happytravellers2

3 minutes ago, wampuscat7 said:

NCL isn't known for great internal communication. It's not on the NCL website yet, and not on mainstream news. People aren't  receiving any emails or calls from NCL. Unless you are sailing this weekend, I would not inundate the low-wage call center workers. It's bound to just cause frustration. 

 

I do feel badly for anyone who is traveling today to try to board a ship tomorrow. 

Ha ha - my DW and I are in the middle of 5 1/2 week holiday with an NCL Getaway cruise out of NOLA sailing 22 March booked for her 60th birthday.

We are currently in Mexico, flying into NOLA on Monday morning with car hire and hotels booked for a week in Louisiana before boarding. Flights booked for Sunday 29th after scheduled disembarkation back to Mexico for a few days, and booked in the week thereafter back to South Africa. 
What a .........

I suppose I will have to try to get the the flights moved forward if possible - and at what cost.

A FCC or refund won’t make it up for my wife’s special present - booked a year ago - but we are where we are.....sigh.

Wow. So many people on this forum mention media hysteria - but the comments made here show a far higher level of hysteria - already turning to anger.

Many of the comments seem solely from a personal point of view - I want my money back, and I want it right now. And when they can’t get their way they become abusive. 
 

A few things to consider. I am certain that cruise companies business continuity risk assessments will have identified something like this - but I doubt that a board would be able to recommend to shareholders that such a reserve could be withheld on the balance sheet - bearing in mind it would be after tax money distributable as dividends.

Sure, big companies in financial strain can be allowed to go under - but as was the case with the banks, the overall impact has to be considered. The amount of value destroyed would be irrecoverable. Many of the shareholders will be pension funds and investors, what about the creditors - suppliers and service providers, the employees and all the supply chain associated with the industry? 
If there are bailouts, IMO the bailouts need to be repaid, preferably with interest, which I don’t believe was done from the financial crisis.

3 minutes ago, Bear Down said:

We leave the 21st on the Escape and everybody that I've told that we're going on a cruise thinks we're nuts. A little extra hand washing and probably eat at the restaurants and not the buffet (because, welllllll…… people are pigs), and I'm sure we'll be fine.

Whilst I understand the comments about the buffet - I don’t see that as the biggest risk of exposure - if (god forbid) someone onboard has the virus. My understanding is that the vast majority of cases come from direct transmission - being close to someone contagious - so the higher risk places would be in one of the entertainment venues, or queuing in a corridor for a tender - or queuing for one of the restaurants, or sitting or queuing at a bar. 
I still see plenty people coughing and sneezing without covering their mouth - hopefully our fellow cruisers will have better etiquette.
As I said earlier - I am not over concerned about catching the virus - but let’s be straight - paranoia about the buffet is missing the point.

We are on Getaway sailing 22 March and definitely sailing - unless circumstances change and the cruise was cancelled.

I don’t understand the comments about “mass hysteria” - what I am hearing is very calm and measured cautions  - especially for those over 70 and with underlying health conditions. 
Being a little selfish - I am hoping that plenty of people do decide to cancel/defer and the ship is not full.

As per previous comments - my only concern is that someone does come down with the virus and we get quarantined.

13 hours ago, IrieBajan54 said:

Looks like the whole of Italy is set for lockdown. China never did that.

 

"Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced all of Italy is on lockdown as the country works to prevent the spread of coronavirus."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/italy-lockdown-coronavirus_n_5e66ab53c5b605572809d54d

 

"In a televised address on Monday, Mr Conte said that Italy's "customs must change" and that the best thing was for people to stay at home."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51810673

Remember the comparative size of the countries. China locked down provinces with a much bigger population than Italy. 

Thanks for your review RMC1 - we are sailing on Getaway on 22 March - so was interested to see your detailed review.

we sailed Celebrity Summit out of Puerto Rico and really enjoyed it. The food was excellent and it is very nice starting and finishing in the Lesser Antilles rather than taking half the time to get there, and half back from Florida ports. 
To my memory the drinks package was also even better than the NCL package. summit is a relatively small ship - with a really great sail away bar at the stern. 
 

