hawkeyetlse

I don't mind them enforcing a maximum time, I just hope they keep accepting last-minute requests (like a week before sailing) even though the fine print says they won't.

No alcohol or no bar service at all? Best thing would be for someone on board an affected sailing to ask the General Manager or F&B Manager for an explanation. Sounds like a tax issue to me, but if it's not happening on other cruise lines then it's something that NCL will be working to resolve ASAP.

I can't see into the future, but I can remember what happened on some other cruise lines. NCL introduced a higher tier package a couple of years ago, but their original package is still pretty similar to what it always has been. Yes, some brands have been priced out of the lower tier package, but it's hardly a "basic" package with only no-name alcohol. As you may know, most people are not paying full price for this package, so NCL has every reason to devalue it, and they have had years to do it. But they haven't. So I don't think Princess is insidiously planning to do that to their Plus package (while lying to our faces about it).

What kind of incentive do you have in mind? Even if you somehow offer a great quarantine experience or offer money or whatever, people do not want to spend the rest of their cruise separated from their spouses and other traveling companions. You're right, some people with symptoms are going to hide them, but the main problem is that some people sincerely don't know that they are infected and able to infect others. This can only be detected and managed through testing.

The indoor pool is in the thermal suite, only accessible with a spa pass.

In my experience, they never look at the name on the excursion ticket, and I have given an excursion ticket to someone else, even in a totally different cabin, with no issues. Are you saying NCL stopped you from doing that? How?

I saw someone come to a bar with packets of sweetener from the buffet or dining room and ask the bartender to make a cocktail with that instead of simple syrup. Or if you like it sour, you can ask them to just leave out the syrup.

Recent Star cruise had one stop in Greece (Corfu) on the way from Trieste to Barcelona, and there was nothing out of the ordinary with bar service on that day. However (totally different issue) on the last night of the cruise around 11 pm, they did start charging Spanish sales tax on drinks. This was many hours before we were scheduled to arrive in Spain (I don’t know if they shut down the casino at the same time, seems unlikely).

NCL, obviously.

Not for over 10 years now. Converted into suites two or three refurbs ago. They "moved" the Spinnaker Lounge down to a mostly window-less area Deck 7 Aft and renamed it the Bliss a couple of years ago. I think the same has happened to the panoramic observation lounge on all other ships, too. The bars with the best view are now Sky High (but it's outdoors and one half of it is smoking), or Sugarcane (but it only has about 8 seats around the bar, so not a place for lounging).

Was on the Star last week (Trieste to Barcelona) and since it was an all-EU cruise (along with Montenegro, which would not dare risk its tourism recovery by imposing testing requirements), there was no testing during the cruise. Only at embarkation (or up to 3 days before if done independently) and then 10 days later, only for those who required it to travel home. There were rumors of cases among passengers (but there always are). If true, these would only have been caught if those people self-reported symptoms or had a fever detected by the face recognition getting on or off the ship in port. There were definitely cases among the staff and crew, most notably the cruise director, who disappeared after Day 2, and we only ever heard from the assistant CD after that. We were told that the ship had just experienced a peak of crew cases a couple of weeks earlier, and that more cases had been brought on board with new crew in the middle of our sailing. Unless forced to by local regulations (like the Israel sailings), NCL is not interested in investing in testing for all passengers every few days. And I suspect that most passengers prefer it that way. But it is a huge gamble to mix a thousand people together from all over the world (plus hundreds of guest-facing crew) and then put a blindfold on for 10+ days. Masking was supposedly still required on board for this sailing, but it was only mentioned in the Daily on the first day, and absolutely not enforced. And I'm sorry to say that there were anti-mask jerks on board who actively picked fights with people they saw wearing masks.

A lot will depend on how much more the ship fills up over the summer. Currently with the ship only half full, there are things like only one show per evening (at 8:00 pm), only one MDR open, reduced hours for some of the bars. And not much energy at the late night parties. On the plus side, of course, venues are almost never crowded. And they still put on more or less a full program of activities, games, musicians. The resident band Ice Bucket is great! The karaoke list is pretty bad, so expect to hear "Sweet Caroline" many many times. It will be a very different experience from the megaships you've done before. No Howl at the Moon, no dinner show, nothing much happening in the Atrium or at Spice H2O. There's still plenty to do if you get into the spirit of things, and plenty of bars to choose from…

When I asked NCL for the pier address (for a recent Star sailing), they gave me the address for the port authority offices (via Von Bruck 3). Not very useful. The address in our e-docs was also complete nonsense: Triste Cruise Terminal 29/30 Gioavnni e Demetrio-1 Triste 34123, Italy Yes, they misspelled the name of the port both times. Fortunately, you can see the ship from just about anywhere in town, so this didn't end up being an issue. Venice is about 2 hours away by train. There are also long-distance buses, and NCL transfers. I didn't look into pre-cruise packages, but I'd be surprised if they didn't allow a few extra nights in Venice if you get them to arrange your flights.

Right in (or next to) the center of town at the Stazione Marittima.