Lady Patriot

Sun

Majesty (long since retired)

Getaway

Dawn

The Majesty was our first cruise, back in 2005. The thing that impressed me about NCL was that even though the ship was old it was well maintained. 

Just sailed the Getaway out of NOLA last month. Nice ship, but just too large for my taste. 

I don't know the name of the parking place, but we park at the open lot kitty-cornered from the NCL terminal. It's open, but it's fenced in and has 24/7 security. When you come back the porters will bring your bags all the way there. 

7 hours ago, 1980dory said:

Please strike your LOL.  Your suggestion sounds like a serious proposal.

Sorry, am unable to do this. Can this post be taken down or moved? Once again, my apologies. 

12 hours ago, Lady Patriot said:

 

My apologies. Trying. Will get this down as soon as possible. 

I'm not sure how much more often dh and I will cruise, but it's for a different reason. Seems the ships are getting larger and larger and they're harder to navigate. We just came back from the Norwegian Getaway, our first "big" ship. No doubt I could use the exercise, but everything was such a long walk. One time I was in the Tropicana Room and had to use the ladies' room. I had to walk through the entire length of the casino and then some and then walk all the way back. Same with the buffet. From the elevator I had to walk past two pool areas from my elevator. We agreed that the ship was just too big and hope we can cruise in a mid-size ship next time. 

We live in St Louis and it's an 11 hour drive to New Orleans. Though I'd really rather not fly, I'd like to try sailing out of other ports. Not a lot of choices in NOLA, although I understand RCI is bringing in Majesty of the Seas, an older, smaller ship that is really old school cruising. I'll miss having a balcony, but at least I won't be walking all over creation when I'm hungry or want to use the hot tub. 

On 12/12/2019 at 1:45 PM, legaljen1969 said:

Hmmm, I think you may be on to something.  April 15th should be a national day of rest, and payment of taxes should be declared a public health crisis. All these people getting sick.  LOL

I say we move Election Day to April 17. 

I was on this cruise too. This was dh's and my first "big" ship, and to us it was just too big. I'll be the first to admit I need exercise, but everything seemed to be such a long walk. We dined in the Tropicana Room twice. One time I had to use the ladies' room. I had to walk through the entire length of the casino and then some and then walk all the way back. Normally I will walk up and down stairs as much as possible, but by day 3 I was taking the elevator from Deck 8 or Deck 10 to Deck 9 where our cabin was. Usually I will explore whichever ship we're on, but I was just too tired. 

As usual everybody was wonderful. I taught the ladies in the shops some American slang. They seemed to appreciate it. 

Unfortunately it seems like big is how ships are going anymore. Maybe if they could have a people mover of some kind. 

Celebrating 55 years today, so you'll be seeing more of me. 

We always book through a travel agent. Always. 

Our next cruise is once again to the Western Caribbean, but for 2 reasons: 1) this is my mil's first (hopefully not last) cruise. She is 75, and even though she still gets around pretty well, we figured it would be best to go with what we knew. 2) We live near St Louis and it's much easier to drive the 11 hours to NOLA.

I have absolutely no desire to fly anymore between the gestapo security and flights that are more like African bush taxis now that everybody has to bring their pets with them. 

Eventually we'll do something new. Sorry, but those more expensive cruise lines are out of the question for us as we have to do some serious saving. 

We have cruised the week before Thanksgiving, mid January and now early December, all of which seem to be good times. We have no kids and can travel just about anytime, but we have to save up for a cruise, so we also look for the best deals. 

My hubby, mil and I will be sailing the Getaway in a mini suite Dec 1-8 2019. dh and I will be in the bed while my mil will be on the futon. I feel like it would just be nice to divide the room for a little privacy and give all of us some space. If there isn't one I'm thinking about rigging one out of a small clothesline, a shower curtain, and hooks that stick to the wall. I'm told I could also use magnets as I always have bad luck with those sticky hooks. Thanks. 

lol busted! So cute. 

I hope NCL is cracking down on chair hogs overall. I know there was a sign on the Dawn warning that any belongings left there more than an hour would be removed. 

Thanks. We are sailing the Getaway out of NOLA in December, but this is still helpful. We always pay for the outside parking lot across the street from the terminal because it is guarded 24/7 and we leave stuff in our car (covered, of course) from the 11 hour drive from St Louis. 

Stowe our bags and put stuff in our safe, then head down to the dining room. 

Strange as it sounds, the pretzel bread. Never had it before cruising the Dawn back in 2017 and then couldn't get enough of it. 

