KeithJenner

We are staying in an aft Penthouse. For the second cruise in a row we were able to upgrade very cheaply due to price reductions in the lead up to the cruise. We enjoy the bigger rooms and access to Moderno for breakfast, but don't see the value for money in the Haven, so the Suites in ships without a Haven (or non Haven suites on the Jewel Class) work perfectly for us. Some pictures of the room:

This report hasn't really quite got going yet, mainly because our internet is not great when not in the UK, and also because we have been too busy having fun. 🙂 I'll try to catch up a little bit whilst we are in Belfast, but we are going to dinner soon, so will have to try again later. Firstly, this is the itinerary change. As you can see the changes are very significant. As I think I mentioned earlier I managed to rearrange most things. The biggest disappointment was that the Giants Causeway tour that we had booked through NCL was cancelled. We did look at alternative ways of getting there, but given the short time we had we weren't able to.

We are there next Friday. No plans to get off the ship (we know the area quite well anyway) and we leave at 2pm to get to Bruges the next day. If you did want to meet up for a coffee or something then that would be nice, but I assume you will be working won't you?

We have just arrived in Cobh, after a very relaxing couple of days onboard. It’s a short stop so we are going to find a pub. When we get to Belfast tomorrow I should be able to post some more and also upload some pictures.

We’ve tried out the Cellars wine bar. Excellent bar staff, and we are getting stuck into the premium plus package. We’ve decided to take a break as it is still a couple of hours until our Moderno reservation. Viva Vino is still available here.

Onboard now. Boarding was quite easy. We have managed to move our bookings at Guinness for no charge and have applied to move Edinburgh Castle (which was free for us anyway, so no cost involved). Waiting to hear about shore excursions. We were going to Giants Causeway with NCL from Belfast, but that excursions isn’t now showing, so it looks as though there is some work to do there. Anyway, went to o’Sheehans for lunch and our bags have just arrived. Once they are sorted then we will see if we can find ourselves a bar. 🙂

Found out this morning that there has been a significant change to the itinerary. I assume due to the disruption of being in Scotland next weekend, we are now going round the other way. The ports are basically the same (only Portland dropped and Newcastle added), but we are obviously in ports on totally different days to originally planned. We have reviewed our plans and will have to move a couple of meals. We had the Guinness Storehouse booked, which it seems can be moved for a fee. We had also booked the Titanic Museum in Cobh, which we are now unlikely to go to. Luckily, as the NCL tours in Belfast and Kirkwall were well priced we had picked them rather than our first choice of hiring a car. I'm sure there will be people who have a lot more replanning to do, and many people won't find our until they board. I suspect guest services will be worth avoiding today. Main benefit is that we now get to go into Bruges on the final day. 🙂

It's probably a controvertial opinion, but I'm really not a big fan of Amsterdam. We've visited many of the big European cities, and Amsterdam is my least favourite. Maybe it was because we turned up there first time direct from Bruges (which I love) and it couldn't compete in comparison. More likely its the cyclists everywhere (travelling on foot is not a pleasant experience here). Anyway, we arrived here after a very easy journey (it is a 45 minute flight from London City) and an easy 20 minute train journey from the airport to Centraal Station. We are staying at the Doubletree Centraal, which is very convenient for the station and only half a mile from the cruise port. The Dawn is here already, I assume they had to come in early due to the lock opening. We can see it from the rooftop bar at the hotel. Anyway, we had a walk round the city and a few drinks at the bar. When we were last here we went to the Anne Frank House, which is excellent. This time we just walked and jumped out of the way of a few cyclists. Time to put our feet up for a while. We will wander to the ship tomorrow morning and hopefully be onboard nice and early. Really looking forward to being onboard a new ship, although we have previously sailed on the Star, which is a sister ship. Internet may be a bit spotty for the next few days (we have only got the basic free at sea minutes), but I'll try to post a bit onboard and then should be back properly in Edinburgh on Sunday. If anyone has anything they'd like me to check onboard then feel free to ask and I'll see what I can do.

Just a minor point. The excursion discount is actually for guest 1, so if they weren’t going on the excursion then technically you wouldn’t get the discount. Also if the excursion costs less than $50 per person then you only get that value off, not the full $50.

We both got internet as the free at sea offer on our cruise, and there is an upgrade option for both of us on the internet, so if what they are saying is correct then the offer must have changed at some point.

I made a bit of a mess of our travel plans for this cruise. It is always a bit tricky when the cruise starts and finishes from different places, but I thought I'd got this sorted. We are flying to Amsterdam tomorrow from London City Airport, as that is easy to get to by train, and then were planning on getting a train back home from Southampton after disembarkation. However, I had forgotten that we were disembarking on a Sunday, when the train services are very disrupted. It is impossible to get anywhere from Southampton on that day without having to transfer to a coach for at least part of the trip. So, instead, we drove to Southampton this morning and left the car at the airport (cheapest parking we could find) and then got a train to London. At the end of the cruise we will get a taxi to the car and drive home. We are staying at the Doubletree Tower of London, which is an excellent location, about 100m from the Tower. We know London well (used to live about 30 miles away), and were planning just to have a wander around, but the weather isn't great so I just walked to the Tower to take some pictures to post here instead. We ate at The Cheshire Cheese, just behind the hotel. Good pub grub. We have a short journey to the airport tomorrow, and at least we will miss the nightmare that is Heathrow by going from City instead. First time we have flown from there. Some pictures from a rainy London:

