febtober

Curious if you were able to discover anything? I've checked several other places and can't find anyone else having this problem. I've tried different browsers and even different computers, but get this same SHPREQ045 error. I know they'll have a shore excursion desk on the ship, but I'm worried the three I want may be sold out.

Good to know. I'll be coming from Nassau County. At first I was going to take LIRR then uber from there to save a few bucks, then I realized that was actually more expensive than just fully ubering door to door from my house to the pier.

I just came here hoping to find an answer myself. Almost all of the excursions give this "No Activities Available (SHPREQ045)" error. Their website has always been less than stellar. My cruise is in less than two weeks, and the whole excursion page for Port Canaveral just says, "We are working to enrich our shore excursions program, they will be bookable soon" when they were available last month.

Nah as a husband myself, they probably just weren't going through. We were on the Magic recently about 70% of the messages would work. My wife would show me her phone and there would be multiple sent messages, then I'd show her my phone and I had gotten none of them.

Very interesting thanks. I like the technical details. Maybe a dumb question, but I see you use the acronym "GA" frequently - what does that mean?

I'm seeing some stupid cheap prices on NCL's Bermuda cruise aboard the Joy out of NYC on October 29th for 7 days. If I go, it'd be me, my mother in law, my one year old kid, and my six year old kid. For roughly the same price we could either get two balcony staterooms, or one "family suite", which is a bit over 500 sq ft and has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a living area. The family suite is an interior room, but it has some goofy "virtual balcony" where one wall is an image of the outside or something. I'm not really knowledgeable about NCL's terminology, but I don't believe this is considered part of the the haven. Either way it'd be my mother in law and the baby in one room, and me and the six year old in the other. I'm kind of leaning towards the suite, but would like any input. We just got off a Carnival cruise a couple weeks ago where we had two balconies and rarely used them. They weren't really in a great location, though. Also, how's sailing down to Bermuda in late October/November? The fares are so cheap it makes me think there's something wrong, but from my brief Googling I don't see any red flags. Looks like hurricane season should be mostly over. I know for at least the first and last sea days I'll probably need a light jacket, but that's no big deal.

I just got off the Magic and also paid for the premium plan. It was horrible. I requested and received a refund. My wife and I also each paid $5 to be able to message each other via the Carnival Hub app and that was spotty as well. I'd see her in person and she'd ask why I wasn't responding to any of her messages, and I'd tell her I didn't get any. She'd show me her phone which would half a dozen messages as sent, and I'd show her my phone which didn't show a single one received.

I just did this in a roundabout way. I sailed my with and our two kids and we got two staterooms. When booking, I put me and one kid in one room, and her and another kid in another room. While actually on the ship, we had one room and they had another. This allowed me to purchase the Cheers package just for myself, as my wife doesn't really drink and might have three or four drinks over the entire cruise and she can just pay for those.

Ugh, checking in at the pier was a real pain with a baby under 2. Everyone in our party is fully vaxed except him as the vaccine was only recently approved for his age group. Kids under 2 require no testing, just a vaccine exemption from carnival, and they don't need to apply for the exemption; it's automatically granted to them based on their age. So we show up to the pier and find that me and the kiddo still have to go to the separate check in line for those that have exemptions and need to be tested, while the rest of my party went to the regular check in. They should really have a separate line for people who are only there because they're traveling with a kid under 2, or at least let them move up to the front of the line. All we needed was to get the exemption letter, sign it, have an employee stamp it, and go. It shouldn't take more than 90 seconds. But since we were in the same line as everyone getting tested and taking a much longer time, it took nearly an hour to work our way through.

@habcyou must have gotten one of the last rooms. I was on that same sailing and on Monday (second to last day) three of my party tested positive. I was down in the medical bay with them and the doctor commented, "Oh, I see you have two staterooms, that's good because we're out of isolation rooms." So the positive people stayed in one room and the negative people were able to stay in another. While they instructed the positive people to isolate, they also said, "But nobody is tracking you or anything", although I personally wouldn't mind if they did. If you were just told you're Covid positive and 15 minutes later you're swiping up at the casino, there should be some repercussions. The positive people were also given free room service and the little bag of snacks. We had a letter from guest services giving us an FCC of $98 which was what they calculated for the pro-rated portion of the time lost. They came and got us a bit after 9am the next day to disembark. I also counted around 25ish people down there on deck zero. I don't know how many were actually positive though - the two negative members of my party were also down there since we were leaving as one group. I also don't know if that was the only covid group on the ship, or if there were multiple ones taken off at different times.

Thanks. Can't really tell by a picture, but just going by simple math I don't see how it could be anything other than a king. Do you know if that sofa turns into a bed? Looking at the floor plan online it looks like it might be too small, but I can't really tell. I'm thinking I'd need to move all the way up to a club suite in order to get a sofa bed

Thanks for the info! A balcony would be nice of course, but it's double the price and you don't get much more interior space, which is what I want. We just got off a Carnival cruise a few days ago where she had her own balcony cabin and I don't think she stepped foot onto the balcony once.

I was actually curious so I just called them up. The rep said the same thing as the website, that the room contains two twins that can be pushed together to make a queen. I told him that's not really possible since two twins make a king. You can't make a queen by pushing two beds together and he said, "Oh, well, I guess they make a king then". I'm relatively certain they make a king, but that seems like a pretty important fact for them to mess up. Queen is plastered all over their website in many places. Seems like a glaring error, but I don't generally think I'm smarter than a multi billion dollar company, so again, maybe I'm just missing something.

Thanks, I guess the simplest answer is the correct one and it's simply "that's how NCL does it." Just seems odd but oh well.

