Socref124

How is the food on NCL buffets? And Is it overcrowded like RC?

 

 

Royal~FreedomOfTheSeas 2014

Carnival Glory 2012

Disney Magic 2011

Carnival Triumph 2010

Carnival Victory 2009

Disney Magic 2008

Carnival Inspiration 2008

Carnival Victory 2007

Carnival Triumph 2002

I thought the food in the MDR on NCL was very good, however, the buffet seemed like they had the same food every day. The chocolate extravaganza on NCL was fantastic. The best I have seen and tasted on any of our cruises. :D

I'm in a group of 16 that booked this cruise a month ago to have a Super Bowl party. Even better that it's now a bloggers cruise. Does anyone know if there are any extra fees involved to be a part of the bloggers only activities?

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

When did you go to Edinboro?

We are scheduled to arrive at Miami Airport at 11:58am. I've booked our transfer with Carnival so I'm hoping that helps too.

If, and I repeat if, everything goes as scheduled you will be fine. Is your flight a direct flight Baltimore or DC to Miami? If you have a connection lots of problems could pop up, especially if your connection is in Atlanta.

Our family FINALLY cruised something new this month. RC Freedom. I was SO sick of the same ole same ole on Carnival. But after the first day onboard the Freedom, I missed my 'same ole, same ole' Carnival ships!

 

I thought that RCCL, NCL and Carnival are more alike than different. I think Princess is a step above but still in the same category as the previous 3 lines. Each has areas where they excell. I did think that RCCL's food was better than Carnival's but not as good as NCL or Princess, but, that is my opinion. I like Carnival and keep coming back because they allow one to have a very good time.:D

rec'd the email below stating the they would not publish my review due to not meeting the guidelines...... Total BS!

i wrote the truth, the good, bad and the ugly.... period

i actually liked the excursion, but stated that if you are older, ( like some of the participants were) they were complaining on how wild the off roading was, and they if they knew it was that rough they wouldnt have done it, and i agree.... I am in my mid 40's and thought it was over the top, and i was laughing, having a good time most of the excursion. At one point i took a shot to head from the above roll bar from the driver showing off... and i stated so.... after shaking off( double shaker...lol) the daze, i still enjoyed myself and even tipped the driver... I just dont like being censored! :mad:

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to write a review on North Coast Jeep Safari. At Carnival Cruise Lines, we value the opinions of every guest – on and off our ships. Unfortunately your review did not meet the guidelines for posting information on our website.

 

Again, we value your opinions and encourage you to review our guidelines then resubmit your review on North Coast Jeep Safari. Our online community serves as a resource on cruising and the information shared here is often beneficial to others.

 

Sincerely,

Carnival Cruise Lines

What guideline did you not follow? It would be nice if you published your review here.

I just read online that Disney Cruise Lines is discouraging passengers from getting of in Nassau, Bahamas because of the elevated crime rates and murders.

 

Is Carnival monitoring this too and will they give any type of warning? What would it take for Carnival to decide to completely leave this port or substitute this port with some other Bahamas port?

We were just in Nassau on Jan 12th and took the number 10 city bus to see part of the city and didn't have any problems. We saw a couple nice beaches and some caves that we will be going to on our next visit. :)

Why feel guilty? Variety is the spice of life. We have been on four different lines and have seen good and bad on each. Royal has a lot of good points but so does NCL. Go and have a great time.:D

hoping that you meant tongs otherwise:eek:

lmao.....

Hi. I'm glad to hear things are still good on the Majesty. We will be on her next month. My question is why were people walking out on the comedian. Not funny? Not entertaining? Too Raunchy? And I guess one more question. Do you recall who was playing in the Schooner Lounge? We really had a good time there on our last Majesty trip.

We were on the Majesty from the 10th to the 13th and Jack was the piano player in the Schooner, however, he left for vacation yesterday and will be gone 3 months. He is a fantastic lounge piano player.

Hi I have heard different stories on this. We are sailing on AOS in March 2014. I am allowed to bring a few water bottles (sealed) when I board.

