OrcaGirl

Yes, we’re actually planning to spend a few hours between disembarkation and heading back to the airport cheering on the runners. We were in town during the Marathon in 2016 and had a blast cheering runners coming off the Queensboro Bridge. I even had a custom sign made which raised a few eyebrows but also got a lot of laughs from the runners. But it’s probably inappropriate to post it here. 😹

Made it safely to Toronto, albeit a bit late due to frost on the wings in Vancouver, and will make our connecting flight with 15 minutes to spare by the grace of NEXUS. Will our luggage make the connection? Guess we’ll find out in a couple of hours. Those business class lie-flat seats? Amazing. Actually wish it was a longer flight for once. There were some minor shenanigans during boarding around someone’s upgrade being in error and a debate over whether a person’s spouse’s airline loyalty status should be applied if the spouse isn’t travelling and a little ‘I want speak to the manager’ action. Actually reminded me a bit of some CC threads. 🤣 Off to Newark!

Hey everyone, Sitting in the airport lounge in Vancouver, ready to fly to NYC (well, Toronto, and then Newark) ahead of this Sunday’s cruise. We’ll be boarding the Norwegian Escape for a 7-day sailing from New York City to Bermuda and back again. This is a birthday trip, belatedly celebrating my husband’s birthday two weeks ago and I’ll be celebrating mine onboard. Plus this is the first time we’ll be on a cruise over Halloween! Super excited about my costume, and hope lots of other people dress up too. This will be our first time on the Escape, first time sailing out of NYC, and first time sailing to Bermuda (although we enjoyed a quick land-based vacation there several years ago). And it’s also my first cruise as Platinum! (The husband is still a lowly Gold… 🤣) As always, I’ll try to post a few times each day with what we’re up to, with a particular focus on food, cocktails, onboard entertainment and excursions. I’ll also be posting lots of photos over on Instagram Stories; look for erin_braincandy if you just want all the photos and none of the commentary. 😉 But first, we’ve got 2 days in NYC!

You will want to check out the Bermuda Port of Call board, which is where this thread will likely get moved anyway: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/118-bermuda/

On the Joy page on the NCL website, it says "Beginning October 28th, 2023, Footloose will no longer be offered."

Still can't get in on Safari but Edge worked. 🤷‍♀️

Same, and the app is borked for me right now as well. I can get into the app and view my next cruise, but all of the restaurants are gone, no entertainment, etc. I'm used to them messing up on the weekends, but my next cruise opens for check-in tomorrow and the cruise after that opens for dinner reservations on Sunday... fingers crossed they've got someone working on it, but it's after 6pm in Miami and the workweek is over, so...

There is no ropes course on Encore. You may be thinking of the Escape, which does have a ropes course.

What ship and date? Can you post a screenshot of where it says "solo balcony"? That's something I've not heard of before.

For what it's worth, I'm unable to book thermal spa passes for my February cruise on the Bliss. I see "It is too early to book this item for your cruise. Please check back XX/XX/2023 to book." Basically, thermal spa passes are open for booking at the same time as restaurant reservations.

OP didn't mention which airport they're flying out of, or if this is their first time to NYC (which might change what people recommend seeing). We're doing a Bermuda cruise next month, and our departing flight is out of Newark at 6pm. Our plan is to disembark after a leisurely breakfast on board, leave our luggage at a nearby Bounce location (reasonable fees), and then weather permitting we'll walk the High Line and grab a late lunch. We'll then grab our luggage and take the train from Penn Station to Newark and chill in the lounge until it's time to fly. The NCL excursion tour drops off at both JFK and LaGuardia: "This tour will drop guests at both, La Guardia Airport (LGA) and JFK Airport (JFK). Only guests with domestic flights departing after 2:30 pm and guests with international flights departing after 3:30 pm should book this tour." The excursion didn't appear in our CruisePlanner when we first booked, but showed up a few weeks ago. You'll likely find more options/ideas for how to spend a couple of hours in New York over on the East Coast Departures board: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/317-east-coast-departures/

Since this is being run through TimePlay, I hope they eventually upgrade to the TimePlay trivia offerings. We played it on the Celebrity Edge and it was soooo much better than the old school paper and pen trivia on NCL. (Granted, I'm biased because I *dominated* at TimePlay trivia, but still...)