Actually I just thought of another question: How exactly are they making queen sized beds? Two twins pushed together equal a king. A twin is the smallest mattress you can usually buy. If the beds are separated, I assume that means I'd be sleeping on something even smaller than a twin?

There's a difference between complaining and asking for clarification. I can ask questions and get replies that add color and are more than just a simple yes/no. Like I said, maybe their newer ships have larger rooms which I'd be interested in knowing. Or it might just be as simple as "Nope, NCL just has small rooms." Again, if you need to get a suite on the nicer cruise line to get what the budget line that has a rep for catering to spring breakers would give you in an OV, that's odd enough to justify asking a simple question to make sure I'm understanding it correctly. If a Nissan Versa has Bluetooth and a BMW doesn't, that'd also justify a question about it. I've also asked several times how they fit four people in the room, and still have no clue. Do they use pullman beds? Carnival's deck plans specify which rooms have pullman beds while NCLs (as far as I can tell) make no mention of them, so I can only assume they do not. They say they have, ""additional bedding to accommodate up to two more guests" and the definition of bedding is "the covers on a bed", so it certainly sounds like they just give you extra blankets and you sleep on the floor. Anyone should be able to plainly see how that's confusing and warrants asking a question.

This is a lazy cop out answer that needs to die. It's another way of saying, "if you have a luxury item, you can't complain about it", which is clearly an absurd statement. Just because we're not street beggars in the slums of a third world country doesn't mean we can't have gripes (or questions, in this case) about what we spend our money on. Maybe the Gem is an old legacy class and all their newer ships have larger staterooms. Maybe NCL has normal sized rooms and Carnival is just an anomaly with large rooms. Maybe there's just something simple I'm missing, happens all the time. It's just a little bizarre to me that I have to get a suite on the nicer more premium cruise line to get a room the same size as an Oceanview on the budget cruise line and seemed like it was worth questioning for more information. It might just be my kid and I on the cruise, in which case I don't care, interior will be fine. But my mother in law might come, in which case a single queen won't cut it. Do they have pullman beds? The room description makes mention of them, although it says there's "additional bedding to accommodate up to two more guests." which I guess could mean pullman beds, although the term "bedding" generally refers to sheets and blankets which sounds like just you'd just make a nest on the floor? Again, sounds kinda weird and worth asking a question about.

Hi all, I've cruised NCL twice quite a while ago, once on a mini suite aboard the Gem (I think now they call them club balcony suites) and once in a studio aboard the Epic. I've also been on Carnival in an oceanview, a balcony, and a suite. The OV and the balcony were both quite sizeable and largely similar, just of course one had a balcony and the other didn't. Both rooms had a king sized bed, a sitting area with a sofa and a coffee table, and a desk with a chair, so plenty of room to spread out and walk around without being on top of your roommate. They reminded me very much of the mini/club suite on NCL, although NCL considered that a "suite". NCL has a 10 day Caribbean cruise next February aboard the Gem that looks like a lot of fun. I just went to book an OV room though, and I assumed it'd be pretty similar to the OV I've sailed in aboard Carnival, or maybe even nicer since NCL is often considered a little more premium of a brand, but wow, I'm shocked at how tiny the staterooms are. It has a *queen* sized bed, the world's smallest desk, and that's about it. I was really expecting it to at least be on par with Carnival, but looking at the floorplans and pictures, it looks like it's the size of a basic interior on Carnival, or even smaller since it's a queen bed versus a king. The description says it can accommodate up to 4 people, but where? Do two sleep on the floor? It doesn't say anything upper pullman style beds. Sorry if I sound like I'm kinda being harsh on NCL; I've sailed them twice and had great times, but I had never seen one of their OV or balcony rooms. I just assumed they were on par with Carnival, or even better since I've always thought of Carnival as the most budget oriented of the large mass cruise lines, and NCL as a bit of a step up, so I was expecting them to at least be on par. The Gem isn't a new ship, but isn't exactly ancient either. Perhaps their newer ships are different?

Hi all, I've never cruised RCCL before, but I'm looking at possibly taking a sailing next February 19th aboard the Anthem of the Seas from New York down to Florida and the Bahamas. I'm not sure if it would be two of us going or three of us, so I'm going through the motions of booking both to see what kind of prices I'm looking at either way. Whenever I select three people (two adults, one child), it tells me there are no staterooms available to accommodate three passengers. But when I do the booking for two people, I can book just about any type of room, and balcony makes the most sense price-wise. And on all the images of the balcony staterooms, there's a sofa in the room. So that sofa can't be turned into a bed to sleep the third person? I just got off a Carnival cruise a few days ago and that's exactly what we did. Doing the two person booking even allows me to select the owner's suite, but somehow that same 500+ sq ft suite can't be used by a third person? I guess I'm not seeing why it would tell me there are no staterooms available for three people when there certainly seem to be.

For what it's worth, I just called United Healthcare to check if tests are still covered, and if mattered if I'm being tested due to exposure/symptoms, or for travel, and they confirmed (with my plan at least) they're covered at 100% for any reason I can get all the tests I want "just for funzies" ha.

Has anyone boarded with a child under 2 recently? Originally when making my reservation a few months ago, I was told they'd need a vaccine exemption, the same as any other unvaccinated guest, so we applied for one. Although now I see on CCL's COVID page, "Children under five are not required to apply for a vaccine exemption. However, they must still follow requirements for unvaccinated guests including pre-cruise and embarkation day testing, destination and camp restrictions, etc", so that's good. Although further down it states, "Guests age 2 and older must present a negative PCR COVID-19 test". So in one spot CCL states that children "5 and younger" need a negative test, and in another spot they state children "2 and older" need a negative test. They don't explicitly state that children under 2 do not need a negative test, but it seems to be implied by the second statement...