TheAdventureSeeker

10 minutes ago, geneticfreak said:

Living in PA, it is much easier to get to and from Manhattan than Florida. Just an hour and half bus ride from Allentown the morning of sailing puts us on the ship just as the dining rooms open for lunch without getting up early and dealing with the hassle of airport security and other anxieties. Getting home is equally as easy, usually before lunchtime instead of some stupid time like 7 or 8 at night, if we are even lucky enough to get an earlier flight without delays.

 

As much as I like to see different ports, we've been to almost all of them in the Caribbean, and cruising is more about being on the ship than anything else.

I totally agree!! Having to fly to Florida is such a waste of money with crazy airline prices + hotel + transport and the headache of being at the airport and hate it. NYC cruises are so much fun and easy for most of us here to get home. The past two years was a bit OK, but this year there is nothing to book, even the 7 day Florida, Bahama cruises are all gone. They used to have some nice ones on the Gem and those are gone also. There were so many cruises from NYC for many people to enjoy and pick a date that fits their schedule and now almost nothing to even book unless you want a transatlantic in April which I will pass. Really sad and looks like eventually like NYC might be gone as a port the way things are going. Come on NCL give us more cruises from NYC! :) 

16 minutes ago, dmwnc1959 said:

I did the same this morning, a status-match with MSC against my Princess Cruises loyalty level (which is just Platinum) and also got their Gold Level. Mostly I want to cruise non-holidays and off-season Dec/Jan, and out of NYC or Baltimore. I’ve been researching Odyssey of the Seas and Norwegian Breakaway for Dec. 2025/Jan. 2026. The Odyssey of the Seas has a really nice 12-night from Bayonne on Jan. 26, 2026 and that one is catching my eye, but the multitude of dining options on NCL has me hooked. Decisions, decisions. 😁

 

I would love to go on RCL and only done it once, but they are very unfriendly to Solo cruisers they charge crazy amounts of money in double occupancy fees if you go solo compared to NCL which is my go to for solo cruising. This is one reason I am very disappointed in NCL having such a bad inventory issues in the NYC area with almost no cruises because they are the only line here that are solo friendly price wise. I never done MSC before will definitly need to check them out, anyone know if they are solo friendly?

On 2/27/2024 at 4:46 PM, Red-Sol said:

OK I appreciate very much everyone's comments on this thread. It really seems like the longer Winter NYC cruises on NCL will not be coming back 😢 However it does seem like it is MSC to the rescue. 🙂 We are about 75% there to make a booking on the cruise @JIMESOPUS Jim is on and hopefully a few others here can join us on that one. Sounds like fun!

It's really sad what is happening with the NCL NYC cruises, back before covid I loved doing the 14-15 day round trip cruises to the West Caribbean and East Caribbean. Did not have to waste tons of money on airlines and took us back home it's crazy how expensive now. What I noticed this year in 2024 I cannot book any NCL cruises out of NYC because they are all sold out, first time in years I have seen such low inventory to the point where there is noting even to book last minute. NCL also used to have nice 7 day bahamas / Florida crusies which they also took away for some reason and they were a nice week long escape and they are all gone now and replaced with Bermuda. Every year the NCL NYC cruises keep getting worse and worse and less. NCL used to be my favorite company sad that now I have to look for a replacement. 

What a mess this thing is back! Last time I was shoved, pushed, there was a guy breathing so hard on me like he lacked oxygen and started making noises like he was about to pass out and really felt like a farm animal! It's so dumb that instead of NCL moving forward in life and into the future they are going right back to the past! I loved the e-muster. While in check-in I watched my video, went straight to my muster station, the nice people asked me if I had any questions and that's it I enjoyed my day.

The person/people that brought this back should get a life and relived from their duties working at NCL. Somehow other cruise lines have no problem with e-muster. We should have a choice of doing e-muster or the regular one. The people that don't follow the rules should be punished not all of us into this crazy farm herding thing.

The really thing I hate about NCL is their internet prices and they are such a ripoff and they keep increasing their prices for slow internet. I came back from Princess Cruises who's owner is Carnival Corp and they have high speed low orbital satellites and they only charge you $10 per day for internet or $5 per day if you are a Platinum member and it's a huge difference in the experience I got. I have to check emails for work so I have no choice to buy their expensive plans. I really wish NCL started upgrading their systems and stop these insane prices for internet they are charging while other cruise lines like Carnival Crop and RCL have already invested in higher speed satellites and don't charge such an insane amount like NCL does for the amount they are charging people it should be the best internet at sea period but it's usually very poor.

Also these money grabbing Premium, Standard internet of blocking ports so you have to pay more to visit more sites is a rip off imo, just give us all an affordable package and stop these money grabs. NCL should dump the company they have and get a new one.

I just got off the Breakaway a few days ago and it was the worst internet service I have had in years. Every website was taking about a minute to load and it kept going down almost every 5 minutes where it had to reset itself which again took about another 5 minutes. Every single person I spoke to on the ship had the same problem and the internet manager was not that very friendly that you were disturbing him for complaining, I could not get any work done at all it was that bad that even making a mobile hotspots when we were in some ports using the cell towers was way better. There were days where we had clear sunny days with no clouds and the satellite would not work for hours. The NCL internet is a ripoff for the huge amount of money you are paying especially the unlimited package. I love NCL so much but my goodness I wish they finally upgraded their system to low-orbit systems just like Princess, Carnival and RCL did which is super fast and very worth the money. NCL really should invest into upgrading their system to high speed low-orbit since more people are now moving towards working online, NCL is one of the last major cruise lines to have the most slow and outdated slow terrestrial satellite systems while all others made the big upgrade to high speed satellite systems. Come on NCL let's finally upgrade those systems cause the company you are using is slow and a rip off for the money and getting any work done or even checking a simple email takes ages to load.