If I recall correctly from our April cruise to Alaska out of Canada Place, "green" just means you completed the advance check-in online, and "blue" meant you hadn't. But we didn't have our medallions yet (they weren't shipping them to Canadian guests yet), so we still had to wait in the line. Canada Place is not the best-organized cruise terminal. It's a convention centre that gets pressed into cruise duty during the summer, rather than a dedicated facility, and that shows in the set-up and the frequent conflicting information depending on who you talk to on site.

Another factor to consider is how often ships skip Victoria due to high winds preventing docking. On my 2022 Pacific Coastal on the Bliss from LA to Vancouver, two Vancouver Island-based passengers couldn't arrange to disembark in Victoria but planned to take off their heavy luggage and leave it with a friend so they didn't have to haul it back over on the ferry after the cruise. But then we couldn't dock and it became a sea day.

On my last Princess cruise, my mother and I got the thermal suite pass and it came with a little jar of sugar scrub and a little loofah. We never used it on the cruise, brought them home, still haven't used them. 🤣

I hope people are just using them in the locker room showers or back in their cabins. I spend a lot of time in the thermal suite when cruising on NCL, and I've *never* seen anyone using or even carrying a scrub in the communal areas. I know any pool or hot tub is basically people soup, but having people intentionally slough off dead skin cells in there (or even in the saunas or steam room) feels just gross.

I've sailed the Bliss to Alaska, and I love the ship. But of the ships you listed, I'd go with the Celebrity Edge (sailed it in the Caribbean and it was amazing.) But, as others have mentioned, Alaska is all about the itinerary. One thing I didn't like about the Bliss in Alaska is that the port shops were either too short or awkwardly timed. So I'd pick whichever cruise gives you the most active hours in the ports and at the glaciers that interest you most.

A crowded day in the thermal spa in Alaska is still miles better than, say, a crowded pool deck on a sea day in the Caribbean. You may have to wait for a heated stone lounger, but there's lots of other seating. And you may have to wait for a spot at one of the jets in the pool, but the pool itself will have room. Evenings after dinner were one of my favourite times to chill in the thermal spa on the Encore, and it was usually very quiet. At least once or twice I was the only person in there. Only you can decide if the cost is worth it for you, but personally I love the thermal spas and think they're worth every penny.

Agree with the suggestion of the Alberni BCLS over the Harbour Centre location. But.... if you're sightseeing and make it to Olympic Village, Legacy Liquor is a well-stocked independent liquor store worth checking out. And there's an Urban Fare grocery store across the square for mixers, sodas, etc.

As dawnvip said, the security scanners at Canada Place are very similar to a typical airport. Another consideration is that you'll then have to bring your luggage with you during the rest of check-in. The exact process may vary depending on how many ships are in town that day, but Canada Place is *not* well-organized for cruise embarkation. There are a lot of lines that snake back and forth, and you go up an escalator for check-in and then back down for security. Even with luggage on wheels, it could be a hassle.

Between 30 min to 45 min depending on traffic.

This is correct. The tricky part is finding two excursions that you want to do and don't overlap at all. I've done this is Barbados, for example, with a longer port stop where I was able to take one excursion at 8am, be back on the ship for lunch, and then take a second excursion at 1pm that was back on the ship before all-aboard.

Yes! Something similar like this but for the MDR menus. I'm also thinking of making it database style so readers can filter based on the special notations, e.g. vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.

Both. All of my NCL cruises it's been a single "rooms are now ready" announcement, but on the Bliss in June 2023 it was the "rooms on decks X, Y and Z" are now ready" announcements.

I might start with 1-2 days of the 2023 menus just to validate the design. And give me a reason to drag the husband to dinner in the MDR on our October cruise on the Escape. (He's a weirdo who would eat the same thing in the buffet every night if he could.)