Sigyn

I've cruised NCL but I won't be on Celebrity until July 7. I'll let you know!

I'm making myself want to cruise Prima again! 😂

You're young boomers tho, so it doesn't count. 🙂

We ain't Boomers. 🤣 That's the best line I've seen on CC! I'm 55, so an older Gen X, and I'm tired of my teenage son calling me a Boomer, damn it! 😜 We definitely have our own style of dress and preferences to older generations, and the younger generations coming after us. The Breakfast Club is real!!!!!

We tried a lot of different things in the Indulge food hall. We never had to wait for breakfast. That's what made it handy. It seemed a lot of people didn't think about going there for breakfast. I saw that one person mentioned people taking it back to their cabins. I'm sure some did, since it was an option with sandwiches wrapped in paper. We didn't, we ate there. We wanted to try different things, sit and enjoy our coffee while it was hot, and soak in the scenery. Indulge Food Hall has a great atmosphere. We found Indulge at breakfast busy, but not too busy. It moved fast, and the food was always replenished and was being made as you watched and put on the shelves, so it was very fresh. I liked the breakfast sandwiches like the egg and cheese croissants, the different bowls with eggs and potatoes, including the tex mex bowl, the English muffins with eggs and cheese, etc. there were always meat free options and variations with sausage and bacon and ham to please everyone, and stations with fruit and cereals and oatmeal and pastries. It wasn't anything super fancy, but it was good and we loved the setting and it was easy and fast. As others have said, the buffet doesn't have tons of seating, so we preferred Indulge rather than fight the crowds in the buffet at breakfast or the long waits in the main dining room once you order off the menu and have to wait to be served. Indulge suited us. The decor is awesome and the view of the ocean out of every window is gorgeous. That's the great thing about the Prima. They have a spot for everyone. Another good place for breakfast is The Local. You order off the menu there, but the food is great. We ate there our last morning, before debarkation. I wish we'd discovered it sooner for breakfast. We did eat lunch there several times, and we had snacks there quite a bit. We loved the bar side of The Local and the sit-down restaurant side. Oh, and the hot fudge sundae. My son and I had one of those every day, and my husband indulged quite a bit too. Again, cozy decor, awesome staff and just a great atmosphere overall. One of our favorite bars was the Soleil Bar which is on Deck 8, I believe. It was a favorite hangout when we wanted to be outside, while we loved the Penrose bar on Deck 6 indoors. There was a guitarist who we really enjoyed every afternoon. The Penrose bar is in the atrium, so it's a great spot for people watching. You'll find other people naming other great bars as their favorites, like the Metropolitan, or the Whiskey Bar, or the Belvedere Bar. They're all unique. That's what NCL has done with the Prima - created individualized spots to suit every taste. I would cruise on the Prima again. It was a great ship.

This is fantastic! I love it.

Just a thought for those who aren't good swimmers - I'm 55 and I'm taking swimming lessons now. I took them as a kid, but always just paddled around in the pool. But I decided to brush up on my swimming skills through private lessons and after four lessons I'm already swimming laps. It's amazing how easy it's been to pick up on basic skills I thought I'd never truly learn. As for Galapagos, this is a dream trip that I will definitely do one day.

I wouldn't consider it a big loss. We didn't like Palomar much when we were on the Prima in December. We loved Onda the most, Le Bistro second, Food Republic third, Cagney's fourth and Palomar most definitely came in fifth place. It tasted fine, but it wasn't anything special, whereas Onda blew us away and so did Le Bistro, and Food Republic was just fun and delicious with lots of things to try. Cagney's was a typical steakhouse with well prepared steaks but nothing different than what you get at any steakhouse. Palomar didn't seem to have a strong identity. It wanted to be fancier than it really is, or something like that. We went in expecting to be impressed and found it sorely lacking. None of the dishes were particularly flavorful or standouts. Overall, we found the Prima to be a wonderful ship and we had a great time, despite rainy, cold weather during part of our Caribbean cruise. It's a beautiful ship. My husband, teenage son and I were on it from 12/23 -12/30. Don't listen to the naysayers. It's a fun ship for a vacation. We really loved the Indulge food hall. We had breakfast there most mornings. The bars are fun places to hang out, and the crew is so friendly.

I booked our cabin for a March 2024 cruise. We're in the Haven. We are bronze as far as loyalty goes. How far in advance can we book dinner reservations for specialty restaurants and entertainment?

I think Princess or HAL sound like good options for you. I had a friend take the Norwegian Bliss to Alaska and while she normally likes NCL, she said that particular cruise was the worst she'd ever taken.

@kitkat343 I'm not worried about the taxes on free at sea, and as for ports, any cruise line has the right to change or cancel ports. When we were on the Prima in December, the ship couldn't make it to two of the four ports due to weather, and at the third port (Cozumel) it was pouring down rain on Christmas Day and winds were gusting at 25mph, so we opted to stay on board. Yet we still had a fantastic cruise on a beautiful ship. We try to go with the flow. We're lucky enough to be able to do this cruise in the Haven, so that will be amazing, no matter what else happens.

