, there's literally 10 or more bars on the ship so if one is extremely busy, its not far to the next one. We do tend to bring some extra singles in order to tip when we get good service. After a day or so of bar crawling, you'll find one that you like and settle in there.

They should be fine. You'll have a bit more foot traffic due to the proximity to the stairs / elevator, but you'll have cabins above and below. Note that the cabin next door 10784 appears to have an angled balcony, so anyone standing at the rail will be able to see partially into your balcony without really trying. I have seen the cabin stewards open up the divider between the balconies before, (Our neighbors on the Escape had theirs opened up between their two cabins.) but I don't know how common that is. Note if you google NCL Getaway and those room numbers, there appear to be some video walkthroughs of the rooms.

Boring old Jade here - and we've never really gambled on the ship or signed up for the casino rewards. I kind of feel sorry for folks that work in their IT department and on the website. (Unless they get free or discount cruises as a perk - then I'm jealous.) IDK, did they ever fix the bug where Vibe passes were advertised as the free "Bamboozled" escape game for $300?

Probably #1 here. I would agree with some of the others and say that the White Pass rail excursion in Skagway is very nice, and would be a pretty good trip for folks with mobility issues. We did a similar itinerary on the Encore last May and had a wonderful time. Skagway is also more often on itineraries that go to Glacier Bay. We really enjoyed Glacier Bay, but hope to go back and see Endicott Arm, Dawes and Hubbard Glaciers on our next trip. That said, I'm not seeing Itinerary #1 for the Bliss in 2024, though the site I use could be wrong. What week were you looking at? The Encore seems to have the majority of the Glacier Bay / Skagway itineraries, while the Bliss seems to be doing Sitka with Endicott Arm & Dawes Glacier all season. Fortunately, the Bliss and Encore are pretty similar, with the main exception being that the Encore lost the Spice H2O area for a laser tag arena. Shows on both are good.

We really enjoyed the district brew house on the Escape. We were on her for the westbound TA back in November. Z (Zeljko) from Serbia was great, as were the other bartenders. Fortunately for us, they stocked up before we left Europe, but even with less than half capacity, we were pretty tapped out the last couple of days. (A lot of sea days crossing the Atlantic.) Good selection of beer both on tap and in bottles. They had music multiple nights, rotating through different acts, and had football games on Sunday. Yes they have a food menu, (mainly snack food) and Food Republic is directly opposite it.

Escape hands down. We've done both once and while I don't dislike the Epic, the design and config of the escape is more to my liking. We were considering the epic for a southern caribbean itenerary this year but decided to either wait for the Viva or take one of the jewel ships instead.

We haven't been on the Joy yet (hoping to this year) but we've done Q on the Bliss and Encore. Your question pretty much hits the nail on the head. I'm a huge BBQ fan and the "bbq" that you get at Q is not likely to live up to most BBQ joints including the chains like Dickey's. That said, its a nice change from a lot of other places on the ship and the food is plentiful. They also have a couple of the best specialty drinks and desserts on the ship. Mason Jar Banana Pudding, Peach Cobbler, Bread Pudding. I don't recall the drink's name but IIRC it was a smoked peach bourbon cocktail. That said, the venue is nice (taking the place of the supper club on Escape) has a stage and likely a country themed band at least some nights (assuming they haven't cut that entertainment). Our service was great both times and we enjoyed it. I think we too ended up not using our FAS dining credit there.

Agree with the above - We took the Jolly Roger catamaran & snorkeling excursion when we were in Roatan on the Getaway and had a great time.

If that's in the Main / Getaway theater, what's in the Illusionarium now? IIRC when we sailed her pre-pandemic it was where they held the variety show / circus / sideshow acts with a steampunk theme, and during the day they did wine lovers the musical. Is Million Dollar Quartet still the main stage show?

We've been on both, and its a tough call - really liked them both. The itinerary would likely be the deciding factor. Escape is a bit bigger, adding Food Republic & Pinchos (both of which we liked) as Specialty Dining options and the District Brewhouse. Getaway has the Shanghai Noodle Bar. Getaway has a much larger SugarCane Mojito bar that extends outside onto the waterfront while the Escape's Wine bar is a bit larger and takes up a similar spot on the waterfront. The exterior wine bar was often closed on our cruise. Spice H2O areas are pretty similar - the Getaways water feature is more open, while the Escapes is a rocklike grotto. The Getaway has the Illusionarium, more of a theater in the round approach, while the Escape has the Dinner theater. Both had great entertainment options. Their main shows are two of the best - Choir of Man and Million Dollar Quartet. Good luck choosing and have a great time!

Agreed, hamburgers or "swimwear" options on the pool deck and Spice H2O

Yes, that is 4 items per FAS dining package credit. As mentioned above, some plates are bigger than others and 8 plates was a bit much for us as a couple. It was good enough that we ended up eating at food republic three times on our last cruise. Twice (one lunch and one dinner) we only got 4 plates and used only one FAS dining package credit and were completely satisfied. There's a pretty good variety of items, and I've liked all of the sushi rolls I've had. The thai chicken lettus wraps are good. The ramen is good, but was a bit too spicy for the DW. Both the tuna poke nachos and tuna stack were both very good. pork belly from the grill menu was great. Hope you have a great time!

