mking8288

Amber Cove will be like stopping at Harvest Caye instead of GSC (and we know how that goes often, watching the Getaway this Thursday with her revised itinerary, skipping Bermuda as the overnight stop was cancelled per onboard announcement) - docked alongside the pier & just do the long walk on the waterfront ... Still not sure if I'm changing the odds of "me" calling it from 50:50, haha 😄 Aren't you a B2B again this season to Panama & back, with 2 chances of GEM visiting DR - good luck too ! We'll post as I'm sure someone will be updating here, going to bookmark this thread for reference.

Turtles ... thanks. Very helpful info, let's see how other NCL ships do this month first.

@cruiseny4life Thanks so much again for the various updates, nowadays ... we'll just have to roll with the punches with the "Almost Cruise To Nowhere" as NCL called them last minute. Overnighting is good as long as folks knew ahead and can plan independently - NOT. Per Marinetraffic site: 4 ships in PC this afternoon - Carnival Freedom, Enchantment OTS, Mariners OTS and Independence OTS. On a positive note - Jetty Park is easy walking distance, practically right next door this afternoon (until sunset) Looked at a # of maritime & weather forecasts/charts for today & next several, don't see anything that suggested today's delayed arrival - it anything, a strong tailwind that should've boosted ship's true speed in getting in early. Tomorrow & Wed's outlook for the Bahamas looking fine, GSC is always 50:50 but later this week ... the North Atlantic including areas around Bermuda & coastal routes heading back to NY, not pretty & mother nature whipping out sea state & waves, again (fairly typical this/any time of the year.) But, gotta have faith with the bridge team & the captain, staff captain & others responsible ... that safety first. Yeah, we are sailing her once Laszlo come back. Whether Syd' Norman will be back, personally, don't matter to us but could be true for others - as long as they don't put on a movie in lieu of the production shows (... could watch them at home at 4k, LOL.)

It depends, sometimes, on the ship, dates & cruise itinerary, etc. - we are on a number of social media platform but post/use and share/join with care as to those private group with care ... and, 100% agree that, for privacy & safety/security reasons - no plans to be listed elsewhere with full names, hometown info & travel itinerary with ... sometimes, hundreds of strangers lurking & poking. Identities can be faked and DOB, etc. can be misleading and stolen, etc. and their cybersecurity breaches are well known. Was at 3 M&G in 2022, 1 held without any ship's junior officers attending, and 2 with them - one was a disaster b/c it got "hijacked" by someone from the other group & poorly organized. One was fairly successful, good attendance & had a fun slot pull ... (the one held without any ship officers also had a slot pull) There was no sailway gathering, partially b/c few felt comfortable to mingle closely together - same for not having any cabin crawl (except, offered in a modified manner, that if someone wish to see or privately tour a particular type of cabins and others on the roll call is in one, arrangement made) Nowadays, I'm personally still not in favor of organizing 20 to 30+ CC'ers to roam thru another passenger's cabin, touching & leaving behind airborne devils, etc. - and/or having to spray disinfectants and wipe down surfaces before & after. I see these as among some of the reasons for not seeing robust M&G and roll call. Still answering "silly" questions and helping each other with online check-in, port info, ground transfer & pier check-in tips, strategies to bidding upgrades, and tricks after final payment, etc. At the same time, CC's hosts/admins have been, to be direct on this, loosely moderating and safeguarding rules & enforcing (or not) how the other platforms are sometimes semi-openly recruiting and using CC to their "advantage" for the free onboard gathering. Every now & then, I checked some of the relevant roll call threads and see that happening, and nothing being done about putting a stop to be nearly open about going to the other place(s) to exchange details, etc. For example, take a look at this one - they just sailed, not putting anyone in trouble for the past, I hope - when I saw this a while ago & went back to look at it again recently - for a somewhat related reasons about one of the ports ... left me shaking my head, urgh ! To be fair, CC also has its open presence on the "alternate" site and not talking about TripAdvisors or Google ... being a "Local Guide" but I don't write/post there about cruising.

