littlelulu01

:cool:Thank You .. we have 5 cabins in that section.. what was your cabin number ?

We were in 10290 I just posted a short review with some pictures. You’ll love the location. Aft elevator banks are less crowded. When using them, take aft elevators to desired deck and then walk forward to location. The layout is excellent for getting from place to place. a quick glance at elevator maps is all that’s needed. Also very little ship movement in our location. Forward had some more movement but we couldn’t really tell we were even sailing.

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In case anyone is interested in the bike/train tour in Skagway. We ended up booking through Ncl. With our latitude discount and no free at sea shore excursion perk it was a few $ more than booking with the company. Worth it to us to pay a couple $ extra and book through ship. If you had shore excursion credit it would have been less than diy. The company was great. They made sure bikes fit everyone and do a check up on everyone at a highway pull out not too far into the ride. They said we’d be going 25 mph but I’m pretty sure we were cruising faster. A little uphill but not too bad. A person of average/not good fitness can do it no problem. It really was a thrill and the fall colors, fresh snow in the mountains, waterfalls and glaciers along the way are truly breathtaking. Here’s a shot from my iPhone looking across at one point where we could see the train going up as we were descending. You go through customs on your bicycles but they didn’t check our passports. We had to show upon entering Canada but not returning. Had them with us just in case.

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And a few more pictures of Alaska. The aft spice h20 area was really nice for glacier viewing. It gave a great scope of how close we were to land on either side.

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The previous picture was from deck 10 balcony looking straight down to water. You can see deck 8 below but it wasn’t an issue. Here’s stateroom 10290.

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Recently returned from Bliss sailing. We had previously sailed Jewel class exclusively. I’ve sailed a variety of categories from inside staterooms on up but husband has only tried the Haven, which was way out of my budget on the Bliss. We bid unsuccessfully for a Haven upgrade.

We ended up really enjoying the Bliss and specialty dining. We purchased spa passes prior to sailing for $249/pp. The Bliss has an extraordinarily streamlined process for getting on and off, booking and changing reservations.. our stateroom attendant was excellent. Specialty venue service was also excellent.

I booked late and got a mini suite sail away rate for a very reasonable price. We were immediately assigned 10290, an accessible mini suite close to aft elevator banks. The accessible ms room we had, while very institutional feeling, gave a welcome addition of square footage. I think next time I’d probably go with a pick your own stateroom and a non accessible. Of note- this mini suite (mx category) is the exact same in size and furnishings as the balcony accessible stateroom next door. The deck plan shows the balcony accessible stateroom as smaller but there’s no difference in balcony or stateroom size compared to the mx mini suite we had.

There’s some other very good reviews of the ship so I won’t go into much detail. Overall we loved it. Found it easy to get around the ship. really enjoyed the Glacier day and our Skagway train to Canada and then 2.5 hour mountain bike ride back to Skagway. Our sailing was 9/22/18. Had pretty good weather except in Juneau.

The extras do add up but we knew that going in. Specialty dinners, spa, race track... all worthwhile to us. We’ve sailed to Alaska several times in the past and also have a daughter working up there so we were not so into the Alaska experience as we were in just having a relaxing easy and relatively inexpensive quick trip.

Here’s some pictures of the stateroom, bike trip, glacier day.

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We were on the Bliss recently. A few doors down from your stateroom on deck 10. Excellent location. Here’s a picture of looking straight down from balcony. We could see deck 8.

I found it! If you go into the main page for the promo (https://www.ncl.com/cruise-deals/air-promotion) then click on any of the destinations, there is a link at the top of each destination page to "View Airfares" for that destination. That will take you to a PDF table of the airfares from various airports.

Good find. Frustrating how you’re surfing around and find some obscure link one time and then search forever and can’t relocate.

How did you find out whether your home airport was free or not? Was it at some stage in the booking process?

It was on a small print link ie click here type of thing. I’d call Ncl and have them check. For the joy the free fares were mostly west coast orgination cities; free from LAX, SFO, PDX, GEG... then listed actual fares from other more distant cities. Add to that the $40 bus transfer pp.

Where is this "Air Gateways tab" they refer to? I can't find it anywhere to find out what the actual reduced airfare for my sailing from my home airport would be.

Here’s link for Hawaii https://www.ncl.com/terms-and-conditions/hawaii-free-sea-optional-airports

I don’t see the air gateways for other sailings but when I was pricing it out I was given a list of gateway cities.

I had free air added for a cruise. If your home airport is one of the “free” cities then it’s actually free. The only catch- you have to use their transfer service to the ship. In our case a $40 round trip bus transfer from airport to cruise port instead of a $7 pp rt airpot lite rail. Can change your mind anytime prior to final payment and opt out of the free air. My cruise confirmation lists AIRPROMO denoting free air.

