Nilbog

When you ride a scooter you have to take time to plan routes and avoid obstacles.

Once on board, the NCL app is actually helpful. You can see deck maps, itinerary, your booked items, all kinds of stuff. However, take one step off the ship and it's useless, no maps, no calendar, nothing you can use to plan your evening once you get back on the ship. If you're not connected to their wi-fi it's like you're not even on a cruise. On another cruise line, once you've booked a cruise you have full use of the app, and I like that a lot better.

A lot of airlines and cruise lines use sites such as id.me to confirm military veteran status.

I have always found that no matter how full the bar area is, if you cozy up to one of the wait staff they will always keep you in drinks. Even in a non-Haven bar, if you frequent one waiter/waitress, they will keep you in drinks. I've even had one waitress go to the bar manager and request a specific liquor be kept in the staff because a Haven passenger was frequenting that bar and requested it. And it worked. I tipped her well and often.

We've been on four NCL cruises so far, 3 on the Pearl and 1 on the Jewel. Why? The smaller ships go where we want to go. That being said, we'll be on the Breakaway in 28 days and are tying a full Haven. On the smaller ships I won't do Haven again as you get nearly the same benefits from a suite for much less money. Our cruise after the Breakaway, though, is on the Star. Again, the smaller ship is going where we want to go.

To use the jet pack you would need to have cellular service, and while out at sea you won't have that unless you bounce off the ship's satellite system, which puts the jet pack into roaming mode. It would be akin to not turning your phone on airplane mode. Your Verizon bill after returning home could easily be into the thousands and maybe even the tens of thousands of dollars. The NCL wi-fi plan will be much less expensive.

NCL is licensed to sell Starbucks products, so they're selling actual Starbucks coffees. Yes, they do have the fu-fu coffees. My wife gets them all the time. I just drink straight coffee. I like my coffee like I like my women...hot and straight. 🤪

You are correct. 34 years has wiped too much of my memory and I relied too much on Google. This IS said to be the house of the Virgin Mary. (I apologize for this being upside down, it's not letting me rotate it.)

Just keep in mind when deciding to visit Mary's house or not, this was allegedly the house of Mary Magdalene, not Mary the mother of Jesus. That may sway your desire to go there. There are some accounts that she travelled with St. John the Baptist (St. John the Evangelist) to Selçuk next to Ephesus, and would, by that account, have a home in the area. St. John's basilica is another tourist location next to Ephesus.

We're in the same boat with 74 points and a 14-day cruise coming up in August. To make sure we were Platinum for the 14-day cruise we found a 4-day cruise in May that will push us to Platinum for the long cruise.

Quite the change since November 2022 when we cruised out of Miami on NCL. I did get the discount and they delivered to the cabin so had to try to find wheelchair assistance (which was hard to find).

Glad we're waiting until she's in Miami on May 8th. Don't need that Texas traffic...

Not sure about an 8 day cruise, but my last few 7 day cruises it ran about $250. You can always go to the website and mock book one. I think Scootaround is the one that automatically adds the insurance, but you can uncheck the box and take that off.

Not sure about the Jade, but on her sister ships, the Jewel and the Pearl, we've enjoyed the show and the food. We've got a short 4-day cruise coming up on the Breakaway where we only get 1 specialty dinner and Teppanyaki is the one we booked.

In 10002 on the Pearl and 9004 on the Jewel we used the loungers while under way. It was breezy under way, but doable.