Aldeya

Thank you SO much!

Leaving in a week and love seeing the dailies!

Cool!:) Lopez is a nasty jerk. I lost my tolerance for him a few years ago and I hated seeing him connected to my cruise vacation experience.

Can't agree more.

I saw Lopez's videos where he spit so much hate and nastiness I despised that Carnival lowered their entertainment standards down so much by association with this jerk.

Thank you for a great and very timely (for us:) review. We are cruising at the end of May.

If you used Solarium were you able to find lounges or they were all"chairhogged" :) at 4 am ? ? We were on Equinox and loved the Solarium area. But they had many lounges on both sides of the pool. Now I see that half of the lounges on Summit were taken away during the dry dock and replaced by the tables and chairs.

I'm so looking to spend a lot of time relaxing in the Solarium but I think it will be very hard to get a lounger in the morning.

Select Dining was excellent.

Can you tell me which level of MDR is for Select Dining? How was the experience? :)

Thank you.

A trip to Cherbourg and Le Havre to see Ovation of the Seas before she head East.

 

The photos are on my Guernsey Liners blog.

 

http://guernseyliners.blogspot.com/

 

Nigel

Great pictures!

You had me at "About then, SailorJill comes around the corner, takes one look and says, “Jack, I’ll get you a guitar and you could join a Mariachi band.” I had no idea who this merry Archie guy was,

My husband thought I completely lost it! LMAO

Thank you SailorJack for a great review. For those who are not familiar with THE SailorJack's reviews do yourself a favor. Read Them ALL!:D:D

Thank you everyone. I was hoping there is an option for the 2-tops by the railings but apparently this is gone now on Summit.

After our experience on Equinox I don't think we want to go with Special Dining again. The tables were so close to each other that sometimes it felt impolite not to start the conversation with the"tablemates". We heard the same from quite a few couples.

I wonder if it's possible to switch to traditional dining while on board? What are the chances of getting a table for 2 by the railings?

We had a select dining on our recent Equinox cruise and always requested table for 2. The problem was that tables for 2 were so close to each other that it was impossible to have a nice quite dinner.

The tables were literally inches away from each other, three or four in a row.

We are going on Summit in May. Are there any places to request in the Select Dining MDR where a table for 2 wouldn't be on top of each other?

I have a question that bothers me a lot.

To parents with infants : do you worry about being on the ship with limited medical personal and equipment? What if your little one (G-d forbid) gets really sick? High fever, stop breathing, etc.

I know for sure that medical offices on the ships are not equipped to deal with pediatric emergencies. What if something happens in the middle of the ocean with no real ER nearby?

Is it worth the risk?

Great blog, bookmarked.

I am platinum sailing on the Sunshine out of NYC this summer. Any chance I could make a 10 am flight out of LGA? I have been off ships as early as 7:30 am, but have never sailed from NYC before.

 

10 am flight? In NYC traffic???

FORGETABOUTIT!

There is no x ship in Bayonne from October till April. Anthem is there year round.

 

Steve

Thank you!

So will it be another RC ship In Bayonne for winter months?

I remember Explorer sailing from NJ year round.

We are looking at December 22,2016 Holiday cruise on QM2.

I'd appreciate any insights from anyone who took such a cruise. Anything special besides Christmas and New Year decorations?

Thank you.

Yes, it is online in your reservation. So nice that you can prepay it :) Last June we were able to buy it in the cruise terminal before we boarded for $20 off.

Thank you so much!

 

Fountains – They don’t do it anymore since a passenger complained about it to the CEO. By the way, I think that Alvin liked doing Fountains.

 

Great review. This part about the Fountains shocked me. We saw it on the Gem and absolutely loved it. Everybody we talked to on the ship thought it was hilarious and funny. It looked like both the passengers and the crew who participated enjoyed it very much.

We were looking forward to see the Fountains again on our next Gem cruise.

So someone complained (one person?) and they just canceled it altogether? Unbelievable.

9 night spa pass $179 pre boarding and $199 while onboard.

I never knew we could buy spa pass pre-boarding. Is it online or at embarkation?

Thanks.

