darkNstormy14

Unfortunately, I can one-up this story.   

On top of the many bad/unfortunate things that happened on the Thanksgiving Wonder of the Seas cruise, on night 7 I ordered the "Fish and Chips" at the MDR to share with my wife.  The menu describes the Fish and Chips as cod (actually, I can't remember cod or halibut, but that's not relevant) and no mention of any other type of fish/shellfish. 

I cut into the first piece, very tasty, flaky white fish.  Going to grab another piece, I notice it has a green/red tint coming thru the batter.  I cut it open and its.... a fried lobster tail - reclaimed from night 6.  In addition, there were also battered shrimp in the basket. 

My wife has a shellfish allergy that she disclosed on Night 1, but our server never re-iterated the allergy.  Contrast that with NCL and Celebrity which (almost annoyingly) clarified allergies every single night (and that's with different servers every night too).  Granted I was the one who ordered the dish and not her, but I did mention we we're sharing it. 

Our waiter sends the head waiter over and he says that the menu says it includes shellfish.  I asked to see the menu which confirmed that shellfish is not mentioned, nor is any mention of "assorted" mentioned.  They really didn't offer anything to us.  We were more concerned that they are serving heavily battered (i.e. disguised) shellfish on a Fish and Chips item where folks with allergies might order/eat it and have to get dropped off to another island and delay the cruise for 6k people, like what happened to us. 

Well my drink package just got more economical…

On 9/14/2021 at 7:33 PM, AKR2011 said:

We went to Bar City, and Tony was down there asking for the Jameson that I owed him. I went to get a double shot and ended up chatting with a couple at the bar for probably half an hour. They're on CC too, and we shared our love of NCL cruises. They told me about a shot that I just had to order, so I brought the whiskey over to Tony and returned to grab these shots for myself and Alex. Presenting Alien Brain Hemorrhage shots:

It was great to meet you Ashley - glad you got to have those shots!

Just hopped off the Gem.  The Effy store on board did 60% off on the last sea day.  Smaller known fact is you can actually make an offer lower than the offered price - I am told they usually approve a total discount of about ~67%.  The pieces they put out for the 60% off sale were different from what was in the cases all week (past seasons/years), so its a bit of a risk (compared with skipping the port shopping), but we loved the sale pieces more than anything we saw all week, so it worked out well for us. 

Just got off this itinerary on the Gem today (sad face).  We docked, not tendered, at all of the ports. 

Here's a basic overview of what we experienced: 

Roatan - relatively short pier!  I think they demolished the old one. 

Harvest Caye - The covered pier was mostly useless in the morning due to the position of the sun and the pier is pretty long.  We used the free golf carts trolly.

Costa Maya - Longer dock with free trolly. If another ship is in port with you (Independence of the Seas backed up into our balcony view), then everyone can use the same trolly.  

Cozumel - L shaped dock.  Did not need/notice any trollies because we hopped the ferry to the mainland which is halfway down the 2nd half of the L. 

10 minutes ago, ColeThornton said:

 

 

Can my family or friends sailing with me redeem the benefit too?

 

This exclusive benefit is only available for the stateroom in which the shareholder (with a minimum of 100 shares) is sailing. Onboard credit is applied on a per stateroom basis, double occupancy. Only one shareholder credit per stateroom/suite on any one sailing. if you are requesting shareholder onboard credit for two or more separate staterooms/suites and shares are held jointly, a minimum of 100 shares per stateroom/suite booked must be held. Singles paying 200% are entitled to full onboard credit value

 

http://www.nclhltdinvestor.com/static-files/23c8691e-2da7-4595-b132-a6ad137cf7f6

😞 Thanks @ColeThornton I didn't read the fine print.  In the new era, maybe they will honor a request to apply two credits.  ::fingers crossed::  ::fingers crossed that we can all cruise again too::

I finally bought yesterday at 7.79.   I spent more at the art auction a couple weeks ago on the Bliss... 😂 

If it goes below $7, my wife will buy as well to double up on the OBC (assuming NCL still offers it).

Yes.

Latitudes bonus minutes have to be added manually at the internet desk which I visited on around day 3.

Just off the Bliss today and I often made DIY warm beverages. Other than the Irish Coffee in the Local there is not a warm beverage menu, as you'd expect to find in a ski lodge. I ordered a hot toddy from the Observation Lounge and the bartender brought hot water from the DIY coffee station to the bar. After that I mostly ordered a double amaretto or Bailey's and poured in my coffee. The OL is a great set up for getting your own coffee/hot water and heading to the bar, since not all bars are equipped with coffee.