No, he was not particularly forgiving. Hence the fact that he became an ex. He would get very angry and upset over such situations. Stress was not his friend. He died from a stroke at age 49. 😞

Sounds like quite a mess on NCL's part. I see where the names were confusing to NCL, but you were there in person, they had dealt with it the first time, they'd said it was resolved, and yet it came up again. That's their fault. Terrible customer service. My ex-husband ran into that one time at Sears. He had a credit card that said Joe. He had to show his driver's license which said Jose. The sales clerk said he couldn't accept the credit card because it was a different name. Despite the fact that the Sears credit card was under the same address as what was on the driver's license. This was in California, where everyone knows that Joe/Joseph is the English version of Jose. The sales clerk was Latino, too, so he likely knew that. A lot of Latino kids had opted for Americanized nicknames of the names their parents gave them. My ex was so annoyed. He called the manager and the manager apologized profusely and accepted the credit card. My ex made the sales clerk carry his purchase to his car and put it in the trunk.

Interesting. When I made the deposit on the ship, the Next Cruise representative told me that there was no difference if I booked then, or once I was home.

I get the feeling there's no risk of going hungry in Vancouver!

I was able to switch to Glacier Winds. They had a cancellation. Super happy!

Just an FYI for anyone curious. I cruised on April 1 on Royal Caribbean and paid $200 for a Next Cruise deposit. A couple weeks later I booked a cruise for March 2024. I decided to cancel it yesterday. Turns out that despite what I read here, I couldn't move the Next Cruise deposit to another cruise. It was forfeited. I'm surprised given that it says you can move it to another sail date within two months. Anyway, just wanted to share: changes made during the first two (2) months after the debarkation day of the cruise during which the NDN Booking was made shall not be subject to a Change Fee; changes made to the ship or sail date after that two (2) month period has expired shall be subject to a Change Fee (currently $100 per person but subject to adjustment without notice); I found this info at this site for RCCL: https://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/dam/royal/resources/pdf/next-cruise-booking-terms-and-conditions.pdf I didn't have another RCCL cruise I wanted to book at the moment, so it's not really pertinent to me, but I wanted to let others know what they're doing these days. It's a forfeited deposit.

Yes! The late night free pizza was a huge hit! And the ice cream. And milkshakes. I think my son lived on that stuff on our spring break cruise. He also felt like a big shot buying milkshakes for his friends who didn't have the money on their cards. I would add to his card and he could get them stuff. Small price to pay for teenage happiness. (On the Harmony, everything was free except the milkshakes at Johnny Rockets. We didn't have that package.)

It was actually $7K for the Haven cabin. I think $6,700 to start, but then all the fees, etc. There was one for $6K, but it was the smallest Penthouse and I wanted the forward facing HG category penthouse with two rooms, hence the $7K price tag. (We get 10% off for military pricing since my husband is a veteran, so it's slightly higher if you look at that cruise without that discount.) I'm sure we'll all have a great time. And this incudes the basic drink package, whereas you don't get that with your $7K on Icon. That's another $1,400 or so for two people. Yikes. I didn't buy the drink package before on Royal. It's just not worth it. I don't drink that much! But it's fine when it's included.

I'll give you all the details next year, if I don't forget! Unless you've already been in that room before. 🙂

Looks amazing! I'm booked with them for July, thanks to recommendations from this group.

I'm sure it all depends on what the kids like to do. My son loves to surf, scuba dive and go boardsailing, but it turned out the Flowriders on Harmony didn't interest him much. He finally did them the last day and said they were fun, but I picked the ship in part because it had two Flowriders and he loves water sports. Yet, he did it once for a half hour. Same with all the slides on Harmony. Once each. My son and his friends were more about walking around, hanging out, sitting in the hot tub, sitting in the lounge with virgin drinks and feeling more grown up than they actually are, and going to the outdoor parties in the evenings and watching the adults act ridiculous. 😂

Definitely try them once before getting the pass. Even if you like them it would be difficult to ride them enough to get your money back from the pass. They're only open certain hours, and if it rains, they shut down since you can't do them on a wet track. You also have to make reservations to use them, and the reservations are tough to get. At least, they were on the Prima. Maybe the folks with the unlimited pass get easier access, not sure. Something to check. I offered to buy my son as many rides as he wanted, but he rode once when his dad did it, and once when I did it, and that was it. He wasn't interested in going again. And he's a 15 year old boy who loves cars. So go figure. He thought they were just kinda meh and not nearly as fun as go karts on tracks at home.

I just booked the HG category, the Haven forward-facing penthouse on deck 12, cabin 12108, on the Joy, for next spring. Thanks for all of the help!

I booked the Haven forward-facing penthouse on the Joy. Cabin 12108. Done! Thanks for the input. Funny enough, the go-karts on the Prima weren't that appealing to my son during our December cruise, and my husband really didn't like them because of how they randomly gave speed boosts to some drivers and not others. He hated being passed by people not driving as well as he did. 🤣 My son loved hanging out (napping) in the observation lounge on the Prima, and the Galaxy Pavilion. We all enjoyed the specialty restaurants on the Prima. They were amazing!