Thanks for all that, I'm sure fellow CC'ers on our roll call are following all these useful & informative update ... plus more from next week's GA sailing. Looks like GA at full speed (that could anywhere be at 18 to 20 knots or 21 to 23 knots if wind & sea states are favorable, marinetraffic has her at 19.4 knots & updated ETA of 1:45 pm (scheduled arrival @ 1 pm ??) ... isn't that going to be a very short visit to PC ?? We would never bother with going to theme parks (especially today being a holiday & long lines) or even downtown Orlando, etc. Last night, GEM was really pushing hard at 23 knots coming up the Jersey coast, must've got a strong tailwind for that extra top end speed. Our friends reported that on their recent GEM T/A crossing with rough seas, best that they did was no more than 13-14 knots ... maybe, they left one of the engine off in eco-mode for a sustainable blueprint, LOL. Any ideas as to whether the Dine With Officers and BTS tours are starting up anytime soon ... wine tasting are being offered ?? When we had the GA Meet & Greet last March, none of them came - except 2 from the ship's Group Services ... we only met some of the officers at the VIP cocktail reception in the Bliss Lounge. We dine with the ship's Public Health Officer and trainee from corporate HR, explaining that they were still "isolating" and protecting the team from the bridge, minimizing and avoid direct contacts with passengers - Mario was the GM then, but Metin looked familiar, perhaps he was wearing a different hat ... holding another job title last year. If you have & get a chance to upload, calling cards/names & titles of the officers contact onboard the GA would be appreciated and helpful too, TIA. If not, no big deal as Laszlo doing a Live post next week is going to try ... those of us on later sailings lurking here. Just to clarify, they close down the buffet for cleaning after 9:30 pm nightly - nothing available after evening dinner services ... not even light snacks, burgers, hotdogs, fries & finger sandwiches, fruits, cookies & fruits, etc. (discontinued) - that means, exactly as you described - O'Sheehan's and Room Services, for real. Wow, that's a "change" for 2023 that can catch a few folks by surprise & aren't even talking about the good old midnight buffet. Love all that pictures ... much thanks for taking time away from enjoying Haven to do this. Enjoy sunny FL and the rest of the cruise, while we are looking at wet weather ahead this week in NY, in the form of showers & warm temperature - 50's and hitting low 60's this Wednesday.

OP on a 19 days cruise - is that a B2B or booked as a single cruise, 500 free minutes for passenger #1 (and #2, if applicable) is a 1,000 minutes in total or roughly 16+ hours; and, if he can manage online access with a little discipline, not needing to be "connected" to the grid daily ... it might be just fine. Save the extra $$$ to spend on dining, shorex or whatever. On longer cruises, don't recall off-hand as NCL does discount the daily unlimited WiFi charge of $30 p/p to $25 p/p when it's more than 11, 12 or is it now 15 days (others that recently did one of the longr T/A probably can help with this) I'm, however, pretty sure that 19 days should qualify OP to buy up the unlimited for less than $30 daily, to $25 daily (thus $25 x 19 = $475). Usually, on longer cruises - you an upgrade on Day 2 or Day 3, possibly wait until 12:01 am on Day 4 to switch to unlimited WiFi, as long as you do not use any of the free (500) minutes on the account. Since there's 2 of them cruising, the 2nd. person's 500 minutes should be fine to use, but I would recommend that OP speak to the onboard iCafe manager first on Day 1, to find out what and if anything changes. If OP wait until 12:01 am local/ship time to upgrade, that should be calculated on the basis of $25 x 17 = $425 less a credit given for the upgrade/trade-up of the 500 minutes (probably around $150 to $175, maybe more or less, slightly) Net cost would be something like $250 to $275 for the remaining cruise days. Available non-refundable OBC can only be used onboard to offset/apply against the WiFi upgrade charges, if you prepaid ahead - can't be done. On our upcoming 12 days/nights - the discounted upgrade to basic unlimited WiFi for 1 user is $215, the 300 minutes as a trade-up is worth $145, assuming that the daily rate is still $30 p/p. Still haven't decided whether it's worth going for the unlimited as our combined minutes are 600 minutes or 10 hours worth, with 4.5 days at sea - port days, we have options for roaming cellular (non-WiFi) access from land towers (Google Fi unlimited plan w coverage in 200 countries, none at sea !! ) Ship and cruise itinerary for 19 days (and dates of travel) can also be pivotal in considering whether it's worth paying extra - satellite coverage on a typical T/A crossing are mostly reported lately as being poor, spotty to none and unusable, waste of money & time. If this is for Euro-South Pacific cruise later in 2023 or 2024, perhaps - if NCL would switch over to Starlink (was being tested live onboard the Breakaway last month) - connectivity will improve vastly as the technologies & hardware aren't the same as now ... the Cisco server background are fully capable of supporting Gigabit data traffic. P.S. It's login.com and logout.com to start and stop the inTERnet metering onboard, inTRAnet access not affected & you can stay connected with the Norwegian App (yes, a little confusing to some & resulting in quickly using up all the available free minutes if forgotten to "sign" out) If you do this correctly, each time you login and logout, the "meter" will show your minutes used and remaining, etc.