Sadly you have no real way of knowing ahead of time what might work. Dramamine has always worked for me, but last cruise we ended up in 15' waves and popping Dramamine pills like candy. Still ended up calling the dinosaurs. Of course I drank myself silly the night before, celebrating my free drink package on the NCL Dawn.

Hope everything goes well.

dh and I always wanted to take a cruise. Long story short, we lived in Charlotte NC at the time the Majesty was sailing to the Western Caribbean out of Charleston (a 4 hour drive away). We decided to just take a cruise and if we liked it we could take more; if we didn't then we would never do it again.

We liked the Freestyle dining especially. We had been in rough seas 3 out of the 7 days, one of our ports was cancelled, another port (Cozumel) had been pretty much totalled by Hurricane Wilma. We were one of the first ships into Cozumel after Hurricane Wilma destroyed nearly all of the island. We were going to skip that stop too, but Cozumel begged us to come in to get the economy going again. It would have been a cruise to nowhere otherwise. Unless you're into pub crawling, Key West is a complete waste of time and effort.

Even after all that we were ready to go on our next cruise.

Anyway, the Freestyle Dining and the Free at Sea packages are the best. NCL is convenient for us because we can drive to NOLA. It's cheaper and we don't have to mess with the airlines.

We had the UBP, so I drank my face off, not thinking we might hit very rough (16') seas for the next 22 hours. :eek:

My thought precisely and initially. But sand flea bites don’t leave red spots on sheets. That’s a hallmark indication of bedbugs. And I can tell you they are NO FUN AT ALL.

 

The only thing more gross, was pulling down the sheets in a motel and finding pubic hairs. Didn’t pay for that night and cancelled next two nights. :eek:

Hey, at least it wasn't a used condom like my husband found in an Athens hotel.

Hi everybody. Glad I found this thread.

Am reading French Women Don't Get Fat and adjusting my diet from there. I do better some days than others. I lived in Italy for 3 years; trust me, this doesn't work with all that lovely pasta.

Ideally I have a good 100 pounds to lose, but at this point I'll settle for a size.

At the moment I weigh 305 pounds, but I'm also 5'10" and very muscular. In fact 200 pounds is a pretty decent weight for me.

I'm actually one of those freaks of nature who can lose weight on a cruise.

I've heard mostly bad things about Carnival and I'm sure 99.9999% of their cruises go off without a hitch, but if I gave you 100 pieces of candy and I told you that 4 of them were poisoned, would you eat them?

We were going to give the Carnival Dream a chance, just something different, but then I heard about the flood on one of the decks (I guess they said a water pipe burst). Yes, stuff happens, but that wouldn't sit right with me. Now we'll just do the Norwegian Breakaway, even though we want to see something different than the Western Caribbean, but this is my mil's first cruise and I'm not too sure she cares. She is 75 and a flooded deck wouldn't sit well with her at all.

I'm told that cruising in general is going downhill since cruise ships became cheap floating resorts. We sailed the NCL Dawn in 2017 and whereas we used to get drink glasses for the drink of the day (still have ours from the NCL Sun in 2007), everything was served in plastic cups with the NCL logo on it. Yes, it's a little thing, but it's often the little things that make the best memories.

Even though we'd like to try some other cruises, we sail out of NOLA when possible because it's an 11-hour drive from where we live and we don't have to mess with the airlines. I really hope other ships start sailing out of there. It looked like RCCL used to. Only thing I hated about NOLA is that we sailed at 4 pm and were in US waters until just before midnight, which meant no duty free purchases and had to pay the taxes on our drinks, even though we had the unlimited bar package until we got out into international waters.

Thanks, everybody. Hubby will probably bring his own, not knowing what the selection is.

My husband is very much into cigars. We searched ncl's website but couldn't find out whether there is a cigar bar. We're guessing that the newer ships don't have them. If not, is there a place that cigar smokers get together?

I was wondering the same thing. Hubby and I were thinking about cruising the Carnival Dream out of NOLA, which is an 11-hour drive from St Louis, where we live. Don't have to mess with the airlines. We've cruised Norwegian for our first 3 and are ready for something different. The NCL Western Caribbean cruises always seem to go to the same places. I love Cozumel, Costa Maya and Belize but are ready for something different.

I hear that Carnival has much roomier cabins than the older Norwegian ships. Looks much cheaper, too. My husband and I could get a nice roomy balcony cabin for less than a Norwegian interior.

Lord and our budget willing, I'm looking forward to going next year.

There are plenty of YouTube videos of Stingray City, you might want to check those out.