njhorseman

My wife and I both renewed this year and neither of us were required to be interviewed. Our applications were approved within a day or two of submitting them and we received our new cards shortly thereafter. Although some renewal applicants are required to be interviewed the fact that the government is extending the validity of the the current card by 24 months makes the difficulty of getting a quick interview appointment a complete non issue.

The six month rule has absolutely nothing to do with the US Department of State. A US citizen's passport is good through its expiration date for reentry to the US. The six month rule is in place to ensure compliance with the laws of the other countries you may be visiting.

An unfortunate reality of letting a cruise line book your flight is that you are at the cruise line's mercy. Per the terms and conditions a request to ensure that guests on different reservations are booked on the same flight requires a payment of $100 per person and must be made no later than 75 days prior to embarkation.

You need to post this on your cruise's roll call :

No anchorage...in Hamilton you'll be docked at the Pier 5/6 cruise terminal on Front St. and in St. George's you'll be docked at Pennos Wharf . If you like history and walking I suggest the walking tours, which should give you a good feel for both Hamilton and St. George's. Hamilton is the business and government center of Bermuda and St. George's was the original capital of Bermuda and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Yes

Your speculation makes sense. The cruise lines have ensure they've covered the worst-case scenario.

Actually during the summer I've used it to go to Horseshoe Bay and back. NCL charges $49 so the $50 credit covers the entire cost. Yes, I could take a minibus for $14 total roundtrip, but why pay $14 instead of $ 0 for identical transportation? The duration of the NCL excursion is about 4 hours and because a couple of hours on the beach is all the time I care to spend there it works out perfectly for me. There are also a couple of sightseeing boat tours...the glass bottom boat tour and famous homes and hideaways tour, where your net cost after subtracting the $50 NCL shore excursion after is considerably less than booking the identical tour directly through Island Tour Centre

No you can't walk to the Pan American Pier from the Hotel Miramar because you would have to cross and walk on Highway 1, a major highway that pedestrians can't use. When you go onto Google Maps, which is where I suspect you got your information, and click on the pedestrian figure for walking directions rather than driving directions you'll see a yellow triangle with an exclamation point in it and the following warning: "Use caution - walking directions may not always reflect real-world conditions" . In this case that warning is very necessary...you can't actually walk where Google Maps would send you.

The closest hotels such as the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino, the Hyatt House, and the Hyatt place are about a mile or so away but you really can't walk to the cruise terminal from them because of lack of sidewalks in places, busy intersections without traffic controls, etc.

From what I've personally seen and from what I've read tipping in the UK is more common than many would suggest, particularly and somewhat surprisingly in restaurants, though apparently not in pubs.

I hope it works out for you.

I'm not certain if the NCL ferry will be used for an Oceania cruise but I think there's a good chance it will. .

At least through 2023 the only MSC cruises scheduled to call on Bermuda depart from NY.

Yes, your answer is more complete than mine. I was commenting about stand alone TSA program, which is not available to foreign nationals. Citizens of a few countries are eligible to apply for the Global Entry or Nexus programs which include TSA Precheck as a benefit .

Bermuda cruises rarely leave from Florida ports. Almost all Bermuda cruises depart from Boston, New York, Cape Liberty New Jersey and Baltimore. Per cruisetimetables.com for the next two years there is only one ship listed as cruising from Jacksonville, the Carnival Elation, and that ship doesn't cruise to Bermuda, so for the foreseeable future you can eliminate that port from your plans. In 2023 Royal Caribbean has a few round trip cruises on the Mariner of the Seas from Port Canaveral that make a port call in Bermuda. Other than that the only cruises departing Florida that stop in Bermuda are repositioning cruises taking the ship to Europe (or going in reverse cruises ending in Florida when a ship is repositioning from Europe).

No...only US citizens and US lawful permanent residents are eligible for TSA precheck . A chance, but you're taking a real risk. The standard recommendation for an international flight is to arrive three hours before your scheduled flight departure, 7:15 am and it's unlikely you can do that.

This was mentioned on the currently active tipping thread and per @chengkp75 it really isn't new, but rather a return to the way things used to be. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2895008-gratuities-does-the-employees-actually-get-them/page/3/#comment-64344687

Did you mean the Haven dining room? (You said "main dining room" in the above quote.) Yes the Haven dining room menus appear to be essentially the same as on other ships and do not change from day to day. It's Prima's main dining room menu that differs from other NCL ships because it doesn't change from day to day. However NCL might go in the same direction for the remainder of the fleet if the fixed Prima MDR menu gets positive reviews. However if the Prima fixed menu concept proves to be a source of substantial complaints, they may reverse course and go back to the daily menu changes used on the other ships.

@mafig...the post of the menus didn't copy into mine at first. Now I've gotten it right and the dinner menu is copied into my first post.

The Prima Haven menus can be found in @BirdTravels' trip report in post #195. Breakfast and lunch are in 193 and 194, respectively.

I was watching portbermudawebcam.com and saw it running this week when the Norwegian Joy was in port.

The ratios used in the cruisemapper website's calculation are not true measures of how spacious a ship will seem to its passengers. Gross Tonnage is calculated from the volume of all enclosed spaces of a ship so it includes a substantial amount of space not accessible to or used by passengers such as engine rooms, crew living quarters, galleys and storerooms. Two ships of equal passenger capacity and equal Gross Tonnage can have differences in the amount of space occupied by facilities not used by passengers. As an example I know that when Marina and Riviera were built there was mention of how large the galleys were relative to the passenger capacity of the ships, so that raises the question of whether actual accessible passenger space per passenger on the "O" ships is in reality more than that on the "R" ships .

Typically the ocean water is too cold for most people to swim until late May, but given that you're from Massachusetts you may be more accustomed to colder ocean temperatures than many.

Interesting. I checked another cruise line, Princess, for their stated requirements if a Caribbean cruise stops at Martinique (and Guadeloupe), and they state you must have a passport . It's considered an international itinerary presumably because Martinique and Guadeloupe actually are French overseas departments . I guess Celebrity must have obtained some type of concession that waives the passport requirement as long as a passenger doesn't disembark in Martinique. That's rather unusual because you're normally considered to enter a country as soon as the ship enters its territorial waters and that means you have to meet all the requirements even if you never set foot on land. Here's what Princess has to say: https://www.princess.com/learn/faq/pre-cruise/prepare-for-your-cruise/?accordion=travel-documents "Document Requirements for US and Canadian Passport Holders A valid passport is required for all international itineraries including Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, India, Central and South America, Panama Canal (partial and full transit), Caribbean voyages that visit Martinique or Guadeloupe, South Pacific, Tahiti and World Cruises."