Thanks again for the review.

Thanks for the review Reuben - great and relevant information for us. We a couple of similar age to you and cruise on Getaway in March (it will be my wife’s 60th birthday on the cruise).

Have just received our plane tickets, and our flight out of NOLA has been brought forward from 11h45 to 10h36 - which heightened my (slight) concern about the time to a bit of a worry. We booked our flights as early as possible to get the best fare, and now American want $300 each to change to a later flight - even though they changed the time. So we are going to hope the ship docks on time, get in line for self assist disembarkation early, and hope everything goes ok. 
One question - you said that you chose to take the NCL bus to the airport rather than getting a taxi - did you see taxis, and do you think the bus was quicker? Advice from anyone else's experience would also be appreciated.

Having read about the not too smooth boarding process in NOLA we are planning to have a leisurely morning and head down to the port around 12h00. 

Thank you - answered all my questions about departure morning. 
 

For me, Moderno is a “meat fest” - which is probably what churrascaria restaurants are. However, there is so much food on a cruise that I would rather have lesser portions of well prepared dishes - but again there is frequent criticism on the forum as to the quality of food on NCL. (My DW and I found the food quality generally very good across all the venues we ate at.)
For my DW and I, Moderno was ok, but we won’t be visiting on our upcoming cruise. 
We didn’t find the salad bar particularly good - no better at all than the salad bar at our local family steakhouse. The meat was pretty good - certainly had a full tum - but with so many eating options it was probably our least special dinner of our cruise. 
 

30 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

That’s what we do. We try to get to the Garden Cafe just before opening time. Have a nice, final breakfast, go back to our room and collect our bags and join the self walk off line (which will be long). 
 

If you know the ship is arriving late, bite the bullet and get in the self walkoff line very early in the morning and leave all of your bags in line. Rotate through the buffet, leaving part of your group to hold your place in line. 

Thanks BirdTravel - good advice. 

5 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

What is wrong is if your tong/utensil touches more than one food item. This will cause cross contamination that could endanger the life of someone with a food allergy. Never, ever attempt to do this. 

 

For example, let's say you were trying to pick up the pre-made sandwich below with your tongs. Then picked up some bacon. You could easily transfer some of the eggs to the bacon on the serving dish, leaving it behind, which could make someone with an egg allergy very ill. 

 

 

Fair point. If the person using their own utensils or tongs can only do it on items where they can pick them up without any chance of touching other parts of the food concerned then it does seem a bit pointless. 
So best option may well be to use the utensils provided, and then re clean your hands before eating. And repeat every time you go back - if you can remember!
Even if I remember, I fear the reply from my DW if I mentioned it after the first visit 😠

5 hours ago, Krazy Kat said:

Another possibility is to order complimentary breakfast through room service.  They serve until 8:30am.  I recommend because you can avoid all the craziness and lines!

 

Yes, an option. I think we will probably go to the Garden Cafe at 6 - hopefully not too busy then. 

There are a few interesting comments on this thread:

The OPs original comment about the tongs, and the use of a patron’s own (unused) fork or spoon, should help in not picking up a contamination left on serving spoons or tongs by persons ahead in the queue - which could be many. And if the person has only used the tongs/utensils on the items they took - then I can’t see anything wrong with it?
The right thing to do before eating is as the poster who advised to wash hands and sanitize before entering the buffet, and then sanitize before eating. Anything you have touched in the buffet area could be potential issue - the chair comes to mind. 
To the poster who unfortunately got sick - one would assume if it was due to the food then numerous people would be affected. If you had sickness for the rest of the cruise it was likely novo. My DW and I were both violently sick for a day after eating at one of our favorite restaurants. After a day we were recovered. We suspected it came from a pepper sauce - which I thought had tasted a little strange. Unfortunately life is not perfect even at mainstream businesses, and notwithstanding this one incident I still go to that restaurant and have never had a subsequent issue. 

