Encore Dry Dock?

[Mephisto8208]

Looking at the schedule for Encore this year she's doing a TA in November to Southampton and then doesn't have anything scheduled from 11/17-12/3. Then just a TA back to Miami. Does that mean she's going to dry dock? I'm booked on the 12/15 cruise and wondering if that could cause any potential changes or delays. 

[chengkp75]

Doubt it.  Her bottom survey is not due until Oct 2024.

[timf2001]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

Doubt it.  Her bottom survey is not due until Oct 2024.

This is exactly why there is a dry dock scheduled for November 2024.

 

I would not be concerned about being on the first cruise after this, as it should be mostly technical work with nothing major on customer-facing areas.

[Erich_Von_Kraut]

There is always a possibility that inspectors find a problem that will cause the ship to remain in drydock longer than expected. If this is the case cruises booked in the weeks after will be impacted. If NCL cancels your cruise, you should get a full refund and probably a FCC as compensation. I would advise that you ensure that whatever flights and/or hotels you book are fully refundable just in case.  

Edited February 6 by Erich_Von_Kraut

[BirdTravels]

4 hours ago, Erich_Von_Kraut said:

There is always a possibility that inspectors find a problem that will cause the ship to remain in drydock longer than expected. If this is the case cruises booked in the weeks after will be impacted. If NCL cancels your cruise, you should get a full refund and probably a FCC as compensation. I would advise that you ensure that whatever flights and/or hotels you book are fully refundable just in case.  

There is zero basis for this assertion. In fact, dry docks are tightly scheduled and you just don’t stay a few extra days/week in dry dock. 

[SoloAlaska]

If you’re worried make sure you have travel insurance. Shouldn’t be an issue however.

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

There is zero basis for this assertion. In fact, dry docks are tightly scheduled and you just don’t stay a few extra days/week in dry dock. 

Having run a few dry docks in my time, I can say that you never know what you are going to find when the dock goes dry and the bottom is visible for the first time in a couple of years, and thousands of miles steaming.  As the previous poster stated, "there is always the possibility" that something crops up that requires extra work, and possibly extra time.  While shipyards do their best to keep to scheduled times for docking and undocking, overruns can and do happen, with resulting delays to the ship's schedule and delays to the following vessels in the dry dock.

[shof515]

3 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

There is zero basis for this assertion. In fact, dry docks are tightly scheduled and you just don’t stay a few extra days/week in dry dock. 

a dry dock is like taking the ship to the local mechanic shop. when i take my car to the shop, they estimate the repair is only taking 2 days. during removing and replacing things, it turns into a bigger job that will take much longer. the same thing can happen to the ship .

[chengkp75]

5 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

Anything could happen.

And yet, in your earlier post, you stated "there is zero basis" for saying that a drydock could run long.  While you are correct, as I also stated, that things usually go according to plan, even you provided some examples of drydocks not going right.

 

5 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

NCL does major dry docks on their ships much more often that other cruise lines, keeping the ships new and fresh.

I would tend to dispute this.  HAL, for instance, has always done 2 drydocks every five years, even on newer ships, not doing the in service underwater inspection that is allowed for the intermediate drydocks for ships newer than 15 years old.  So, while I don't know if it actually happens, they can get more done by splitting the "major work" (by which I assume you mean hotel refurbishment) between two two week drydocks than one 4 week one, and do it more frequently.

 

Had you said what you did in this last post, a qualifier that while things can go wrong, but that the probability was very low, instead of a blanket dismissal of the possibility, I would not have chimed in at all.

Edited February 7 by chengkp75

[The Traveling Man]

The consensus here seems to be that the dead time in the schedule is for a dry dock.  While that may be true in this case, there are other times when a ship is taken out of service for refurbishment or repairs which do not require a dry dock, but which do require work crews to have access to the ship without interfering with normal passenger activities.  Replacing carpets, furniture, or communications wiring, as well as painting, replacing floor tiles, or other construction work can be done more effectively if there are no passengers on board and the ship remains tied up to the same pier for the duration of the work.  Regardless of whether the Encore is due for a dry dock, or is scheduled for a dry dock, it seems reasonable that if NCL plans to sail the ship from Florida to England, leave a couple of weeks with no scheduled cruises, then immediately sail back to Florida, then that down time has been set aside for some type of repair or refurbishment work.

[FreestyleNovice]

Norwegian Joy arrived a day late for her current drydock due to a storm. 

[TYCruise]

Hopefully they won't be adding more cabins to where the observation lounge is like on the Joy.  I would be okay with them removing the Laser Tag area though

[hallux]

4 hours ago, TYCruise said:

Hopefully they won't be adding more cabins to where the observation lounge is like on the Joy.

It would be a little more challenging to do this on the Bliss and Encore as the Joy was actually built with cabins in that space to begin with, then the OL was expanded in 2019 when she was 'Westernized'.  As a result - there was already SOME kind of cabin-related infrastructure in that space on that ship, unlike her sisters.

4 hours ago, TYCruise said:

I would be okay with them removing the Laser Tag area though

If they do this and put in Spice H2O I would actually consider sailing on this ship

[Two Wheels Only]

6 hours ago, hallux said:

If they do this and put in Spice H2O I would actually consider sailing on this ship

 

Changing the hull art would also be nice. 😁

 

While they're at it, the feminine hygiene chandelier could also be replaced. 

Edited February 26 by Two Wheels Only

[sjacobs11]

On 2/25/2024 at 10:06 PM, TYCruise said:

Hopefully they won't be adding more cabins to where the observation lounge is like on the Joy.  I would be okay with them removing the Laser Tag area though

I read elsewhere that the Laser Tag area was indeed being removed.

[WITraveler37]

2 hours ago, sjacobs11 said:

I read elsewhere that the Laser Tag area was indeed being removed.

When we were on the ship March 24-31 one of the crew working the escape room told us they were removing the escape room and about half the galaxy pavilion as well as laser tag and putting in a Spice H2O

[hallux]

9 hours ago, WITraveler37 said:

as well as laser tag and putting in a Spice H2O

If they do this I will consider this ship for warm-weather itineraries...

[2ofusrdy4cruisin]

On 2/26/2024 at 1:06 AM, TYCruise said:

Hopefully they won't be adding more cabins to where the observation lounge is like on the Joy.  I would be okay with them removing the Laser Tag area though

Info: Drydock November 2024. Will be adding balcony cabins to deck 15 forward portside by reducing size of Observation Lounge.

[2ofusrdy4cruisin]

[txcfa]

On 5/7/2024 at 12:45 PM, 2ofusrdy4cruisin said:

Info: Drydock November 2024. Will be adding balcony cabins to deck 15 forward portside by reducing size of Observation Lounge.

We've been trying to monitor these as our kiddos are very interested now in what activities might be removed that would have appealed to them.

[vwwolfe]

They are selling Balconies on deck 15 forward where the Observation lounge is now for my Alaska Cruise in August of 2025.  Looks like they will indeed be reducing the Observation Lounge.

[hallux]

11 minutes ago, vwwolfe said:

Looks like they will indeed be reducing the Observation Lounge.

Yup, discussed in this other thread that was started more recently -