kitkat343

In the Dominican Republic, the private tour operators were so used to NCL cancelling tours there that they led their introductory emails by touting their generous refund policies. It was the first time I'd ever seen private tour operators do that, and at the time I thought it was really weird. Then I read about the cancellations on these forums. Then NCL informed us after final payment. It's helpful to keep an eye on other sources because sometimes you get more information from them, and that might let you switch or cancel if you can find out before final payment.

Tivoli and the canal tour were my son's favorite parts of Copenhagen (but he was only 3 so it is. a little different)

Cruisetimetables lets you search by port and will show all the ships in roatan

So sorry about that! That is a really good point, plus you need to worry about what to do if people in the other group are late. We actually also do private tours for just our family because we have three kids (youngest is 5) and don't want to ruin anyone else's tour if our kids hit their limit.

Unless it is personally significant to you, I'd recommend skipping Mary's house (our tour guide described this as allegedly Mary's house). I'd also recommend skipping the rug factory, especially if you are short on time. Talk to the private guides about your port time and see if they can make it work. IF you are really nervous about time, you can book a private tour for just your family. Those tours you control the itinerary and can go back to the ship whenever you feel safe and don't need to wait for the group or tour guide to be ready to leave (I've done a lot of private t ours and whenever we say "thanks its been a great tour we'd like to go back to the ship now" they are happy to bring us back right away. Or you can post on your roll call looking for other people who are similarly concerned about time to agree on a short tour that ends at a specific time. Good luck!

We were on a private tour in Roatan, and our tour guide told us he used to work on a cruise ship. The ship stopped in Roatan, he went home and decided he no longer wanted to work for the cruise line. The government said the ship couldn't sail without him. Even though he was a citizen of Honduras, they wouldn't let the ship leave without everyone who sailed in. The cruise line had to send someone to his house and have him sign forms documenting that he quit his job, and then they were allowed to leave. He says he. is banned for life from employment on all Carnival brand cruises I have no idea if Honduras doesn't let passengers fly in, but it might be possible if NCL is saying they can't transport passengers there. Never mind - just saw the above poster who noted their brother in law flew into Roatan. And I would hope a ship would be held for an hour or two if it is possible, but it isn't always possible. There are a lot of reasons why the NCL captain might have been required to sail immediately, so that has to be the captain's call.

The whole debate over the phone call is ridiculous. Everyone on private excursions needs to return to the ship on time. You can't just call the ship and ask them to wait. It's fine to call the port agent and notify them of how far away you are, and they will relay that information to the captain and if you get lucky the ship will wait. If the ship needs to leave, it will leave. It's your responsibility to get back on time or else you can figure out how to get to the next port or get home. When my son was 3, we took a cruise to Guatemala. There are very few cruises that stop in Guatemala despite the fact that it was really beautiful because the port fees are very high. So there aren't a lot of private tour companies (at least not 10 years ago when I went). The private tour operator with the best reviews also had one review that stated the reviewer had been on a private tour with the HAL captain's wife and children. The private tour operator was running late, and kept telling the worried passengers "everything is fine I've never missed a ship". On the Ryndam, the captain announced to all the passengers that his wife and children were on a late tour, and they could wait a half hour for them but after that they'd need to leave. Thankfully they returned within the half hour and the wife and children were able to board. Normally I wouldn't have booked with them, but since there were very few options I booked a private tour for just my family because I knew on a private tour we could tell them "thanks we had a great tour. Our son wants to go take a nap - could you take up back now" and they would return us to the ship immediately. And thankfully we didn't have any trouble returning because we had the private tour and they took us back when we asked to go. On my first cruise, I was on a private group tour in Belize. We were going cave tubing, and then visiting the Belize zoo. The cruise tour operator had put us together with a. family with two children. We were on time for our tour, but the family was late. We waited 40 minutes in the port for them, and then the tour operator sent us to the cave tubing with a different private tour group. When we finished the cave tubing, the other family still wasn't there so we waited more in the parking lot. By the time the family arrived and we headed off to the zoo, we were running late. The tour operator kept assuring us that he was calling the Carnival tour guides to find out where they were because as long as we got back before the ship tours we would be fine. We arrived late (but before all the ship tours returned) and were able to reboard without a problem. But if the ship had left without us, that wouldn't have been Carnival's fault. It would have primarily been the fault of our private tour operator, and also the other family that started late and we still had some responsibility since we could have insisted on joining another group going straight back to the ship from the cave tubing instead of going to the zoo when it was starting to get late (I didn't realize how long it would take to go to the zoo, or else I wouldn't have cut it that close). But none of this was Carnival's fault and they didn't have to hold the ship for us (which I'm sure they didn't since there were still ship tours arriving after us). I do feel sorry for them and I hope ships wait when they can, but understand that the ship needs to leave whenever they need to leave and this is the risk we run when we choose private tours. Now that I am traveling with kids, we get private tours for just our family and haven't had any issues since we aren't depending on any other passengers in our group being on time and we can always ask to go back immediately if we start to run late.

