upslash

12 minutes ago, bigsky said:

Heard back from them! They need one more couple with two of our excursions..August 9th to Florence/Pisa and August 10th Rome/Vatican excursion. Hoping we find another couple soon! We're so soon to cruising, I'm surprised it's taken so long for these to fill up. I need to post everywhere to find another couple.

They have probably already filled many groups. My guess is they added another tour and this tour just needs 1 more couple.

11 minutes ago, bigsky said:

Yeah, same here. Only one confirmed tho, the Amalfi coast. Two others asked if they have enough people. How many times do u have to ask them to please reply? Been a few weeks now

I have waited up to 1 week for a reply, but never longer than that.

6 minutes ago, bigsky said:

My tour operator has not even gotten back to me to tell me if they have enough people to go! I only have one confirmed with them. I have continued to email them and they don’t respond. Guess I need to call them! Everyone says they love them and respond so quickly. 
Who are you using?

I am using City Wonders for my Rome tours and ItalyTours for 5 other cruise ports.

ItalyTours is pretty slow to respond, but I booked all of my tours 4 months ago.

34 minutes ago, seba1 said:

We have Rome on 8/3 and did a custom private tour that included the Colosseum, but not the Vatican (we have been there). We haven't seen any cancellations so far, but wonder...I saw somewhere, maybe here, that tour companies can't actually purchase tickets until 30 days prior which may be why some haven't received a cancellation (if theirs is in fact cancelled).

 

Stephanie

I recommend contacting to confirm. You are correct, the tour operators can only purchase tickets for the Colosseum 30 days in advance, even if you purchased the tour months ago.

We are visiting Rome in a few weeks. I called my tour operator (not ItalyTours) yesterday and they confirmed that they were able to secure tickets for the Colosseum, but the time had changed by 45 minutes because those were the only time slots available. My Vatican tour time did not change.

I can only imagine how busy Rome is going to be. I keep reading about the massive influx of tourism they are seeing this year.

I'm second guessing the tour I booked in Naples now with all of these bad comments about it.

13 minutes ago, Real NHDOC said:

We did a few tours with this company recently. Two were very good but one was pretty bad. It was the full day small group tour of Pompeii, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. The young lady who met us at the port was very inexperienced. Our “tour” was basically 5 1/2 hours mostly sitting in traffic with nothing interesting to see and 2 1/2 hours of actual interesting experiences.
 

We spent about 5 minutes overlooking Positano which we were supposed to be able to go to but because we hit so much traffic we ran out of time so just saw it from a distance. Our stop in Sorrento was 1 hour on our own, not even enough time to have lunch and sightsee. No guidance from our guide. She didn’t even know where the bathrooms were. Our first bathroom break was at noon after spending almost 4 hours in a bus.
 

Our tour of Pompeii had to be abbreviated because we arrived 30 minutes late for our appointment. The only thing we arrived on time for was getting back to the ship at 4:30. I had sent an email to the company while the tour was going on to inform them of the disappointing service and never received a reply which is surprising since up until then they had been pretty responsive. 
 

I would say if this had been our first experience with Italy Tours it would have been our last. 

I am scheduled for this tour. Hopefully my experience is a little better! It sounds like you had a junior tour guide.

Out of curiosity, which tours were good experiences for you?

8 hours ago, 4Hzglory said:

Hi Guys - Do we have to carry our passports when we go on the tours - or is a drivers license sufficiesnt for entry back to ship (as RC rqrs)?

I would never leave the ship without my passport.

29 minutes ago, BULLOCK said:

Upsplash,  the bar code you are referring to, is this the one beside your check in time on your edocs?

 

I do see the link to preregistration with CVS, I have clicked on it where my name is visible but being Canadian, it advises we need to register at the pier.     We do have  bar codes beside our check in time.

Personally, I did not use a barcode for the CVS COVID test. All I did was tell them my name and they found my registration.

If the wording on their website advises to register at the pier, I would do that. Just be sure you are in the correct line. The line for registering for a test should be much shorter. Once you register, you can get in the second line for actually doing the test.

The barcode you probably see in the check in documents is what you need to get on the ship (after the COVID test).

10 minutes ago, nferr said:

Five hours from docking should be plenty of time. They'll probably get you off the ship quickly since you're on a Norwegian transfer.

I wouldn't count on it...

Just got back from a 7 day cruise on the Escape and it took us HOURS to get off the ship. After getting off the ship, we waited in line for 1.5 hours in the pouring rain for a bus to show up to drive us back to the airport. Maybe I got unlucky, but I'm not sure I'll ever let Norwegian book our flights/transportation again. I may never cruise with them again after our recent experience.

I just returned from a cruise on the Escape; 11/13 - 11/20 out of Port Canaveral.

