brngckn

On 9/27/2023 at 11:58 AM, OrcaGirl said:

On my last Princess cruise, my mother and I got the thermal suite pass and it came with a little jar of sugar scrub and a little loofah. We never used it on the cruise, brought them home, still haven't used them. 🤣

Ditto!

Warning - it is oily/sticky and kinda messy and useless if you ask me.

On 11/20/2023 at 10:08 AM, ngrund said:

i also bring magnet hooks to attach to the ceiling to run the cord from the bed to desk

Or, the room stewards are happy to tape the extension cord down for safety.

We were on the Jan 27 departure. We lost Tauranga port and Milford Sound due to wind and weather. We received no compensation. Hopefully you will experience better weather but maybe prepare for a bit of ship motion just in case. I know a lot of people on our departure were unwell at times.

All of our in-port activities were non-NCL and we had a great time! 

NCL Spirit is now out of all diet beverages until Sydney when most disembark in 2 days time. Much grumbling among guests. 

The title of this post was meant to provide amusement, people. 
 

The provisioning problems are real on many NCL ships.

On a trip that I can only afford once, not seeing the New Zealand coastline beauty has been a real disappointment. That and spending days pitching and rolling at sea 🤢 have made this trip my least favorite.

5 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

We were booked on a NZ cruise a few years back, and then Covid happened. Have been considering trying to do it again, but leaning more towards flying there and getting a car to do it on our own. But we would be missing the scenic sail around the sound. Hearing that your cruise completely missed over that part would be a big bummer. 

 

Has the crew hinted that this was unusual, or expected for this time of year? We're still trying to plan out a do-it-ourselves trip for around this time of year 2024, so wondering if pushing it to March would be better.

The weather has been extremely unexpected and unusual. 

We’ve had some weather issues with our Auckland to Sydney itinerary which led to missed provisioning. The ship is running out of Diet Coke, Coke Zero and Sprite Zero and may not get more until Sydney in 3 days time. 😮

The ship also seems to be out of mushrooms, bananas, yogurt and endive. 😕

Thankfully have not run out of Veuve Clicot yet.

Our calls to Tauranga and Milford Sound were canceled. I know they can’t fix the weather but there are things that could be done to appease disappointment. Sadly, I think the bottom line prevents them from doing anything. A couple of the live music acts are truly awful.
 

We trip the into Sapphire status with this trip and for the first time ever will not be purchasing a Cruise Next. 

 

4 days 'til we board Spirit in Auckland! 🙂

Thanks so much for this. We board Spirit next week in Auckland. 

On 1/1/2023 at 11:40 AM, Cali82 said:

We will be arriving in Auckland next month and thanks to NCL and not adding the requested flight deviation, we are arriving the day of the cruise. So, arriving at 6 am, how early can we drop our luggage at the cruise terminal? Our cruise leaves at 6 pm and would like to get a few hours out to explore. Thank you to anyone that has some answers.

Thank you for this post! This exact thing happened to us, too.😒 They didn't give us the requested deviations on either end of the cruise. We're on the same flight arriving at 6 am day of cruise.

On 1/2/2023 at 5:24 AM, ziggyuk said:

...several other occasions we were that we could only have Veuve by the glass...

We had this happen in a MDR on Epic last year. By the second glass they just left the bottle.

We really enjoyed the Buenos Aires to Santiago itinerary.

I am on Spirit Jan 27 and we have 23 shore excursions for 8 ports with zero excursions for at least 2 ports. I'm booking and planning stuff on my own.

13 hours ago, kdawg954 said:

 

Was speaking more about the FAS+.  Is that what you upgraded?  Or was it just the Premium Plus beverage Package?

 

I also did the Premium Plus upgrade onboard the Epic last December (excellent decision by us).

FAS+ wasn't in play yet at that time. We upgraded the regular beverage package to Premium Plus.

19 hours ago, kdawg954 said:

 

The only negative for FAS+ is I haven't been able to verify it I can book onboard or not. 

We upgraded the first day on board Epic last December. The only hassle was having to wait in line to get our cards reprinted to show the upgrade.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/traveler/none/panama

I received an email from NCL (subject line - "Air Confirmation for Reservation #xxxxxxxx, NCL [ship name], [insert cruise dates]") with the itinerary and confirmation numbers. Received on 11/24/22 for ship departure 1/27/23. These are international flights.

1 hour ago, Always Cruising said:

I called NCL Latitudes IT today, and was told to log out of NCL.com, chose a new password and log back in.  It worked!  Who knows what gremlins messed up my account before?!?

Sadly, this did not work for me. Now I can't log in at all. Telling me my username or password are incorrect. 😒

Updating to add that they also had to reset my username.

4 hours ago, Always Cruising said:

Somehow, my 4 cruises disappeared this am.  When I put in res numbers under "find your cruise" - they pop up, but my account shows "no cruises booked"   A mystery!

 

I have the same issue. My reservation disappeared a couple of days ago but I can look it up with the reservation number.

2 hours ago, hvbaskey said:

 

We birded a lot on our Auckland to Sydney cruise - key highlights were:

1.  Muriwai Gannet Colony - DIY if you can, don't need a guide.  
2.  Bird the Hauraki Gulf Islands - ferry tickets from Auckland, take the $10 pp guided tour, they are amazing naturalists / birders.   Tiritiri Matangi is predator-free and *amazing*
3.  IF you stop in Wellington, massive open sanctuary - we booked on our own (DIY / Free Shuttle by Sanctuary) and did the guided tour.  The guides are "amazing" and will point out all the local birds and then after your tour, you can stay all day and go back to visit the key areas they pointed out.

Cheers,  Heather

Thank you! We do have a scheduled stop in Wellington. 

I was booked on an August Russian Far East and Wrangell Island tour in 2019, 2020 and 2021. 2019 and 2020 cancelled due to Covid. When they cancelled this last time (due to Ukraine), the Resolution was shifted to a Ring of Fire Alaska/Japan itinerary. I was told there would be no tours going to Russia for the foreseeable future. I wasn't interested in the new itinerary and requested a refund, which I did receive.

Thought I would resurrect this topic as I'm currently researching guides for day tours on my Jan/Feb Auckland to Sydney cruise.

Was nice to see Binkie's name come up as I booked him for the day last December when in St Maarten. He's still birding and guiding strong. We had a great day which included a few lifers.

On 3/7/2022 at 3:21 PM, brngckn said:

Guess we have to wait out their decision processes. 

Updating to say that my Lindblad Russia trip was officially cancelled this week. I called to request a refund as none of the replacement options were of interest. I will have a check in 4-6 weeks. Hoping you also achieve a successful resolution with Ponant.

2 hours ago, gogo65 said:

It’s frustrating isn’t it.

We have flights booked (which could be cancelled/changed), and have looked at other options.

Similar to your cruise, there really is no option to just exchange a port or two.

Ponant haven’t even published a vague statement. 
When is your cruise?

Very frustrating indeed. We were supposed to depart 8/7/22. Aside from departure/arrival in Nome, our cruise was pretty much all in Russia. Guess we have to wait out their decision processes. 

16 hours ago, gogo65 said:

So a little frustrated,

seems that all major cruise lines have responded to the Ukraine crisis, and provided details on their plans but nothing from Ponant.

I have a pending post that hasn’t been approved on the book of faces…

Has anyone heard Ponant’s stance on cruises to Russia?

Lindblad is also leaving guests hanging. I've been trying to take a Russian Far East trip since 2020. They posted a vague (we're aware and looking into things) message on 2/24 and nothing since.