qdog123

Yes, you should just cancel the soda package for your DD. We were on the Sun in April and we’re sailing the Sun again on the 24th. They just give you whatever you order at any bar unless it’s super premium but it sounds like you have that covered with your premium package. I really like the way the open bar works. Wish they weren’t going away from it. 

https://www.ncl.com/fr/en/terms/sun-beverages

How did you get back to the ship after the show? Was your driver that dropped you off waiting for you? 

This was nearly my exact situation this past weekend. We were due to sail out on the Brilliance of the Seas on Monday from Tampa, a short drive from our house, and I had developed the upper respiratory thing on Saturday. It didn’t get better by Monday so dialed up the video chat with the doc to get him to fill out the required medical report to submit to the insurance carrier as I can’t stand being sick on a cruise. The weird thing is, RCCL couldn’t cancel my booking at that point becuase the manifests had closed, but they said I would show up as a no show and I could file my claim after the cruise returns. I noticed today that they had cancelled my drink packages and dining packages so that money came back quick. I filed my claim with AON yesterday since I know it takes them weeks to resolve so I didn’t want to waste any time. I too started the Mucinex on Monday per doctors orders and it’s now Friday and I’m starting to feel better. It definitely would have been a waste of cruise as I know I would have pushed myself in the ports and wore myself out worse than just sitting at home this week.

Good Luck!

In our 19 RCCL cruises we’ve been upgraded twice, once from a balcony with a rediculous room number (1666) to a JS on the Explorer of the Seas and once from a JS to a GS on the Allure of the Seas. The JS upgrade was on our 2nd cruise and the GS upgrade was on our 10th. We did book a couple of GS’s after that upgrade, so I guess it worked on us! No clue why we were selected for either of them, prices paid were about average for those sailings, both bookings were made through online TA’s. Both upgrades were in September, so maybe those boats were less full then normal sailings so upgrades were more available?

I've also seen them end cruises at different ports and then bus the guests back to the original port.

Yes, we were on the last Adventure sailing out of San Juan before Maria wrecked PR last year. Since we couldn’t come back into PR to terminate the cruise, we sailed back up to Ft Lauderdale and ended the cruise there (although native Puerto Rican’s could stay on and go home if they wanted). To my knowledge the only thing the cruiseline was doing for folks was opening up the wifi so people could change their flights. We’re from Florida so we just rented a car and drove home. Our cruise insurance covered the cost of the rental and fuel.

Oceano! Can't say enough good things. You must get the steak egg roll appetizer. Seriously one of the best things I have ever eaten. It's a tad expensive, with entres in the mid 20s to high 30s, but worth it!

 

 

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I'm in! Thanks again for the great tip and enjoy the Adventure!

What a day. Started at 10pm last night as we left our house for the airport completely uncertain we would be boarding. Cut to landing in San Juan and we were literally wiped both emotionally and physically from getting zero sleep.

 

 

Once we landed and got to our hotel we literally fell into the bed and went to sleep faster than we have ever done. We woke up though and we're determined to keep our plans for a 7pm dinner. We were so sad not to get to try Marmalade but ended up here :

 

 

Can't complain! It was seriously amazing. And TOTALLY dead. We walked in at 7 and there was literally one other table. Apparently it is usually completely packed on a Friday night but issues from the storm have resulted in a huge decrease in both tourists and locals being out and about. We got the best seat in the house, as you can see. Rolling waves, ocean wind, plus one of the best meals of our lives started to make all the worry and stress from this last week worth it.

 

Tomorrow the plan is to head to the ship in the afternoon so we can check out OSJ a bit. Figure we will be on her for the next seven days, we aren't in a rush to board immediately.

 

Now, for some much deserved shut eye!

 

 

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What is the name of that restaurant, I'd like to check it out. We're flying down next week to get on the Adventure when you're done with her.

I can attest that I never heard any music from the brew house. It was also convienient having access to my own bathroom so close to everything rather than having to use the public restrooms, lol. Also great location to watch people play shuffleboard from the balcony.

One of my local bars has an ongoing contest like this, and they keep track of it in a fun way using passports. As their foreign beer selection varies over time, the idea is to fill in a certain number of different beers from each country. When you fill a passport, you get a plaque with your picture on the wall. You'd think if NCL was limiting the number of people who signed up, they could do something similar, or at least print extra stacks of the current menu for personal tracking purposes.

When I signed up last year on my Escape cruise the bartender gave me a beer list to take with me and I crossed out each bear until I had completed them all. The thing you had to watch out for was some of the bartenders would ring the beers in wrong (the bottle got rung in as the draft for instance) so it showed that I had missed 4 of the 84 beers, but I ended up tying with another cruisers so we both got the growler, the pint glasses and the tiny shaker. Fun fact, they had a handful of beers that were not on the beer list as well, so you have to ask the bartender if he has an unlisted beers! It was a blurry week...