There's been a couple of other live post / trip report onboard various NCL ships within the past 2 to 3 weeks from other folks staying in Haven; and, thus far, not reading about anyone else getting charged and/or unexplained charges with their onboard account (yet). Reasonable to assume OP's charges were posted in error and not new across-the-board extras ... as dexddd would joked "for your convenience, of course"

One of the TA email alerts tipped us off to this Triple Up offer first, and I wasn't sure if it was just another click-bait ... and initially it was for 2 days only (this past weekend) This particular TA offering free DSC (included) and other goodies too. Answer is yes, you should be able to use TA to book this - and some of the NCL call center agent apparently didn't know or read about it and bother to check for valid terms & conditions.

Starting booking NCL cruises in 2023 onward by not dealing with NCL ... perhaps not with those big box TA either but to find one of those TA that kickback free DSC and extra OBC, etc. when booking with them directly instead. This avenue has its shortcomings and limitations, restrictions but for some families - 4 to anything from club balcony cabin or lower for 7 or 8 nights, looking at saving $560 to $640 for the week/+ Then, no worries about DSC at all since the agency is paying for it ... It will help NCL to further shrink its back office and keep fewer PCC, hmmm.

Ask about it once onboard at Guest Service, if the offered is available and the price & location is acceptable, deal is done on the spot. TA not likely to fully sold out ... our friends won an upgrade bid for very little from OV. Good luck.

Thank you for the review, short - concise and with key highlights. Done nicely. How were the crew onboard and any comments on the major production shows, if you watched them. 4 sharing an Inside statement, wow - that's truly tight quarters on the *away class ships and you managed it. (as for) Things I wish NCL would change: * Hand sanitizer at each dining table. I'm not a germaphobe but the concept of maybe 5 %of people washing their hands before walking through a buffet and the rest just touching serving utensils one after the other with no cleaning mechanism on the table is a joke. That's really dancing with norovirus lurking onboard ... which will probably return anytime without notice or warning, on top of the coughing going around. With 4,800 onboard, that's holiday sailing pre-Covid at 120% capacity. Happy New Year 2023 & much obliged for sharing.

@ShadowRegent Yes, correct - based on bidded amount for 2 persons only. Good luck ! We booked and stayed in 2 of those this May, loved all the extra space. We did a Semi-Live review, including pictures of those suites too.

@preston If you go back a few posts within this thread ... Getaway sailings in the latter part of next January upgraded "some" balconies & higher about 3 weeks ago (borderline fair/poor bids). It is impossible to generalized with your non-specific questions (ships, itinerary/dates, and cabin categories, etc.) Oceanviews were sold out within the past few days, Insides are still available. @ShadowRegent Joy has 30' something Family Insides Suites with 2 bedrooms that comfortably sleep 5 to 6, has 2 baths and a nice living room - 3 TV's ... spacious & roomy, nothing fancy but square footage-wise, superior than many Haven suites. You should be able to bid on those "SP" category cabins - unless they are all sold out. When we're sailing her in May and September, they're available with "discounted" 50% off bid minimums.