Sometimes even the best plans don’t work out. Perhaps a cancelled excursion or port due to weather, a strike that messes up transportation.... I try not to have my heart set too much on specific aspects of my vacation.

Even onboard plans can change without notice. Being our first big ship experience and also so much to see in ports, we had a plan to stay onboard and use the spa for our Victoria day on our recent Bliss Alaska sailing. I was so excited to relax the day away. Thermal suite not open for duration of sailing because they were filming a commercial 😢. “Zoolander” as we called him, commandeered the entire thermal suite with his millions of takes for every shot.

If Ncl’s history the past couple years holds true, they’ll likely be increasing everything here pretty soon. They tend to decrease value of perks, increase costs in lumps- bad press off like a bandaid. Then come November they offer up some rarely available and short lived perks. Pick all 5 for any category, dsc or taxes.... to attract new bookings.

The fees on ubp at $20/day really isn’t a deal breaker. Out of pocket non perk ubp at this point is only a good deal for those who can afford a new liver afterwards but $20/day for booze isn’t a bad deal for most on a cruise. Funny how the service fees on the packages at this point have pretty much morphed into just an extra charge. I suspect the bill will soon say something akin to the Jimmy Johns receipt that flat out states delivery fee is not a tip and no portion goes to the delivery person.

I’d rather the option to purchase items like lobster and king crab instead of a free specialty dining pkg with surf and turf that’s steak and shrimp in their finest venues. I hope they don’t decide the majority of customers now think Cagneys is a great burger joint instead of a steak house. The cutbacks I’ve seen since the free at sea offerings to everyone lead me to wonder how far they will go to “save” us thousands off list price before trashing the brand name.

July, 2018 Ncl put out a press release for the Jade new itineraries and said they will be available to book August 6, 2018. Obviously something went wrong. We’re on the last Jade October sailing and they’re now a couple months past due on the subsequent sales. Makes me nervous because I’m going to book airfare with mileage here in a couple weeks. Have to book right when available to get business or first with miles. Hate to get caught up in a redeployment and I hope there’s just minor things they are working out that are causing such a delay. Have not read anything yet about the Jade popping up on any port schedules. Usually someone puts the puzzle together prior to sales starting with port schedule investigation.

We really liked Le Bistro. Hate to admit it but we dined there 4 times last week. We tried something different each visit and the only thing we were not in love with was the lobster bisque. Tasted too day old fishy to us. Otherwise fantastic food and service. We looked at the menu for Ocean Blue and gave it a pass. If you are really into oysters it's probably a great place to try. Check out the menus on Bird Travels review to see if menu is to your liking. BTW Bird Travels - thanks for such an excellent review. We had an excellent vacation and are glad we finally gave NCL bigger ships a try. We were also impressed with La Cucina. I know some people are not fans of the food here but we had great service and the food, while not as good as Cagney's or Le Bistro, was still solid.

No fish tacos on the Bliss Local menu. We found the food and service at Local to be far better than any other included dining option. They do have fish and chips, but I did not get a chance to try them. Food comes out hot, fresh, as ordered, and tasty. Service is great too and if you order something from the bar it's quick delivery. Soda is actually fizzy and not flat. The only downside - it can get a little noisy with the activities in atrium below but it's a fun and festive environment.

I wonder how this will affect speed if so many end up with unlimited. My husband has to work a couple hours a day even on vacation. I got him the premium unlimited on the Bliss. There was no noticeable difference between the speed of the Jade regular unlimited and the Bliss premium unlimited. Bliss premium slowed down to a crawl on sea days with web pages timing out before loading. The Jade regular internet was actually faster on sea days Europe sailing. I’m guessing because less people using it Europe sailing compared to mostly Americans on the Bliss, some of whom don’t have the luxury to unplug on vacation.

Here’s a link to a video of a Bliss accessible balcony stateroom. The mini suite 10290 is the exact same layout and size as the balcony room in this video. The chair our room steward got us fit on the side of bed by balcony. Pretty sure the chair was stored in the supply closet in between the two accessible rooms because steward got it so quickly. The supply closet is used by the two room stewards in that section of the ship. I noticed they’re very considerate not to be talking loud or banging around in there.

I don’t have experience with the POA but if in a suite, my experience has been no issues with any dining last minute change or reservations once onboard with concierge.

I just got off the Bliss. Not in a suite and no sdp because we booked a sail away rate. I thought we’d be fine with our 2 platinum vouchers and included options but after realizing the mdr and buffet wasn’t to our standards, we purchased specialty dining for our remaining nights. It’s more expensive to purchase onboard. $94.80 for three dinner pkg onboard vs about $82 in advance. That is the service charge inclusive price.

