Hello everyone! My booking window is opening in a bit and trying to finalize what might fit us best family wise and thought I'd check with the experts as we've never been on any NCL ship before and only been to a couple of these ports before (and not in December!). I was able to follow a couple of 2024 live blogs that appear to follow the same itinerary, so have a sense of what boat activities happen when.
Food wise - we will have 2 or 4 specialty dining credits for my wife and I and trying to see how many extras to get for the three kiddos.
Ocean Blue - I think my wife and I will do this one with just us.
Teppanyaki - full family here as I think it will be fun xmas eve or xmas day.
Food Republic - full family as the menu looks great. I think we can get away with 4 credits as a family as 16 items is a great sampler. Should we consider this for lunch on the sea days, or definitely dinner?
Q - I had not considered trying this, but if they regularly do an ABBA music night that I have seen referenced, it might be fun. Is there anyway to tell what night of the cruise this might be beforehand, or only when you get on board ?
For families with teenagers, is there another specialty experience that we should consider ? Trying to work on dinner timing to best matchup with shows/entertainment, but seems hard to gauge early (i.e., will the featured acts be any good ? will the game shows be fun at all ? etc.)
Excursions - I think being first time on NCL, and first time at a couple of the ports, will likely just stick with their offerings despite the extra $.
Puerto Plata, DR - Never been, and it might be fun to just sit at the beach club area that it looks like is included. However, I think the waterfalls seem like a unique experience. The ATV buggy / waterfall seems a bit pricey and was leaning toward the Zip and Dip that appears to include some ziplines and waterfalls. Is that the best offering, or is there something I am missing.
St Thomas - It looks like of the beaches, people seem to like St Johns. Was going to go with the "champagne catamaran beach break" but trying to see what the difference is with the higher costed beach escape & snorkel which appears to have a truck ride with photo stops ? Does not seem like it is worth the extra. Also mulled the Coral World Ocean park but reviews seem very mediocre. Maybe spring for one of the helmet dives, which look pricey, but might be fun.
Tortola - the port arrival/departure hours here look awful (the 6.45am-2:30pm) which makes me unsure anything is worth chasing. The Jost Van Dyke beach looks like a great time, but a bit more expensive relative to the Island Beach Break, but maybe best to just walk off the boat and stay in the port area to be more flexible on time.
Great Stirrup Cay - are the zip lines worth doing, or an easy pass ?
Anything else we should definitely make sure we check out on-or-off boat ? We plan to get our youngest the arcade pass and we hope that the VR experience is still available for him with the laser tag going away before our trip. Hopefully, they keep the escape room as we hope to try it out. It looks like it might survive drydock, but nothing concrete yet on that (and the VR stuff).