While it is a fair point that people who sail primarily for itinerary are taking a risk on any cruise line because there can be weather or safety emergencies that can cancel ports, the fact remains that for many elderly travelers, travelers with disabilities or parents with small children, cruising is one of the few affordable ways they can still be able to travel. My family uses cruise ships simply as a hotel and restaurant, and as a result, we were able to take my son on a Baltic cruise when he was 3. He was able to see all the major museums of St. Petersburg, Copenhagen and Stockholm on that trip, which isn't an experience we could have replicated through any other means of travel. The second we reboarded the ship we put our son in the kids club and rested because it was a really exhausting (but wonderful) trip. And if we hadn't done this when he was 3 (that was the first year Russia threatened the Ukraine) I have no idea if we could have ever experienced the beauty of St. Petersburg. On my Alaskan cruise, there was a woman who was flying alone on my helicopter to play with puppies on a glacier. I asked her if her husband had been put on a different helicopter, and she explained that she had cancer and they couldn't afford to both go but flying to a glacier was her lifelong dream. I asked her how the cruise was going, and she told me it was exhausting but she rested whenever she was back on the ship and on sea days. I know the advice is given to only travel to places by land if you really want to see them, but that isn't feasible for all travelers. Those travelers need to be aware that there's no guarantee of seeing every port (on other lines there could be mechanical problems with the ship, weather issues or problems with safety) which travelers should understand. But I don't think anyone should have to understand NCL making changes after final payment unless there was an emergency they couldn't have anticipated.

I don't know how helpful it is with norovirus, but whenever my family gets hit with the stomach bug zofran has been really helpful. We have an online pharmacy write us a prescription before cruises and take some medication with us since its been helpful for us in the past.

As long as you make the reservations ahead of time or shortly after boarding, you can eat anywhere. Passengers who were not aware of the need to make advance reservations have limited options because the venues eventually book up.

I've not seen anything like this on those forums or Cunard's. There are specific issues that sometimes affect their cruises - RC right now is diverting ships out of Haiti, everyone is avoiding the Middle East, and the two Carnival and RC ships that were home-ported in Baltimore are heading to Norfolk, but all of those changes are caused by legitimate, significant issues affecting the ports and are completely understandable.

The Caribbean Princess won't have as much for kids as the Prima. We sailed the Coral Princess with a 2 year old, and he had a wonderful time, but he wasn't used to cruise ships having waterslides and bumper cars. Once I took my kids on one of those ships, they were sad on the older ships. Princess does have a very good kids club, especially for younger kids. If you are sailing primarily for itinerary, NCL has had issues with changing itineraries after final payment. This was the most recent posting of this happening: On my sailing, they cancelled a port after final payment "to help the environment" continued to advertise the original itinerary with the dropped port still included for the next month. They didn't warn anyone booking of the change, and wouldn't let them (or anyone else) cancel because it was after final payment. We'd booked this cruise for the dropped port, since my daughter was obsessed with monkeys and would really have liked the monkeys at the DR. If you do chose the NCL trip, always check the refund policies of private vendors before booking in case NCL doesn't stop (the first clue I had that the DR was in jeopardy was the private tour operators highlighting their generous refund policies at the start of their introductory email, which seemed strange until I learned NCL had been cancelling the DR for nearly a year by this point.

We did both and it was a lovely day! Hope it all works out well for you!

If they like fishing, the Bering sea crab tour might be great too. Watch the dates of the salmon runs - we were too early for that in late May (but aside from that late May was a wonderful time to cruise to Alaska). If you are doing a land tour, also keep an eye on the Denali construction.