The ship itself was great, but NCL needs to make major operational improvements if they ever want me to sail again.

• The COVID test process was agonizingly painful at port. I was pre-registered with CVS, and when I arrived following my flight into Orlando and the NCL-included transportation to port, I was in line for over 2 hours. Once you take the test, it's only 15 minutes or so before you get results. Be sure you have your phone with you. The results come via email and text faster than they will show results on the screen. I'm tech savvy, so it was easy for me to figure out. But there were some folks in there that had to rely on the screen showing confirmation numbers. Don't be one of those people. They had a worse experience than I did. The screen was very slow and hard to see in the big tent.
• My excursion at St. Thomas was pathetic. It was supposed to include several activities. The driver of their bus showed up 45 minutes late, and we did ONE activity. Basically the driver drove us to Magen's Bay and back. I could have gotten a cheap taxi to do that... and wouldn't have wait 45 minutes. Our group was livid. It was the port I was looking forward to the most, and it was the shorted port day, and I wasted so much time waiting on the bus driver to arrive and then didn't even get to do the activities I was promised.
• The tender process at Great Stirrup Cay was horrid. I had a tender ticket and still sat in the theater for damn near 2 hours waiting for the tender boat to arrive. Everyone in the theater was getting VERY frustrated.
• After disembarkation, we stood in line waiting on the transportation back to Orlando airport for 1.5 hours in the pouring rain waiting for the stupid bus to arrive (included with fare). No doubt some people missed their flights. I was very close to buying an Uber.
• Very minor complaint, but: mini golf course was closed for repairs. I have no idea why on earth they couldn't have made those repairs during the weeks before this first cruise from Florida I have no idea.

Very unhappy with the cruise and NCL. It was the first cruise for my in-laws and we ran into problem after problem, which made the experience very unenjoyable. I'm not sure I'm going to cruise with NCL again.

10 minutes ago, C cruise said:

what do you mean with this?  "Many folks had not registered with CVS to get their bar code"   is there something we have to do? 

Yes. During the check in process, there is a link to a CVS website where you register for a COVID test via CVS. Open your eDocs if you missed this, and the link should still be there.

I just returned from the 11/13 sailing out of Port Canaveral on the Escape.

The COVID testing process was horrid. We registered for our test and still had to wait over 2 hours from start to finish. There are three tents. The first is to validate you are registered for a COVID test and check your passport and vaccine cards. You administer the test in the second tend. The third tent is a large waiting room where you look for confirmation numbers on a screen. My advice: don't wait for the confirmation number on the screen. It's hard to see and difficult to hear. Just monitor your email or phone. The email notification seemed to come in first, and the text was shortly after. Someone will come up, validate your negative result on your phone or screen, and give you a wrist band that validates your negative test so you can board the ship.

BUT, staff was actually instructed to give out free wrist bands if you had been waiting over 45 minutes. No confirmation needed. I questioned the decision, and their response was "We know when there is a positive test. If you have waited 45 minutes, and we know there were zero positive tests in the last 45 minutes, we know you just missed the confirmation or still haven't gotten the email". It kind of makes sense, but at the same time I wish they would truly validate everyone.

They desperately need to improve a handful of things: the COVID testing, horrible excursions delays and lies at St. Thomas, and muli-hour tending process at Great Stirrup Cay .... not sure I will be sailing with NCL again anytime soon.

I just returned from a sailing on the Escape at Port Canaveral, FL.

Flights and Embarkation:

The flights from my home airport to Orlando were fine, but scheduled very early (5AM) on the day of embarkation. The transportation from Orlando to port was pretty easy. We didn't immediately see anyone with the NCL sign once getting to baggage claim, but after asking someone with a Carnival sign, they pointed us in the right direction and we found the NCL transport stand. We quickly checked in, and hopped right on the bus. It was a comfortable ride on a large nice bus. No issues.

The COVID testing process was insanely long and inefficient. It took us nearly 3 hours once we got in line. But you didn't ask about that, so I'll spare you the details. 🙂

Disembarkation:

The disembarkation process was not good at all. We walked off the ship, and then stood in line for 1.5 hours waiting on a bus to arrive. It was pouring rain with very little cover. Some people probably missed flights, and I was very close to just getting an Uber.

NCL put us on a late flight (it was also delayed 3 times), so we had to sit around in the airport for about 9 hours waiting on our connection flight. After leaving Orlando, we barely made our connection in ATL.

Overall:

It's "okay". Decent deal depending on the circumstances. IF I use their flights/transportation again, I will definitely fly in a day early, or just drive myself to port. It would have saved me a lot of frustration.

I'm trying to decide if I should refund my CruiseNext deposits while I'm still in the 30 day refund period. Starting to seriously wonder if this company will go bankrupt.