European_CruiseGirl

November can be nice. Or it can be non stop rain and/or windy/cold. I have had both and you cannot predict in advance which one you will have. So of warmth is something you are looking for you should definitely skip the first one although it is a lovely route otherwise. Although I have to say that if Istanbul is important for you the 9am-6pm stop that you’d have there with the other cruises won’t be enough. Even close. So you’d need to first decide if Istanbul is something you’d want to experience. If yes you need to sacrifice the thought of warmth. If warm weather is important yo you I’d choose 2 because I simply like smaller ships.

Although the problem with that price comparison is that if you had booked those exact same flights 1-2 months ago you’d most likely had seen a price significantly lower (less then half) of what you are seeing now.

I would think it like this op: Do you want to see Antarctica and are you ok with cold weather and rough seas? If so the Ushuaia one is most definitely a nice one which cannot compare to anything else. Heck you will explore a new continent. However if you prefer to cruise only in warm/tropical weather and if Panama canal is on your bucket list. Do that cruise. Personally my choice would be Antarctica because I simply would want to see the glaciers, pinguins etc etc and just being able to say that I was there. However my husband hates (really really really hates) cruising in cold weather so I know that with him I’d never take this Antarctica itinerary.

You just book the table for whatever amount of people you want to reserve it. When you make the reservation it is not restricted to the number of people in the cabin. So let's say you are two couples in different cabins. One person books a table for 4. That's it. If you'd be 3, 5 or 7 just book 4, 6, 8. There is no problem with that.

Yes well...there is really no point in comparing black friday sale prices to normal prices. Chops without black friday price is way more than $60/pp.

It is expensive, yes. Although it is not significantly more than on RCI for example even though they have the fixed price available at their ships. Chops - their equivalent for Cagneys - was $70/pp during our cruise this year…

It should be available already. So perhaps call CAS and ask.

I agree though with a twist 😁 Op says it was his son’s idea that they’d cruise together. So perhaps his gf wasn’t too happy about the idea of a cruise with the (future) in laws and son is now trying to find a way to back out from the cruise…

On NCL you will have a special diets coordinator who will work with you and will find you regardless of the restaurant you eat. My DD is celiac so eats gf. The special diets coordinator is amazing. I have no idea how she finds us always. I do understand main dining rooms and speciality restaurants where we either have done a reservation or swiped a card on entry. But she found us multiple times even at breakfast time at the buffet when we just thought we’d grab some pre packaged gf serials and fruit for our DD to eat. Amazingly she suddenly appeared with DD’s favourite gf waffles and all the treats she had found out our DD usually wants. Etc etc. So on NCL you really do not want to have the same ”normal” waiter every night. You want to meet the special diets coordinator asap when you board and s/he will take care of your every meal whichever restaurant you might be at.

Excursions never go on sale on NCL. So if you see something that you like book it. Chances are they will increase the prices in 2024. No need really to book MDR if you don’t want to unless you have a larger group going. Dining reservations can only be changed by calling or chatting with the customer service.

Actually laser pointers have caused problems for aircrafts landing and taking off. Obviously they cannot cause problems for flights flying at their flight altitude but then again landing and take off are in any case the most accident prone parts of a flight where even a small distraction can cause serious problems. And a laser pointer is no small distraction for the cockpit crew.

1. Having worked for a long time for an airline I wouldn’t assume that automatically. Those bookings are handled at a completely different group department which will book whatever they notice might not book well otherwise. You might get a good flight. On the other hand you might get a truly horrible flight connection although better ones would be available. The price an individual pax pays is completely different to what this type of cruiseline booking dept will pay. 2. In any case NCL will have return cruise port to airport transfer available for purchase so you don’t need to arrange anything yourself. That is an non issue and the cost is reasonsble. Btw the 10:30AM flight is too early. 3. You should be fine but of course as mentioned above the flight times can be suboptimal. Lets say your cruise leaves on Saturday and you plan on leaving on Wednesday to have Thursday-Friday in Rome arriving in Rome on Thursday morning. Well your NCL flight schedule might be such that even if you leave on Wednesday you might arrive in Rome only late on Thursday evening or even Thursday-Friday night effectively missing one day. For example Boston Logan to Rome via Lissabon. Leaves 10:55PM on a Wednesday and arrives in Rome on Friday (!) local time 00:05AM. Compare it to a flight that leaves from Boston Logan at 6:00AM on a Wednesday via Chicago and arrives in Rome at 07:55AM on Thursday. Thb as a former airline employee who used to work at sales I strongly encourage everyone to book their own flights instead of booking via a cruiseline.