It does seem like RC should at least tell people by now if the two cruises prior to the dry dock are going to be cancelled. Given the fact that both alternative ports are within driving distance, I can understand delaying announcing the location of the new embarkation port until Monday, but I think people should be informed by now whether the next two sailings will be cancelled. RC sails out of Bayonne year round; they should know at this point whether it is technically possible to sail from there for their next two cruises. They might choose the other port later, but they should know if it is possible to add sailings from Bayonne since they need to be familiar with its capacity.

I don't know what the OP is experiencing (something could have happened between when I sailed and their sailing), but I sailed AOS without any stabilization issues. The ship was a very solid ship - we booked for itinerary and because we liked the itinerary we were happy with it. If you are looking for luxury/lots of ship amenities this might not be your best choice, but if you found a good itinerary at a reasonable price hopefully you will be happy.

It will depend on what your kids are used to and their age. For years we sailed for itinerary and had sailed the oldest ships around with few amenities for kids and our kids were happy just being on a cruise ship and getting lots of yummy food and going to the kids club. But once we had three small kids, we decided to sail from our homeport, and the ships there had some nice amenities for for kids. After sailing on the Getaway, my kids wanted waterslides on all their cruises and that's never going to happen on Cunard. One good feature Cunard has is an indoor pool, which is quite helpful on our cruise that left out of NY in December. Their kids clubs last December were strongly improved from the first time we'd sailed with them 6 years ago. They also have a great feature I hope other ships adopt - you sign up for kids club slots one day in advance. On other ships over Xmas/major holidays people often need to line up for the kids club early since it gets full. But on Cunard, once you sign up your slot is your slot and you can show up whenever you want to claim it. Your child can leave and come back so it's much more convenient that showing up early three times a day to wait on line to secure a slot. The food on Cunard is generally excellent, especially the lamb and afternoon tea food. But they unfortunately do not do such a great job with either their vegetarian options or kids meal food. My oldest enjoys steak and sushi, so he was very happy with the dining on Cunard. My youngest likes burgers and he was very sad with the food. I have no idea how a. line that can perfectly cook Beef Wellington in the MDR can't cook a burger, but apparently it can't. The pizza in the MDR was also inedible (it's better in a pizza station near the buffet but still not very good). They also have a lot of difficulty just getting the kids food, with it taking nearly an hour to bring my daughter spaghetti for Christmas dinner (and this is after we had explained to them to please bring the kids food as quickly as possible because she can eat and then go to the kids club). The long waits for kids food was a huge problem because there is a portion of Cunard cruisers who believe the line should be entirely child free, and are not happy with kids being on the ship. So when I would try to walk my child around the ship waiting for her food, people were not happy if she was in venues they thought should be child free (like the small ballroom that was right next to the MDR). It was really frustrating because if the waiters could just bring the food quickly, we'd bring her to the kids club where everyone could be happy. But my oldest (13) found a group of teenage friends, wandered the ship with them, and went to trivia and even a ballroom dancing class with them. One more odd thing is that Cunard didn't advertise the port times anywhere, so if you want private excursions (highly recommended with kids) you should search the port schedules to determine what times you are in port.

Here's the good news - when I was supposed to sail to the DR last January, all the private tour operators responded to my emails by first explaining their generous refund policies if the ship didn't dock. I thought that was a strange thing to highlight in an introductory email until I learned that NCL had run a ship aground there the previous year and were cancelling a bunch of stops in the DR after final payment (or sometimes even after boarding) so the private tour operators were very familiar with changes to itineraries and at least all the providers I contacted to seemed very generous with moving dates. On my cruise, NCL cancelled the port stop in the DR after final payment, claimed it was to help the environment, continued to advertise the original itinerary and didn't let anyone cancel - not even the people who booked directly with NCL after the port was cancelled and were not notified of the changes prior to booking. The DR providers dealt with this mess for nearly a year, and they seemed to be handling it very well. I'd recommend contacting your provider to see what their cancellation policies are. Hopefully, RC will let you know soon and the DR providers will continue to be generous with their cancellation/rescheduling policies.

