twinmommy08

My TA warned us NCL’s BOGO air is not great and not advisable if your party is split between different cabins. I did take the BOGO offer for our Europe cruise for just me and my husband. The sailing is one way and the price could not be beat. The TA requested a 2 day deviation for us on the front end. She told us NCL only guarantees they will get us to the embarkation city before midnight if we request a 1 day deviation, so requesting 2 days will allow us at least one full day in Rome before we sail. We certainly do not want to arrive on the same day of the sailing! She told us one of her clients who chose to arrive the same day ended up arriving at 1 pm and then rushed to get on board. They basically lost a full day due to jet lag. Not a fun way to start such an amazing trip.

Thank you all for the conversation and helpful tips. I am the travel planner for my family. We are a married couple with b/g twin teenagers and need two connecting rooms for the space and to make sure the kids have their own beds. My son is over 6ft tall and can not sleep comfortably on a pull out with his sister who constantly moves in her sleep 😉 We’ve sailed Royal since 2009 and we’ve had luck with balcony/suites made for 5 pax so each kid has their own bed. This year is the first time we will have all sailings with two connecting rooms. The girls need their own bathroom! I have two booked with Royal and two with NCL. It’s hard not to compare when making reservations for each trip. The shore excursions are the main driver here- I don’t want to book two in my cabin and find out there aren’t two more slots available when I book under my husband’s reservation. Royal let’s us book everything together at once. I like I can book speciality without confirming who’s dining, so thanks for that tip! Sounds like I don’t pre-pay for the dining reservations? Royal requires pre-payment for speciality dining reservations even if you have a package. They refund the difference on the ship or you can press your luck and try to schedule everything on the first day.

First time sailing NCL. Our travel agent booked us connecting balcony cabins for my family of 4. I have an online NCL account and I can see my cabin but I can not see my husbands. Is there anyway to link the two together online so I can book shore excursions together?

The included brunch is held in the main dining room. It’s nothing very special. It’s brunch- a mixture of breakfast and typical main dining room lunch menu. I think the hours were even the same. Maybe open an extra hour or so.

You pre-pay. Watch the prices though. If they go on sale, you can cancel and re-book at the lower price. You will be refunded the original amount and then charged the new amount. Editing to add: It’s never too early to book Alaskan excursions. The best ones will quickly sell out!

Hi Friends, Long time cruiser, first time NCL guest. I booked an 11 night Rome to Istanbul cruise leaving in May 2025 on Viva. Heck of a deal with the airfare. The ports did me in and I didn't even research the brand, etc. beforehand. I really like NCL provides a deposit refund if we need to cancel (prior to final payment). PS it's our 20th wedding anniversary! How does the airfare work? I see I need to call and get that arranged, but I suppose I need to wait until May/June 2024 for routes to open. Do I get a say on times/routes etc with the included price, or are there hidden fees I need to be aware of? I plan to fly in 2 days before and spend the night in Istanbul post-cruise. I will probably use their hotel service too. I am open to all NCL tips, tricks, and helpful hints as well! Loyal to Royal no more!

Thank you so much for replying! I'm glad it worked out.

Sorry to bring this back up. I have the same question. @RedDevil what happened with your speciality dining reservations for Christmas and New Years Eve? Did they honor the time and price you paid? Researching for my Xmas cruise on Adventure this year 🙂

I think it depends on the ship. I’ve had success with this on Adventure but denied on Ovation. The Ovation situation was more than no we won’t sing- they kept forgetting to bring us the cake I bought. After the 4th dinner without it, room service brought it up in the middle of they day the following day. Gee thanks- his BDay was embarkation day.

I’m not paying more than $60 for upgraded food and a place to sit. I paid a reasonable amount right after start up from COVID but didn’t like it enough to go again. They are asking over $250 on my Odyssey cruise in April! I almost spit water on my lap top when I saw that. I'm perfectly content not paying a single dime on CocoCay. It a great spot with plenty free things to do. The snack shack has better food than the buffet, in my opinion. The “free” pool is much nicer and I’ve always found room to sit at the beach or the pool- even with two mega ships docked.

The bistro has a different menu and doesn’t serve main dining room entrees at dinner time.

I appreciate your thoughtful post. I avoid real sugar because it messes with my digestive tract. I’d rather not be in the bathroom for my vacation 😉

On sea days, there are 3 sessions that are free, AM, afternoon, and PM. I believe PM starts before meal times if you sign up for adventure dining. On port days, the camp was open from before gangway opened to 10 pm. Again, COVID and each ship may be different. I can tell you personally my kids were MAD when I came to pick them up from AO. They wanted to stay and play. The staff are amazing and the activities are fun for them. They will not be bored! My kids participated in each age group of AO and have found memories. I remember Adventure- it’s a nice space with plenty of activities. I doubt they are limiting entry now, but go to the open house the first day and drop your child off after dinner for a few hours during the first day to get in the groove.

My twins are now teenagers but we took them on several cruises while still in diapers. In my experience, you and your spouse’s expectations will determine if you have a good time or not. While not perfect every time, my husband and I enjoyed ourselves while understanding the following: 1. The babies don’t care you spent money for a cruise. 2. Stick to the child’s routine as much as possible. 3. Understand you and your spouse will have to take shifts of alone time to “have fun” as you won’t have the same outcome together with your child in tow. We have given each other an hour or more at a time while the other managed nap times or early bedtimes. 4. Take opportunities as they come when the baby is well fed, happy, and calm. Basically don’t stay in your room when this happens, take the opportunity to walk outside or visit a show, etc. 5. Your child will tell you when they are overwhelmed. Listen to the child and take a break, even if it’s inconvenient to you. 6. The staff will give you extra attention and be very caring. Most have littles of their own back home and miss them terribly. We found the staff wanted to over accommodate us at meal times. 7. Ignore the grumpy folks who can’t imagine why you brought a baby on a cruise ship. Take advantage of those kids sail free sales!