This TRIPLE UP offer for balcony & higher cabins at least 6 months out is set to expire next week, Jan. 5th. (unless it's extended). You can apply it yourself after logging into your NCL account's Reservation(s) - OR, you can call NCL and speak to an agent for live help, and they can do it for you. However, beware that NOT all agents are familiar with this promotion. This happened to 2 of our Latitudes Sapphire friends with an Escape booked next August out of Florida - they hang up and called again, next agent was helpful & knew, had it done quickly & pushed an email confirmation ... always re-verify that amenities aren't changed or lost, etc. afterward. Certain sailings also qualified for triple status points, like that of our friends ... had they booked one of them (non-Haven) as an extra bonus closer to Diamonds tier. They had not been on NCL in a while and only realized that they still have 2 CN deposits, un-expired and extended for a year, to apply against the booking on top of certain Amex promo offers.

Maybe we should call NCL's new "almost Cruise to Nowhere" sailings. Getaway scheduled to call on DR on Jan 29th and appeared that we can dock either in the Bay or the Cove. IMHO, don't bother to hold my breath to ask this kind of question at the CC Meet & Greet/Mingle, not at all. One can try - they are very good at passing the bucks to corporate HQ in Miami. Maybe, @Laszlo can do a Youtube "Special" about it and we can all give plenty of "Likes" as a CC style "documentary" ... just kidding. Pssst - port fees/charges are not adjusted nor refunded, as a matter of routine practice at NCL. Hence, "keep the change" 🙄 🙄 🙄

This + 1 And, OP, feel free to make use of the Ignore option - of course, indirectly, poster(s) being ignored can still show up b/c someone else jump on it & started quoting and replying, etc. Back on topic, lately - we are also seeing those 10% discount tossed in, showing up only when logged into MyNCL account, apparently targeted selectively. NCL cruise consultants also coming up with 15% additional discount offers, good on "any cruise" (of course, always read & understand the fine prints & disclosures, restrictions, etc. etc.) There's also the Latitudes TRIPLE UP offers coming from TA mass emails, apparently valid & available also directly via NCL ... not going into details to help promote it. Google is often ... Always do mock bookings and calculate the numbers to see if they add up or deduct correctly, click-bait wordings can be easily misleading, unintentionally, for your convenience, of course.

... perhaps, partially associated with that 9% reduction in back office workforce announced ?? It is - I suspect - NOT just machine intelligence being impacted, rather it has to do with them not responding to an assigned Case Number (2nd. request) that I'm not going off-topic. And, it's holiday & year-end vacat' time, LOL with a skeletal staff.

OP's SWA 1341 landed about 7 minutes, MDW-MCO taxiing to the gate, should be wheels locked at the jetbridge in about 2 or 3 minutes according to tracking data. Gosh, whew 😇 - and if they didn't have to gate checked their carry-on bags, can now relax with relief. Prima cruise ahead. Bon Voyage !!

NP, if only they can find flights out of Detroit instead Midway (used by SWA) - perhaps they found someone on their Roll Call to rideshare together - 600 miles of daily driving is a lot to cover even with GPS navigation, easily with 2 drivers taking turn behind the wheels & resting, planning fuel & rest room stops ahead, etc. OP hasn't updated, perhaps they are currently in transit and/or on standby for 2 open & available seats on SWA and/or other flights. Tens of thousands SWA fliers all scrambling to reach their destinations and come home with all those cancelled flights for the past week, not easy ... virtually all holiday flights are at high load factors or fully sold out. I asked my nephew to use his Sabre access to lookup hidden cities pair via Toronto & Montreal to see if they can be routed with 2 connections and it's "no can't do." Maybe, Greyhound and/or Amtrak to their rescue instead. Let's hope they are going to make their cruise.

Ahhh, this brings back memories of the good old, short, cruise-to-nowhere (CTN) with a twist, making a comeback! "Genius" concept and NCL can charge a lot more plus port fees, etc. That's it 😆😆😆 ... cruise with a sense of humor & adventure and be surprised 🙀. Afterall, it's covered by the cruise contract terms. And, cruiselines including NCL wanted their ships to the destinations booked and we spent nearly every vacation dollars with them onboard. This is a clever scheme to sell a premium holiday cruise to exotic locations and then ... oops, and you can't cancel and it's all non-refundable.