There will be a program for all children aged 3-17. If your children are on the boarder of being eligible for the teen club, you can try to ask politely if they can be moved up. That's really up to the people who happen to be working in the kids club. Sometimes they allow kids to move up or down, and sometimes they don't. If they are 12, you should also consider how much freedom you want to give them on the ship, including whether to give them sign in/sign out privileges into the kids club. My 13 year old just spent his last cruise with new friends and they took him to trivia and even a ballroom dancing class (we sailed Cunard). I saw him about 15 minutes a day even though we shared a room, and he had a wonderful time. Oh I forgot to mention you need to check the cancellation policies for private excursions since some are nonrefundable in Europe in case the ship doesn't dock. If you are getting private travel insurance it should be covered, but I don't know what NCL insurance covers.

It's more convenient leaving from Amsterdam, but Stockholm was definitely a city I would have liked to have spent more than one port day. When it is just one day, everyone gets up early for the sail in and then everyone is trying to rush off the ship when it first docks. So I remember that as being a pretty stressful day since we started running around early and kept going all day long since there was so much to see in Stockholm. If you do pick the cruise with just one day in Stockholm, make sure you have all your tickets and transportation arranged in advance. You can use public transportation to get around, just buy the card ahead of time. I like the fact that both ships have long days in Tallinn, which was another favorite on the Baltic cruise. We had a really nice lunch there, and that would be a great place to also enjoy a leisurely dinner and get to stroll around at night.

We didn't take kids on the Med, but took a 3 year old on a Baltic cruise. My 3 year old was able to make it through 2 full days of touring St. Petersburg and everywhere else because we had private tours for just our family in each port (or DIY so we could set the schedule.) Whenever he got cranky we stopped and got him a treat. We identified exactly what highlights we absolutely wanted to see ahead of time and started with those. We skipped minor highlights (the rooms in the center of Catherine's palace tend to be repetitive, so we spent a decent amount of time in the first two and then jumped to the Amber room). I'd just really try to identify what you want to see and what they want to see in each port and stay as long as they can manage. Museum cafes are your friends - one parent can sit with the 7 year old and the other can visit the exhibits, and you can switch off depending on what each of your priorities are. The second we got back on the ship, we took our son to Splash Academy because we were very tired. He was fine and could have continued running around St. Petersburg (which was surprising since we actually visited all of the major highlights over two full days traveling). So you'll just see how long your kids will make it. Good luck!

Jamaica and Roatan are both lovely stops. But in both, you should prearrange a tour, either from a private tour operator or through RC. I would not recommend getting in a random cab or wandering either country alone (the people we met on our 3 trips to Jamaica and 2 to Roatan who tried to explore by themselves were not happy) but we had 5 lovely days in both countries, with interesting excursions and felt safe because we had prearranged private tours with drivers that we researched on tripadvisor.

They ran out of bananas on the Getaway too, which was a little strange since the fruit they had is usually more expensive than bananas. I was once on a RC cruise in which all of the skim milk went bad (we keep some in our room fridge for our child and woke up one morning and all the containers in our fridge had spoiled, and the milk had solidified). There was no skim milk containers anywhere on the ship from that point on, so I assume something happened to their supply. Maybe all the bananas went bad on our ship and yours too. Sorry about the Indian food - the ethnic food is usually some of the best food across the cruise lines. If they have a meat carving station, that's often quite good.

Yes - if RC determines that Labadee is currently too dangerous I support their cancelling, but I really hope they do everything they can to reroute the ships so they don't. have an extra sea day. There's nice waterfalls in the DR and Jamaica and places to go for people who like animals for those who want to leave the ship and St. Marteen is beautiful (and Maho beach is interesting).

Try the St. Kitts board for additional confirmation because I'm not certain of this information and understand how important this is for your family: I believe (but am not certain) that this is St, Kitts official port schedule. They ports usually have government webpages, but this one doesn't so I'm not sure - the st kitts board will know where the official schedule is if this isn't it: https://portzante.com/cruiseship-schedule/ If the above poster is correct and there is space for 4 ships to dock, you can search the schedule and see how many ships are currently scheduled on your potential sail date. We had a cruise to the DR and since NCL wasn't using one of the ports there for awhile, we were able to figure out our stop was likely to be cancelled a few weeks before we were notified by NCL. So you might be able to determine this yourself.