v3cruiser

Are there limits to quantity of appetizers one can order with purchased dining package vs 2 meals awarded to platinum and above?

We have a cruise on the NCL Epic nov 2025 that starts in israel and ends in rome. We are going to hold. not too many itineraries that stop in italy, greece, turkey. Hope peace is reached soon.

Im keeping an eye out for airfare for our alaskan cruise next year and prices have stayed the same if not gone up a bit even though when I look at available seats no seats have been sold. How many days out have you bought your airfare? Any airlines offer price protection? Is there a sweet spot to buy? Thanks!

Just did an Iceland Greenland cruise earlier in the year. If you are able to do and or tender in the ports of call it should be amazing. There were a lot of missed stops this past year particularly around Greenland. For the most part the excursions are as much if not more than an Alaskan cruise and there are fewer to choose from as well. Iceland is amazing, glad Iwe were able to go there three days early and explore on our own before getting on ship. Iceland has SO much to see. The weather up around Iceland Greenland while at sea is pretty cold and at least from my experience there wasn't much time hanging around outside as it was cold,windy, rainy foggy all at once or a combination. So you may be inside the ship a lot more than you are used to and from my experience on the star, its just not made for all the passengers to be inside all the time. We are doing Alaska next year and really looking forward to it. Doing a one way from Alaska to vancouver and flying into Alaska four days early to see glaciers and explore. Both itineraries are a must see with expenses being about the same including car rentals, airfare costs, just more risk of canceled ports and colder weather with Greenland/Iceland cruise. I'm thinking the Alaska weather will be a bit more tame.

Love carnival but NCL has the itineraries and overall package (drinks, air, excurson. credit) we are looking for now. The NCL drink package is a no brainer. Would love to get on a carnival ship again though. My parents were on the Celebration and really liked all the shows, food, and ship in general. Love how carnival has so many food options during the day-guys burgers, blue iguana, BBQ,seafood shack, fried chicken and even there own beer. Really miss those on NCL but last three cruises on ncl were on their smaller ships, star and jewel. I think ncl going wrong direction with all these go cart tracks taking up all that space on top of their newer ships.

I called NCL today and they confirmed the time as well as we would still be docking. I've just got off a ncl cruise earlier in year where tender ports went from 1 to 4. They said it was just a miscommunication and the website was slow to update. Lol. so it's going to take me awhile to build that trust back up in what NCL is telling me.

thanks for pic! we have to get from the ship to basically where the sheraton hotel(in yellow)is to get to our tour.

SORRY!! The coffee boost hadnt kicked in yet. I am referring to the Stop in JUNEAU.

We are doing Alaska next year on the Jewel one way seward to vancouver. Did you have to tender or where you able to dock? My ncl documents show dock but ncl's website when doing a mock booking shows it as a tender port now. Im just curious. I am considering a non ncl tour and if we tender we may not be able to get to our tour meeting point in time and we will look at other tours. Below is ship schedule from the CLA of alaska whom Im hoping can give me more info. Thanks in advance. JNU NORWEGIAN JEWEL 07:00 - 20:00 JNU SOLSTICE 08:00 - 17:00 JNU NOORDAM 13:00 - 22:00 JNU RUBY PRINCE 13:00 - 22:00

My parents have done NCL 1st time and princess twice after that including a land and sea trip with princess at one of their resorts in denali and were very satisfied and recommend princess. We are doing NCL next year and looking forward to it. I hear lots of good things about princess.

We enjoyed the epic and got to sail on her i think within the first year of her starting to sail. At that time it had circus o le and blue man group. We met Sheehan in Osheehans after we boarded. There was so much to do and places to eat we didnt get to experience it all but looking forward to getting back on her in 2025 after her drydock. We also enjoyed the bars back then and they actually had unique drink menus for each bar. They also carried a lot of foreign beer at the time which was cool. We also like the manhattan room for dining and the h2o club at the back was great for evening shows and hanging out. The ONLY thing i can suggest is to make sure you get a bed close to the balcony. We got a room with bed closer to entry door/ shower and it made getting ready in the evenings a bit complicated.

Thanks for replies! Yes it is through Allen Marine. I think we can uber. lyft, or shuttle to tour meeting point. Those pictures are stunning!

We are considering doing a Tracy arm fjord tour when we stop in Juneau. Our ship is in port from 7am to 8pm and the fjord tour is from 9am to 4 pm. The fjord tour is round trip from Juneau. Has anyone done this tour while stopped in Juneau? Will we regret not hanging out in Juneau that day and seeing Mendenhall glacier? Are there any shuttles/taxis from town to the AJ dock?(I think we will dock there since we are cruising with NCL and its about 1.5 mile walk from ship to meeting point for tour). Thanks!