As others have posted, can confirm that you can upgrade one person, and the other retains their FAS minutes. We were on the Escape TA in November, and I was able to use the unlimited premium / streaming to watch some sports as well as work remotely for a couple of days during the crossing. Service wasn't "great" but worked sufficiently for what I needed. Of course the ship was at less than 50% capacity, so there weren't as many people competing for bandwidth. Hoping that their trials with starlink work out and that they're able to upgrade the fleet at some point.

I'm on an android device, so I don't have access to iMessage, but the standard digital text messaging worked, as did what's app, so I'd expect that it would work. My wife used the standard WiFi and we were able to do our Wordle and share with our family group daily.

Just got back on Friday from our Transatlantic. Ship showed three games on one of the Sunday's in the various bars. Vikings fans definitely turned out in droves on our cruise. As for the streaming, I did end up splurging on the Unlimited streaming package - more for work than for anything. Unfortunately, NFL+ didn't work at all throughout our trip. VPN or not. It either detected location and blocked, or just buffered endlessly on the shipboard wifi. That app seriously needs some work. Hope when the Directv contract ends, that they work with someone who really knows how to stream content. Per a friends suggestion there was another streaming service that I was able to access that had the games, and I was able to stream them successfully through that (even without a VPN). So while they had the primary game on the TV, I had an alternate up on my tablet and ended up sharing updates from that game with others.

Thanks again to everyone who replied! Greatly appreciated. We got back home on Friday, and I thought I'd just give an update on how it went to anyone who is interested, or for anyone searching the CC forums for info. I ended up going ahead and upgrading to the Unlimited Streaming Wifi package pre-boarding. Cost was $279 to upgrade from the 500 "free at sea" minutes for our 16 day cruise. Because we were going to be in Rome for a week in advance, and as a backup, I also purchased a European eSIM from Holafly (20 days unlimited bandwidth for $57) and set it up on my phone. When in port, had great internet every day throughout our journey - Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, even the Azores. Would do that again in a heartbeat. Oddly, neither the euro SIM nor our ATM cards worked in Gibraltar, but our TMobile roaming worked... I switched to onboard internet when we got back to the ship each night. The rest of this is just about the onboard wifi. The internet worked OK throughout our journey and was more than enough for me to get the work done that I needed to. We had one night of high winds / rough seas where the connection was completely unusable, but other than that I was able to use it throughout the trip. It wasn't fast by any means, but it worked pretty reliably for me. (Although sometimes had to log out / back in. I also heard from others that they had a lot more trouble.) As far as working from a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic goes, I was able to connect and get all my email / messages, used Citrix remote desktop for a few hours (that did cut out a couple of times, but reconnected within a minute or two). And even participated in a few hours worth of Zoom / Teams meetings. Due to the nature of the satellite connection, hearing everyone and seeing their video worked fine, but it got bad if I tried to talk more than a quick yes / no. Same with turning on my camera for more than a couple minutes to show the view out the window. Gave up on talking and typed any responses / questions, which worked out just fine. I didn't do much streaming, but did use the ship's wifi to stream a couple of NFL games to my tablet on one of the Sundays and caught a Monday night game. That worked out pretty well and other than a couple of blips, I was able to catch up on football. So long story long, it is definitely possible to work remotely on the NCL Escape, even when crossing the Atlantic. Temper expectations and be patient / prepared for some interruptions, and it helps if you don't need a "constant" connection. If they end up switching to something like starlink and get true high speed wireless, it could open up a whole new set of opportunities. Hope this is helpful to someone in the future. Thanks

That's a great tip. Like OP, I've been looking at options for cruises next year, and the same PCC has called me three times in the past month to see if I want to book. I do use private mode browsing sometimes to see if there's a difference, but more often than not, I've just looked at the cruise I already have booked, or am looking at my latitude offers. I just figure that they're pursuing leads and they haven't been really pushy about it. Gave me their contact info in case I decide to book.

Now that would have been a smart addition. Have really enjoyed the smoke free casino on the Bliss and Encore.

Does anyone have experience using the premium wifi w/ streaming and using either NFL+, Gamepass or Redzone? Hoping I might catch a replay or recap via streaming. Alternatively maybe youtube tv might have a Live game or the mlb playoffs. Anyone have experience using yttv on the ship it to watch sporta? Thanks Jeff

IIRC after the escape they moved the lifeboats in a bit, allowing the Bliss, Encore and Joy enough space to transit. I've been looking at a couple of the Joy's full transits for next year.

Yup, looks like things are on schedule. Was just swinging by to post this. But yall beat me to it... and what is that in your post, one of the lifeboats in the water? Nice.

And as of Friday 10/7, 3:30PM PDT. Looks like the upgrades to the crew bar area are complete - must be testing out the black lights and disco ball. I'm guessing that we should see some activity in the next couple of days. Believe she's due to be in Civitavecchia on 10/12 for her first post dry-dock cruise. So far, I haven't heard of any issues/notifications for that cruise. I'd guess that they'd re-float/launch? her by Monday to give her a day or two to get over to the port.