Observation lounge is breathtaking

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Great post. Really appreciate the medicine bag section. I screenshotted it for my cruise to Alaska in three weeks.

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On the Norwegian instagram story it looks like both Guy Harvey and Wyland are on board... it’s 5:00 somewhere!

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In 2013, I called to get a price adjustment prior to final payment, and the price adjustment was honored. Two weeks ago I called for the price adjustment treatment only to find out 1) they "don't do that anymore" and 2) definitely not after final payment. I didn't specifically ask for OBC and it wasn't offered.

Sidenote - We had initially booked a sailaway rate, and a week after my call I noticed that the next step up cabin with FAS was $100 more than what I initially paid (when I booked it was $200+ more), so that made it an easy decision to upgrade and get the UBP.

Went to visit the Bliss today as she visited my hometown this weekend.

Hard to get Bliss and Gem in the same shot from my vantage but Gem is peeking through in one of the pics. Of course Bliss dwarfs her. [emoji5]

See you again on June 2!

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Check the times on both excursions. You may be able to do both. From what I understand the Fjord excursion boat leaves just before Bliss leaves port and the two link back up some hours later. I am told that the Fjord excursion is basically an up close experience of what the ship does. There are posts on CC about it.

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Interested to know more about those DBH growlers. Are they just for decor? Can you buy one and have it filled up for a discount price next time? BYO growler for growler pricing?

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So if you download the app and pay the $7.99 then you can use your cell phone to call home back to the states and it will only be $.79 a minute? This would be awesome as we will have a teenager home and we will need to check in.

That is correct. I never experienced having someone from ashore call me though. I beleive there is a unique # as well.

I am just back from an amazing week on the Breakaway. I traveled with a group of 18 and was eagerly anticipating using iConcierge to keep in contact with the group regarding excursions, dinner plans, and the general "where are you?" throughout the day. We also used it to communicate with new friends we made on board.

Once up and running, the app worked well, however the texting portion of the app is very difficult to initially set up. IMHO, NCL should have spent more money on a developer to make the app sleeker and more user friendly. Aside from your cabin mate, you will need to add any other contacts manually by entering in their "number." I initially incorrectly assumed that this meant their normal telephone number (assumed the app pulled it once logged in), however it is a unique number that is listed on your "contacts" page. Each person's phone # will be "77" followed by their cabin #, followed by a "01, 02" etc for each person in the room. For example, my phone number was 77912401. Once we figured this out it was just a matter of adding everyone as a contact.

While the texting worked well, I could not hear on the "pax to pax" phone service thru the app. However, you an also use the phone feature to directly dial a stateroom. We also used it to get in touch with our excursion people because the weather looked grim. To call ashore, it is $0.79 per minute rather than $4.99 per minute on the cabin phone.

While I mainly used the app for texting, it also has the freestyle daily (learned that on the last day).

Also, we all had difficulty connecting to the ship wifi after coming back onto the ship each day. My phone said I was on the wifi, but the iconcierge app said I was not. I toggled the wifi on and off to no avail. This made it hard to communicate with people to even let them know the app was down. I called to complain/inquire and I was told if it was still down in an hour they would refund me. In about an hour, the app clicked back to life - no refund. I was much happier to have it working!

All said and done, and despite the crappy design, I found the $7.99 fee to be extremely worth it. I probably would have paid triple for the convenience.

As for the much discussed new data plans, I was extremely disappointed, not in the quality of the connection, but in NCL's failure to give explicit instructions on how to not have the data be eaten up within minutes on a smartphone. My best advice would be that if you will need or want to be on the internet, bring a laptop and do not log into internet on your phone. If you are using any smartphone, the usage will get eaten up before you even got to read 2 emails. The data package flyer lists the amount of emails you can read and pages you can load with the certain amounts of MBs. With a smartphone, this is simply not the case. If you will have a smartphone only, go to the iConcierge tech desk BEFORE purchasing the package to have her set up your phone to make sure it uses the least amount of data on background stuff. I felt that I did do everything necessary to turn off background apps, but I guess not.

On another note, we noticed that you can access ncl.com for free, if you need to get your internet surfing in. :)

Finally, I'll leave you with a few other tips I picked up...

As a theatre minor in college, I especially enjoyed Second City, but had only made 1 reservation for the entire trip, and they had multiple shows every other night. First off, it is imperative to be 20 minutes early. The first show we saw was standing room only despite the fact that we had a reservation booked. While everyone else is in the "standby" line, you can easily sneak in a back door. There is a hallway with bathrooms behind the entrance to Headliners. You can easily go in that backdoor, there would be no way of knowing. NCL don't hate me!

