Pat.D

Absolutely not. Never again on a Prima class ship. I've been on dozens on NCL cruises (and dozens of others on RCCL, Celebrity and Carnival) and the only cruise I could not wait to get off the ship was the Prima.

Taino Bay. They finished the port renovations and dredging the harbor so NCL ships no longer go to Carnival's port (Amber Cove). It's actually quite nice with the new lazy river. I cruise a lot so there was nothing out of the ordinary, it was really nice all around. On the Getaway you don't want to miss the shows at Syd Normans, Howl At The Moon dueling pianos and the main theatre show "Million Dollar Quartet". Well ,I say nothing out or the ordinary, that's not entirely accurate. We were also treated to an awesome one man show performance in the Illusionarium by Daniel Zielke the piano player who plays the role of Jerry Lee Lewis in the theatre show. He played selections from his upcoming album as well as his favourite songs (very different music from his theatre role) and his father Claus Ziekle a renowned Danish pianist who was vacationing on the cruise that week joined him on stage for a song. It was amazing and downright magical. I really hope Daniel will keep doing that second-show for the upcoming cruises. I also had the Vibe pass and it was worth every penny, with so many sea days on a sold out cruise the main pool area was a mess (as to be expected) as the crew doesn't enforce the 30 minutes rule against chair hogs. As usual the Vibe crew was excellent. Enjoy!

Really nice! Like many sailings before we skipped Bermuda because of rough sea conditions, but considering how cold it was as we sailed by that latitude it's not really a bad thing. It was also fairly rough for the first 30 hours (22ft waves) but that's to be expected when sailing the north Atlantic in winter. The rest of the sailing was nice and calm.

Freestyle_Daily_Feb_6_2024_Days_1-10.pdf A PDF of the scanned Dailies of the Getaway 10 days sailing of Feb 6 2024. NYC to San Juan, DR, USVI, BVI & Bermuda.

I sailed the Prima in January of last year and it was not for me for most of the reasons stated in this thread. I've been on 50+ cruises, dozens of them with NCL and loved almost all of them but the Prima was the first time I could not wait to get off the ship. Glad some people like the Prima, I'll stick to other ships.

Same here, I dived 4-5 times with Underwater Adventures on NCL and RCCL excursions. Always the wreck of the Cartenza Senora and then the reef (say hi to Stumpy the turtle!) 🙂

When I sailed the Joy last year, the solo meetups were not hosted and poorly attended. I sailed the Escape the week before and the Getaway and Breakaway a few months later and all had hosted meetups. I have no idea why the Joy was not hosted that week, I've spoken to other people who sailed it at other times and their meetups were hosted.

I agree, I love visiting Puerto-Rico. When cruising out of there I really enjoy arriving 2-3 days before so I can explore. So much to see!

I can think of much worse places to be stuck in 🙂 Glad to hear you enjoyed snorkeling there! I've scuba dived many times in Bonaire, the amounts of wildlife under water is really impressive. I even snorkeled on my own off the tiny beach right next to the cruise ship pier and saw TONS of life, from moray eels to turtles and tons of fish.

Sadly it's not a NCL thing but a cruise ship thing in general. I had a similar issue on Carnival. Most people don't realise that spas on almost all cruise lines are not run by them, they contract it out to a company called "One Spa World". It's the same subcontractor for Virgin, Carnival, NCL, Royal Caribbean as well as all their parent companies. https://onespaworld.com/at-sea/spas-at-sea/

Probably better off that way. I no longer bring my "fancy" raybans on cruises, only cheap knock-offs I order off amazon. I had one pair of expensive sunglasses stolen from my lounger on a ship years ago so now they stay home. (Darn, now I'm humming ZZ-Top's "Cheap Sunglasses" 😉 lol!)

Mango Meltdown (aka Mango Madness) contains plenty of rhum and amaretto, but you don't taste it because the mango masks the booze. They do make a delicious virgin version that tastes exactly the same.

Yummy!!!! My favourite poolside/sun deck drink!

Words to live by! 🙂 Humble request, if you go to the Howl At The Moon Dueling Pianos at some point, would it be possible to snap a photo of the performers? I'm curious to see who is on (they rotate in and out every few weeks). Howl At The Moon is my favourite place on all the NCL ships that have that show, I'm usually there from around 22:00 until closing when they perform.

I also keep valuables and important stuff in my safe, but not because I do not trust the stateroom attendants... as a matter of fact I trust them more than anyone on the ship. My mistrust is for fellow passengers who may be less than honest. Often when cleaning staterooms, the attendants have your door opened and are always super busy so they may not notice a passer-by with sticky fingers nabbing an ipad or wallet while they are occupied cleaning the bathroom or your balcony or getting supplies from the depot.