Achile Lauron was hijacked on Egyptian waters on the way from Alexandria (Egypt) to Port Said (Egypt) at a time of high unrest at that part of the world. So it was a totally different situation than what op is asking. They are not going to cruise in an area of high unrest. Go to a Israel or Egypt cruise now? Ummmm not wise but Bermuda is not risky at all. There are unfortunately always wars going on around the world. Constantly. In multiple locations. Some get more media coverage than others so we know more about some of them. Still if you aren’t going on a cruise in an area of high unrest or war then you are far more likely to be hit by a car while going to the port than to be on a ship that will be hijacked. The risk of which is almost zero to none. Heck most likely even if you’d go on a cruise in an area of high unrest you’d still be more likely to be hit by a car than be hijacked on a cruise ship. Personally my view is: I avoid and do not travel to areas of high unrest. Other than that I refuse to live in fear of a possible terrorist whatever. If I would the terrorists around the world would win. But thats just my view and my decision.

I see that you have previously sailed RCI (RCCL). One thing that you should know is that NCL doesnt do discounts on app purchases (meal packages, wifi, shore excursions etc) like RCI does. The price is what it is and the only way is up for the price. They never have discounts on these items. Not even on Black Friday. So if you want to buy something the price is what you see and the price won’t go down. There is a good chance the price will go up though before next year August. So if you want something buy it early. You can always get your money back if you decide later prior to your cruise that you want to cancel the item you bought. Another thing that is different (though it seems RCI is changing their policies currently to match those already in use on NCL) is that if you have a dinner package you can and should reserve the restaurants in advance as soon as reservations open (120 days early if you have a basic cabin, 125 days early if you have a club balcony cabin and 130 days early if you have a full suite). The online system knows how many dinners you have either purchased or as a free at sea promo (or combined). Book always the fixed price restaurants first if you want to visit one (Teppanyaki, Moderno), then a la carte ones. Teppanyaki is by far the most difficult to get a reservation. Most likely Cagneys follows although it has gone somewhat downhill during recent years. Our choices for our next cruise with 5 speciality dinners are: Cagneys, the Italian restaurant, Ocean Blue twice (fantastic fish in a fancy setting; also their filet mignon steak as well as their vegetarian cauliflower steak are really good) and Food Republic. Food Republic does not take reservations prior to cruise (you can basically always get a table) but the others we always book in advance as soon as the reservations open. Other usually nice restaurants for us are Le Bistro and Moderno. Most people on NCL tend to book specialty restaurants for sea days. We have a different approach. Sea days are our dedicated ”no schedule whatsoever, we just go with the flow the whole day” days. And at the same time we avoid going to specialty restaurants when they are most sought after and full.

The problem is due to lifeboat capacity at that section. There are so many people already booked at that section’s other cabins that the lifeboats allow only 2 more people for that cabin that you are trying to book. For that same reason, if a person is not sure if they’ll be 2 or more in a cabin it is always better to first book with the max amount of people they think might be going and then remove a person or persons if that person/persons cannot go. It is easy to remove a person but due to lifeboat capacity sometimes impossible to add one or more to the cabin later even if the cabin itself would accommodate the additional pax.

I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable with this schedule. Meeting at 10 at the Istanbul cruise port or very close to it (walking distance)? Yes. But anything that requires either taxi or public transportation in Istanbul is always a risk. You simply cannot trust Istanbul traffic to be anything else but horrible. Truly horrible or just horrible or if you are lucky only annoying. Something that looks on a map like a 10 minute drive can last 40-50 minutes very easily. Public transportation…well it works if it works.

