TSJE4
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Posts posted by TSJE4
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Hi . Thankyou . I loved your review and pictures . It was very very well done . I am traveling with my hubby . Son 14 and daughter 12 . I am sure we will have an awesome time . It is a fantastic itinerary . Cheers
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I interpret my edoc as explained above . We need to know for meet and greet ;-)
it is a bit confusing as it says
Venice -
Venice - depart 1am
at sea -
ATHENS
so it can be taken as one sea day but from reviews and reading it as
depart 1 am in morning I am interpreting it as 2 sea days .
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hello Everyone . Hoping you can clear up confusion on our roll call regarding sea days after leaving Venice on Norwegian spirit headed to its first port of call Athens . My understanding is that the ship leaves Venice at 1 am the morning after we embark ... which effectively leaves you one evening in Venice and two full days at sea . In our instance we will embark on the 30 th May at noon ..... the ship pulls out of port at 1am on the 31st . Leaving all day on the 31st may and 1 st june at sea . Thanks
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Hi isdoo
We have just returned from a cruise on the Spirit and they gave out free seasickness tablets at customer relations but you had to go daily to pick them up.
We took my Mum who hadn't cruised for 40 years because she was so unwell on that first cruise. The sea was quite rough at times but the tablets they gave her were amazing and she never felt ill once.
Awesome to hear . We are on the Spirit in may /June . You cannot get Bonine or Dramamine in Australia any more , its either Travelcalm or Quells , which I think are so so .. You can get Avomine but I am allergic . ( I get a rash from an antihistamine ..go figure :-() Hopefully the seas will be calm in early June ...fingers crossed .
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Im not overly fussy.
In hindsight, I should have sent EVERY meal back that wasn't good enough. Im sure after the third or fourth time of returning lukewarm beef with gloopy gravy, they might put a bit more effort into bringing a hot one.
Our theory was that the kitchen was on the deck below and at the other end of the ship.
There was another comment the other day that I also agreed with......that many of the tables face kitchens and strip lights, but the "decent" tables e.g. by the windows, never seemed to fill up. Do they save them for suite guests, even though many of the suite guests were in the speciality restaurants?
Hmmm .... Looks like On our port intensive cruise the meal highlight will be lunch .
I know I will have a great time anyway as I chose this ship and line on purely its itinerary , but considering we pay for our meals with our fare I expect a certain standard as one does in any restaurant . One should not feel the need to pay extra to eat in the specialty restaurants because of the quality of the food in the complimentary ones .
If it is the position of the restaurant , then put more wait and kitchen staff to deal with this . Don,t NCL monitor these feeds . ... Since booking my cruise in August I have read more reports of
food ok or food bland and cold than excellent . Guess this Melbourne foodie will just have to find out herself in May . Trying to keep an open mind . It will not make or break my holiday but it will determine whether I ever book again .
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The food sure beats the thinking about what we're going to eat, the shopping, cooking and washing up, so I'm happy. The speciality restaurants are good and I don't mind the MDR. Each to their own. I'm on vacation to relax and enjoy. Not to find fault in everything and complain.
I agree .. But you still pay for that food just like you would if you were holidaying on land . I am Just going off the many reviews . Hope all these people who are stating the food is cold and bland are just overly fussy . Cheers .
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We are on the spirit end of May and very excited about our trip . However So so hope all the reviews re slow MDR service and bland food is wrong . Food on cruises to me is one of the plus's of choosing a cruising holiday . " Eating out " breakfast lunch and dinner is part of the experience . We are previous P&O aust cruisers and The p&o menu is fresh varied and tasty and never lukewarm or cold . They even produce their own hardcover recipe book the food is that good. Also the service in MDR is outstanding with teams of two working together that have about 6 tables each and yes it's anytime dining like NCL although you can reserve a time and table in there MDR if you please including the same table every night if you wish . This is not due to the cruises being more expensive either - per night our NCL cruise is actually slightly more expensive in same category than our previous two P&o ,s . So why does NCL food in MDR often get a bad wrap . Is it because there are so many other options on board that you pay extra for they deliberately drop the standard so you will pay more for the others ??? Very excited about our cruise but so hope the cruisine will not let NCL down . Travelling with children it's not always an option to do the speciality restaurants .
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Hi . Has Anybody been on the Spirit since she has come out of dry dock in Feb this year . if so can you let us know what was done . . We are on her in May . Thanks
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Just for those doing sailings - Venice to Barcelona May 6th till November 14th 2014 , I just received my 2nd email with time change 7am -2pm not 9am as in original email .