Thank you all - particularly Reuben for the very up to date advice about disembarkation in NOLA.

Looks like it will be fingers crossed for an on schedule arrival. Early breakfast and off as soon as possible.
Previously we have always had late flights and been one of the last off - and still had long waits at the airport. 

The only thing using the tongs will do is prevent you from spreading contamination onto the food. If the food you are picking up is already contaminated then the tongs won’t help. 
With regard to the earlier post about food being prepared with bare hands - many, many restaurants do this - and there is no problem with it if proper hygiene is used and hands are washed regularly. A virus only gets transferred from hands if it is on the hands - so it is as easy to transmit from a gloved hand as a bare hand. 
A positive (if one can find a positive) of the current circumstances is that most people will exercise better hygiene practices, which will reduce cold, flu and novo infections. 
The usual suspects of elevator buttons, slot machine buttons, and door handles are much more likely to be contaminated than the buffet food - but it then comes down to personal discipline to clean your hands after touching common surfaces - which is not easy. 

Thanks www3 - but open what time?

What time does Garden Cafe open for full breakfast, and does O’Sheehan’s remain open 24hrs on departure morning?

Apologies if this has been asked recently - I did do a search before posting but nothing relevant came up. 
We are cruising on Getaway in March and have a flight out of New Orleans departure time 11h45. I have read a number of posts on the forum that recommend self assist departure in order to get to the airport with less hassle, and plan to do so. Can anyone advise if O’Sheehan’s remains open on departure morning for an early breakfast - and if Garden Cafe opens early. 
Thanks in advance for advice. 

Just adding to this topic. 

We are cruising in late March, and yesterday I tried to make restaurant reservations for all seven evenings on the NCL App. Only one was available.

I phoned the call line, and the consultant was extremely pleasant and helpful. I only tried to make our speciality restaurant reservations with her and she was able to confirm one - but at a slightly earlier time. Other availabilities were early or late dining times. She did ask how I had tried to make the reservations, and said that I might find using the website better than the App, and said that only 40% of reservation times were initially released. 

Today I tried again to make reservations via the website and was able to book every evening at the times we wanted. 

So it may be that it is better to make reservations via the website rather than the App, or that reservations are made available on an ongoing basis and I just got lucky with the timing?

We took the 2 for 1 future cruise offer on our cruise last year - paying $250. We used it for the $500 deposit on our cruise next March - which I booked when one of the special sales were on (think it was labour day) with all the perks. 

The sales agent we dealt with was really good - and wanted to understand our circumstances in order to find what was best for us - and cautioned that at that time NCL had only guaranteed that you could use 2 vouchers on one cruise until the end of that year - they were likely to extend it, but it wasn’t guaranteed - so don’t know the current circumstances. 

We did book a balcony.

Yes, I did see that, which was why I specifically mentioned her because she was the last person to post to my original question. 

I will follow her review on the forum, but would be interested in some feedback specific to the moans currently posted in recent reviews.

Just refreshing my original post - and interested to see that Deeliteful is currently on board. 

I again see the reviews are terrible for Getaway - but the strange thing is that they are mostly first time reviewers - it seems so strange that such a big proportion when there are so many frequent cruisers?

The consistent themes seem to be very long waits to embark, slow service, and long waits for tenders (which we did experience on Epic). When we cruised on Epic last year it was a pretty full Med cruise - but apart from after the drill on the first evening I cannot recall ever having a long wait to get served at a bar.

Recent feedback would be appreciated - including Deeliteful (by the way my parents met whilst both teachers at Harrogate Grammer School).

Thanks BirdTravels,

I contacted the travel agency (one of the big online cruise agencies) and they confirmed that it will be “gifted” as $100 on board credit which we can use as we choose.