Thanks!

I would highly recommend Spencer Ambrose Land Sea and Beach tour. Instead of spending hours in the bus, you take a speedboat from spot to spot and see the island from a different perspective. It's not cheap at $105 pp but worth it to not have to sit in a van for 4 hours of your day. You can find them at www dot spencerambrose dot com.

Enjoy!

For anyone who thinks they'd be interested in winning the District Beer Challage, then this cabin is perfect. It turns out it's a very quiet location as there are door between it and the back door to the District and it's just super convenient overall to everything there is to do on decks 6,7 and 8. The good news is I won the beer challenge this week (actually tied wiht Mark from Maine).

A quick note on the beer challange. I drank all 85 beers that were available, but they only chocked me up for 76 so you need to stay on top of it. It only lists results once a day, and the bartenders cannot look up what beers you've ordered so if they miss one, or ring it in wrong, you have no idea... It was a great time though!

I tried googling the heck out of this cabin and couldn't come up with any info. This is the cabin directly next to the District Brew House. Looking to see exactly how loud everyone thinks this could be. I booked a gty and was hoping for something on deck 8 so we could be close to the District, but I was anticipating being this close! I guess I might be able to go for the record of 84 different beers consumed in the week as I won't have to go far to pass out, lol!

Any insight is greatly appreciated

I imagine for kids the Allure would be the better choice. I've been on the RCI Oasis class ships three times and found the ship to be amazing every time. My only knock would be that the food wasn't that great unless you did specialty dining every night, and even then you would run out of options before the week was up. We're ging on the Escape in May because we really enjoyed the dining variety on the NCL Epic when we took our TA a couple years ago, and it appears the Escape has even more options. With kids I'm guessing dining is the least of your worries as they'll probably just order burgers or what have you every night anyway. I would definitely take St. maarten over Tortola for a stop with kids as the beach is right next to the ship if you don't want to schlep all over the island to plop down on a beach. Tortola's beaches are much more remote and facilities at the beaches are sparse and rustic to say the least.

Enjoy!

I second the jaunt through Ybor city. We see many cruise passangers enjoying the historic district when we head there for lunch on the weekends. Also check out the tampa bay times website when you get closer to your sailing. If it's a weekend there is going to be some festival on the waterfront at Curtis Hixon Park just up the river from the port.

NCL has that app too. It allows for text messaging with others who have the app as well so it makes it easy to track down friends and family if everyone is dong thier own thing on board.

I second the private tour idea on this one. When booked through driver in rome and got a driver for the day in citeveccia and livorno. It was around $600 euro per day and the driver got us faster access to just about anything we wanted to see. We split it three ways with two other couples we met on cruise critic so it worked out very well. I do not recall it being 3 hours in the van. Maybe 3 hours round trip but not each way. He was better able to zoom in and out of traffic as well vs a tour bus so that could have contributed to it.

Another vote for get in a day early. My only caveot would be to not stay directly on Cocoa Beach. Back in 2004 we flew in early for our cruise and stayed on south beach, but were evacuated off the beach due to Hurricane Francis. We then had to arrange for a differnt hotel inland for a couple of days as we waited for the storm to pass (we actually ended up driving across the state and visited my parents in the Venice area). We lost the first two days of our cruise as the Navigator stayed out to sea, but they offered excellent compensation for the lost time ($500 shipboard credit and half off our next cruise).

Good Luck. We fly out of Tampa on Thursday to San Juan so I think we'll be good, lol.

Here is another vote for 7688! We had it on the Navigator last September and have it again for the September 5th sailing on the Adventure next week. Before the last cruise I picked up a cheap hammock at Walmart like the picture you see in this thread and hung it up. It was amazing to take a nap out there in the afternoon or evening. Ditto on the great views out the side through the giant porthole as well as the good views of the wake out the back.

I too am curious about these rooms. I'm wondering if there is a lot of noise from the bowling alley and pubs below them.

Enjoy! We did this TA last April and it was great. Only one horrendously bad day at sea where you couldn't walk very easily. We even got to see beaches of the Aruba as we had to swing by to let off a medical emergency.

The only cautions I have are the bed positions for the aft balcony's make it tough on the stomach during rough seas and the bathroom configuration doesn't lend itself to much privacy.

We took the Epic from Miami to Barcelona in late April last year and it was chilly. The only day we could realistically use the slides and the pools was day 1. The hottubs were okay the rest of time. The real issue was the wind chill.

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