We'd like to buy a spa pass. Can you find out how much is the cost per person?

Any details about the spa on Gem would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Hi Aldeya,

 

I think you are right Ricky Tours are very popular and fill up quickly...this is the second tour I have tried to reserve space for and was booked solid.

 

When I booked the April 9th cruise, I didn't notice our ship would not arrive until 8:00 pm on the 11th, another reviewer actually brought the time up and I went back and checked the arrival time to Kings Wharf.....so that is one port day/night completely wasted for me - our three days in Bermuda is technically one and a half days to really do anything. If I could cancel this cruise I would - not enough time for me.

 

Because I am cruising solo this time, I think I will stick to plan B and explore Hamilton City and what ever else I can the one full day we will be in port on the 12th.....our last day in Bermuda is a half day, ship leaves around 1:00 pm so most likely will not leave the ship on the 13th.

 

Have fun with Rickys Tours - If You have time after your cruise, I hope you consider sharing the tour experience on Cruise Critic.

Wow, arrival at 8 pm and leaving at 1 pm the day after does change the whole planning. What a strange schedule for a "3-day" stay!

I'll definitely write about the Ricky's Tours experience when we come back from the cruise.

Enjoy Bermuda no matter what you choose to do! :)

We are booked for August on the Coral. We were wondering how the naturalist thing works while cruising the glacier areas. Is there one on the loudspeaker describing things as you go along and/or are there lectures some time? DH bought a great book with things really labeled while cruising, but I wonder if we can be out on deck and hear someone "narrating" and offering additional info. Is there a certain deck or spot where you could be with the naturalist?

Can you tell the title and the author of the book your husband found?

We are planning our trip to Alaska and this would be so helpful.

Thanks a lot!

I contacted Ricky Tours yesterday via email and he emailed me back today that his tours (the morning and evening ) are completely booked for April 12th. Think I will plan my own itinerary for the one full day on the island.

Based on all great reviews Ricky's Tours are very popular.

I'm glad that he could book us for May 26.

You might check the other thread about Bermuda Private Guides to see if you can book with others. Good luck!

After reading this post and Trip Advisor reviews I went ahead and contacted Ricky about booking his Total Island Experience on May 26, 2016.

He responded very quickly. The cost of the tour is $60 pp for a 6 hour tour if there are no less than 7 people on the tour.

The tour can be customized and the total cost is much cheaper than the ship tour.

If anyone interested here is the link to contact Ricky http://www.rickysminibus.com/contact

 

2) Purchase discounted secondary market gift cards (Target) from a gift card reseller. I use Raise.com or Cardpool.com most of the time but there are others out there.

 

Using this method, you can save anywhere from 8.8% - 12.6% (depending on your secondary market Target gift card savings) on your Southwest flight.

Just a warning about using Raise.com gift cards. Last September I bought a $100 gift card (different store), made a purchase for $60.

The gift cards you buy on Raise.com do not expire according to the site so I wasn't worried about using the balance later.

In February I got back to the store and was planning to use the balance on my card to pay for my purchase. The money on the gift card were gone. Apparently "someone disputed the initial charges on the card and the card was cancelled". No one knew who was this mysterious "someone".

I contacted Raise.com and was told that my request for a refund was denied because of their 100 day return policy. No explanation what happened to my money. I went to their FB page and read that quite a few people lost money on the gift cards bought from Raise.com if they didn't use them right away.

So if you plan to buy gift cards from Raise.com make sure you use them fast, don't wait or you might be out of money.

The paper you have is just a receipt of the certificate, the actual certificate is just ones and zeros attached to your brother's Latitudes account. So in order to actually transfer the certificate to you, he needs to contact NCL and have your Latitudes number at hand.

 

Also for booking onboard and getting the extra perk (Cruisenext Ultimate) you can't use an existing certificate, after the cruise on which the certificate has been purchased you can use it to book new cruises through any NCL agent (direct or a TA).

 

More info (and the link to T&C at the end of the page): https://www.ncl.com/cruisenext

Thank you so much!

My brother gave me his FCC to use on my next NCL cruise.

Do I need to change the name on the certificate or it doesn't matter?

Thanks.