Tammyd549

I've sailed Carnival more times that I can count since 1991.  But I'm a NCL fan. Considering a Panorama cruise next month cause the price is right but wondering if they solved the late night food issue. Last cruise on the Horizon in 2019 had only pizza available late night with an INSANE wait, like 2 hours.

Does anyone know if this has been addressed? Our family likes to stay up late and eat late so, maybe we need to spend the extra $$ and do NCL again.

I want to love Carnival , I really do, I've been sailing them so long but since the midnight buffet disappeared, so has my devotion to the Carnival.

Thanks for any input or tips. !!

On 12/16/2019 at 3:19 AM, ronrythm said:

You may want to check cancellation policies, as Cabo is a tender port and sometimes gets dropped due to weather. You may not know until you get there if the port is too windy to tender.

Enjoy

Ron

Ah good point , didn’t even think of that! Thank you!

thanks for the feedback all! I don’t like my selection for the day passes in Cabo (and many other ports I’ve visited in the past) so booking a hotel I prefer for the night makes sense for me. Most All inclusive day passes I’ve seen are About $100pp (X2) so booking a hotel room for $300 (for example) makes sense to me, might even get access to the room , which might be nice (I know some hotels don’t always accommodate early check ins with early room access) . 
 

I was mainly curious about others who have done the same and any kinks in my plan that I may not have considered. 
 

I’m an experienced cruiser but have a question I can’t find the answer for . 
 

I’m cruising into Cabo (but this question could apply to any port visit)  next month and the port time is 12-8pm, I’m thinking of booking an all inclusive hotel room, checking in at 1pm and checking out at 6-7pm, using the hotel as my “excursion” for the day. I figure even if they don’t let me into the room at 1pm, they will let me check in and use the facilities.
 

Ive searched for day use hotels in Cabo (And other ports too!) and they seem limited so I was thinking this was a good alternative.

Thoughts or suggestions?

27 minutes ago, Ozzieru1e said:

I just checked & H9 16104 + 16102 are listed as available.  I don’t understand how NCL determine which bids to accept except for profit motivated.  It seems my H5  bid was accepted because they accepted someone else’s bid for a H4/H3 & NCL allowed me to maybe take vacated H5 original spot (although there is still 9 H5 listed as available).  Strangely my original mini suite stateroom isn’t listed as available.  I think when I was upgraded they upgraded someone into my original mini suite.  

 

Yes there seems no rhime or reason to it. 

All the H9 for Escape July 7 sailing suddenly disappeared, there was at least 8 yesterday. Fingers crossed for my upgrade 🤞

9 hours ago, ocdb8r said:

I wasn't clear probably because I'm not entirely clear how I feel.  All I know is that the atmosphere on this cruise was a real bummer for me.  I've done both Princess and Celebrity and found them to be a bit too much subdued.  I like that the NCL entertainment is a bit more up to date and occasionally edgy and generally in the past there seemed to be certain venues that were clearly for hard partying (pool deck, Bliss, Spice) and others where it was a more collegial atmosphere (Atrium, Syd Normans, Maltings).  This cruise just felt like every single venue was packed with people looking to get plastered as quickly as possible.  We couldn't even escape in the Thermal Suite (where I find serving alcohol totally unacceptable as the whole point of this venue is to have a mellow place to relax and rejuvenate).

 

As to the Haven, not upset at it so to speak.  We tried it when it first came out on the Epic and enjoyed it but didn't find sufficient value for the up-charge.  I guess I'm a bit frustrated that the middle ground has been eliminated for a completely bifurcated experience and that NCL has begun to rely so heavily on these drink and dining package promotions to fill the ships, rather than innovating like they did with the whole freestyle cruising concept and other products that hooked me on them years ago.

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to read all the replies but, I totally relate and understand where you are coming from. I really do think this was probably a one off because of the time of year. I swore after my Breakaway cruise last August that I would never cruise again when college kids were out. 

