bluesea777

These two are 7 days cruise with shorter port hours in some ports. How about the SUN's 9 days cruises - they have longer port hours in Juneau (but it's tender, BUT tendering is easy and you tender straight to the Cruise Terminal in middle of downtown. They have all Sitka, Icy Strait Point and Glacier Bay in the itineraries. This is an ultimate Alaskan cruise for you if you haven't been to Alaska before. Sun is 2000 pax, nice sized (but older) ship with Observation lounge. Bliss & Encore are 4000-5000 pax, huge ships. Edit to add: Jewel also does Alaska - one way between Vancouver and Seward. The northbound has Glacier Bay, and the southbound has Hubbard Glacier, and the port hours are longer! We did two B2B on Spirit this summer - from Seward-Vancouver-Seward - and it was fantastic. Seward is a great embarkation port - we travelled down there from Anchorage by train 2 days before cruise and it was superb.

Which ships and dates? Need to see the rest of itinerary for each.

If you bring up THREE Encore’s Panama Canal cruises from Miami you’ll see the prices are the same for all of the 3! April 7-22, 2024 15 days Miami to Los Angeles April 7-24, 2024 17 days Miami to San Francisco April 7-28, 2024 21 days Miami to Seattle (with Astoria and Victoria thrown in). 🤷‍♀️

Skarfabakki is the only place that NCL ships will dock. It's east of Reykjavik

nvm

This is the best answer.

Prima and Viva are of the new class of NCL ships where the standard balcony/ocean view/inside cabins are larger with larger bathrooms than the ones in other classes. So, be aware when looking at photos/videos of cabins on Prima/Viva … do not assume that all ships have cabins that large.

We’ve done 5 cruises on the Spirit … one was our first NCL cruise in late 2006. Next was in 2018 for my 60th, and we were on her first cruise post major refurbishment in early 2020 and loved her new look and bells & whistles! We went back on Miss Spirit earlier this year for the two back to back Alaskan cruises and enjoyed every moment on her. Her forward observation lounge (Spinnaker) is the best in the whole NCL fleet!

I think you need to change the year in your Upcoming … in your signature, 😉

Two options: 1) get a comfortable air mattress (need to be tested pre-cruise by Dad for his approval) and put it outside on balcony for him to sleep. 2) after the first night on board approach Guest Services and plead your case … can they find a spare room for Dad to sleep in at nights and you’ll gladly pay for it. IMHO I think you’re quite crazy to have booked a single two bedroomed Haven cabin for no less than three adult couples, sorry. Hopefully one or the other or both of the above options will help.

Nama was never opened at lunch time on any of the 7 sea days we had on Viva … why??? Not surprised that it’s a money loser. NCL should know better! Other ships have their Sushi/Food Republic open at lunch time on sea days. NCL … are you reading this??? Thank you for letting me vent …

Encore might be too big to tender given her short port times in Juneau. And I said last year Encore docked at AS last year when Bliss was docked at AJD, so it’s my speculation that Encore will dock at AS if the AJD is in use.

These are lunch menus - can you go back in the evening for the dinner menus ....

Wise move to place deposits on two cruises and then cancel one when it's close to final payment due date. I had a closer look at the itineraries of #1 and #2, and if it were us we'd book #1 the Getaway as you get all full day in each of the ports!! And no Ravenna! This is a waste of port as it takes 2 hours to get to Venice and 2 hours back, and there isn't much to do in Ravenna itself. We haven't been there but have read somewhere else. Both the Dawn (#2) and Viva (#3) go there.

Open the above to see my msg in red. Sept 2023 Sept 2024 only 3 ships, so it's likely Encore will dock at AS, if not either FKL or CT. Here’s the photo taken on June 4 2023. NCL Sun came in afterwards and docked at FKL.

Righto! We were just off the Viva TA on Monday. We rate the ship as not at the top of our fave NCL ships - in fact we will not go on any of the Prima class ships in the future if all those ships stay what they are. We’ll go back to older ships even the larger than Prima ships.

Yes, but I want to hear from @misguy’s review of the Viva.

I think Encore is too big a ship to anchor and tender, so you should be okay as Encore will be docking. We were on Spirit and we anchored and tendered into middle of downtown and it was good!

Who’s your source? Only 2 ships have their winter 2025/6 itineraries listed now: Viva and Pride of America. Still too early to list winter 2025/6 itineraries for other ships.

We just got off the Viva TA crossing and methinks these pics and video might be a deal breaker for you … bottom line: get the Vibe Club pass … 05:56am 06:26am 06:27am a deckhand came out to untie the loungers to put them out … IMG_6401.mov

May I add, explore/research the flights to Istanbul & Venice and pre-cruise hotel days first before deciding on option #1 and #2. We recently were on Viva and although it’s a beautiful ship with nice cabins, we would go on either Breakaway or Dawn over Viva. Viva is very different from other NCL ships (except Prima).

#1 would be the best as it’s off season, less crowds, especially Santorini. Weather would still be warm & pleasant. #2 is next, but still in season. #3 no. Viva cannot tender with their own lifeboats. The other 2 can. Still in season and earlier than Dawn’s.

Right now I'm seeing these: And when I clicked on May & June 2024 I get this: And I see 8 sailings listed. Also our Bermuda Marine & Ports released the 2024 cruise schedule and Joy is listed as coming to Bermuda from New York weekly throughout summer 2024. The other NCL ship coming to Bermuda weekly is the Gem from Boston.

Here are the photos of the stage where the trivias took place - in Improv and Syd Norman’s …

@JIMESOPUS you're dead on right about the bars on Viva. I wasn't able to get my fave martinis on Viva - I was able to enjoy loads of them on other ships over the years. The Cosmopolitan martini was even pre-mixed!!! Another thing, we are Trivia and Game Show buffs and enjoy going to them a lot on other ships, but on Viva .... what a joke! The only two rooms they can do trivia/game shows with visual aids (laptop and screen) are Improv and Syd Normans - only if they are available. Otherwise they are held in either Metropolitain or deck 6 atrium area without visual aids ... useless to me as I'm hearing impaired. DH said the acoustics in the atrium was so bad that he couldn't hear the person saying the questions properly!!