Perhaps, these changes will eventually bring positive forward-looking news on NCL (and other lines) quarterly financials. Why not just impost an all-inclusive daily resort fees or "supplement" instead on a per stateroom/suite basis, except $20 p/p per day to clean a studio/solo cabin at 110 sq.ft. isn't exactly the same as a large club balcony suite sleeping 4, even once a day for the "attendant" ... I suspect we all know, some cabins will be rather messy with more towels, garbage and bedsheets to "service" everyday. *** Quoting from "Cruise Center" as a footnote: The first ship to implement the new policy will be Norwegian Epic, starting January 8, 2023. The new company policy will be rolled out to the entire fleet in the following three-month period, expected to be completed with the Norwegian Pearl on March 31, 2023 ... Crew currently holding the junior role will see an increase in salary, but the salary will be reduced for the current Stateroom Stewards. Somehow, I don't see all the stewards smiling & singing happy, happy, washy, washy - and, yes, they signed the contract.

For "your" convenience, of course, I'm sure NCL will cheerfully provide an extra daily housekeeping evening service routine for a nominal upcharge, say $20 or $25, on demand, LOL. Not buying - IMHO - the notion and concept of "environmental sustainability" by scaling back service level while raising the mandatory daily charges. Why can't NCLH be direct, straight forward and honest with us, the customers behind the products - namely, cruising - and say, it is to (also ??) help maintain & restore its financial well-beings too. Whether the stewards and others below deck are well paid, competitively, or not ... in the cruise industry remains a private matter & close door topics with NCL and the signing agencies that recruited & placed them. From cruise news sources, it's clear that job titles are being changed, reclassified and some will be realigned into other functions onboard. Perhaps, this helped partially explain grumpy crew onboard these days. And, not to go off-topics substantially, some of the "non-verified" reports lately of live onboard entertainments being replaced with big-screen movie shown in the main theater are just comical, LOL. Pretty soon, we might see the gallery (and formerly housekeeping) crew on stage doing talent shows as the primary and lounge show with robotics AI ... LOL (hey, gotta have a sense of humor these days.) Not saying the grass is greener elsewhere but going to have a difficult time telling Mrs. to continue to be generous in tipping extras onboard.

Good luck to OP, perhaps they are on a Greyhound at this moment making their way down to the Sunshine State. SWA could not and will maybe, possibly masked some of the cancellations last week on weather; but, not with the subsequent & massive system-wide cancellations and delays, essentially a total meltdown. Worse than and comparable to what B6 (JetBlue) went thru in the winter of (Feb.) 2007, triggered by aircraft de-icing problems associated with a major winter storm/blizzard in the Northeast. SWA's failure is partially associated with crew scheduling & computer networking systems, and point-to-point operations vs. other carrier's hub operations. Looking at today's data - DL, AA, UA essentially ran 99%+ or better with no cancellations. JetBlue cancelled 3% and Spirit cancelled 4% of its scheduled flights. SWA cancelled 61% (sixty-one percent) of its US flights today, that's 2,509 flights cancelled out of 2,890 total US flights; with another 8% delayed (346 flights for SWA). There is simply no way that SWA can blame it on weather and evade DOT's oversight (which has been at arm's length from deregulations ...) To what extent will SWA refund and make good on its promise, remains unseen, beyond the price of the purchased airfares - extra compensations and/or reimbursement for missed cruises, hotels/lodging and food, ground transportation, etc. is going to be a tough one.

Surprised 🙀 not at all. This is consistent with hospitality trending elsewhere, realigning of service level. Perhaps, there will be a "new" self-service element next to these, soon thereafter, i.e. towel exchange, trash disposa, etc. to hold down further increases in DSC. Hahaha 😂 Welcome to the new $40 daily fees for 2 in "steerage" cabins for 2023, shared by many behind the scenes. The great "Takeaway" version 4.1b How does this fit the tagline of going above and beyond as vacation heros, some of us will need to really look harder & think about it.

Sure, that's 2 days worth of driving ... Are you nearby, available and offering to give them a ride 😉 see post #5 - "Given our ages, 73 & 77, 1200 miles to Port, and car rentals one way, nonexistent, driving almost not an option. I even checked flights from Indy to MCO, and that was not promising either." DOT said they will hold the airline accountable for the meltdown. SouthWest CEO said to keep all receipts for ... Only planning to staff and fly about 1/3 of their scheduled flights this week, at best.