C-line

I can't remember the last M&G that I went to where they actually stuck around. I vaguely remember one where they did answer questions, but it hasn't happened lately. They usually do their introductions and then leave.

Edited - I hit "post" too soon. It is impressive that the officers make an appearance. It's very nice to be able to put a face to a name and to recognize them around the ship throughout the cruise. :)

That's fantastic - thanks to those of you who replied that the vests aren't required anymore. I've only worn once once and I didn't much care for it. :)

Is Moderno for lunch the same price as for dinner?

Usually they have a themed buffet for lunch on sea days (Mexican, German, etc), and it's complimentary. :)

edit - I jumped the gun and replied to your post before reading the previous one, sorry! The lunch at Moderno isn't the same style as the dinner - they just use the restaurant.

Don't forget the vest. My first time I was unaware of the requirement to have a buoyancy vest, and was unable to snorkel unless I plunked down to the money to rent.

Do you remember how much it was just for the vest? Bringing our own gear but we don't have vests.

I believe they did karaoke in Fat Cats on the Breakaway, but I don't have any dailies right here to tell you any more than that.

When do you sail? You can normally make them ahead of time, but if there's no tables for 2 left online you can do it as soon as you get on the ship. They only open up some of the dining reservations for online booking and hold the rest back to book onboard. You can either do it at the reservations desk beside guest services, on one of the touch screens, or by using the NCL iConcierge app. You may be able to do it on the app from the terminal before you even board.

I meant to clarify in my post - both DH and his father have beards. They had more of a beard trim than a shave, but they shaved enough to clean up the beards. They also mentioned that the loved the hot towel. :)

DH and his father have each had the shave and haircut on board more than once. They're definitely not "spa kinda guys" but they enjoyed it. I've had my hair cut and coloured a couple of times and DH wants me to do it again on our upcoming cruise. I was resisting it because we're travelling as a group and I don't want to feel trapped in the salon while everyone else is having fun. :D I may have to go because I desperately need a haircut and I don't seem to ever make time to get it done on shore.

The only real grumble we had was the lack of a lounge that wasn'tattached to a bar.First thing in themorning it would be pleasant enough to sit and read, but as the day wore on itgot quite noisy.A quiet space woulddefinitely improve the ship.

Would evenbe prepared to do another NCL cruise!!!

Glad you had a good time! :) The Breakaway does have a library with comfy chairs. It's easy to miss - it's tucked in on the starboard side of the ship between the Atrium and the Spiegel Tent. There's also a games room next door.

Our only bad neighbours were on a 14 day last winter. Lots of fighting, on the balcony and inside. I went out by myself one night to watch some live music and when I came back to the cabin security was outside their door. Apparently there had been a really loud late night fight. We heard them more than we saw them. Didn't ruin the cruise for us, but it didn't seem like they were enjoying themselves.

We've had some families with loud kids beside us, and kids making noise in the hall outside the cabin but I haven't been upset. It's nice to see the kids excited about being on vacation :)

NCL Dawn last September, Canada/NE. Same brother and sister in law next door to us, and next door to THEM was a couple we started calling "the bickering Bickersons"...

:') I forgot that my inlaws were calling *us* the Bickersons on our last cruise. Your post reminded of it and I finally looked them up. Some of their stuff is on Spotify so I'll be downloading it for our road trip to the Breakaway next week! (And we weren't as bad as your brother's neighbours!)

But c line said they upgraded for the same price as they purchased the balcony for so I'm assuming it wasn't via the auction as you would have to pay something.....min $500pp

It was a couple of months ago, before they started with the auctions, but it was far enough out from sailing that the auction wouldn't have been going on yet anyway. After we book a cruise I keep a close eye on the prices. The prices dropped enough that a spa balcony was the same price we had paid for our regular balcony. I called NCL (we always book direct) and we were able to switch to the spa balcony for no charge.

You don't book on board, you purchase a Future Cruise Certificate which normally applies to a full deposit when booking. You might get lucky and book via the slow internet for free on the NCL USA website. IF that is something you want to do.

I'm not sure if you mean they can't book on board because they're from the UK, but we're from Canada and we've booked on board. We didn't have to use the internet - the CruiseNext staff was able to book it for us. The advantage to booking on board (at that time, a year ago) was that we could book something with the current promotions and before final payment was due we could switch to a different ship and keep the current promotion even if it wasn't available at the time we switched. They said we couldn't just price shop the cruise we originally booked, we had to change it to something different. It worked out well for us.

Can't answer the original question though, because I don't know anything about how the UK T&Cs work.

Everything has always been at least "ok" - usually it's way better than ok! :)

I try not to let things upset me on vacation.

Lines are a little long? Beats a day in the snow. Service at the restaurant is a little slow? Better than cooking and cleaning at home. Bartenders are busy? It's not the end of the world. Other passengers are rude? Unless they're staying in my cabin I don't have to put up with them for long!