I don't think the "free" drink pacakge doesn't make the difference because it really isn't free, if you compare the cost of a Carnival or RCL cruise with no drink package, the NCL one is significantly more - in my experience - but that's just my opinion.

I love NCL for many of the same reasons as you but I always cruise based on where and when I want to go and who has the best deal, on the newest ships (or newly renovated) and it usually is NCL (as I would always buy a drink package anyways)

Maybe try a different ship on NCL and a different time of year and see if it's the old NCL you rememeber....

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed before, I've searched and could not find it.

I'm currently in a balcony with 2 perks, 35 days out and fully paid, if I call in and pay the difference to upgrade to a spa balcony, do I get the 4 perks that are

currently offered? 

I'll call tomorrow and find out but, just wondering if anyone here knows ... thanks.

3 hours ago, drvmywifecrzy said:

 

a good strategy is to change your bid often

Up or down? Has this worked for you before?? 🙂

We enjoyed the Epic, the split bathroom worked well for us,, the round bed was a mild annoyance but, no ship is perfect. We loved the waterslides, (which are unique to Epic) and it's the only ship in the fleet (that I know of) that has a pool exclusively for the adult area. The spa is awesome, food is subjective but, we enjoyed the layout and views from the buffet that we ate there for dinner 3/4 nights out of 7.

I think it gets a bad rap but, I'm not sure why. 

The ship only does 10 knots on the way to Bermuda, hardly moving actually. Its lovely. On the way home it's pedal to the medal , full speed at about 20 knots. So, imo, you will be totally fine all the way to Bermuda, fine while you are in Bermuda, the only windy time should be the ride home on Friday evening and Saturday. I've done this cruise 3 times.

Thank you for posting all this!

Curious if there was Indian Food in the Garden Cafe ? It’s always something I look forward to on NCL! Can’t wait for my July cruise to Bermuda!

One more thought (I may have more as time goes) , water can and will probably get in the boat , not a lot but enough that you will want some type of waterproof bag for your valuables. My first rental, I didn’t know this and was stressing the whole time about things getting wet.

also, don’t underestimate the sun! 5 hours out there is enough for a doozy of a sun burn , especially on your legs where you don’t always think of using sunscreen. Sunshirts worked great for us, there is only minimal shade provided by the awning on the boat. 

Getting back in can be challenging, I must say, Lazlo gave great info and I don’t have much to add other than with my kids , I would get in first and kind of pull them in (as Lazlo describes) or you can push the boat closer to shore to make it easier. The boats are not heavy and can be manipulated pretty easily. H20 is great with instructions and even for me being a very inexperienced boater, I did fine. 

Youll love it, I’ve cruised all through the Caribbean and nothing beats renting a boat in Bermuda for me. This will be my 4th time and I plan to do it many times more!

enjoy!

I have rented from H20 3 times and will be renting again from them a 4th time this July! They are super helpful and friendly so I would recommend emailing them in advance with any questions. A couple random pointers/suggestions:

-  they have a 5 hour special starting at 8:30, I always take this, I dont' recommend shorter and since we only bring snack on board , we find this is enough time to be on the water without having tons of provisions or mooring the boat to get lunch. 

- I am a VERY VERY inexperienced boater, in fact the only time I've been in a small boat are my 3 (soon to be 4) rentals with H20 and I've done fine, only got the boat stuck in sand once and ran out of gas once and didn't realize I had to prime the new tank but the beauty of Bermuda is that you have full cell phone coverage and I just called H20 , they walked me through it and all was well.

- there is NOTHING like dropping anchor whereever you want and jumping in the water to swim with turtles, nothing. Tours are great but once 20+ people jump in the ocean right around you, it's not the same.

- We have our taxi stop at the local grocery store on the way to H20 for supplies, works well for us.

- Gas runs out quickly when you are pedal to the metal so, if you like to go fast, plan a shorter route for the day.

- Defintely go to the ship wreck, super fun even if you dont' get out to snorkel.