With both being big ships sailing Alaska I’d go for the ship itself/price instead of itinerary. The one way sailings have the best itinerary with the true inside passage from Vancouver. If heart set on itinerary and you would be pretty disappointed if you missed glacier or ports, go with a smaller one way and or glacier bay. Alaska weather is unpredictable anytime of year.

I wasn’t expecting much from September 22 sailing and went only because price was right.

We lucked out on the Bliss final sailing of the season. Captain said it was the first time of the year that he was able to get so close to glacier with ideal conditions so he made a business decision to stay longer and delay afternoon arrival in Juneau. I was so appreciative of his decision. I was actually more in awe our glacier morning than I was with Glacier Bay which we’ve done a few times previously. It was comparable to the scene in Kong where they sail to skull island except better because we were sailing along with ice bergs bigger than houses floating directly below us. Ship moved pretty slow but some icebergs hit the ship and you could feel it. Some of The icebergs were so big that they put up a wake bigger than ship’s. The mountains and waterfalls on either side of us was just an incredible sight. Had weather conditions been any different we’d have missed out on this.

I expected dismal weather for our entire sailing due to so late in the season but we really only had one bad weather day (Juneau). Skagway was clear as glass and no wind. Captain said this was a rare occasion too. We did the train to Canada and then 2.5 hour bike ride back to Skagway. Thrilling with a stop for border crossing on our bikes and a few places along the way back to Skagway. Beautiful fall colors and freshly snow capped mountains on a sunny warm day.

The Bliss is a beautiful ship but if I was only doing Alaska one time, I’d sail a smaller ship and one way Vancouver and an itinerary that includes Glacier Bay just because odds you’re going to get to see the impressive Glacier are higher.

littlelulu01, what a small world! In fact, 10290 is our assigned stateroom, so your information is GREATLY appreciated. :cool:

 

It certainly sounds like there are some tradeoffs. However, I think I would definitely appreciate the larger balcony, as well as the convenient location near the aft elevators. Also, thank you for the tip about requesting an extra chair, if needed. We are accustomed to a firm foam mattress, so it's nice to know that mattress toppers are available.

 

We're excited about our vacation, so it's nice to know what to expect in this unusual room.

You’re really going to love the location and the big balcony. Idk if this makes sense but balcony is a true twice the length of regular stateroom. Inside the room however it’s not as big due to the supply closet in between the two accessible staterooms (thus the odd box built around the second slider)

I have tons of pictures but don’t know how to upload. File size is too large.

Previous poster’s suggestion on shower curtain is genius. I counted 10 seconds before the self closing door shuts. If you pull it open just very slightly and only enough for just your body to slink out sideways and very quickly, you can bypass the 10 second stay open rule which can be an excruciating amount of time if someone is walking down hall talking and your partner is fast asleep a few feet away. Slinking out the sideways fast way you can also control the force of door closure so it doesn’t slam shut.

Hi Littlelulu,

 

Can you tell me if you had any issues making reservations for the Go-carts? Did you make them as soon as you were on board or later in the day? I will be sailing on the Bliss in a few weeks and want to be prepared. Thx

We had zero issues but we also didn’t have a ton of teenagers in our sailing. I booked our first ride first night after activities staff twisted my arm. 2nd time we booked a couple days later and also no issues. I’m guessing availability has a lot to do with who’s on sailing. You shouldn’t have any issues if you book first thing upon getting onboard. Idk what boarding process will be like outside Seattle embarkation, but for Seattle it was insanely quick. I’m not exaggerating that it was less than 10 minutes total from sidewalk outside to onboard the ship! If worried just plan on getting to port a little early. The racetrack was definitely worth it for husband and I. Just because we didn’t plan ahead and still got ressies no issues at all doesn’t mean a different sailing will be the same. I heard, second hand so can’t verify, that 4300 passengers onboard our Alaska sailing.

We were just in 10290 on the bliss. A sail away guarantee mini suite. It’s the exact same room as the balcony stateroom next door to it. Not sure why one is labeled as a mini suite and one is classified a balcony because both are identical in every way. The space in between the two rooms is a supply closet roughly the size of a regular stateroom. The deckplan shows the balcony as smaller than the mini suite which isn’t accurate. Both rooms are the same size and roughly 1.5 of a regular stateroom with each balcony being twice the size of a regular balcony.

No noise issues. Very quiet hallway and zero ship movement. I honestly couldn’t tell we were at sea there was so little movement. An occasional slight vibration as ship was docking. We had one sea day and folks lower decks and forward location were really complaining about not sleeping well due to ship movement. We didn’t feel a thing.