I know I can bring 2 bottles of wine but wondered about the water

 

Thanks

You are allowed to bring on 2 bottles of wine? How about Coke

Last weekend I took my daughter on a "mother-daughter" cruise on Enchantment to celebrate her sweet sixteen. When I made the reservation they asked if we were celebrating anything and I told the agent about our plan. We had scheduled 6 pm dining at a table for 2 and when we arrived for dinner the first night were told we were seated at a larger table. When we sat down there was a lovely woman there with her daughter and we talked a bit. Then another young lady sat down on her own and again some pleasantries but that was about it. On night two the same mom and daughter were there and the young lady who had been alone was joined by, you guessed it, her mom who had a migraine the first night and stayed in her cabin. We all started talking and after a little while figured out all three of us were on mother-daughter cruises and each of our daughters had just turned 16! We had a great laugh about this and realized our "grouping" was clearly by design. On the third night our wait staff and others came out with cake and a candle for one of the girls and sang happy birthday. A few minutes later, yep, cake slice number two and another round of happy birthday. By slice three the whole dining room was singing and laughing along. Well played Royal, well played!!!

Brilliant, great story and I bet the girls loved it as much as the Mom's.

Cabo is not an overnight. The ship does not dock there, as it is a tender port. You do spend 2 days in Cabo, so you could chose to spend the night and just re-board the next day, but the ship leaves and comes back, so def not an overnight port per se.

 

Carnival does do an overnight on the Mexico cruises that have 2 days in PV instread of 2 days in Cabo. In PV the ship docks, and stays there all night and you can come and go as you please at anytime until like 3PM the next day.

 

There are also some overnights in Nassau. I cant remember which ship(s) so this though.

That's what I meant. If you want, you can get off at night and then reboard the next day.

Cabo has an overnight.

Just printed out my documents for next weeks Glory sailing and of course it states boarding 1:30 -4pm. Now I have been on 26 cruises, 5 being with Carnival so I know better. But with the low prices Carnival is promoting there are many new people cruising for the 1st time. Can you imagine the mayhem at the pier if everyone showed at 3pm. There is no way in heck they could board so many in such a little time frame. Fact is Carnival as well as many other cruise lines count on the fact that many guests will arrive early to space boarding out. How about being honest and state boarding begins at approx 11:00, but the least crowded time to board is between 1:30 and 3:30.

Just a suggestion!

They are trying to prevent the masses from being upset if the ship is not ready for boarding at 11am. We have been at the port and not allowed to board until Noon and there were a lot of upset people. Could you imagine if they printed that you can board from 11 am till 3pm how many people would be ticked if they had to wait until Noon? Then someone would start a thread asking why you state you can board at 11am when you couldn't board til Noon.:(

I just don't get it...I see on people's signatures tons of cruises and a lot of time the same itineraries, why? We've done the Bahamas, Alaska, Western Caribbean, Baltic, Mediterranean and coming up we have an Eastern Caribbean but I wouldn't want to do any of them twice. Just wondering?

1. Different excursions

2. Different Ships

3. Different crew on same Ship

4. Like a specific excursion or ship.

5. Port of embarkation is near home

6. Less expensive than a land based vacation

7. When I am on a cruise I have no phone, no internet and I am able to totally relax. I know phones and internet are available, but we don't use them at all. On last land vacation, we were constantly looking things up on the internet, calling the kids, answering phone calls and driving around to different places:eek:. We don't do that on a cruise.:)

:)

Carnival's seems to be..no movement or changes. On our last CCL sailing, we had rough seas...shows cancelled and no plan B. Considering we were in the Pacific where rough seas are totally the norm, there should very well have been a plan B.

I felt the same way back on our Triumph cruise. We couldn't tender into Grand Cayman and it seemed like forever before a new Funtimes came out. Even then, all they did was throw in some trivia and stuff like that. It seemed like this was the first time to not get into a port and they had to scramble. I thought Stuart Dunn was a good cruise director except for not having a plan B. It was after this cruise that I found out about cruise critic.

Outstanding, thanks.

I don't believe the "ticket", or original price of the cabins has increased all that much since 2004.

You are correct. The prices now are slightly higher than what we paid in 2003:). They do jump up for 2015 more than they have risen in the last 10 years.:(

I hope NCL does not change the itinerary for the POA.