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YEP Kusadasi it is . I think its a prettier port also .. Wonder if there was a reason... apart from being closer to Ephesus . Will make it a lot easier for those wishing to do it alone also :-)
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I also just received an email from Norwegian . Currently waiting on hold to NCl before I opened the attachment as it is addressed to isNull ?? Was hoping it was not a hoax email as I had received a few saying they were from my bank recently so was being cautious . From my time on hold( ages) and this post on cruise critic I am presuming its not lol . If it has been changed to Kusadasi that's an extra hour at Ephasus we all have . It is only 20 minutes in from the port by car to as opposed to an hour and half . Win win .
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Silly question re the $1 bills . I am presuming you mean American dollar bills or would Euro do considering the ship is in Europe for weeks on end and the crew may want to spend it off shore . ??? What do the crew prefer ? .
Sea bands ( the wrist bands that have acupuncture points for sea sickness ). Mine are already in my case .
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First timer here! I live in Queensland, Australia.
My husband and I are taking our first ever cruise in August 2014, four nights up the coast of Queensland through the Whitsundays.
I've already got two A4 pages of tightly scribbled notes, and I'm not even half way through this thread :eek:
I'm a bit excited! :D
Hey there . Is it with p&o Australia ? . They do have a forum and up the top they have the ultimate packing list also . Tip - Grab some medi cream from your chemist / Safeway / Coles .It's an Antiseptic , anti flam and local anaesetic in a tube . I Carry it with me every where . Last cruise on the Jewell to Fiji it came in handy with a couple that got jellyfish stings - they thought it was a life saver :-) Awesome handy cream to have especially in the whitsundays . Good for burns , bites ,scratches etc Also if you can be bothered get some betadine ointment .. Great for coral cuts , which can get nastily infected if not cleaned properly .
. Enjoy
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Just for the record.....in case NCL is reading... the main reason we still cruise with NCL is because their policy allows for smoking on the balcony.
I also book a lot of smoking clients on NCL when HAL or Seabourn is out of their spend wish.
Thank you, NCL, for being reasonable in your decisions on this matter.
Hmmm .. Considering smoking is now a major minority .. The amount of non smoking people that will cruise with NCL because they change their smoking policy will likely far out weigh the smokers who won't sail because they can't kick their habit .... . Sorry Just my thought . Yep I agree smokers should be contained . P&0 Australia is also a cruise line that bans all smoking indoors , including casino and private balconies , with only one area outdoors for smoking . Smokers can inhale their own filty smoke and other smokers around you together ... Win win for both sides :-)
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Enjoy it while you can. NCL is headed in the same direction As Royal, Celebrity and Princess
I reckon Jen is probably right . Interesting read .
http://www.no-smoke.org/learnmore.php?id=743
sorry Smokers you are becoming the minority and for good reason ( as an RN who works on a major high dependency surgical ward I could go into detail .. but i won't bore you with the gory details and statistics )
The smoking policy .. Almost put me off booking with NCL ... Almost went with Celebrity... so I can fully
understand your concerns . I figured most of Europe still has lax anti smoking policy's so I was going to have to likely quietly choke through someone's filthy smoke anyway while I was on land as well . Hopefully I will avoid the casino .. And decks where most of the smokers are . Good luck
Luck with your decision
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Thanks :-). Just out of interest does anyone have a link to a sample NCL ( like the one I put up ) to wet my appetite ( literally ha ha ) .
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I am presuming you are comparing going off the link i put put up re P&OAustralia for interest sake . ??? ( its good isn't it .... They even do a full hard copy recipe book that we bought as the food in the MDR rocked ! ) Australians especially melbournians have very cosmopolitan tastes :-)
Hoping its just tasty and not lukewarm when we get on ... Lucky we get lunch at ports from different countries that will tickle the taste buds also . Thanks for the suggestions..... I'll pass on the broccoli soup though lol .... And i'll keep an open mind . Maybe when p@o aust get overseas visitors they complain menu is too fancy ... Who knows . Guess you can't make everyone happy .... But you sure can try ;-)
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Thanks everyone . Nice to see some positive food reviews ( phew) Hoping we we will be pleasantly surprised being " foodies" . ( being Melbournian's is a bit of a disadvantage .. We are very spoilt for our food choice ... Not to mention coffee taste ... But that's another topic lol :-))) ).
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We also got off the Spirit yesterday - we often do a few speciality restaurants if the MDR menu does not appeal. We work on the principle that we order things we do not make at home. We only found one night where nothing really appealed to us on the daily changing menu. We only had sushi once because we were full from the German lunch.
We had no complaints about the temperature of the food or the speed and accuracy of the service. Some of the meals were excellent (the Key Lime pie sticks in my mind as does the Beef Wellington and the three dessert thingy on New Years Eve). The Surf and turf was pretty good as well.
