Norwegian Sky: An Interesting Journey, Dec 4-7

[bobg529]

Thanks again for the review and the photos you included FlyingCruiserNJ. I really enjoyed reading it. Hopefully you will never experience another debacle like you did on embarkation day.

 

I got jealous reading about your Eagles and the playoffs, I no longer have a football team to root for. The St. Louis Rams are returning to Los Angeles. We lost the Cardinals to Arizona and now the Rams back to L.A. I doubt St. Louis will ever have another NFL team. Apparently Stan Kroenke has no loyalty to his home state of Missouri.

 

My wife and I sailed on the Star for a Panama Canal cruise in Nov ’14 (pre-refurbishment) and absolutely loved the ship. I would imagine it’s even better now since the dry dock. I hope you have a great time on your cruise.

 

DW and I are flying to Houston tomorrow and sailing on the Jade Saturday. Recent reviews of this cruise have been all over the board so I’m heading into it with an open mind. If we encounter any issues with the ship I’m sure the UBP will help smooth things over.

 

 

Crummy deal with the Rams headed back to L.A., where they came from originally. Even the old St Louis Cardinals that moved on to Arizona weren't originally yours however, they moved to your fair city from Chicago. The sports moguls in the Gateway city need to develop their own franchise for football. Maybe the fans there, (which are great sports fans by the way) will finally get an NFL team they can call their own. You guys really have bad luck hanging onto a team. (not that NY hasn't lost a team or three). The Brownies of baseball fame moved to Baltimore, and the St Louis Hawks of basketball skipped town and went to Atlanta. I don't know why. St Louis is a great town in general and has great beer and barbecue! Well, if it makes you feel any better, back in the 1920's Staten Island sported an NFL franchise, the Stapletons. They lasted all of three seasons before failing into sea of failed sports franchises. They didn't even move. They just folded, never to be seen again. :rolleyes:

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

I have been following your adventure with the utmost interest and what horror you and your group suffered. I would have been almost traumatized to be put in that holding area for most of the day without seats or food. It really would have ruined the vacation for me. I'm glad you were able to get over it and enjoy the rest of your trip.

 

As far as missing GSC, unfortunately NCL cannot control the weather and seas, so better be safe than sorry.

 

A 10am plane back to NJ? What were you thinking? I know you said you made it on time before, but that is cutting it too close. We just made our plane reservations for our trip in September with a 1:45 pm leaving from Venice and hope that is enough time to get from the pier to the airport and through customs.

 

Hope your next cruise is stress-free and all goes well. You sure deserve it.

 

It wasn't so much traumatizing but it sort of was. At first everyone was just chill but after a while and with no updates, police parading around the holding area, etc, people really began to get nervous and angry at the same time. I understand security delays and issues surrounding that but the aftermath of it all and how NCL reacted was pathetic. My friend P wrote a long and detailed complaint letter with documentation of our issues to the 'customer service department' and it took until just this past week to hear anything back from them. And when they did, it was basically, sorry, we had absolutely nothing to do with it, we will do nothing else for anyone and that is final. What awesome customer relations from them. Like I have said, angering frequent cruisers like us will cost them more in the long run from potential lost business from us and those whom we spread the bad word of mouth to. But we did try to make the best of what ended up really being half a cruise in reality.

 

I get bad weather will cause the captain to skip a stop but my issue is that this seems to be a frequently missed port. Perhaps there should be some sort of mention that this port frequently gets skipped when they advertise it as a stop. Just as a courtesy. They legally don't have to but it's one of those things that people should be aware of, after all NCL is more than willing to take peoples' money for the stop they may or not make.

 

LOL about the flights. I have actually made 10 am flights with ease and we would have this time as well if the other third of our party was awake when he should have been and we could have been off the ship earlier. As it was, we still almost made it but there was a moderately long line at security and one of us had to check a bag due to having purchased liquid items as gifts for people that would not be allowed in carry on bags. Unless traffic is downright awful, as long as you are off the ship early, have a ride planned out and are doing self assist, making it back to FLL well before 1000 is doable. However, I can totally understand if you would be comfortable with leaving more extra time to get to your flight. It does vary from port to port though. For Galveston as an example, we barely made a 1pm flight out when we cruised from there last October and some other ports like Long Beach and Seattle are the same way. Best thing to do is ask advice from other cruisers as to how much time you should leave yourself to make it and use that to make your decision.