The big upside is the location. It’s an excellent location close to aft elevators and spa. Also great for anything forward. Just take the aft elevators to the deck you want and then proceed forward. Very minimal aft elevator wAit. If you prefer the stairs, lots of dining venues are just up or down a few flights.

Yes there’s more space in the room but it’s not functional extra space unless you’re in need of handicap.

The balcony is very large and for warm weather you could ask steward for extra deck chairs or a lounger.

There’s only one armless chair in room. We asked for a chair and steward had us a comfortable chair within a minute so I assume they keep one on hand because even if you were handicapped I would think you would want a place to sit other than a foot stool.

I wasn’t too impressed with the decor of the room. It’s big and institutional. Counters are narrow so no real function. Blank walls. From the outside it looks as if the room has two sliding doors however one is actually boxed in with fake wood paneling so from the inside it’s just a blank wall box.

I’d have preferred a regular mini suite but price and the room location made up for the cold institutional feeling of the room. You can’t change assignment on the sail Away rate. I asked and was told no. I suppose they could change it for you if someone needs at the last moment but it’s unlikely.

The bed is awesome. It feels really hard but it provides an excellent sleep. It’s two twin beds put together. You could ask for a foam topper but we didn’t need one. Crazy amount of storage. Which is overkill for most travelers. Three outlets on the desk and one outlet on wall behind door. Only way to open stateroom door is automatically. The sliding door to balcony was terribly noisy. I put some coconut oil in the track and fixed the issue because the screeching noise was enough to drive me mad the first night when I was sleeping and husband went out to balcony.

One other quirk. If someone rings the doorbell or calls the room strobe lights come on In case you’re deaf. I was asleep at 10:30 pm and all of a sudden I hear the doorbell ringing and awoke to the crazy strobe light show. I was panicked thinking it was some sort of emergency evacuation or a fire. It was room service delivery of the chocolate strawberry latitude perk.

They really went out of their way to make sure the room was bare bones appearance and functionality but once I got over that, I really enjoyed the room.

hm.. the day pass is $30.

to come out ahead, i need at least 4 rides. :o

would you do 4+ rides on a sea day?

I probably wouldn’t. But I’m a 50 year old woman. Just depends on what else you have going on. In hindsight I’d definitely have purchased for husband over the $56 arcade pkg I got him that he didn’t get his use out of. We had spa passes too. They have so many things going on around the ship that our two sea days went really fast. I had anticipated getting to the spa a couple times a day but that didn’t really work out either. $30 seems pretty inexpensive compared to everything else onboard tempting you to part with cash. We spent considerably more on extras than we did for our basic fare. Guess it depends on budget.

thx!

 

did they offer the all day pass on your cruise? if so, how much?

how does that work with lines? do you cut in front of everyone?

Sorry. I didn’t check into a pass and was not even going to bother with trying them. It initially sounded like a kind of lame ship novelty. First night one of the activities staff was up on deck and started chatting with us. He had a laptop and pretty much talked us into trying it out. Told us he was positive we wouldn’t regret it and they wouldn’t charge for no shows. We had a blast. The subsequent time we tried them we booked on one of the screens by elevators just before we went. They did have signage for Haven guests (we were not in Haven) but when we showed up we pretty much followed some posted arrows and signs and then you are checked in, put in your group, and watch a little video then loaded into the cars. They didn’t have any lines or wait time so I’m guessing it’s easy to just show up and take a spot from a no show? It all goes pretty fast, if it was any quicker you wouldn’t have a chance to watch the video about the rules. To see about a pass find an activity staff? The one who signed us up for first session was sitting in a corner by the stairwell to deck 19 vibe. He was on port side of deck 17? If anything he’d know about a pass.

i will be on the Bliss next week.

 

First reports of the go karts were long waits even though there are reservation times.

 

How long is the wait now to actually get on the track if you get on line at your appointed reservation time?

Just got off the Bliss today. We didn’t have any issues with wait time. We had 4:30 reservations. We were done with the ride before 5 pm and had time to clean up, change and make a 5:30 le bistro reservation. It is a little loud and hard to hear instructions when getting in and out of vehicles. I accidentally got myself out after the ride finished and was scolded for not waiting till I was told I could exit. Also didn’t notice any major banging into others that I read about. Perhaps that was something occurring when more kids onboard? Cars do go fast and there’s a lot of passing/maneuvering which makes it a little tricky. You do get a little dirty from ship smokestack soot. Really fun and highly recommend doing more than once. Husband and I initially had no desire to try but one of the activities staff talked us into signing up and we were really glad he did.