I’m happy as it was an additional “perk” over and above the Free at Sea perks we got from NCL.

Apologies if this has been asked before - but Search I didn’t find any posts.

Our reservation from our booking agent included a perk of “Two Speciality Dinners for Two ($100 value)”.

The agent advised that this would be in the form of a voucher in our welcome pack. 

We have the Speciality Dining Package for Two - so this is an additional perk. I want to pre-book our dining so would like to see how to plan our dinners. I “googled” this item and found an NCL item that said that it includes one dinner at Cagney’s or Le Bistro and one dinner at La Cucina or Moderno and includes gratuities. A quick sum suggests that in practice one dinner for two would use the voucher value. 

I am happy with however it works - it was an additional perk - but just want to understand how it will work so I can plan - we are planning to eat at Cagney’s and La Cucina anyway and so could use the voucher for one of those reservations.

Does anyone have experience of how this works in practice?

On 9/6/2019 at 1:37 PM, KeithJenner said:

When we were on the Breakaway at Easter I ended up talking to someone at a bar one day, who was complaining about a few things. Mainly it was about things like table settings being incorrect and things like that. The main gripe they had was that when at dinner they saw someone seated at a table who then decided that they would prefer a different question. Apparently, whilst they were sitting there the woman picked up her napkin and put it down again. She thought that the table should have been cleared and relaid, but it wasn't.

 

Anyway she kept on saying how she was very observant about things like this, and always notices such things. She seemed to think that this was something a very positive thing.

 

I remember thinking about it afterwards, and considering how differently what she was saying sounded to her and me.

 

Her version: "I am very observant. It's like a super power and means that I see lots of things that others don't. Therefore I am better than you because you don't notice them"

 

My version: "I am very observant. It's like a super power and means I can have a miserable time whilst you are enjoying yourself"

 

🙂

I agree with Keith’s post. I had a work colleague - who was in a senior position and we attended frequent functions with our wife's, and he and his wife constantly criticized and moaned - and eventually my wife and I came to the conclusion that it was just how they made conversation with each other. 

We enjoy our holidays - and generally are able to laugh off the not so great experiences - and on our cruises to date cannot recall a single bad meal - there may have been a so-so  or “not for me” dish in a meal, but I cannot recall any entire meal that IMO was poor. 

We love margaritas - and soon realized that cruise ships use a margarita mix and they are poor - so we don’t order them as there are so many other options - and it reminds us of the other things we like and sometimes discover new options.

Part of the fun of being on holiday is eating and drinking (and experiencing) things you don’t in your day to day life - and there will be things that you then say “tried it - wasn’t to my taste and won’t ask for it again”.

looking forward to the Getaway 

On 8/26/2019 at 11:00 PM, KeithJenner said:

Freestyle doesn't necessarily mean spontaneity. It can be argued whether or not it should mean that or not (personally, I don't think that is what freestyle is actually about), but the fact is that in practice it isn't necessarily the case.

 

In practice, the main thing that freestyle means is that you are free to choose when and where you eat, what entertainment you attend, and what you wear. Try not to get hung up about whether you should be able to make that decision at the last minute.

 

Having said that, I very rarely book anything other than speciality meals, and I only really book them because I personally prefer to know that I am definitely going to get into the restaurants when I want and I'm happy to make that decision in advance. Plenty of people don't book them. As long as you understand that somewhere may be full (and however much people complain, this is the real world and it's impossible to guarantee everyone can eat where and when they want with no booking) then you can be very flexible and not necessarily have to queue for long.

 

In all my NCL cruises I have very rarely queued for more than about 5 minutes for anything at all. The thing I have queued for more than anything is to get off the ship when we arrive in port during the day.

Again thanks for the reassurance. Keith probably summed up Freestyle well - and we do like the approach. 

I will plan our eating venues again and prebook - must just work around the departure times and sunsets as we do enjoy a cocktail with a nice view.