We have enjoyed sailing in those rooms and their closeness to osheehans as well as promenade one deck below. I think it depends on cruise what tenders they use. On our first star cruise we had a tender port in cabo and the used the tenders right outside our room which was early but we were set to tender at 730 am anyway. On the last cruise we took, they used the tenders at the aft of the ship. We booked a sideways room on the jewel and liked it better. The room felt larger even though i think we had a little less storage.

We have not done alaska yet but are doing the trip on the ncl jewel from seward to vancouver. it looks like we have a lot more time in port with a one way cruise. We browsed other ncl cruises but port times were short and the stop in victoria and sea day before seemed like waisted days.

I've used promo and was very happy. Probably won't ever use it to fly domestically in the 48.

We are doing the Seward to Vancouver on Jewel next year. Liked the amount of time in port, the cruise inside passage as well. I've second guess myself a few times wanting to change to more convenient Seattle round trip itinerary but keeping what I chose. we may be flying into Seward three days early to explore. We've sailed the jewel.earlier this year and were very happy. Hopefully same captain and crew are on it next year but I doubt it. The captain on the jewel was a prior c suite exec at Star cruises which bought a ncl back in 2000. That ship was in great shape.

The dec itinerary for sure. Not much difference in weather from nov to dec. dec may be a little drier. we did a cruise in nov east to west and weather was perfect. We later cruised in feb, west to east, weather was great but you can tell it was dry season from so much haze, pollution in the air. Dec itinerary you will approach from the east and its quite dramatic going up the first three locks bow first as you really rise up and into the lake. We have been to mazaltan and really enjoyed the town. You can always do a brewery tour at pacifico, go to the beach. lots to do. We paid a taxi to drive us around the old city and old part of town where which was under major renovation at the time(2019). Acapulco was nice as well. we cruised around the bay, saw the cliff divers, and later hung out in town as there is a nice church and huge market down from pier. Disappointed that niether itinerary has nicaragua on it but that seems to be the current trend.

I keep hearing about these pier upgrades in Isafjorder. Was just there. Where exactly is the work being done to expand the pier? I saw no evidence of this claim. Great small town though.

Once again, I incorrectly confused the mdr being open later in the morning on past cruises with a brunch. My last three cruises were on Star, Jewel, Star.

Maybe thats what it was. never had a brunch per say. perhaps breakfast was open later on prior cruises than the recent cruise i was on. breakfast was only available till 9am in comparison to past cruises where it has been open later till 10 or 11 in the main dining room.

I guess im behind the times and not always following the boards here but I guess NCL no longer offers sea day brunches anymore? There were none offered on our last cruise.

I'm in same boat. I've been hearing so many good things of other brands I'm no longer expecting to book with ncl after our cruises are done in 2025. It's not what it used to be and I do not blame the staff at all....the workers on the ship are great, leadership and direction at ncl are not great and quality was so much better when it wasn't free everywhere.

Best of luck choosing the ship. Getting off the Star tomorrow from our Iceland Greenland cruise. We found out early on 4 not 1 of our 6 ports were tender ports. No big deal here buttttt, with tendering there is more risk of port cancellation and that's what happened to us. 1 Iceland stop cancelled and 2 of 3 Greenland stops canceled. We arrived back in Reykjavic 1 day early as an overnight port stop. Djupivigor cancelled due to wind and Nuuk and paamuit were canceled due to "bad weather". Then as an alternative we were going to sail through prince christian sound then stop in qaqortoq but that got cancelled due to large ice belts blocking ports including blocking us in for a bit the next morning after our first Greenland stop. I wish I was on a bigger ship. With these cancelations and more sea days the prima would have been better. I just don't know if it could have even tendered at all. Can't wait to get home. Music onboard was mostly slow acoustical and slow. Not the greatest for foggy cold rainy days at sea when you can go outside. food I'm sad to say was average at best, not like it used to be. Found out there is no sea day brunch anymore either. Iceland and our one stop in Nanortalik Greenland was amazing but at least coming from where I come from I should not have taken this cruise as it was above average costs as well as above average air to get to Iceland and back with a risky itinerary that NCL was not honest on from the get go by advertising it as a one tender out of six port cruise.

Totally agree and my parents too. Cruises win every time.