 

Anyway, I am getting ready to take another 7-day voyage on the Star and hopefully it goes better than the weekend on the Sky went.

Edited January 17, 2016 by FlyingCruiserNJ

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Thanks again for the review and the photos you included FlyingCruiserNJ. I really enjoyed reading it. Hopefully you will never experience another debacle like you did on embarkation day.

 

I got jealous reading about your Eagles and the playoffs, I no longer have a football team to root for. The St. Louis Rams are returning to Los Angeles. We lost the Cardinals to Arizona and now the Rams back to L.A. I doubt St. Louis will ever have another NFL team. Apparently Stan Kroenke has no loyalty to his home state of Missouri.

 

My wife and I sailed on the Star for a Panama Canal cruise in Nov ’14 (pre-refurbishment) and absolutely loved the ship. I would imagine it’s even better now since the dry dock. I hope you have a great time on your cruise.

 

DW and I are flying to Houston tomorrow and sailing on the Jade Saturday. Recent reviews of this cruise have been all over the board so I’m heading into it with an open mind. If we encounter any issues with the ship I’m sure the UBP will help smooth things over.

 

It was my pleasure to do it, Oakman. I enjoy writing about my cruises as it helps me to re-live the adventures and gives others ideas about particular ships, ports, itineraries, etc. And with this write up, I wanted it to be known just how screwed up everything was on that particular cruise and how NCL failed in its recovery from the issues on embarkation day. Maybe they learned something and if they are faced with something like this again, they won't handle it so poorly.

 

That's horrible about the Rams going back to LA. I do feel for St. Louis sports fans who have lost another team, I just don't get why LA keeps trying the NFL when they weren't able to support a team before. I was worried for a while that the Bills would go to LA as western New York just isn't as populated a region as it used to be and combined with an old stadium and the passing of Mr. Ralph Wilson Jr., there was talk they were on the way out. The Eagles are a joke, lol. I grew up a fan, but incompetent combined with arrogant and hostile management and players over many years finally caused me to give them up a while back. They are in a constant "next year will be different" mode but it never happens for them. I am surprised to see the Pats pull it out tonight though, guess there's a good chance it will be them and the Seahawks again this year. Dunno if you saw the AZ-GRB game tonight but what an absolute classic for the ages that was. I don't really think that will be topped for quite a while.

 

I had heard rumblings that there were some maintenance issues with the Star last summer and there was high crew turnover which led to a poor customer experience and shoddy overall operation but hopefully those issues have been ironed out. I couldn't beat the price and itinerary we got on this upcoming cruise, hopefully it is a good experience more like the one I had on the Jewel and less like the Sky. I have heard the Panama canal cruises are breathtaking. The Jewel to Alaska was the first cruise of the season to the inside passage after a Panama canal sailing last May and a lot of pax made the cruises back to backs.

 

I see you are probably already on the Jade but hopefully you have a good time on it, I am sure it will all work out. Would love to hear your thoughts of it when you get the opportunity. I've never been on the Jade. And yes, giving people the UBP with just gratuity owed does help soften the blow of sometimes subpar service or whatever. Hopefully everything goes well on your cruise and you can enjoy the UBP completely if you have it. The bartenders do a good job of hooking people up with what they want with that program.

Edited January 17, 2016 by FlyingCruiserNJ

[cruzzza]

You don't have a link to your NCL Star review in your signature. Did you ever do one? I started reading the Magic review, then read this one, and now I'm anxious to hear how NCL does the 3rd time. Did they recover from the mess that was your last cruise??

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

You don't have a link to your NCL Star review in your signature. Did you ever do one? I started reading the Magic review, then read this one, and now I'm anxious to hear how NCL does the 3rd time. Did they recover from the mess that was your last cruise??

 

Ah yes! You are correct that I never linked it to my signature but I did do one after I returned. I will add it to my signature, thanks for the heads up. I do think they generally did a pretty good job on the Star cruise, it was much more like the Jewel cruise than the Sky one. I had a pretty good time. The crazy super noreaster that hit the entire eastern half of the country at the end of the trip had a definite effect on the cruise and my overall vacation at times though. Thanks for checking out my reviews and I hope you also like the Star one.