bonvoyagie

The passports were not required to board the ship, but to pass through the security at the port level prior to boarding. On our AK cruise this summer port security was ever present but they had scanners that could get the info from your key card. My daughter has an enhanced drivers license and that would not work.

yep

well I just looked at my already booked cruise for 2025 and with a rebook under the new % off can save just over 900.00.

My daughter just returned from this cruise and said that passports were required to get past port security in all ports.

we won an upgrade to a suite and in addition to the upgrade bid they indeed added for the extra DSC (which was pre-paid) as well as insurance increase to cover the new cruise cost.

in 2006 we did the POA cruise, stayed at the Marriott, bought the tickets to the PCC and spent one day there. We also purchased an NCL pre cruise tour that covered the Honolulu Highlights plus Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial before boarding the ship. Our luggage was stored under the bus during the trip. At that time if you booked your pre cruise stay with NCL they would haul your luggage to the ship for you. Again we opted to buy our own airfare that had direct flights from our city to Honolulu and arranged our own transportation to the hotel.

I agree with TSU MOM that the cruisetour is a great way to get the lay of the land. If we go back I would probably stay at the same hotels - they offer free transportation to Denali and Glitter Gulch. In Denali I would love to do a few more hikes and see the dog sled camp there. The train is an excellent method of transportation - our tour did it from Denali to Talkeetna. Again I would probably start in Fairbanks and train to Denali, then train to Anchorage, then to either Seward or Whittier (where NCL will be in 2025 and beyond. I would not even consider doing this sort of triip until the road to Deanli is repaired - they were first talking about 2024 - but as of this June they still did not even have a plan to fix it.

OOPs my bad, I was thinking about the Dawn and Star.

Read the Latitudes Rewards page. It states the dinner benefit is per stateroom. Have you had success with getting extra coupons through the CruiseNext desk?

I believe that the dinner coupons are per cabin not person so you would get one with dinner for two plus a bottle of wine and one for dinner for two. You might be able to use both coupons and have dinner for four and a bottle of wine - but I doubt it since you are all from the same cabin,

We did the Authentic Alaska Cruisetour this June and had a blast. We were lucky and had a small group of about 28 on our bus, both our guide and driver made the trip special with their knowledge and experience. I would highly recommend doing the land portion first as the days are long with most starting at 6 or 7 AM and ending around 6 or 7 PM. The good news is that all of your arrangements are pre made - the guide gets your room keys and hands them out to you each night, they also load and unload your luggage and take it to your room. For the most part all of your excursions are pre arranged with some optional ones you can add on - ie a helicopter flight to a glacier in Denali or sportfishing in Homer. For someone who has never set foot in the interior of AK i would much rather take a pre planned tour with the idea of making a DIY tour in the future. All in all we had a great time on both the land and cruise, This was our fourth AK cruise on prior ones we visited Sawyer Glacier and Glacier Bay as well as Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, so ISP was all new to us.

technically the cruise began and ended in Boston and was a closed loop cruise. Bar Harbor was just a port stop. BTW it is only immigration that checks your ID in Bar Harbor - you still go through customs in Boston that all happens electronically from the ship. You must clear immigration on the first US port after visiting a foreign port.

If the return trip ended in Baltimore it would be OK as it would become a closed loop cruise. It is the ending in NYC that is the issue.

We just did a southbound Authentic Alaska cruisetour. Hotels, most excursions, and transportation are all that is included. All meals are on your own and they are expensive. That said we had microwaves and in some cases full kitchens so you can shop in grocery stores and not go out saving money.

Yes NCL will have a real terminal in Whittier. In Seward they just have a big tent, so if you arrive when it is crowded you must stand outside in the weather.

We were at a suites cocktail party and had to leave early to make our dinner reservation so as we excused ourselves from our conversation with the officer in charge of housekeeping, explaining it was our anniversary and we had reservations, he asked us for our cabin number and where we were going for dinner. At the restaurant we were sang to and presented a small cake, when we got back to our cabin it had a happy anniversary banner and loads of balloons as well as another bottle of sparkling wine. We left the decorations up the rest of the cruise. It made for a memorable cruise.

The minus means they owe you. It is just a different accounting viewpoint, they view thing from their perspective payments in are positive, payments out are negative.

The PVSA defines both near and far foreign ports. in essence, a far foreign port is defined as those outside of north and what used to be called central America. You are correct that closed loop cruises can and most times do visit a near foreign port such as Victoria Canada, and Ensenada Mexico. Open loop cruises used for repositioning ships along either coast or between coasts must visit a far foreign port such as the ABC islands or ports in Columbia and cannot use North Amercian ports to qualify for the PVSA. There is also something to be said for how the cruise line sells the cruise, for example if they sold a cruise as say Seattle to San Fransisco via Alaska they would have to visit a far foreign port which would be hard to do as there are no far foreign ports along that route. They can however break this up and sell a Seattle to Alaska ending in Vancouver BC, and then Vancouver BC to San Fransisco. On the east coast it is a bit easier as the ABC islands are considered to be in South America and considered far foreign ports so for example you are cruising between NYC and Miami a short trip to Aruba would satisfy the PVSA. Back-to-back cruises like Boston to Quebec and back and Vancouver to AK and back are viewed as combining two open loop cruises. Or to put it in a nutshell, if you are starting and ending in the same port any foreign port will do, If you are starting and ending in different US ports then you must use a far foreign port.

There are exceptions to the far foreign port such as Victoria for AK cruises out of Seattle. Vancouver and Quebec are foreign ports therefore outside the reach of the PVSA. The PVSA does not allow a foreign flagged vessel to operate between any two US cities without visiting a far foreign port. Most violations occur on repositioning cruises. Most of them avoid conflicts examples include using the ABC islands when repositioning along the east coast ie New York to Miami or New Orleans. The Panama Canal offers far foreign ports for east to west coast repos - most of which end in San Diego, LA or SF. The next step is the Pacific Coastal which ends in Vancouver - then they usually sail with just the crew to Seattle. You can take the train from Vancouver to Seattle and then do the next AK cruise. We have done the Boston to Quebec and return to Boston as a single cruise with no issues.

this summer on the Jewel we were invited to the Haven Sundeck for Glacier Viewing both in Hubbard and Dawes Glaciers, We were also allowed to sit in the reserved section of the theatre.

I am glad to see NCL going in the opposite direction of the other cruise lines by not going bigger. It sounds like they have some work to do on the Prima Class ships to make them just a bit better.

I have seen both while on NCL ships. Lately it has been more all at once and less deck by deck. If it is deck by deck they start at the top and work down.

Back in July we had a medical emergency and had to divert to Prince Rupert. We lost almost 7 hrs but were able to make up most of it by running at near top speed. We did miss our window for the narrows and had to wait for the next slot, then it was full tilt to Vancouver arriving 3hrs late.

We did thie cruise on the Dawn back in 2016 when the NB and SB itineraries were different except for Halifax being on both directions - we couldn't decide which direction to go so we did both! On the return triip we were greeted by the winds ahead of a hurricane coming up the coast - the outer decks were closed for the evening hours and we could feel the wind on the side of the ship as we rounded the tip of Nova Scotia.

We did this cabin on a 14 day cruise with my elderly MIL, she found the sofa bed to be quite comfortable. We had them leave it in bed mode as we usually sat in the living room. She enjoyed being able to have her own bathroom and changing area. The room can be isolated from the living room area by a door, in addition to the door on the cabin itself. All three of us had a great cruise. BTW we also took her on a 7 day cruise in a standard penthouse suite with the convertible loveseat bed and while she had a good time, she liked having her own sleeping and bath space.