macewank

Yeah if there's one thing for sure on the Prima class ships, they're 100% designed for warm weather.

Errr.. Maybe I'm misunderstanding here, but how much earlier in the process than "View Dates and Prices on the very first page" do they need to get?

What, exactly, is unfair about it? Let's use apples to at least somewhat of apples here and make inside cabins the comparison (balcony. is a terrible comparison due to the cost+feature delta). looking at my upcoming sailing in April, the cost of 2 studio cabins is $1100 more expensive than if 2 people booked an inside cabin together. I'm not sure getting twice as many specialty dinners is as big of a perk as you're implying it is. You can buy a lot of dinner for $1100.

Correct. The question I responded to was specific to Studio cabins. There are no Studio cabins on the Jade (or any ship older than the Epic). As of 1/1/24, NCL has opened up "Solo <x>" cabins within other stateroom types (inside, oceanview, balcony) on, I think, all ships? It's just a fancy way of saying "no solo supplement" on the older ships, but on ships that have Studio facilities, those cabins grant access to the Studio area+lounge. Kinda neat.

LATREW* is on all bookings. It's how they apply your latitudes status

Yep yep.. Right now it's a lot of early AK, Hawaii, and Euro stuff.

I missed 2x points on my 12 day in April by... 1 day (because my friend wouldn't commit). Sucks! Currently holding on a July AK cruise in hopes for a double or triple promo. Probably too early for it right now.

The problem with this, as I recently was informed, is that "declining" FAS doesn't drop the price of your cruise fare, so unless the gratuities are the actual concern, there's very little reason not to just take the benefit and use what you can of it.

No maximum dollar amount, but as others have stated, sometimes certain things will have an upcharge (a tomahawk ribeye in Cagney's for me once, as an example). You're generally allowed to order an app, a soup, an entree, and a dessert. The wait staff are usually a little flexible on this. I've never been denied a 2nd appetizer if i asked nicely.

Off the top of my head, one thing to note is that the Grandeur is about 10 years older than the Jade. It's also consistently rated the worst ship in the RCCL fleet.

One thing to keep in mind that they don't necessarily advertise. When it comes to booze, FAS will include pretty much anything on the menu that costs $15 or less. On the off chance you want to upgrade your booze to something that costs more than $15, you only pay the difference. The menus will show the full retail price. You won't be paying that.. e.g. if it says it's $18 for Woodford Reserve instead of Buffalo Trace in your Old Fashioned, you'll pay $3

That's what I was thinking, LOL. I love taking Amtrak but I know better than to make plans that require a certain arrival time 😛

School's out, so... Yes. More than likely there will be a lot of kids. Teens included.

The Jade does not have Studio cabins. Those are only present on the Breakaway and later-class ships (edit: and the Epic which came right before them)

While there aren't traditional "port fees", there are still taxes. Here's a somewhat recent article that talks about what the Bahamian government is planning to do: https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Bahamas-raise-cruise-passenger-taxes Suffice to say... 714,000 passengers annually is a pretty stout chunk of change fed directly into the local economy 🙂

I stayed at the Hampton Inn in Wynwood district. Uber's aren't too expensive.

Gotcha. My PCC mentioned it was probably a good idea to check back in sometime around April, but even then sounds like it might be too early. I found that thread on the Viva and it looks like folks were able to start booking about 2-3 months prior to the first commercial sailing. I missed out on VBC on the Viva (first US sailing again) because I didn't know that chat/phone reps could book it ahead of 120 days (the website just said "check back later" until then) and ended up pivoting to a different ship, but I want to make sure I'm on the Aqua. Very excited to see the changes+improvements over the Prima.

The pier is happening. NCL has been working with the Bahamian government on this for a while now because, yes, they're going to have to dredge out a significant amount of coral to get it done. That said, RCCL continues to improve Coco Cay (which you can plainly see from GSC), and ship after ship continues to miss the island due to un-tenderable weather, so this has become a priority for NCL to resolve. Glad to see they're making progress. Hopefully the ecosystem impacts are kept to a minimum.

Part of the reason I always upgrade to the P+ beverage package is so I can get Aqua Panna water. I probably drink 6 of them a day. It's so good (and worth it, IMO)

Omer on the Escape (Tobacco Road) made me a fantastic classic margarita. My favorite cocktail overall though is the Old Fashioned on NCL. Get the upgrade to Woodford (the base drink is Buffalo Trace now) and have them use maple instead of simple syrup. So good.

Looking forward to your reviews! Do you have any of the freestyles?

Does anyone remember with the Viva how far out the Vibe Beach Club became available for booking? Will be on the US Inaugural and want to make sure I can get it booked, but NCL says it's not even in their system to look up yet.

I just edited the post to pull that part out. The kids will have to get the Unlimited Soda Package (I think) which would be something like $28 in gratuity. So it should be more like $328

Based on the fact it sounds like you're going to have 4 people in your room, declining the Free At Sea benefit and paying for your drinks alacarte probably makes the most sense

The terms just generically say "Unlimited soft drinks and juices" for both FAS and FAS+