NoleMini

I think you are missing the point- the POINT of this post is that we are missing points we were scheduled to get and are NOT. I simply want other rewards folks to be aware of this possible bait and switch scheme and get their points as they deserve. :cool:

So after all the cruises you see below that we have done with NCL, we have had an issue that apparently cannot be resolved. We cruised this spring on the Getaway, and missed the Latitude offer by 2 days. No biggie- we booked a little 3 day out of Miami this fall with a Latitude insider offer. After we got back, the extra points were not there (we are like 1-2 points away from being Platinum, the whole point of taking the 3 day cruise). We called- the rep said she could see the insider offer but our cruise was "not booked that way" and was just a special pricing. We were told to send it to the Latitude Department, which we did six weeks ago. Today we got an email denying the points.

So, apparently even though we booked thorough NCL specifically regarding an insider offer (apparently had to be marked "LATITUDE" to get to Platinum, the person from NCL that booked the 3 day cruise did not mark it as such, and therefore we do not get the 2 points required to make Platinum. We did not even get the courtesy of a personal response and instead got a scripted email. We will be cancelling our 9 day Alaska trip that has been booked for next May and will not cruise or recommend NCL in the future.

So for those Latitude members out there booking using insider offers, MAKE SURE you have whatever code you need marked on your booking or you will get screwed for a few points. (We needed 5 each to get to Platinum, the Sky would have been 3 each, or 6 for the insider offer.)

Thank you for all the great info!

I do not think that 10% of a booking is lucrative (ie, some carnival fares are about 200/pp, so you made $20 on that booking. Try paying bills on that! TA's get NOTHING for flights, and there are portions of a cruise that are not included in the commission, so of that $200 fare, only about 160 of it is commission-able.

A good TA should be finding out what you like, don't like, and especially making sure your needs are taken care of. Any special dietary issues? Do you need a crib or diaper genie in the room? Do you want to sleep in and not be right under the gym at 6am when people start hitting the treadmill? Do you smoke (and since most if not all lines have discontinued smoking on balconies) need to be near a smoking allowable deck?

There are many more things a TA should and can do, not all of them do however. The cruise lines take whatever commission the TA might make and turn it into profit for them, and may not be available should you have a problem. We got rid of our TA as she was not really providing these things any more....

Thanks for the great review- can't wait to see her in a few weeks!

How much did they charge from the port to Old Town? The most recent price I saw was $20 per taxi one way.....looking for good restaurant recommendations there as well.

We are on this cruise too- part of a group so didn't join the CC board for this particular cruise. Bringing halloween costumes and some door decor! It's gonna be a blast. :D

Had a nice trip on the Sky- staff was friendly, drinks were strong. Ship was overall in great condition, we could see some wear/tear in the room (10202) but nothing outrageous. Compared to the Getaway, the balcony was HUGE. Did Seahorse Sail/Snorkel in Nassau, good trip and nice reef there about 30 minutes away. Rum punch included after.

Hubby did paddleboarding in GSC, has a nice bruise to show for it.

However, this cruise was our first 3 day (first less than 7 day) and it was a little weird.

1- age group was MUCH lower, which is not a bad thing. Did not see over the top drinking/vomiting, etc.

2- Latitudes party was the smallest we have ever seen- like maybe 15 people? Bizarre. Last cruise on the Getaway I swear half the ship was there, held in the theater.

3- The ship was full per the CD, but never felt full to us- dining rooms were empty, pool deck empty most of the time, dance floors with plenty of room when we were there.

One tip- don't miss the Adult Quest on the last night (but you have to go with an open mind, it is an ADULT scavenger hunt and clothes, etc do come off). :eek:

Overall a great time, a bit of a haul (6 hr drive each way) so not something we would do again, but if we lived closer, probably go 6-7 times a year.

We are headed to the Sky in just a few days- we will be platinum on NCL after this trip and have done multiple other lines, so will add my 2 cents when we get back. :)

We got the Vibe passes when we were on in May- managed to get one of the 5 cabanas, interestingly, only one other couple was up there the WHOLE week using their cabana. (and we were there every day, quite a bit, at all hours) You really have to be on board pretty quickly to get one of the passes- the bartenders were great, the hot tubs were great, and the remainder of the area was never truly full, but there is not much shade. If you are a sun worshipper this is fine, if not, ......