- Deintely go to Kings Wharf and circle the cruise ships, that is very fun also.

- Bring some floats from home, I have some pop up round ones and we used them so many times, they were well worth the effort to bring. 

- Morning is so quiet and peaceful, I do recommend starting out in the morning vs afternoon, Sun is also not as hot.

I'll try and think of more.... 

I haven’t been to Bermuda that time of year, but I have been 4 times from June -September and all the locals I met said they only swim in the water from end of May till labour day as the water is too cold for them otherwise, obviously they are climatized but I would be very disappointed if I travelled all the way to Bermuda and could not swim those beautiful waters because it was chilly for me. 

Not exactly answering your question but I guess the point is you may want to look up average water temperature at that time and decide if it will work for you (assuming you want to swim in the ocean)

Im not new to NCL but I am new to the bidding process, before I would call in and negotiate an upgrade.. I have now bid  on multiple Haven upgrades and now im Wondering if I’m better off calling in ? Is this still an option? Would I just pay the “going rate” ? Does anyone know? Lol 

Tia!!

My favourite is deck 20 but get up there early for a good spot!

I never purchased them on my August trip to Bermuda but it just depends how sensitive you are to crowds (especially kids) and how much you value quick service. For us, it didn’t matter enough but I can definitely see the benefit for others. Keep in mind it can be VERY breezy up there, and if that is an issue for you or not. Going to Bermuda the ship is very slow so not a problem but coming back at full speed - that’s another story! I’ve done Bermuda from NY on NCL 4 times and coming home is always full speed ahead!

1 minute ago, JamieLogical said:

 

You definitely aren't going to get an acceptance 75 days out unless you bid WAY high. If you are on a European itinerary, you may get an acceptance pretty far out (40-50 days), but on US itineraries, Haven acceptances usually come about 5-7 days out. A couple of things that seem to contribute to early acceptance:

 

• If prices are about to drop significantly on your sailing, they may accept your bid to lock in the higher bid before you lower it accordingly.
• If the sailing is sold out, they may accept bids early, since they won't be selling cabins at full price after that anyway.
• You place an exceptionally high bid. Sometimes that seems to trigger some sort of auto-accept threshold for some cabin types in some sailings. But I would caution against bidding super high. You are better off keeping an eye on pricing for your sailing and just paying outright to upgrade if prices for your desired cabin type fall within your price range.

Ah, Great info , thank you so much!

im sailing from NY on the Escape, sailing is close to sold out but Haven seems to have tons on room (especially the H9 and H7 cabins) and I’ve made an aggressive offer... fingers crossed 🙂

I’ve tried searching and I apologize if I’ve missed the answer but can anyone tell me how quickly they’ve received an acceptance? I know NCL has until 48 before departure to accept but just curious how *quickly* others have received an acceptance. 

Ive just bid on 5 Haven cabins, am about 75 days out and wondering if I might wake up in the morning with an acceptance... dreaming I’m sure!

3 minutes ago, tcruisin77 said:

If you take the Forward elevators, you will walk past the Atrium and O’Sheehan’s before you enter the casino. If you take the Aft elevators, you will enter a corridor with some tables and machines on your right and the Skyline bar on the left. I’d say an aft cabin will be closer to the casino. Skyline is open to the casino, but you do not need to walk into it to access the casino. 

Ah perfect! Thank you so much!

48 minutes ago, worktocruise610 said:

you can access from the AFT elevators - the Atrium is on deck 6, the casino deck 7. From the AFT elevators the skyline would be on your left, the casino a bit ore forward on your right, but it is a circle so you can access from either direction.

Hope this makes sense & helps you out. enjoy your cruise!

Thank you, so there is access to the casino near  the AFT elevators? Do you go through the Skyline bar? I don’t see any other way in... sorry if I’m not understanding. To me it looks like you have to walk to the atrium in order to get to the casino and/or skyline bar

Hello, im wondering if anyone can tell me how you access the Skyline bar on Escape? Is the entrance through the casino or from outside or both? It’s hard to tell if you can access the casino from the AFT elevators without walking all the way around to the atrium.

