Bennyboats28

Hi, We did this cruise last year and we also went for the Christmas markets. What date do you sail? In the Netherlands the Christmas markets tend to finish in early December so depending on what date you sail could determine whether they will be open or not. For rotterdam you could go during the day to Amsterdam for the canal boat tours and they may have the Christmas market barges set up but again depends on what date your sailing. As you have children I would not recommend going to Amsterdam at night. For Bruge it's an absolutely beautiful place to visit even better at Christmas. As a top tip just outside the port area is a coach company that runs a shuttle to Brugge for the same price that P&O want for the train that takes longer. Once you get off the ship and walk outside the port gates, walk straight 100m and there should be a cabin where the shuttle company is. Costs 15 euro an adult and will get you to Brugge in 15 mins. Your welcome 🙂

I just got off the Explorer this Sunday. Although not directly related to your question I'm a rugby fan and wanted to watch the world cup on the ship. There was only one channel called sport24 but it did not show all of the matches as this channel would share the coverage with other sports so you are at the mercy of other sports. You could watch this in your stateroom or in the sports bar on deck 4. There was 2 other US sports channels but I think they just showed college football. Hope this helps 🙂

Hi, in santorini you will be tendering from the ship. If you intend to go ashore quite early you will need to get a tender ticket which is usually given out in one of the public areas. Once they have gone through the tender tickets they will announce an open tender where you can make your where down to the tender without needing a ticket. One thing to bear in mind is that it can get very busy if there are more than one ship in waiting for the cable car up to OIA which can make significant delays. If you have a shore excursion booked they will drop you off in a separate area to catch a coach. Other stops are docked 🙂 hope this helps

Hey there, We are also from the UK and when you book the free at sea drinks package the gratiutes are included for the drinks. The DSC (daily service charge) is not included in the promotion. Hope this helps.

Did NCL give a reason for this change? We're going on RCI in October to Corfu and hoping this isn't something related to the port.

That's a good option for the OP. One thing to bear in mind in Mykonos is that it can get seriously windy on most days. This should not be much of a problem if the oydessy is in the mykonos Dock. If the ship is tendering however and it gets very windy it would be touch and go whether they can run a safe tendering operation.

Both Mykonos and Santorini can get seriously overcrowded depending on how many ships they have in port. For both of these ports the best thing would be to check on the day how many ships there are in. If there are more than two I would forget venturing ashore.

My only worry with the new build process for RCI is what is going to happen to the amplification schedule for the older ships? It seems that RCI is focusing on launching new ships rather than amping existing ones. I know there was a schedule to amp the older ships and that was delayed due to Covid but that is beginning to look a bit silly considering there launching a multi million dollar new ship. I hope they start amping the radiance class as we love that class along with many other RCI cruises. In Europe we seem to be left every year with RCI ships which are very old or which have not been amped (except Oydessy and Symphony) This ship unfortunately is not for me but I wish everyone happy sailing who does go on the Icon 🙂

Sorry to hear about your cancelled trip and I feel your frustration. RCI has a habit of constantly repositioning ships in Europe as over the past 4 years we have had 3 + cruises cancelled in Europe due to the company "repositioning" ships.

Not required on the ship either 🙂

No problems, In terms of mask wearing it's now completely optional in Greek ports as to whether you wear one or not. It's also not required in the cruise terminal building either. The cruise compass will stay say about wearing masks in Greek ports but that's because they haven't updated this since the start of the season.

Hi Ken, I have just got back today from our Jade cruise which started last Sunday 18th September. Last Sunday we had to do a negative test 2 days before embarkation and when we got to the port it was being checked very carefully by the check in staff. People who had not done a test where being sent to the tent to do a covid test at around the 60 dollar mark. Not sure we heard anything about testing being eliminated this week but fingers crossed it's true as that is one less hurdle. On a separate note the Jade was fantastic and I will post a brief trip report in the coming days 🙂

Hi, I didn't use this but the vitality at sea spa on the pool deck usually has a sauna and steam room available I'm not sure whether this is free or has a charge associated with it but your best bet would be to check your cruise planner to see if there is any charge. I believe it should be free but I could be wrong 😀

Hi Marta, I had this problem only a couple of weeks ago when trying to link my Jade cruise to my account. The problem I had was that the name of the guest used on the booking must match what you use in the app. I had to create a new account on the NCL app using my full name that was on the booking invoice and then I could link the reservation. You will have to create a new account with the full name matching the invoice and then login. Once you are then logged in it will tell you to link your reservation which then should work. Let me know if this helps at all

I work in IT and would assume that they were updating the UK website for either the pricing/back end engine or other logic based changes. Hopefully it will come back online soon for you 😀