HouNew2Cruise

If you have your own snorkel gear, just take the NCL Tabyana beach excursion, and not the one with beach and snorkel.   At the beach, you can walk right out into the water and the reef is about 50 yards out.   It is just right there you can’t miss it. Nice reef.

if you don’t think you are a good snorkeler, then book a snorkel tour. 

I just got off the Breakaway and had the premium internet for streaming and needed a vpn as I wanted to watch the college football playoff games on FuboTV.  I happened to use NordVPN and  it worked fine on my iPhone. My iPad was flakey with the internet/vpn setup, but I got it to work on the first day. At least I had the iPhone working great so I could watch the games.
 

side note.  Breakaway is using Starlink, so streaming was great.   I only buffered rarely. When we were in Roatan, way south, I think we were out of Starlink coverage and we were on old school satellite and I was not streaming there. They need to get Starlink on all ships if the coverage is there. It was great for streaming. 

Yes, there is priority boarding.   They have lines for haven.  Just tell them when you walk in past security 

1.5 hour for the last 10 miles blows.   I hope it is smooth sailing for you tomorrow.  

43 minutes ago, jakeawhite said:

Ports:

We do not have a lot planned for our ports this trip, but here's what we're thinking!

I'd be happy to hear your suggestions for places to eat or easy/casual things to explore or see!

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Harvest Caye, Belize 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM 

Undecided, this may be our day to stay on the ship and enjoy the pool, etc. We always like to have at least one port day during a cruise to enjoy the ship with less passengers onboard. Might also check out the port for the morning and return early.

I find it a little annoying that this "Private Island" is not more tied to the ship - food, drink package, etc.

 

Costa Maya, Mexico 7:00 AM - 1:30 PM 

We're excited to explore this port a little. I've heard great things about a taco place here that I'd like to try!

 

I will be on this cruise as well.

Harvest Caye does have a nice pool, but I think I read your plans wrong on that port.   Enjoy drinking at the pool, as what I should have read.  And that can be done on the small pool on the ship.

I am with you on this port.   I spend little time on the island and get back to the ship for eating and drinking.  

I didn't realize we leave that early on Costa Maya.  Wow.  1:30

Please install the plugin for Tapatalk to work with the new boards.   You will lose the majority of those users everyday use of the boards, which helps promote these boards.  

Tapatalk users like myself will not struggle with your new site without Tapatalk   It’s painful.  

You willl be losing the word of mouth advertisement for this site, as we all recommend others here.  

So, if you feel this is a business decision not to use Tapatalk to not lose on advertising, you would be wrong.  You will still be losing, as we won’t be here and we won’t bring in more new users, who could look at your ads.

Will they show any college football? We will be traveling over NYE and were hoping to get the bowl games.

That would be a no. I did the NYE cruise the last two years and didn’t see one college game. People were resorting to Facebook streaming the playoff game from somebody at home.

From someone who actually watches the NFL games on the ship. You will get to see the Monday night NFL game.

The NFL games are shown as follows.

When there is one prime time NFL game going on, it will be on the one sports channel. You can see it in your cabin, possibly at a bar area, and sometimes on a big projector screen somewhere on the ship (depending on scheduled events). Sunday night. Monday night. Thursday night. Thanksgiving day games. Etc. these are times when there is only one nfl game on at that time.

Sunday afternoon, they pick from one of the many games in the early and one from the late game. That is the luck of the draw.

And for the college football fans, we are just SOL.

I will be doing the barrier reef snorkel in late Nov/early Dec on the Breakaway.

I did a private make your own tour the last time I was there during New Years cruise. Took the ferry as an excursion, and they gave you a time to return. However, you could take a later ferry, but you had to get in line after those people originally assigned that ferry time.

That private make your tour was by happenstance. I showed up at palencia pier after the tours left and guys on the pier were asking what I wanted to do. Snorkel. He tried to see if there was anyone around to take me out. He thought it would be tough with just me. Another guy showed up wanting to scuba. When it was apparent that he could not scuba alone, he decided to snorkel. Lucky for me.

So, we now had two people and they would take us out. We got a boat captain and a private snorkel guide. It was kind of choppy, so we were limited on where we could go. Was a little worried about the success of this private tour.

Until we saw a nurse shark he located in a lobster hideout. We saw huge crabs. Huge starfish. Various fish. The snorkel guide went all out. We got to see two lobsters up close and personal.

Took us back to the pier to a restaurant right near, and we were served a fresh lobster each for lunch.

That was a great snorkel trip that just kind of happened. I don’t have that captains name. Just go to the Palencia pier and see if you can get lucky.

Not the best snorkel tour I have ever had, that would be sharks and rays Belize city. That is hands down the best snorkel trip. Sharks, stingrays, mana rays, turtles

Thank you all for the great explanations. ....

 

 

 

So if I a higher status with a land based casino rewards program (TR) can I use that to my benefit with the CAS program - such as point or status matching like BlueLineGal mentioned? If there’s a better place to ask these types of questions I apologize. Still figuring this place out!

My 7* status gets me nothing on the ship. My platinum latitude or CAS card status would. Your TR status probably got you on the ship though. So, no need to flash your TR card on the ship.