If I understand OP correctly the idea is to go together to for example Cagneys where ”Platinum 2 guest” will use a platinum coupon with ”Gold 2 guest”. That definitely will work. Also for Teppanyaki the idea is to go together to Teppanyaki where ”Platinum 1 guest” uses the platinum coupon with ”Gold 1 guest”. We have done this type of thing many times and it is 100% doable.

Do you want to see Rome? Like really see Rome and not only mad dash there for a 10 hour excursion out of which you’ll only have 6-7 hours to spend in Rome. If so you need to take the rt Rome cruise. If Rome is something you are happy to just see very quickly or even not see at all I’d choose the breakaway.

I would have the possibility to book Spirit 8500 or 8000 cabins. They are Deluxe outside cabins which are significantly larger than normal outsides. But they are right above the nightclub so wondering how much noise there would be. I don’t mind vibration or hearing the anchor etc as it is just normal ship life for me. But loud noise from a nightclub lasting until late at night would be a no no. Unfortunately we cannot book a balcony cabin this time so looking for some alternatives which would get us on a higher deck than 4-5 and extra sq ft is always nice of course. I did a search and a google search too but the only posts I found were from 2007-2008 which really are not that useful anymore.

It is very normal that different people perceive the same cruise very differently. We recently returned from a RCI Symphony of the Seas cruise with my HD and his extended family. I simply loved it, the shows, Boardwalk, Central Park, restaurants etc etc. It was my first RCI cruise and based on it I’d very much like to go on a RCI Oasis class cruise again. My husband on the other hand hated every minute of the cruise (his own words): the shows were too loud and hence torture from beginning to end (his exact words again), the ship was too busy, restaurants meh etc etc. So here we are: we had 100% same cruise experience (cabin, restaurants, shows attended etc) and I loved it. He hated it. Go figure 🤷‍♀️

The missing payment is the problem. Op the application will stay forever in a pending status unless your son finds a way to pay it. See a previous answer about payment issues through the app. The worst thing you and your son can do is just wait. There is a problem with the non-payment and it won’t resolve on its’ own.

I’ll be in a week on RCI Rome 7 day rt and we have their drink package. Interesting to see how they handle it. The cruise is Italy-France-Spain. Here it seems NCL has started to issue an invoice for the drinks for them to be able to charge the value added tax. Which btw is not a European or EU value added tax but each country has their own. Well doesn’t really matter. And then NCL reverses the charge but keeps the VAT charge on the account.

There is usually a significant discount during black Friday sales. However the problem is there is usually also a significant price increase around 2-3 weeks before black Friday sales starts 😆 So for example the UDP used to be $300pp for a 7 day cruise when I checked the UDP prices in October 2022. Then in the early days of November the price suddenly became $375 and voila - on black Friday sales there was a 20% discount making it $300 for the black Friday sales 😂 Thats not to say there wouldn’t be any real discounts during black Friday. For example I booked very nice excursions with a real discount during last black Friday but you really need to know the numbers preferably from 1-2 months prior to black Friday to know if a sale is truly a sale.

Google the tour operators. If they have been in the business for a longer period of time you can be sure they will make sure you are back at the port on time. Being late even once would kill their business forever. I would avoid though ”a tour with a local” kind of things where the tour is not operated by a company but by an individual. They could simply change names/platforms/whatever and continue their tours even after some mishaps.

Yes RCI has very high prices too on their new ships. And their drink package prices are horrible: around $70-90/day/person and they are never included on the cruise prices 😬 For me it is either some other cruiseline (for example MSC on a better cabin/experience) or land based vacations which for me (situated in Europe) seem really appealing right now. 14 day all inclusive in far east (Thailand) or Mauritius/Seychelles is much cheaper than a 10-11 day balcony cruise on a new NCL ship. Heck any NCL ship. I can for example get 14 days at either Thailand or Mauritius at a 4-5 star hotel (all inclusive) at a price of 6000-7000e for two which includes also flights (!) whereas balcony cabins on NCL would be in minimum around 7000e plus daily service charge - excluding flights! 😶 Now which one to choose is my choice obviously and well my choice is currently to forget NCL and concentrate on enjoying my life in AI’s as mentioned above.