brookie848

Actually, miniature horses and dogs are the only actual licensed service animals.

If we've had a great server, we've requested to have the same server on other nights and most times we've been accommodated.

So...how's the Viva Haven?

Yes...it's in the Haven. One of the many reasons why Epic's Haven is one of the best in the fleet.

I believe it's technically called the Courtyard Grille. We spent several afternoons there on our last cruise eating snacks (otherwise known as "second lunch") when we got back from excursions.

Our tradition is to sail out of San Juan in February. It's interesting to see that the Epic is heading back there. The itinerary is pretty basic, but it does include Antigua. Plus, we love the Epic's Haven.

I vote for no smells. 😁 And it's been legal here in NY for a while. I'm still getting used to the skunk smell.

And let's be honest...the real concern here is fire. I think anyone who smokes on the balcony should be forced to read/watch about the Princess ship where someone died because a passenger was smoking on their balcony.

Back in 2017 we sailed on the NCL Dawn out of San Juan. This was in November, and if you remember that year, it was the year with the horrible hurricanes. We were the first NCL cruise out of Puerto Rico (we had to sail-in the day of the cruise because there were no/few hotels available for tourists) and everything was being run by generators. While we were at the airport, we got a change itinerary notification that we would be stopping in St. Thomas -- they had just opened the port back up. When we stopped at St. Thomas a week later, we had crappy weather, but our goal was to go spend money to help the people living there out. So we went into town and proceeded to do just that and this is where we ate. We had great food. I see the chocolate shop is still across the alley. My husband bought a bunch of things for his co-workers there.

BWI also has them. They are in the walkway to the B gates. I'm enjoying your report!

We've found those tags stuck to things a year later. Some of them are stubborn.

So glad I read this! It is going into my memory bank for our upcoming trip. Thanks for the information.

And honestly, if they left because they couldn't handle being at sea, the chances of them returning for another cruise are pretty slim. So NCL doesn't have a huge incentive to bend over backwards for them.

From what I can tell, the balconies are the same size with a few exceptions. Cabins 15318 and 15918 seem to be the bigger, angled balconies. We were able to snag one of these for our 2025 cruise. Be careful with the 300/900 cabins. Those will likely have some interference from the slides.

So glad you are traveling (or soon will be) over the Atlantic. And rum helps with most anything.

Definitely looking forward to this! We sail on the Viva in February.

Yes. The 2024 cruise won't be too bad -- we're only getting off in Tortola, St. Maarten and Antigua. The 2025 will be a bit more tricky -- more ports that we might want to visit or we haven't been to as many times (Dominican Republic, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao). Decisions will need to be made.

Thanks for the suggestion, but the heating pad is not needed at this time. It was originally needed to warm up dialysis fluid. We ended up just putting the bags of fluid on the floor in front of the windows (we had a forward-facing cabin) and that ended up working quite well for us.

Our next two cruises have ZERO sea days. For February's cruise, we only have plans for three ports. The others we plan on exploring and enjoying a (hopefully) pretty empty ship.

A few tips for using the access desk... If you have a good PCC with NCL, they can sometimes transfer your Access Desk requests from cruise to cruise. We have a liquid exemption and our PCC just transfers it to our next booking so we don't have to fill out the form again. We've had good luck dealing with the Access Desk and found them to be overall very helpful. The only thing they couldn't supply to us was a heating pad. We knew we couldn't bring one, but were hoping we could get one on board. That was a no-go. We actually had dialysis supplies delivered to the ship and NCL was easy to work with. We were in a DOS on the Dawn and the butler came to find us in the waiting area to let us know the supplies had been delivered and were in the cabin. That was a huge relief to us. Enjoy your cruise!

The ship doesn't dock in Old San Juan, so this would mean taxi rides (time) in both directions. I'm not sure what on-board time is, but I think on previous cruises it was 5:00 or 5:30. I wouldn't do it, but everyone has their own comfort level.

When we've sailed out of San Juan (Dawn and Epic), boarding started normal time -- between 11 and noon. Traffic getting to the port can be interesting -- especially if there is more than one ship there. So you might want to factor that in to things. The waiting area is like an old warehouse with high ceilings. I didn't notice it being overly hot, but it could get hot if you were stuck waiting outside for security.

I'm a bit north of you in Albany, and it is chilly -- in the high 30s. We had snow last night, but it disappeared overnight when the rain came through. Now we just have a little bit sticking to the grass. Heading further down into the Hudson valley this afternoon to pick up our Thanksgiving pies. Enjoy the warm weather while you can!

We've done this before on the Dawn. We had a server that was awesome and we just asked to be seated in her section every time we went to the MDR after that. The only time it was an issue was when she was also serving the Latitude Dinner with Officers -- I think we had to wait a bit that night.

Thanks...I was wondering about this. There are a few things we want to order, but would need to modify. Some just preferences, others for real reasons (blue cheese is one of the things my husband can't have because he's had a transplant). I'm glad this can be done. Enjoy lunch!