MeHeartCruising

Unless it states otherwise, I would expect you will leave your ship on a tender boat and proceed to your docked catamaran somewhere. It doesn’t really matter where. You will do the catamaran tour. And, as it says, you will be dropped off at the port for Fira. There will be tender boats there taking you back to the ship. The port for Fira is located at the bottom of the cable car, so these tender boats will also be taking passengers who have come down from Fira on the cable car back to the ship. Fira sits up on a cliff looking down on its port and your ship. You will not need to use the cable car, because your excursion doesn’t take you up to the top of the cliffs.

Was your scheduled arrival in port 8:00 am like the OP’s cruise?

They don’t always all appear at once either. They sometimes dribble in. Probably as they get contracts signed with local operators.

In the past, when I brought on wine and was charged the corkage fee, it showed up on my onboard account on the 2nd or 3rd day as a bar or restaurant charge. It didn’t even identify it as “corkage fee”. It looked like purchased meals or drinks. I would think any OBC would cover it. Unless things have changed.

And note, If you have the Free At Sea drink package, you no longer will be charged the corkage fee. They changed the policy on that. They assume that you carrying on your own wine is now to the benefit of NCL, since you will be driving your wine rather than getting it free by the glass from NCL.

It looks like the NCL website is getting caught up to the deck plan changes. I was poking around on the Breakaway May 2024 sailings and I see Solo Balcony and Solo Inside cabins available, but only when I specify 1 person on the booking. They have also updated the deck plans to show these as a new cabin category. A Solo Inside shows as about $150 less expensive than a regular inside for one person. A solo balcony is about $250 less than a regular balcony for one person. There are also solo oceanview cabins.

No. It is an industrial port and you are not permitted to walk into town from the port. You need to use the shuttle bus if you're not going on a paid excursion.

I don't recall. I know we paid Euros. This was several years ago, so it also could have changed since then.

With NCL, there is no reason not to book now assuming it's a ship/itinerary you like. Up till the final payment due date, you can call and have them reprice the cruise to current pricing that see online. However, be aware that when you do this, they will replace any promotional terms with what is current as well. So if your current pricing gets the "Free at Sea" package now, if you reprice in the future, they will include the then-current terms of that Free at Sea package. Those terms may or may not be identical to what they are now. But generally, I would buy when you find a price you're comfortable with. Then continue to monitor the price and if it goes down before your final payment is due, review the current promotional terms. If they are acceptable, call to get it repriced. All of this assumes you are purchasing direct from NCL or via a travel agent who lets you make changes. Some travel agents may have their own restrictions on changes. I see you are from Canada. I'm pretty certain that you get the same rules as we do in the US. But you should double check that.

There are no longer any coin operated laundry facilities on Norwegian (NCL) ships. They had them many years ago, but they were removed a long time ago too.

I will add that when my NCL cruise stopped here in 2022, we also actually ported in nearby Portland. Portland's dock is an active military installation and required you to use the shuttle bus to leave the port area. That shuttle bus did indeed take you to a stop at nearby Portland Castle, but it also continued the drive into Weymouth. So you could get off at either location. Looking at Google Maps, the Weymouth bus drop location was near the intersection of Newberry Gardens and St. Leonard's Road, just a little south of Weymouth Harbor. If your situation is the same as mine, I might suggest meeting on the Weymouth Bridge located over the Harbor. The shuttle bus between the ship and Weymouth (with stops at Portland Castle) ran throughout the day in both directions.

Is it possible that Oceania is now one of those cruise lines that sells excursions that include bus transportation back to the second port (Athinios) where you would catch the tender back to the ship? Instead of dropping the passenger off in Fira and requiring them to use the cable car or walking path down to the boat. There have been reports of this being true for some excursions on some cruise lines. If the bus takes you down to the tender boat, then the timing would be more reasonable. Still quite close, however. The OP might want to inquire by calling Oceania.

