lt0826

On 12/18/2022 at 8:22 PM, CoffeeGoddess said:

Another solo cruiser joined me for dinner at Cagney's on my Platinum voucher and we enjoyed our filet mingion and the rest of our meal. The server did bring up that we were allowed one appetizer, one entree, two sides, and one dessert before we ordered.

 

Thanks for sharing your meal with me :-). I did eventually get Ocean Blue in as well and it lives up to the hype - I am a fish and seafood lover and I could eat there every day. 

By the way was the hat store on Royal? I had to fight the urge to spend $600 on a hat in that store I went into. 

Enjoying your live reports. Enjoy the final day of the cruise! 

On 12/20/2022 at 7:12 PM, LincolnLog said:

When I was on the Bliss I heard that if you order an Irish coffee at the atrium bar they actually get the coffee from Starbucks next door. I don’t know if they do that on the Breakaway but it might be worth a shot. 
 

On the breakaway I couldn't get any coffee drinks from the atrium. They sent me up to the o'sheehans bar and that bartender made me go grab my copy from osheehans itself to make the cocktail. The only decent place for a coffee drink was the casino bar.

On 11/14/2022 at 7:34 PM, swtygrl said:

Was on Joy in August. Got upgraded to cabin 9266. Sounded like we were in the Cavern Club. Not good if you go to bed early. Also there are rehearsals during the day. 

Ha. Just realized that might be a way to hear the show without being in the crowded Cavern Club. 

On 11/10/2022 at 5:10 AM, Mrs. H. said:

I just returned from my first solo cruise, NCL Breakaway.  I had no idea there was someone from NCL who was 'in charge' of the solo folk.  It was pretty damn nice!

 

Ready for my 2nd solo cruise in 16 more days.  

Would love to know more. Solo'ing on Breakaway on 12/18

Pre COVID they were not. We just did Mexican Riviera on the Bliss and they were closed when in port. 

On 11/11/2022 at 9:20 PM, tanyaewa said:

I just booked a club Balcony suite ( on the encore )  and the room selection defaulted to the rooms directly above the cavern. Fortunately I noticed and changed it. I’d be concerned about the possibility….  What is the price diff between guarantee and choosing?

I didn't have an option to pick the cabin and all I could do was guaranteed. We decided not to do the upgrade out of fear of being in a bad location.  We later called about a spa club balcony and got a great price a s just took it. 

We are scheduled for a cruise leaving Sunday. My son now has a cough and no fever and is testing negative for COVID. But we don't know how this is going to develop. If we have the standard insurance and we cancel we are wondering what we're going to be entitled to because this is our third attempt at this cruise since COVID started and we have a combination of cruise next certificates which expire at the end of this year I believe and then we have FCC's which also expire. Does the insurance cover those and reimburse you for those or do you just get the FCCs and cruise next back and you have to use it by the time they expire?

You can ask for your daughter as a reasonable accommodation based on disability. If you frame as an accommodation request they may allow it if you can show disability related reason (would regular pool deck mean sensory overload so to enjoy the cruise as a non disabled person would, would a quieter space be beneficial?)

Oops - someone just started basically this same thread. sorry for the duplicate as I can't seem to delete. 

I've done the thermal suites before and love them and I have never done Vibe. If you only have budget to do one or the other, which would you do and why? I

Not sure where I saw it posted. But someone a cpl weeks ago mentioned their Bliss cruise was the 1st one with Coke. 

2 hours ago, mscdivina2016 said:

You were offered to live bid on what? The Haven Spa suite?  If so, you are out of the bidding then.

Anytime you go live on a specific category it' ends the regular as it goes to a cancelled or pending status.

I know because I bid, we went live, and I am sitting in my Haven Spa suite right now for 21 nights on the Encore.

 

 

 

Very nice! Enjoy, sound delightful.

Out of curiosity did it show you in the lead leading up to it? Wondering if anyone gets the upgrade even if it says they've been outbid - like maybe the highest bidder gets an even better upgrade or something like that. 

I just withdrew haven bids after calling and getting a very good price to go from balcony to spa club balcony and decided to grab it while still available. Don't want to give up the spa passes now so keeping what we have. But good to know for future. 

Has anyone been to the aquarium in Mazatlan since cruises have resumed post COVID. We went about a decade ago by taxi and enjoyed the experience a lot. Was not geared to American tourists. A lot of locals and their families. Felt more authentic to us than a lot of the excursions. But wondering if it is open normal hours, if there are any COVID restrictions in place and if is safe these days given the travel warnings. 

Appreciate any recent experience notes. 

Bump

And I did do a search. Didn't find much. Hence my asking. Appreciate responses. 