I had a very sweet bartender suggest I bring him fresh fruit to blend with ice for a mock tail. I never took the offer but what a great idea!

I’m in a similar situation but I try to be completely sugar free. I’m bringing a small bottle of sugar free vanilla sweetener on my next cruise for my coffee. I’m exhausted about the inability to stock sugar free sweeteners for drinks on the ships. I leave a comment on each survey. I must be in the minority 🙂 My annoyance is mostly at the coffee counter where you can get so many added flavors but nearly all (if not all) are full of sugar. I buy my sweeteners from a particular company online but some of their most popular items are available at local grocery stores. I picked up a sugar free cherry sweetener that is perfect making my Coke Zero cherry or adding flavor to my vodka tonics when I’m out of lime. Point being, there are so many sugar free sweeteners available if they want to accommodate sugar free cruisers.

I’ve had success using WiFi calling on Vroom while on the ship. It was pretty clear but it depends on speeds and signal strength. We have iPhones so we were able to iMessage each other and friends with iPhones over WiFi too and never had a problem. We were unable to text (sms) message over WiFi while on the ship to family with android devices. T-Mobile is great and allows free texting pretty much everywhere while on land and 5g of high speed date then free slow data. Calls cost a bit per minute outside of North America.

You just need a shirt, some form of cloth covering your lower half, shoes and you can eat anywhere inside the ship.

We bought an expensive diamond eternity band from a promoted store in Aruba about 5 years ago. That night at the show I noticed two diamonds were missing. I felt faint.. I just put it on 10 mins ago and didn’t hit my hand or anything. Took us 6 months for the ring to be “fixed” and a lot of headaches. The authorized repair sent the ring back bent and with two yellow diamonds set in black substance. I took it to my jeweler in town and cried when they told me the “diamonds” weren’t real to begin with. I complained all the way to the top and the only reply I got was the guarantee is between the store and the purchaser and Royal is simply a 3rd party advertising their services. I will NEVER buy anything from any store Royal promotes. I won’t buy jewelry outside the US either. Thousands of dollars down the drain.

This is what we do. We buy the refreshment only and use our credits for alcohol. Between the coffee, non-alcoholic fruity drinks, soda, and bottled water we more than make up for it.

We are booked on a Christmas cruise this year. 8 nights Eastern Holiday on Adventure. I booked it in March 2022 for two connecting balcony rooms (4 people total) and spent $3200. Unbelievable deal. The same cruise is nearly $10k now. Book early!!

I booked a food tour with a local chef through Viator next Thursday. The tour includes 9 stops for different bites and snacks in the Market. Looking forward to that. We sail next Friday.

My last 3 cruises since restart was MTD. Adventure: Fine. Had the same table and wait staff the entire week. Standing reservation for 7 pm each night. Mariner: Alright. Same table and wait staff, but we were not seated until “our” table was ready. Standing reservation for 7 pm each night but we were typically seated 7:15-7:20 on the nights we ate in the dining room. Freedom: Alright. Appeared they held our table for our 7 pm reservation so we were sat right away. We missed one night and ate speciality instead. The next night we were sort of scolded by our waiter saying we should have canceled our reservation because our table sat empty. That was odd for me. I thought my speciality dining reservation was set since you can’t have two reservations at the same time? Pre-pandemic we were sat at the next available table on MTD. Often we had the same wait staff but sometimes we didn’t. A non-issue for us. Now it seems like they are trying to sit MTD at the same tables and possibly delaying seating until that table is free from 1st seating. I’m in a spot for our Ovation cruise next week. DH doesn’t like the menus for CK and I was planning on eating dinner there most nights. Now that is out I made standing MTD reservations for 7:15 each night. Who knows what we’ll end up doing though. We wrote off speciality dining for a while. Just haven’t had a good experience on the last few cruises. Dining room has normally been solid for us.

Different perspective here. We hardly ever use cash. We put everything, except our mortgage payment, on our AMEX each month. I get one bill and pay the bill in full each month. If my bank accepted credit payment for our mortgage we would charge that too. I like AMEX because we get a detailed spending report and it organizes our spending via category. It helps at tax time for deductions. It’s proof payment was made in case there are questions. While never having to do this, I like the protection to challenge questionable charges. Points are a huge driver too. I haven’t paid a cent for flights for our family of 4 since 2016. I’ve saved thousands. We have the Costco Visa for all a Costco stuff and random charges when AMEX is not accepted. 😀

When my kids were little the evening program started around 7 pm. WJ typically opened around 6-6:30 so we would take them to eat at WJ and then drop them off before our dinner. We would pick them up after dinner/show and then put them to bed. It was a great getting a date night every night! AO is typically closed during lunch on sea days too. AM session opened at 9 am (ish) closed around noon and reopened around 2 pm until 5 pm. Port days seemed to be open early and the kids could stay until all aboard time. Not sure if they are doing that now. Sometimes the kids would stay for AO dinner where the staff took them to WJ for pizza, hot dogs, and etc. We had to sign up for the dinner when we dropped them off for afternoon session. Our routine on seas days was breakfast, AO drop off, AO pick up, lunch and naps, dinner for kids, AO drop off and then dinner/show for us. Finally AO pick up and then bed. We kept the kids with us on port days until the evening session. I’m sure a lot has changed since COVID but the policies were not unreasonable. It’s not meant to be an 18 hour daycare facility.