What does this mean? "Today I was told that since my cruise fair was more than what I paid, there would be no refund of gratuities and fees." Is the "Today I was told that since my cruise fair was more than what I paid," portion of this sentence a true statement? Was your cruise fare really more than what you paid? You paid $900 via the applied FCC, correct? What are they saying your cruise fare was supposed to be and why wasn't the $3300 FCC applied to that?

As you've probably guessed by now, posts about travel booking agencies are not permitted according to CruiseCritic's rules. At least you can't mention them by name.

I enjoyed the departure from Amsterdam out to the locks quite a lot. It was interesting landscape/buildings to see and there were lots of boats to watch come and go around you. Also some windmills. And then the approach to the locks was fun to see thru the entire process. I stayed up top and went from side to side to front throughout the journey. Enjoy your cruise!

There usually aren't any checkin delays at Civitavecchia. And don't worry about what time you specify during your online checkin. No one checks. I would pick your departure based upon when you want to leave Rome. You have time to do something that morning in Rome, if you want. I would not arrive at the port before 10:30 or so, simply because they will still be wrapping up the disembarkation process and switching over to check-ins. With no Rome plans, I'd target 11-11:30 arrival at port.

I did a day trip to Delft and back and enjoyed it quite a bit. A great little town to walk around and explore.

While I also don't like t book ship excursions (unless it really, really makes sense for some reason), I still regard them as a valuable assistance in helping me determine what I might like to do in each port. I think the majority of first time visitors to most stops in Europe would do very similar things to what the excursions offer. I do additional research as well, but that usually leads back to doing the same things the excursions offer. So my advice is to review the excursions and itemize, from them, what you might like to see and do while in port. Then separately, research how you can accomplish those things either doing on your own or hiring someone local to help you. That's at least a starting point.

Yes, but you might think No.

My May 2023 experience on the Royal Caribbean version of the tour: If you are able to walk on gravel and/or stone pathways, most of which are quite flat, and a few that are slightly on a gradual slope, you will be fine. You do quite a bit of walking on the island. But probably not more than 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile, I suppose. There were frequent stops as the guide paused to discuss something. There is a "mountain" on the island that has a stepped pathway to the top. People are permitted to walk up there. But in the timeframe of the excursion that I was on, that was not possible. We were told about the significance of the mountain top as part of our guide. But it was only pointed to. Unless your tour is different and includes the mountain trek, I don't think you'll have any problem. I'm an overweight, out-of-shape, non-athletic tourist and I had no problems whatsoever. When I was there in May, the indoor museum was closed for renovation work, so it was an all outside time on the island. There is little shade (didn't need it in May). There is a restroom near the boat dock where you start/end the visit. There was a bottled water machine nearby. You may want to view a few videos on YouTube. They show a pretty good idea of what to expect.

I applied both a CruiseFirst and a CruiseNext certificate to a cruise about one year ago. Yes, the website let me do that. A few weeks later, I received an email from a person at NCL telling me that this was no permitted and that they have removed one of them from my cruise and returned it to my Account. I don't recall which one they returned.

You won't know until you either try it or not. No one here can, with certainty, tell you what is going to happen.

Most of the major sites themselves are immensely walkable to each other. They are in the Sultanahmet area of the city. I did not use a guide, as I had done my research prior to my trip. However, you will likely want some form of transportation to go from your ship to the Sultanahmet area. There is a tram that runs from outside the cruise port to the tourist area. You should read up on that option. It can be walked. I did the walk from Sultanahamet back to the ship when I was there, but it is a lengthly walk that I would not recommend starting your day with. I would estimate I walked for 45-60 minutes - including an occasional stop for pictures. Once you see the lay of the land, you could possibly decide to walk back later in the day or on the second day. I think most people do not walk it.

As a fellow 6'4" traveler, I would never let anyone control my air travel. I pay more, but I book seats that are as comfortable as I can get. I don't fly basic economy any more. At all. Even on domestic flights.

My interpretation of the OPs post is that they will now NOT be visiting the Orkney or Shetland Islands at all. Instead those stops have been replaced with an ADDITIONAL half day in Edinburgh (which probably means they now have 1.5 days in Edinburgh) and 1/2 day in Scrabster.