Time for a new live trip report, this time from the Dawn round the British Isles for 10 days from Amsterdam to Southampton. We sail this Thursday (15th). Some of you may have followed along on previous cruises, but a bit of background for those who haven’t. We are from the UK, and have sailed regularly with NCL over the past decade. Usually I sail with my wife and son, but this is the first trip for many years where it will just be my wife and I. We were originally booked on the first Prima sailing from Amsterdam to Iceland in August, but when that cruise was cancelled we needed to look for an alternative, and decided that we would bring forward our first cruise without our son (originally planned for next year) and take this cruise instead. My wife was keen that we didn’t travel too far on our first longer trip by ourselves, so this worked out well. With a 25% discount from the Prima cruise, we managed to get a very good rate on a balcony cabin (we were originally going to sail in an Oceanview as it isn’t really balcony weather). When prices fell further we were able to upgrade to an Aft Penthouse for only an extra couple of hundred pounds. We have previously visited all of the ports except Belfast and Cork, some of them multiple times, so this will be a mix of relaxing time on the ship and seeing a few new places or ones we haven’t been to for a while. As on our last cruise, we have again upgraded to the Premium Plus beverage package, which is a very valuable upgrade for us. There have been a couple of last minute changes to the cruise. Firstly, because of ongoing issues in Amsterdam due to lack of rainfall, the lock gates at Ijmuiden are only opening at certain times, so we now won’t leave there until 3.30am. As a result we don’t arrive in Zebrugge until about 5pm. As a result, we are very unlikely to head out to Bruges that evening, which is a shame as it is one of my favourite places. There is also likely to be disruption due to the Queens funeral, which will be on the day we are in Invergordon. We had no particular plans on that day, so are likely to stay onboard. Therefore, it will be a very slow start to the cruise, but the second half will be much more busy. As always, if you are looking for reports on things like the Spa and shows then you are probably in the wrong place. There will be food, bars and hopefully some interesting places to visit. I hope some of you will follow along.

No

I suppose that the problem is where you stop with the options. I have been contributing to this discussions despite the fact that I don't stay in the Haven. I sometimes books a suite on older ships because I like the bigger room and breakfast in Moderno without some of the things I wouldn't pay extra for (i.e. the Haven itself). On those ships there is small element of choice. The Joy offers suites that don't have Haven access or Butler service (I think), but I would be a bit reluctant to book them as they don't have access to the suite breakfast. If there was an option to not have the Butler and Concierge then I would certainly tick that box, if only to avoid wasting their time (and I wouldn't complain if the fruit bowl was in the wrong place). If we follow this idea right through then you would end up with a menu of choices, which would present issues in itself. For that reason I would prefer just a few categories, and you select what works best for you. We aren't a million miles away from that now.

I absolutely agree with the "when in Rome" thing. However, the concept of tipping someone if I don't use their services still seems odd. I rarely use a concierge in a hotel and in those cases I don't tip them. If I don't drink in the hotel bar then I don't nip in there to tip the servers anyway. Why is that different from not tipping a butler on a ship if they aren't used? Genuine question. I suspect that one answer would be that they are only expecting some people to use those services in a hotel, so the pay wouldn't be based on them receiving a tip from everyone. However, I imagine that the same applies on a ship. If the butler is reliant on absolutely everyone tipping them then it wouldn't be such a sought after job, as it is almost certain that some people don't do so. My guess is that the tips work out fine with some people tipping nothing, some a little bit and some giving the amounts that you hear talked about own this board. And, just to avoid the inevitable misunderstandings, I will clarify that I do in fact tip the butler a small amount for the few things that they do (even though I don't particularly want them anyway).

Perhaps having everything 'perfect' in your room could also be an option you select. 🙂

Your post would suggest a difference in interaction with your butler than those of us who really don't use them at all. I have absolutely no idea of the name of our butler on our last cruise, and whether they may or may not be amazing. Their coffee capsule/snack carrying skills could have been award winning for all I know. 🙂

They just don't offer anything that we would want. Even the bits that they do apparently do for us (restock coffee and leave snacks) are either something we aren't fussed about (snacks) or could be done just as well by the room steward (coffee).

We give the butler a small tip, as there are still a few things they do regardless of whether we request it, but also the fact that we don't ask them for anything means that they have more time for people who do want that service. That gives the butler more opportunity to earn tips from those who will get a benefit from the service. If we are saying that we should give the butler a tip for services that we don't want and don't receive then I absolutely agree with the OP, we should be able to book suites that don't include them.

I have learned from Cruise Critic on this subject is that they absolutely, definitely don't receive them, and that they absolutely, definitely do receive them. 🙂

We don't tell the butler we don't want them. We just don't ask for anything. It's not a big issue.

This is true, but the page also states that if there are 3 or 4 platinums in a room you get additional meals

Yes, Even if they did allow 5 people at a table for 4 (which I doubt) then you wouldn't want it. We usually eat as a 3 (on a table of 4) and that can get busy enough with various plates, glasses etc.

I assume that the 4th meal that you are trying to book is at a restaurant that you have already booked? For a while now the website is not allowing multiple reservations at the same restaurant. Apparently you can get round this by calling, or using the online chat.

When you get onboard go to the restaurant reservations desk and explain what you want to do. They should be able to sort it out. If you just turn up with more people than are in the reservation then they may not be able to seat you, as there are limited tables set up for more than 4. You could also try calling beforehand to see if they can change them.