We sailed on the NCL Star in 2003 which had to make a stop at Fanning Island to satisfy the Jones Act. While Fanning Island was a nice stop, I would prefer more time in the Hawaiian Islands and the overnight stops that they currently have on POA. Our plan now, is to sail on the POA in Feb of 2015.:D

Thanks to the OP for pointing out a lot of things that most of us were unaware of.

My nephew works on the NCL - Pride of America .. I've taken him on 2 Carnival Cruises and when I asked him what he thought about the difference between the two cruise lines, he said not much other than his ship doesn't have a casino and a liquor store..

Doesn't get much more honest than that. What does your nephew do on POA? If he is still there in 2015, and we remember, we can say hi to him.:D

I have been saqying for years that CCL, NCL and RCCL are more alike than different. With NCL's and Royal's newer ships that might not be the case. I don't know because we haven't been on one yet. We would love to try Epic or Breakawy and Oasis or Allure one of these days.

We are platinum on Carnival and have sailed on one NCL cruise - Norwegian Pearl. Differences:

 

Rooms a bit smaller on NCL, but that doesn't matter to me at all.

 

Entertainment better on NCL.

 

You will see officers EVERYWHERE on NCL - not so much on Carnival (but maybe not on a CTN).

 

NCL's buffet is 10x better than Carnival - Carnival's dining room food is 10x better than NCL. NCL does do anytime dining very well (we do not care for it on Carnival).

 

We book cruises based on price, homeport and itinerary - would absolutely book and enjoy another NCL cruise!

I am curious as to why you don't care for Carnival's Anytime Dinning? We have only done ATD on Princess and Carnival and haven't experienced any problems so far.

We thought the exact opposite on food, but that was 10 years ago. We thought NCL's main Dinning Room food was far superior and Carnival's buffet was far superior. If NCL still does the Chocolate Buffet the way they did it 10 years ago, it's the best we have ever seen. The entire MDR had every chocolate display imaginable. So much chocolate you couldn't have one piece of everything. It was unbelievable.

I found a nice deal on a 2 day cruise to nowhere on the Norwegian Dawn out of my home port in Tampa. It leaves on a Friday afternoon and comes back on Sunday, so minimal vacation days are needed for me to do this. I have booked it for that reason and to try out another line. I am very satisfied with Carnival so far, but I do like to test the waters.

 

What differences can I expect?

 

Thanks!

We would join you but will have just returned from our Dream cruise. We really want to try NCL again before our POA cruise in 2015.

Hello!

7) Maui: Don't count on seeing the sunrise or set at Haleakala. Count on freezing your butt off, but just chalk it up to an adventure. If you get a rental car, just drive up there.

Why? This is the one thing that I really want to do on Maui. Last time we weren't there overnight so this wasn't an option. Now it is possible if I get up early in the morning and have a rental car to get me there. So why not to count on seeing the sunrise?

Thanks for your AWESOME review. :) Hurry October! :D

Hi tigger. I'm with you, hurry up October.:D

Yes, Maya Chan was well worth every penny, just happens to be a little to far from Port with the amount of time the Dream spends in Costa Maya.

Some of the differences noticed in comparing these 2 All Inclusives, Maya Chan seems to be more private just due to vegetation and the way the resort is set up. Nohoch Kay is more of an open beach area on both sides, with several street shopping vendors / tables with 100 yards or so of the resort area. As far as food goes, while Mark does a great job at Maya Chan with the barbque and such, thats really not what Im particularly looking for while in the Mexican Caribbean. Some of the traditional dishes that I mentioned like the fish and shrimp ceviche and some other seafood related dishes along with nachos and salsa give Nohoch Kay a slight edge in food IMO. As far as setting up a dive, you would need to ask them directly, we didnt even broach that subject.

I contacted them directly at http://costamayacruiseexcursions.com/AllInclusiveBeach.htm

They are handled through a marketing company , ISLAND MARKETING LTD (CAYMAN)-Costa Maya Cruise Excursions

 

Hope this helps! You will get your worth out of that $40 fee... our group sure did :-P

Thank you very much. This will be quite helpful.