bluesea777

Tip: if you love Indian food, go to Tamara in Indulge for dinner, it’s quiet and their dinner menu is so different to the lunch one. Their naan breads are to die for!

If you read up you’ll see why … and as it turns out it’s important for the OP. Bottom line Encore doesn’t have aft Spice H2O … a Laser Tag is in its place. All other BA/BA+ ships have aft Spice H2O.

Breakaway & Getaway are Breakaway class ships - sisters. Built in 2013 & 2014. Escape, Joy, Bliss, Encore are Breakaway Plus class ships. Built in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019. All above 6 have waterfronts. Prima & Viva are new class ships - Prima class. Forget about these two ships, okay. If there is only 3 of you going, realize this that you'll need to pay double occupancy for the cabin for yourself. Also one of the two girls need to be at least 21 years to be holding the cabin for themselves. That's why I suggested Family Oceanview on deck 5.

Bliss is good. still has the aft Spice H2O. I'd rather go on Bliss (also Joy and Escape) than the Encore! I don't know if you realize that the Family Oceanview cabin (cat O5 on deck 5) is large enough for the 3 of you.

By the way, Joy has a Wine Cellar opposite La Cucina where you can sit at the bar and order wines by the glass. That bar has better selection of premium wines by glass ….

I say, Joy is better than Encore. Joy has aft Spice H2O but the Encore doesn’t!

The Nama sushi and Food Republic remained CLOSED at lunchtime on each of our no less than seven (7) sea days during our Viva TA crossing last month. There were only 4 lunchtime options on Viva and after a few days none of them started to appeal anymore. Sorry NCL, we would rather return to other ships than the Prima class ships. P.S. in addition to the above, the designers (that we have heard) had no cruising experience when the Prima class ships were built. For the trivia buffs I’m sad to say that the venues that the trivias are held are jokes! The biggest joke of them all is the Surfside Cafe being the one third of size of the next smallest Garden Cafe in the fleet.

Then, a 7 days one-way Jewel cruise from Vancouver to Seward end of May, with a couple post-cruise days in Seward (the 7.5 hours Kenai Fjords Glacier Park cruise excursion (Major Marine) is a must do!), then a train to Anchorage? 😁

@mjdangerous1992 welcome to CC! We were on the Viva for the maiden transatlantic crossing and can echo a few of your sentiments about the ship. It was our 30th NCL cruise but our first on a prima class ship, and suffice to say we will not set our foot on a prima class ship again. The Surfside Cafe on the prima class ships (Prima & Viva) has to be the worst buffet on entire NCL fleet. Viva is a very beautiful ship with lovely balcony rooms with super bathrooms, but she is missing a few things that are on other ships. Hopefully you will venture out to try the other NCL ships.

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.