We were on the Breakaway for the first half of January and I remember that any crew members we encountered were fantastic. If any of them weren't it couldn't have been too bad because I don't remember any unpleasant interactions worth mentioning. :)

Log into myncl and go to the section where you can purchase gifts. Look for on board credit and see what they are charging you for, say, $10. Divide one by the other to get the exchange rate.

I forgot to explain this key piece of information. Thanks Keith!

Do they have the pizza making and/or cupcake decorating activities on Escape? My kids (8 & 6) would love both of those.

We did the classes on the Breakaway. I saw pizza making mentioned in the dailies but didn't pay much attention. If you can find some dailies from the Escape from a similar itinerary to yours you should see it listed. Even easier, hopefully someone who knows will answer your question.

Thanks for this information .i am also a first time cruiser from the UK. I didn't even consider exchange rates .do I check £ to dollars or euros? I'm booked on ncl European tour starting in Venice .thanks in advance

I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your question because we only have to deal with Canadian and US dollars. Hopefully someone will be able to chime in and help you out. :) Maybe even search for a previous post or start a new one because you'll reach a larger audience than in this thread.

Oops just realized I misspoke: we had a spa mini suite, not a spa balcony. So that's why we had the fancy shower with all the body jets and rainfall shower head. It was quite huge. My bad!

I saw a mini suite on our cabin crawl - the shower was huge compared to the regular showers and the bathroom in general was quite nice! :)

There's a pizza making class for an additional fee, but I think it may be geared toward younger children. Also, there's cupcake decorating. Again, this might be more for the little ones.

My mother in law and I did the cupcake decorating. It's geared more towards kids. We realized this when we were trying to put our aprons on and they were child sized. :') They did find a couple of adult sized aprons for us and we had a blast. It didn't stop us from doing the cake decorating (again geared towards the younger set) later on in the week. ;p

I know you didn't ask this, but I'm going to throw it out there anyway.

If you booked in Canadian dollars you have an exchange rate that was set with NCL when you booked and this stays locked in until you sail. Keep an eye on the current exchange rate. When you get close to sailing if it seems the exchange rate is the same or worse for the Canadian dollar than what you have with NCL you might want to consider prepaying your daily service charge and buying some onboard credit. (I think there's a limit to the onboard credit you can purchase - $1000 per cabin maybe?) If the exchange rate has improved for the Canadian dollar don't prepay. Your bill at the end of the cruise will be charged to your Canadian credit card in USD. Of course you need to take into account any fee your credit card company may tack on for a charge in USD.

It's just something to keep in mind. We're sailing next weekend and I just prepaid our daily service charges because the exchange rate is slightly worse now than it was when we booked, and it's also nice not to have the charges on the onboard account every day. The change in the exchange rate wasn't enough to prompt us to purchase onboard credit though.

Spa balcony is very nice as it's close to spa and thermal suite is included and your bathroom will be nicer.

I don't want to be negative but I have to speak up to prevent anyone being disappointed.

The only difference between a normal balcony and a spa balcony is that all the spa balconies are close to the spa, the spa pass is included, and they have some nicer toiletries in the bathroom in small bottles (lotion, shampoo, and conditioner) along with the regular dispenser in the shower. The wood colours are a bit different too and the little coloured thing that goes across the foot of the bed is a different colour. Everything else is the same. The bathroom is the same size. No tub or fancy shower or anything.

If you step up to a Haven Spa Suite it's nicer, but it comes with a bigger price tag too.

We've been on the Breakaway a few times and always stayed in a regular balcony until January 2017 when we stayed in a spa balcony because the price dropped enough after we booked that the regular balcony was the same price as the spa balcony and we were able to upgrade for free.

Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Sierra Mist, Mt. Dew, Ginger Ale, Tonic water, Club Soda are available at the bars/restaurants.

 

 

They also have Diet Sierra Mist.

Very glad to hear that you had a great time! We are set to cruise next month.

 

Can you tell me if all three complimentary dining rooms have white table cloths? I think I saw from photos that buffet tables do not have table cloths. Reason I am asking is that I plan to bring disposable table covers for my baby to eat finger foods but it needs to stick to bare table and will not work on table cloth.

 

And do we need to pack beach towels? If not, is it easy to exchange dirty towels for clean ones?

It doesn't look like anyone ever answered your questions.

The main dining rooms all have table cloths. O'Sheehans (also complimentary) and the buffet do not.

You don't need to pack beach towels. There will be beach towels in your cabin and there's a towel exchange near the pool. On our last cruise they were also set up outside the ship at each port of call so you could exchange your dirty towel for a clean one on the way back on board. If you leave a dirty towel with your dirty bath towels in the cabin your cabin steward will exchange it for a new one.

I see your post now from when you subscribed - I didn't notice it earlier when I posted that. We have a M&G planned if you're interested in joining us (if so just speak up in the roll call and let us know).