bluesea777

Bermuda will be a no go for Liberty OTS this weekend. hurricane winds AND high surf, making the passage thru the channels impossible to the Dockyard.

Ernesto is visiting Bermuda on Saturday 17th August - whether it's a direct hit or a brush-by. But Bermuda is very resilient therefore your Breakaway cruise should still be a go in coming to Bermuda. UNLESS, there is another TS or hurricane cropping up and making our way ...

Fantastic photos, it's wonderful that you got to see the aurora borealis! One little fact that you need to understand ... you will NOT be going to the Arctic Circle, let alone cross it. Here is the map of Greenland and you'll see that the ship will be visiting the ports down the south of Greenland that is below the Arctic Circle. You'll also see that Iceland is also below the Arctic Circle as well (except for the Grimsey Island), but you're in luck ... the Star will be crossing the Arctic Circle twice - between Isafjordur and Akureyri. Enjoy the cruise! Go to Gatsby's and ask for the Rum Cake martinis - they're great! Also the Key Lime Pie martinis. We were on the Star in June from Tromso Norway to Reykjavik Iceland via Svalbard (upper right on the map) and had a great time. ENJOY!!

Ernesto is next ..... ugh.

4:30 pm .... Norwegian Gem still docked at Kings Wharf, supposed to depart at 4:00pm. Liberty of the Seas docked at Heritage Wharf, supposed to leave at 5:00pm. Carnival Pride, supposed to arrive and dock at King's Wharf at 8am tomorrow (14 Aug), has arrived and is approaching to Great Sound to anchor. Norwegian Joy, supposed to arrive and dock at Heritage Wharf at 8am tomorrow (14 Aug), is now in sight and approaching to Grassy Bay. Bermuda Weather says it's the front coming to Bermuda from East Coast of USA bringing (and welcoming) us with torrential rains.

Yeppers, and Seward is better than Anchorage pre-cruise.

Harbor 360 has luggage carts in lobby which they put luggage destined for shop in. Then they take them to ship when it’s time for the ship to be ready to receive the luggage. Also, Major Marine owns Harbor 360 …

Good morning! Are you checking in your Major Marine excursion at Harbor 360 hotel? If yes, ask if your luggage can be sent to the ship while you’re on the excursion. We stayed at Harbor 360 and they took our luggage and transported them (and other people’s luggage as well) to the ship. Make sure you have the ship tags with you ready to affix on your luggage. It was ideal as we toured around Seward for a few hours before heading to ship using the Seward’s free shuttle.

I think you cannot book a meal in same restaurant more than once; all meals that you book must be in different restaurants. I was able to book meals in 4 different specialty restaurants just a few days ago for our December cruise.

Yes, they will board when Saint Greg disembark.

That's 2022, things have changed now.

One more thing, you need to understand what the so-called Gold Panning involves. This activity is for families with kids who are bound to go gleeing with excitement as they discover "gold" nuggets in their pans ... not the real thing.

Welcome back to NCL! I read your fantastic review of last year's Jewel AK cruise. We did our b2b AK cruises on the Spirit from Anchorage-Vancouver-Anchorage last year. Great job snagging the 8.5 hour Major Marine Kenai Fjords cruise out of Seward. We did the 7.5 hour one and it was fantastic. If you like crab legs we had the best ones ever at Ray's Waterfront restaurant in Seward - fantastic legs at half the price of other places namely Tracey's in Juneau, etc. It's still light after dinner so take a stroll thru the waterfront and marina - those boats are interesting to look at. The SeaLife is very good. About Icy Strait Point ... I would suggest you give the Spassky tour a miss and do the ZipRider (this includes the SkyGlider) instead. We did both (one after the other) - enjoyed the thrill on ZipRider but the Spassky one was a meh - didn't see any bears, except that we saw a speck of one moving and it was so far away from the path we were walking on. When I saw your video of bears last year I just went WOW you got close to see those great bears, you wouldn't have been able to do that on ANY of the other tours, including the NCL ones. We did the Original Streetcar in Skagway and it was good and fun. ENJOY!!!

Glad you had a great meal & time in Le Bistro - this is our Must Go specialty restaurant on every cruise we go …. A tip: just order whatever you want with your penny pinching thoughts at bay … enjoy the meal and you might be surprised when you receive the bill at the end … we’re often surprised… and we make sure we tip well.