We enjoyed it-

Take an afternoon nap on the days you want to absolutely stay up late- I have trouble staying up on a cruise- the nice motion just rocks me to sleep, so I schedule dinner, the show, and whatever is EXCITING (no violin music, thank you) to keep me up and going until whatever party.....:D

We have sailed many of NCL's ships. My two favorite parts of a ship are the back outside deck and the front observation lounge, neither of which the Star has. It did not make/break our trip, still had a great time, but if another ship has the same itinerary, we will choose that ship over the Star. :cool:

Forward, absolutely the best view of all and you don't have to fight the crowds on the main deck.

Thank you for the armchair travels today- I appreciate the photos of the ship we will be on in December and your "trip report" has made it that much better! Excellent review :D

Wow....found this thread yesterday doing research for a possible SA trip in 2015/16. Thank you so much for this armchair trip in the last two days! Your commentary and photography are spectacular and now I just have to convince my DH that two weeks is worth the trip~ (we did PC repo last fall and loved it). :rolleyes:

Thank you for taking the time to do this review, love the suggestions.....the whole take your passport away from you and wrapping suitcases is a little scary (and I lived in Central America for two years, so not an unseasoned traveler) but there are tons of cruises down there, so obviously not TOO much of an issue. Loved this review and have bookmarked it~ :D

Honestly afraid to check out your other ones for fear I will not be able to decide which to do next! :rolleyes:

Agree, thanks for the info. Dying to go to MP and looking at S America cruises for 2016, so starting my research now. :rolleyes:

Please see my review of the PC repo dated 11/2/13, ours specifically had 3 "dress up or not" nights....however as everyone has stated above, you can dress up or down as you see fit. The photogs are out more for photo ops on the formal nights in our experience.

NCL- Done :)

We paid 199/pp on the TWO week panama canal repo....prior to that we paid 99/pp December 2011....so if a previous poster said 119/pp, then the price has gone up. I know the review I just did of the Getaway we were sorely disappointed in the 199/pp price for ONE week.....and the spa did not have anything different other than a small "salt room". :cool:

I like to center my reviews on things I do not see in other’s reviews….and as always food and entertainment are subjective. ;)

Embarkation: Arrived at the port around 9:30, they allowed us through security at 10am and boarded around 11:30. The Miami terminal is FREEZING, so bring a sweater. I saw more than one person wearing a winter coat with shorts in there. As soon as we got onboard DH ran to deck 6 to get a Vibe pass and got the first cabana, but the others sold out in less than 5 minutes.

Ship Impressions: The Getaway has “upgraded” décor more like RCI or Celebrity, very understated and classy compared to the more garish décor (some of the Carnival ships are just too much. Scary masks on Dream, anyone?) or bright Caribbean flavors (bright pink/green) of some of the other NCL ships.

Room 9102 is a forward window room, great space, looks over the crew bar. Great location, but downside here is you can hear noise every time they are docking or undocking and during night parties in the crew bar. You can see past the tent that covers their bar to see over the ship and get a little view coming into port, but for good pictures, just go up on deck.

There are no real large gathering areas other than the theater for shows (such as a forward lounge, or nightclub) so all the “light” shows like Newlywed, Dancing with Stars, etc. are held in the Atrium, which is relatively small for those sized events. The second floor of the Atrium upstairs area by O’Sheehan’s has chairs around the open area but is really one row deep, so we missed all of these type shows on this trip. This gets VERY crowded quickly, so if you are interested in seeing these, get there very early (on a similar note, the latitudes party was held in spice H20 on the back deck- usually held in a forward lounge or such). I missed the back deck area with the buffet like Pearl/Jewel class and the forward lounge on this ship.

Very few daily announcements overhead- they are not piped into the rooms.

Shows: Very high quality more like the Jean Ann Ryan Company of old NCL days. I think that the Oasis/Allure have brought up the quality of shows on their line and NCL has to compete. The only magicians and jugglers we saw were in the Illusionarium, which was still excellent for the upcharge. We did not see the comedians at all this week. If you like blues, see Sugar Blue and his group in the Grammy Experience, two shows each night. We were there almost every night. Some song repeats, but the musicality and band quality are incredible and they really look like they are having a good time. (I believe they are on the ship for 3 more weeks)

Vibe: They reportedly sell around 80 passes to this private adults only area but we saw a consistent group of about 25. There are five cabanas, two smaller covered cocoon chairs in the corner close to the Haven side, plenty of standard cushioned loungers, several bed-like flat cushion loungers, 7 or so umbrellas, and a private bathroom. At the bar, Alvin and Sean were great! Besides the cold towels they also bring water, juice, cookies and chilled fruit around. We did see people smoking in the Vibe area, usually at the bar.

