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njhorseman

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Everything posted by njhorseman

  1. Assuming you're asking about beaches in metropolitan San Juan, in my experience none of the beaches are very calm, but Isla Verde Beach is probably the calmest of the major beaches as I believe it's somewhat protected by a reef. In comparison, Condado Beach has much rougher waters.
  2. It's the other way around. When Orange route public ferry service was suspended for a while two years ago it was to rebuild Hunter's Wharf to accommodate the front-loading public ferries. https://www.royalgazette.com/transport/news/article/20220808/st-georges-ferry-suspended-2/
  3. Buying electronics...that sounds like the stop was at Colon on the Atlantic side.
  4. None of the six cruises that included Panama Canal transits were the same, They were six long cruises of three to over five weeks duration each that happened to include a Panama Canal transit as one day of the cruise. On one the ship also made a port call at Fuerte Amador on the Pacific side, which gave passengers a day to explore Panama.
  5. If you're bored transiting the original locks then you're certainly not going to find the new locks very interesting as there's less to see. Yes, there have been restrictions on the number of ships permitted to transit the canal on any one day due to drought, but rainfall has recently increased and the canal authorities have been increasing the number of permitted daily transits.
  6. You're entitled to your opinion, but I've taken six full transits and I've found or learned something new each time.
  7. Remember that many disembarking MSC passengers will have parked at the cruise terminal and will be vacating their parking spots, so all those spaces will become available for passengers embarking that day. It's unlikely that you'll have a problem, but if you want to ensure you'll have a spot, make a parking reservation.
  8. Sounds like you're talking about perks offered by travel agencies, and no...NCL will not match them. Assuming you booked directly with NCL within certain time restrictions you can transfer a booking you made with NCL to a travel agency. Talk to a travel agent you're interested in booking with, get a firm quote including the perks they're offering and they can guide you through the process of transferring the booking from NCL to their travel agency.
  9. I've seen them. And to give you an example every year cruise passengers in Bermuda are arrested when the dogs are brought on board and detect illegal drugs in passenger cabins.
  10. No! A doctor's prescription does not exempt you from the laws of other countries. First, marijuana is illegal under federal law and cruise terminals in the US are under federal jurisdiction . Second, the marijuana will likely be illegal in the ship's flag state. Third, it will be illegal in most if not all ports the ship will be visiting. And IIRC, international maritime laws prohibit marijuana on ships.
  11. Yes you can make a reservation. The ability to reserve parking at the Brooklyn terminal was put into place a while back after the company that manages the Manhattan cruise terminal's parking took over the management of the Brooklyn terminal's parking.
  12. Yes, you can reserve a parking spot: Go to this page of the cruise terminal's website, https://cruise.nyc/BCT-directions-parking then scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Make a reservation".
  13. The public ferry to St. George's won't be running in November but NCL's ferry will.
  14. We've been regular visitors to Bermuda for over 35 years, both by cruise ship and by air, and in that time I've never heard the term "main island" used by either tourists or locals. While Bermuda is composed of well over 100 islands there are only about a half dozen that comprise the vast majority of the country...the rest being largely small uninhabited rocks in the ocean . Other than passing over a few short bridges when traveling from one end of Bermuda to the other, there's little or nothing to distinguish one island from another or to even make you think Bermuda is anything other than a single expanse of land. You would have to stay at six or seven different hotels to stay at each of the "main islands".
  15. I might not want to use the word "soon". As the article says in its opening sentence ""The years-in-the making plans...". Public works projects generally move at a snail's pace.
  16. njhorseman

    Pier

    Looks like you're considering the repositioning cruise that takes the ship to San Juan for the start of its season there. The ship should be docking at the Pan American cruise terminal.
  17. I assume you're docking at the Royal Naval Dockyard. We won't know the ferry schedule for summer 2025 until next April, but this year the last ferry from Hamilton to Dockyard departs Hamilton at 8:30 pm. But... with your ship not arriving until 6 pm the earliest ferry you'll be able to take from Dockyard to Hamilton departs Dockyard at 8 pm and arrives in Hamilton at 8:20 so the idea of going to Hamilton for dinner by ferry and returning by ferry doesn't work. The bottom line is you'll need to take taxis in both directions, which will probably cost in the neighborhood of $60 or more each way. If you want to take taxis you're unlikely to find any taxis waiting at the cruise terminal at that time of day so you'll have to make arrangements through a taxi dispatch company or an app called Bermuda Hitch.
  18. There are luggage storage websites such as Bounce and Luggage Hero that contract with various types of retail stores that will store your belongings in a back room at their locations. You have to check their locations and hours of service carefully to see if they meet your needs. For a more formal luggage storage facility Amtrak has storage available at $20 per item for those without an Amtrak ticket at the Moynihan Train Hall at New York Penn Station.
  19. There are Enterprise, Budget and Avis car rental locations in Bayonne. Make sure you check their hours of operation, particularly on weekends where hours open may be limited . FYI the name of the cruise port is Cape Liberty, not Port Liberty, and it's not an insignificant difference because there's a location not far away named Port Liberte that can be confused with Cape Liberty.
  20. The cruise terminals in Brooklyn and Manhattan eliminated their long term parking discounts a few years ago. There isn't much in the way of alternative parking in the immediate area. If you check spothero.com for monthly parking near the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal they show what appears to be a small parking lot named Storquest at 155 King St. that appears to be part of a self storage facility of the same name that's only a short distance from the cruise terminal. Otherwise you're probably looking at garages in downtown Brooklyn about two miles from the cruise terminal. I can't provide any personal experience or recommendations about specific parking facilities in the area...just to do what I did to get the above information by using Spot Hero.
  21. Last year the ferry to St. George's ran in October and was discontinued for the winter in early November so I think there's a good chance that will run in October this year. Unfortunately the Bermuda Department of Marine and Ports summer ferry schedule doesn't display an end date so we can only conjecture based on last year's schedule.
  22. Epic isn't smaller than most of the ships that followed it, so to attribute the success in getting special requests filled to Epic's size compared to other ships is incorrect. Epic is the only Epic class ship and it is larger in terms of both gross tonnage and double occupancy passenger capacity than Breakaway and Getaway, the two Breakaway class ships that were the first ships launched following Epic. While the Breakaway Plus class ships have a greater gross tonnage, of the four ships in that class only Escape has a greater passenger capacity than Epic. And the new Prima class ships carry substantially fewer passengers than Epic. I suspect the inability to get special requests fulfilled is a function of NCL's current management approach versus what it was a few years ago, rather than anything to do with a ship's size or age.
  23. No one can quote a hotel price without knowing the date you're staying at the hotel. Have you looked at any of the many hotel booking websites such as Expedia to get an idea of what is available on the date you need the room at what price ? If anything looks attractive you can then ask if anyone's familiar with the hotel or hotels you're considering.
  24. NCL has The Haven and Celebrity has The Retreat, each similar to MSC Yacht Club although there may be minor differences in exactly what facilities each have.
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