I don't condone this and I did prepay before the cruise, but I found that you could probably sneak into Cirque as well if you darted in with a sense of urgency as if your party was already seated. While on the topic of Cirque, the show was worth $40, but I felt that the meal was the worst of the entire 7 days. If you are a foodie, the money would be better spent at Ocean Blue (rave reviews from my mom).

Ropes course was absolutely amazing. I did it twice. The camera on the plank is broken and probably not getting fixed. I was in line before it opened and got a great picture from the beginning of the course that the "zip line" photographer would not have taken if I wasn't about the 10th person in line. Also, don't rush off the ropes course if you are enjoying it.

I did not feel that the time spent waiting for the rock wall was worth it. To preface, I got shut down from the rock wall 5 times before I actually was able to do it on the last day. Make sure you get there prior to 15 minutes before the scheduled closing time, are not wet, and have socks. I did that and was finished with my climb one hour later. And that was with being in the beginning of the line. Also the belayers really have no sense of urgency in getting everything set up. I was very disappointed in that, as they know the enormous lines on sea days and that the wall is only open 2 or 3 hours per day.

For both ropes course and rock wall, your time will be well spent if you get to them 20 minutes before they are scheduled to open. Same thing with water slides. We waited long for the free fall, only to get up there and learn that it was "broken."

The ship has so much to do. You simply cannot do it all. We never went to Ice Bar, never saw the jazz musician at fat cats, barely strolled the waterfront, only ate at 1 specialty (Moderno), never went to the atrium games/activities, did not see burn the floor. If you want to spend money on all of the extras, you can. But if you are put off by spending additional money on extra activities, I believe you can pull off a low bill if you eat in Manhattan room every night, see the free shows, do the outdoor activities, etc and not feel that you missed out on anything that was a paid activity. That being said, I had the UBP and was in the bars often (Maltings & Shakers waterfront). On that note, I would never do the UBP again. Its completely unrealistic to drink the requiste drinks and be "well" enough to have the desire to drink your money's worth again the next (six) days. Not to mention port days etc...

For the beer drinkers, Brooklyn Lager is available on draft ONLY at the Uptown Grill. I would have liked to see my hometown beer available at more than one bar (which was only open during the day). Good thing Uptown had the best lunch food anyway!

Last but not least, if you would like to mingle with the Rock of Ages cast and second city cast, they will likely be at the pirate ship bar after 2AM (pax area crew curfew) on one or both port nights. We had a great time with them!

While we did hit some snags (standing room only in Headliners, horrible service in Savor, waiting times for slides/rock/ropes, napping through lunch buffet hours) these were all incredibly minor in comparison with the trip.

I LOVED the Breakaway and could do the same itinerary three more times and have completely different experiences each time.

The show is well worth $40, especially if you like carnival/circus acts, and also especially if you have not seen anything like this recently. We saw Pippin on broadway the day before we sailed and several types of acts were repeated, although several were new to me and very cool.

I was slightly dissapointed in that there was no trapeze type acts (I think?), as that is what I was used to from Cirque du Soleil. Nonetheless, the acts were diverse and very interesting.

Do not expect that the $40 cover charge gets you a meal equivalent to Cagneys. I thought that the Cirque dinner was in fact the WORST on the entire ship. I ate in the MDR every night except for Moderno. We too had the pepper problem, although the steak was cooked perfectly. The only good thing about this meal was that when I left I wasn't stuffed!

Two people in my group had the pescatarian option. Salmon instead of steak. It of course still came with shrimp.

There is so much to do on the ship, I don't think missing it would be a huge deal.

Congrats Beachmonkey and Ralph! I have been following your posts the last few months, since we decided in April to get married in August (next week) on the Breakaway.

Our wedding ceremony is going to be the 1st day out at sea and we wll have 20 sailing guests.

We have booked the vow renewal package since it suited our needs and we are getting married at city hall the Friday before we depart.

Following the ceremony we are having a cocktail reception and then dinner in the Manhattan Room.

I've been told that we will be split up between 2-3 tables. Since this is our wedding dinner I wanted my guests to feel as connected as possible. How did your large group dinners work? My plan is to meet with the maitre'd first thing to let him know about our event and request since I am not sure how well the communication is between the groups department and the ship.

For future brides and grooms, when we get back we will post a review with tips as well!