Thanks in advance, we are debating cabin locations and want easy access to the casino 🙂

We got off the Horizon just this past Wednesday and wanted to offer a short review/random thoughts. We sailed the Vista last January so pretty much knew what to expect in terms of layout, features, etc. Sailed with my husband and 2 kids, age 4 and 9. We are easy going people, and always enjoy our cruises. Our kids loved this ship and we made some wonderful memories.

Check in was easy, we had a 1-1:30 check in time, arrived at 12:20pm and was sent in right away. We went in the early/late line but, it moved very fast and were on board by about 1:10pm. Rooms were not available till 1:30pm and they even had the halls blocked off, which I have never experienced before.

We were in a family harbour interior, first interior with kids and won't do it again, too small. I would do an interior without kids in a heart beat, I actually like them but, this one was just way to small for 4 people. The Family Harbour lounge was super handy, really enjoyed having access to it, despite some rude people leaving messes behind. Happy to answer any questions about the amenities there.

Food is subjective of course but, for what it's worth, the MDR and Lido were basically the same food, presented differently and in my opinion was on par with standard banquet food, edible but, nothing to write home about it. The specialty restaurants were excellent, we tried them all except the steak house as we couldn't get in.

Service was mostly excellent, we did not encounter any rude staff and in fact met up with some lovely crew from the Vista. Camp Carnival was absolutely fantastic, so amazing with the kids, can't say enough about them.

Did not make it to any shows as we spent most of our evenings doing activities with the kids and/or in the casino.

We didn't mind the elevators at all and found them to be actually more efficient and quicker than the Vista but, we tend to zig when everyone else zags so we miss most of the rushes on the ship, we eat later than most, sleep later than most, get off the ship later than most, etc.

Main complaints/reasons why I'm going to think long and hard about doing a Carnival cruise again:

Food availability for our kids was a big problem for us. Long line ups for pizza and deli (45-1hr every time), room service was minimum 1 hour, sometimes as long as 2 hours, very few "kid-friendly" options on Lido, 1 hour wait for popcorn during movie nights, NO kids menus in the speciality restaurants. When my kids came out of kids camp at 10pm , after playing hard for 3 hours, they wanted a snack, and in the entire ship the only thing I could find them without waiting in line for another hour was ice cream. This would never happen on NCL, they have a 24/7 pub with full menu and their buffet has much better hours and selection.

Drink service took way too long for my liking, I hate having to wait 20-30 min for a drink, 2 bartender at a main pool bar during a sea day is unacceptable to me.

Casino staff were excellent but , it felt very small and only one craps table (open very limited hours) was disappointing for us.

Sea days got to be long (probably because we had 5 on this cruise) with limited activities for the kids outside of kids club, we only use the kids club for 2-4 hours a day and otherwise enjoy spending time with the kids. I'm comparing to NCL , who offers G rated comedy shows, family karaoke, scavenger hunts, cupcake decorating, funny family friendly demonstrations, dance classes, Cirque lunches, etc , etc.

Other random things:

Kids were not allowed in the Havana Pool area, even after 7pm - just an observation that we previously didn't know about. I thought Havana was open to everyone after 7.

Debarkation was a breeze, best I've experienced. We were in our Uber exactly 1 hour after leaving our cabin.

Gift shops were very small and offered very limited items, just fyi.

Teppanyaki restaurant only has 2 tables so book VERY early, I tried 30 days out and it was too late for everything except 5pm and embarkation day. We did end up getting a seating on the unexpected sea day and enjoyed it very much.

Guy's BBQ restaurant is well worth the upcharge in the evening, HIGHLY recommend, live entertainment too. It was one of our favorite spots and had some kid friendly options on the menu as well.

I think that is it, happy to answer any questions, especially kid/family related ones.