We only saw one other cabana being used…..so 3 cabanas empty the whole week after rushing to get one. Would love to understand the reasoning behind that! The cabanas themselves are not full canvas covering, so you can still get fried without sunscreen depending on the angle of the sun. There are two cold storage areas in each cabana as well. If you open each side door, you will get a nice breeze through.

NCL: In general, there are things we like about every line/ship we have sailed as well as things we don’t. We are not complainers, but we did have an incident with the room that we reported on our 5th day. Within seconds two room stewards were there checking things out, and then the hotel director was there within minutes. They said they would get someone on it and let us know the outcome. On returning to the room, there was a note to call guest services. They immediately informed us we would be changed to a new cabin, and someone was there within 20 minutes to take all our stuff to the new room, minus the laundry they offered to do for free. In addition, they offered us a free specialty restaurant, which came with a bottle of wine. We were VERY impressed with the speed at which this issue was handled, as all we did was report the problem (not complaining or requesting anything, just reporting).

Things we particularly liked: Flamingo is a great place for breakfast or lunch if you want a smaller, latin themed buffet style without the crowd. I never saw an empty seat in the garden café which was generally chaotic.

The dance parties were usually well attended and the DJ did a pretty good job with the music for 70’s, 80’s. He got confused with the 90’s however and was mixing 70’s/80’s songs with 90’s dance music, which was a little strange. People kept asking what time the 90’s music started….

St Thomas port we did a private charter with Sail with Liberty which took us with 4 other people from cc roll call to a great snorkeling location on St John. This is a great way to get to the island without wasting a ton of time on a ferry. Open bar, no food so bring your own. They provide snorkeling equipment and life vests.

Interesting things: We got the Vibe pass as we heard the spa was charging $199/pp for one week (this is what we paid for our Panama Canal repo each for a 2 week cruise!) and this was unfortunately true. The only thing that is different about this spa compared to Pearl class is the “salt room”. This is a huge jump in price and we will not be paying that much more for just one more small area in a spa (We have always gotten spa passes in the past and love it).

The latitudes party was nice, free flowing alcohol, but they did not give away anything like in the past.

We did the Thriller class (third time on an NCL ship for us doing this) and each time I swear they teach you a different section of the song. It is still a ton of fun.

DH liked the ropes course and the slides. We never got to mini golf, but the course looked good.

There was not a lot of music on the ship in general in the evenings. There was a piano guy, the pool music group and the scheduled Grammy performances, Howl at the Moon, and a standard reggae band in the pool and atrium areas. Other than that we found limited options if you didn’t have a show scheduled. Someone next to us fussed one night (loyal Royal and first time on NCL) that there wasn’t anything to do, but we didn’t find it to be much different than other NCL cruises other than the lack of music.

One thing that particularly annoyed DH was the fact that they have LCD televisions at every bar, restaurant, and hallway it seems. Some may have ESPN running on it but most have advertisements for their specialty restaurants and bars on a continuous loop. After seeing it in the background a million times you can’t help but feel “Wow I should really try Wasabi since it looks so good.” Or maybe not! The Pearl class of ships has a list of all the restaurants at peak times and how full they are, where this ship only had the specialty restaurants listed and they were hard to find on that board as it was not available in the stateroom TV. In general the TV selections were limited and at least in the gym, nothing available under the Shore Excursion channel at all, which is always fun to watch and make the time go faster in the gym! J

Altogether a great vacation and cruise! :cool:

We just got off the Getaway on Saturday, and we were on the same time as St Thomas (thinking because of the daylight savings changes, that may be why sometimes ship time is different?).

Thank you for this great review- we are taking this ship with the sole purpose to reach platinum this fall, so this has been a great review to make our short cruise a little better! :p

Wish there was a spa balcony upgrade for our cruise in 3+ days....I would upgrade in a heartbeat for $100.....:rolleyes:

If you were following the recent issue in Galveston of an oil spill, 3 ships were stuck outside port way past their docking time. Therefore, if you had a flight that you missed, you might not be reimbursed by the cruise line (oil spill wasn't their fault) or the airline (oil spill not their fault either). Most travel insurance includes trip delay as well as trip interruption, both of which occurred with this instance. My mom is on the Magic this week- they will get $150/day per person for each day they were delayed to cover hotel/food etc when they were not on the cruise. Well worth the minimal cost IMHO if the whole thing was cancelled (Like Royal Caribbean did out of Galveston this week as well).

It has nothing to do with fog and more to do with the oil spill and the oil tanker blocking the shipping lane- :cool:

See above post regarding the USCG....