We're also booked on this same cruise!! Greenland is still sitting on our bucket list ... we went on the NCL Star 2 years ago for the Greenland and Iceland cruise but when we boarded the Captain made an unfortunate decision (based on weather) to swap Greenland with Norway. It caused a bit of an uproar as the majority of ppl went on the cruise for Greenland. I was wondering why didn't the Captain just swap the countries around, meaning do Iceland first and then Greenland when the weather improved. We got 25% refund. This year we went back on the NCL Star for the Arctic Norway, Svalbard and Iceland. The cruise and ports were very good but the food (especially the Garden Cafe) had downgraded to the point that we vowed not to go on the NCL Star again. After reading YVR's review about the Island Princess, I went online to search for a Greenland cruise, and bingo I found the Aug 1-19 2025 cruise - round trip out of NYC (1hr 45m hop from Bermuda and back) and going to just 2 countries - Canada and Greenland - perfect as we've been to Iceland and Norway many times already. Thanks Yvonne!! Keep it up with your reviews and pictures!

TIP: always grab the towels you need on the day/afternoon/evening before! The dailies should tell you the Towel Desk opening hours. That was what we did - we signed out some towels the evening before we got off ship in Akureyri Iceland for our Natural Baths swim. Another tip: room service for early morning breakfast.

The free BTS tours for Platinum & above do not include Bridge, and almost never include Engineering room. The paid BTS tours are longer and include Bridge room. My DH is retired engineer but has never had a chance to take a peep into an Engine room on any of the NCL ships. We just completed our 31st NCL cruise last month. Wait for the Officers' Q& A session (check the dailies).

As a Marmite lover, I tried Vegemite and didn't like it! Vegemite is Australian version of Marmite (UK). Both are acquired taste so you either like either or not. I started on Marmite while in boarding school in UK during my teen years and now love it on toast, crumpets, on toast when having poached egg on toast. Both M & V are suitable for vegetarians. P.S. Still enjoying your review and photos, keep it up. Hint: we're jumping lines next year!!

mmmm ... I think you mean Delaware River. Mississippi = New Orleans

And less expensive hotel-wise.

Remember Bermuda has only 2 berths for med-large ships at the dockyard - there's one in Hamilton but it's for the smaller sized ships. NCL is not the only cruise line that takes dibs to the berth(s) and day(s) .... NCL already has 2 ships visiting weekly, occupying one berth on Sunday to Friday - that's 6 days of the week. RCCL also has 6 ships visiting weekly, 4 days of the week. Celebrity one ship 3 days of the week. Other lines do send ships to Bermuda but they can do only on the days that the berth is available to them. BTW, in 2026 when Jewel homeports in Philly, she does Thurs-Thurs and will come here for two days Sat-Sun, just one overnight. Breakaway from Boston doing Sun-Sun, here in Bermuda Thurs-Fri one overnight. This leaves the Aqua which homeports in New York and will do Sat-Sat, and comes to Bermuda Mon-Wed 2 overnights. That means in 2026 NCL will have dibs to one berth for every day of the week 🙃. This year 2024 we have 2 NCL ships weekly, but in 2026 we'll have 3 NCL ships here weekly.

No tender ports in this itinerary. Unless one or so of these ports provides their own tender boats to assist Viva in transporting the pax between ship and port. Viva’s (ditto with Prima’s) lifeboats aren’t certified to tender the passengers to port.

OP said Viva in the title.

It’s great that you are able to go to Nuuk. You’ll be docking there. Nuuk is the capital of Greenland. Its old name was Godthåb.

Hey Y! I’ve been on the sidelines reading your fab reviews about Island Princess and great photos! Keep it up! Now it’s time for you to realize the real reason your ship is skipping Q and N in Greenland … if you haven’t been told. NONE of the ships that had Q & N on their itinerary have been able to reach either ports so far this year due to ice. They were able to reach and port at Nuuk even if it wasn’t in their itinerary. Hopefully you’ll be able to get to go to Nuuk. I read elsewhere in CC (can’t remember where) that the global warming is the culprit that the glaciers have been calving more this year, producing large icebergs to float out … a real danger to cruise ships! A real disappointment I can imagine - we also missed Greenland (3 ports) 2 years ago - weather related - and we went to 4 ports in Norway instead.