So apparently that is a yes and no. We had fcc from cruise cancelled by ncl because of COVID. The 25pct they added to our credit can only be used for cruise fare or upgrades. I believe fcc for money you actually spent is more flexible. 

If you booked a guaranteed club balcony suite can you tell me what room you ultimately got and if you were happy with it. 

We currently have a balcony on our 11/6 cruise we chose. We have fpps we have to use by year end that can only be used towards upgrade or fare.  And we are thinking if upgrading since we have ~$300 in fpp left and can't do another cruise this year. And at this point we can only do a guaranteed cabin with this upgrade and can't pick our room. 

My fear is ending up on 9 the floor above the cavern. 

If you did end up there how bad was it? A couple reviews make me think it will be pretty bad. And we have a kid with us. 

Then again there is a small chance of a really nice upgrade. 

I don't see it and I don't think for me it is an FCC. They are just extending the time I can use the cruise certificate. And in theory the time I can use the experience credits. 

They can tighten things up and nickel and dime more, but my experience watching casinos do that is they just dig themselves a deeper hole. They can instead do more promotions to draw customers back and go out of their way to provide excellent customer service and to provide a positive experience to gain back loyalty and rebuild their customer base. The latter will work better, but they have to have some liquidity and understanding investors to pull that off.

Just got off phone with NCL. My cruise was scheduled to depart this coming Sunday. And we did not cancel; we waited and NCL cancelled. I booked with Caesars using a certificate offer and used 7 star experience credits to pay port fees and taxes and I had 2 cruise nexts to use for my son and to go toward gratuities. So I had less than $100 spent out of pocket.

This is what I was told. Cruisenexts come back to me. Yay. My certificate is good for same itinerary out of same port at same cabin level - but can be a different boat. I can still use my experience credits but she seemed less certain on that. But note that Caesars also announced yesterday that they would make good on experience credits.

This may be related to my exact certificate, but I need to reserve by April 27 and can use it on a qualifying cruise through December 31, 2021.

Better than the worst they could have done which is too bad, so sad, your promos are expired no credit at all. although not the best they could have done which is give me the cash value at 125pct as an FCC and use on any cruise. I admit I was hoping for, but did not expect, the latter, as it would be nice to use credits to do Hawaii which the certificates are never good for.

On 10/4/2018 at 8:44 AM, jeffjeffjeffjeff said:

Ill be watching. I am also curious if there is a Texas Holdem table on the ship somewhere?

There is, at least there was last week. 2-5 NL,  10% take capped at $25 per pot. 

We did our check-in process late for our 10/27 cruise because we were waiting on renewed passport. Our assigned port arrival time is later than we would like to arrive. It seems in most ports no one is paying attention to the assigned arrival time. Is that true out of LA as well? If we arrive at 10:00 will they tell us to wait or will they let us start checking in to get assigned to a boarding group?

Reminds me of my happy returned item stories - yes stories - from our recent cruise on the Pearl. I was a total flake on this last cruise and was traveling with a toddler. I clearly needed the vacation given my spaciness. I had three instances of losing an item, and in all three instances, my items were returned to me.

1. First day I attended the drawing at the spa. I had my DS with me and was trying to keep him occupied - the drawing was obviously not a child friendly event, but my husband and I both wanted a chance to win a spa credit, so we dragged DS along. I set my handbag down, which contained all our passports, my DS's birth certificate, and all our cash and credit cards for the trip. I went back to the room and did not realize I had left my handbag behind. I received a call from guest services later that evening telling me my handbag had been found before I even noticed it missing. Nothing was missing!!! I was so happy as that could have been a disaster. I tipped the staff member who found and returned the handbag to me.

2. We had passes to the thermal suite. On the first sea day I lost my pair of swim shorts walking back to the room. It must have fallen out of my arms - I had the rest of my suit on me as well as my coverup. That was turned in as well - but not sure by who.

3. I left my son's changing pad in one of the public restrooms. Noticed it missing next time we went to change him. In this case it wasn't turned in, but remained in the exact spot I left it on the changing table.

I hit a trifecta of luck with lost items on the Pearl.

What seems to work best for my wife and I is to check the menu in the morning for the MDRs and decide then if we want to eat at a specialty. For the most part getting a reservation is never a problem. The only restaurant you may have an issue with is the Teppanyaki because of the limited seating.

I am not sure if this advice currently holds. We came off the Pearl repositioning cruise last Thursday, and except for the first night, and except for La Cucina or Moderno, we had a hard time making day of reservations, although a willingness to eat at 5:30 or 10:00 made it a little easier (10:00 was a definite no for us). I think the recent promotions that have included the UDP package has increased demand for the specialty restaurants, so I would recommend making dining reservations either prior to the cruise or early on in the cruise.