Btw, depending on what and how much you play on the ship, you can call CAS for future cruise offers that can be better than you got from TR.

Well, if you have a good history with Cas they will not care if you have more than a couple booked.

I have also done some land casino certs along with straight Cas bookings at the same time. So, you can have multiple ones booked in different ways.

It was $20 and it was and excursion to buy with with your on board account. So you are in luck

Cruising down the river until 11pm, so mostly turns on the river you feel. Then it can be bumpy when you hit the gulf.

Weather is not always the same, so maybe you can have warm weather on the first sea day.

We were there mid December and took the ferry to Placencia. They give you a wrist band with a three hour time span written on it. We were on the first ferry over at 9am. It was about a 20 minute ride. Our return time was 12:30. They asked that people respected the return time they were given to ensure space on the return ferries. However they did say that you could return at a later time if you were taking a private tour. Several people scheduled for our return ferry stayed longer then the allotted time. The only issue would be that you may have to wait a little while for a seat on a return ferry. For instance if our wristband said 12:30 for our return but we didn't get back until 2:20 we may not have a seat on the 2:30 ferry back as those with 2:30 wristbands will be given first priority. We may have to wait for the next ferry and so on until there is space. They did also say that they've never left anyone there yet. And they run an extra unscheduled ferry at the end of the day for the crew and any stragglers left over. With that being said they do prefer that the majority of the people stick to the times given to help things run smoother. Hope this helps.

 

 

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Just did the ferry on Thursday and everything mentioned was still true. I got a 9am -12:30 wristband, and I was able to go on the later ferry.

I did not book a snorkeling excursion and tried to wing it on the pier. I just missed the other excursions to tag along on. Me and another guy doing the same thing just booked a private boat and we got a dive guide. It was a little more expensive with just us two, but we got all the attention in the water. The guide found us a shark, giant crabs, lobsters, starfish and lots of fish.

Next time I would try and book something ahead of time to avoid waiting around trying to see if others wanted to snorkel.

But now I don’t mind going to harvest caye with this option.

Money Bar. You see boats stop by to drop off their snorkelers there. Not a great reef, like west bay beach in roatan. But you can do some adequate snorkeling.

As others state, good facilities at money bar. You just grab a table order some drinks and or food before or after snorkeling. They have free WiFi too, sometimes it is slow. No cover charge.

Similar snorkeling as Chankanaab but it has about $20 cover per person, but a better beach.

I like Grand Cayman for the stingrays, so that doesn’t help much.

I only go to Maya Chan Beach Resort in Costa Maya and love it. Most people I hear their say it is their best port stop on their trips. Good Buffett lunch fajitas chicken , beef, fish. Chips and guacamole on arrival. Bring you drinks to your assigned chairs with shade or palapa. Or bring you drinks in the water, as you float in these kind of tube chairs. If you don’t drink, probably not for you. They take really good care of you there. They might also be booked up, so you have to get them early.

If this is what happened, your parents booked the room and got the drinks package as a perk. The third person in that room thought they bought the drinks package separately.

If through travel agent, maybe they did not do the extra person. If done through NCL website, maybe it worked and maybe not. It would be nice to know the specific way it was done.

In all cases, could you discuss with service desk that this person would be willing to buy the drink package now to use it the rest of the trip. If they then discovered that it was already purchased, then that original purchase can be refunded.

They get to drink, and the problem will be worked out later.

Hope it works out for you.

I was on the New Years cruise out of NOLA last year, and will be again on the Pearl this year. See you there.

This is the picture from the New Years Eve celebration on the pool deck for the count down.

If you have sailed NCL before, I would say it was like any Dress up or not night. Some do and some don't and we are all ok with it.

You know if she wants to dress up, then she is dressing up and you are packing extra. Have fun.

The last time I went to shark ray alley, I just got of the ship and went to the port trying to see if I could get on one who was totally booked. He sent us to another vendor selling outside and it turned out to be one by splash wave. They were fine and cheaper than I thought, but that could be because we booked last minute. I really like shark ray alley

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Dawn is on Friday to Friday until 9 day starting 12/30. Then it will be back 1/8 Sunday.

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Frozen mudslide

You have to go to Quest.

Sue will be asleep by then, you would be wandering the ship anyway. Go to Quest, and find you a group of ladies who are going to compete, and see if they will let you be on their team. It will be a fun time, and they will do all of the heavy lifting and you can just enjoy yourself.

What happens at Quest stays at Quest. So, you can't even tell us about it anyway.

You're a real genius , keep up the great review.

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The beach chairs closer to the bar deck do get the most shade, but as the day progresses, noon and on, they lost the shade. You can also move to the chairs/ tables on the deck and get shade. That's what I do.

 

 

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I just got back and they have put up triangle shades over some. Of the beach chairs.

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I would also recommend Money Bar. The snorkeling is where boats come bring their clients, and you can just swim out there from the shore. It is the same type of snorkeling as Chankanaab. I have been to Money Bar the last 3 times at Cozumel. If you want to snorkel from the shore, you will be using the rock stair steps. I just had Dr Peppers to drink this weekend time, as the night before was a rough drinking night for me. The DP was in a 12 oz can and they brought me ice in a cup. The guacamole was awesome.

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