We found the Garden dining room to be a bit more to our taste (more intimate and closer to the kitchen so food was hotter).
We did the Chef's Table - AWESOME! (Top Tip - go hungry and do not be afraid to ask for a doggie bag - the veal chop for breakfast was lovely!)
We only order coffee/juice etc. from room service so cannot comment on the burgers (but then we do not eat burgers at any time - certainly not on a cruise ship).
Agreed - the lunch menu in the MDR doesn't change but they usually do a special lunch at the buffet on sea days so no biggie IMHO.
Agreed that they need another bartender at peak times in certain bars - e.g. Jesse in Champagne Charlies was run off his feet at times.
Will keep the Garden dining room in mind . Are the menus different between windows and Garden ?
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http://www.pocruises.com.au/newtocruising/pages/cuisine.aspx
Maybe this link wil work. Waterfront is the mDR
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Cloudy rain - I was referring to 20 minutes to get served . 20 minutes or more
to get a meal if it's hot and tasty is fine with me :-). I am quite realistic .. Just think there is no excuse for bland and cold food when you are paying for it ( and you are in your cruise fare )
My pleasure - P@0 is similar ... Some new choices daily and some the same . Our last cruise was 16 days .. Food so good . Amazing service , atmosphere and choice . And thankyou for possibly be bringing it up with whoever you know . As an " outsider " with no affinity to ncl ( yet )...... It's what I notice at most reviews I read ( not just on cruise critic forum ) is the Luke warm food and food not up to par
And yes I realise reviews are subjective ... And everyone's expectations are different ..... Will have to wait until May untill I get to form mine .... And yes if I get a Luke warm meal ( within reason ) it will going back and F&b management made aware . If people don,t say anything either ...management are none the wiser :-)
Sample menu on p&o for those interestedhttp://www.pocruises.com.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/Life%20Onboard/Waterfront%20Dinner%20Menus%20Oct12.pdf. Is the menu similar ??
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P&O is not a luxury liner ... It is rated 3 star( I think
It's almost a 4 ) but the food is definitely 4/5 with service being the same with 2 waiters that work together and have about 4 tables ( ours was a table of 8 ) each time .
To me if NCL advertise a beautifully crafted menu and delicious fresh meals ( as on their brochure ) and they serve bland and not at the right temperature food ... Then management need to lift their game . It's not the occasional review .. Its most that I have read ... Which is disappointing . I am certainly going on Ncl for the itinerary and the fact I was sold on it being more family friendly than Celebrity for our 12 and 14 year old . Hoping management have been reading these reviews and have fixed whatever
problem they have in the kitchen before we get on . Don't see why people have to go to the specialty restaurant to get a good meal ( from what I have read ) Maybe that's ncls problem -they have so many specialty restaurants that they figure they don't need to "try " in the complimentary dining areas ?? Hope I will be pleasantly surprised come our cruise .
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Hi . Can people put my mind at ease . I keep reading about Luke warm and cold bland food on the Spirit . One of the reasons I have loved cruising in the past ( P&O Australia ) is going to the dining room.- doing the whole restaurant thing for Breakfast lunch and dinner ( depending what schedule is of course ).. Being served by waiters designated only a few tables so you get personalised promt excellent service and being served up wonderful food . I keep reading these disapointing reviews . Everything from sitting at a table for 20 minutes before being served to having to send food back because its cold and or tasteless :-((. Surely if one liner with 2000 people can get it right with a varied yummy menu entree , main and dessert with hot food every time another can .. Can't they ??? .
And P&O is anytime dining .. You can book the same table each night And get the same waiters .. Book a different table or just turn up and wait for a table . No allocated seating . Part of the whole holiday experience for me and my hubby is dining out .. Really really hope I won't be disappointed NCL .
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Hi . We are on the Spirit sailing out of Venice the 30 th of May with our two children who will be 12 and 14 years . Hoping there will be a few kids the same ages to hang with in kids club on this cruise . I think my kids are just as excited about meeting other children from other parts of the globe as well as seeing some of it :-) I think by the time we fly from Barcelona after such an extensive itinerary , for the 20 plus hours it takes to get home .... the kids should sleep like babies ..all the way lol
Tell me about the NCL Spirit
in Norwegian Cruise Line
Posted
Just off spirit . We booked the soda package for our 14 and 12 year old on line prior to sailing . We adults did not have to have it . Saying that unless your child has to have soda with evening meal in MDR and / or a hooked on it don!t bother. There is flavoured water ( fruit punch , lemonade ( cordial type ) / flavoured waters / ice tea free in buffets and throughout the ship ., except MDR . Ice tea is free in the MDR at dinner time My kids probably did not get the benefit out of it .