NCL Sky October 9-19, 2024 Quebec City to Baltimore live

[boffoboffo]

I mostly enjoyed the time I took doing my previous live posting on my previous cruise back in March, so I decided I might as well do it again. The link to my previous thread in case you want backstory or an idea what to expect:https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2991612-ncl-breakaway-march-3-10-from-new-orleans-semi-live/#comment-66921575

 

 

Debated not doing one since Denise T is already doing one and I don’t want to step on her toes, but I am seeing very few lives from the Sky so I figured it could use all the content it can get. The link to Denise T’s live in case you only have time to read one. She called dibs first so read hers instead of mine:https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/3020754-coming-soon-live-from-my-norwegian-sky-canadanew-england-cruise-1092024-to-10192024-quebec-to-baltimore/#comment-67704958

 

 

As someone who last month booked our 2026 cruises and is typically booking about two years in advance we booked this one on Saturday, only 25 days before the cruise. So now we’ve instantly gone from being pumped up for a cruise on the Prima in three months to having to rush prepare and get excited about a cruise in three months.

 

Not looking to make this a sob story thread but we had a very challenging and stressful two week period that seems to have ended this past Friday(fingers crossed). My wife got fired out of nowhere from her job of nearly 20 years and then two of our cats got sick on consecutive weekends. One got better, one did not. 
 

So this live thread is in memory of our cat, Dumb(legally Cinema, but we never called her that)

That same day my wife got a sizeable severance package from her old job, so we decided we were in need of a vacation ASAP to just relax and forget about life. Sad part of thread over. 
 

Had no real preference for a destination so I started looking to see what was sailing. NCL has been our dedicated line for our previous four cruises, so that part was easy. We’re sitting at 55 latitude reward points and our December Prima cruise is 10 days, so I kind of wanted something at least 10 days so we’ll bump up to platinum once we get off the Prima. Found this one which was fairly cheap and had the added benefit of Canadian money being accepted at par which cut the price even more.

 

Neither of us drink so we usually opt out of the free drinks but keep the rest of the free at sea package. For this cruise it saved us $300 total to just not get the free at sea at all so we figured one free speciality meal and 300 internet minutes wasn’t worth that much so we didn’t get it. Total cost with taxes, fees, and daily service charge included was about $2200 CAD($USD 1650ish) for a guaranteed inside cabin. Hard to complain about that price for a 10 day cruise.

 

Not too concerned about trying to do a live post without wifi in this case. If you read my previous live thread I mention a few times that despite having Star Link on the Breakaway, it wasn’t exactly a pleasure to work with. I will not miss having it at all. Fortunately some Canadian cell phone providers have finally started to change from the traditional $12-15 per day charge to roam in the US and just include it for free as part of the plan instead. So I should have cell service for the vast majority of the cruise.

 

So then began the whirlwind of trying to get everything arranged as we can’t just drive to the port like we have on all our previous cruises. I’ll detail our travel plans in a future post. I submitted our shareholder credit request which hasn’t gone through yet. My wife requested a mattress topper, which has been added to our room. Our cabin number was assigned to us yesterday and followed by an invitation to upgrade our cabin. Placed a minimum bid on an ocean view but really don’t care if it gets accepted or not.

 

In the meantime pre check-in is tonight so things are flying fast. Not sure if I like this nearly at the last minute thing or not. 

[Denise T]

I can't wait to follow your adventures. There can never be too many lives. It allows for different perspectives. I am so sorry for the loss of your kitty and your wife's loss of her job. Life has been stressful. Let's go on this cruise and have the time of our lives!

[boffoboffo]

I’m a fairly easy going sort of guy so I tend you just let things bounce off me and move on. It’d been years since I’d really had anything stress me out, so to have three things one right after the other I just wasn’t used to it. 
 

Fortunately that easy going nature also means this cruise would have to do something really, really bad to disappoint me. I didn’t start cruising until after the pandemic so I don’t know how much better things were in the “before” times. I don’t need fancy Broadway shows or gourmet dining experiences. Just give me some decent food, some quiet places to hide from other people, a promenade deck, s basketball court, and someone in the buffet telling me washy, washy, happy, happy and I’ll be happy. Have had little to nothing to complain about over our previous 4 cruises. 

[cruiseny4life]

Well, I'm glad you started up your own live! I live on lives!! They're what get me through the work day. So, thank you! I know nothing of NCL Sky and probably won't ever sail it, but at least this way I'll be able to learn more about her!

 

Sorry for the rough patch - unfortunately we know how everything you described feels. The vacation will be the perfect relaxation spot for you. Enjoy your trip and I'm looking forward to hearing your and @Denise T's thoughts as you cruise the St. Lawrence and Atlantic. 

[boffoboffo]

Check-in began last night. A couple cruises ago we ended up being able to check in about 4 hours early, so I was checking to see if that would happen again. Around 11:30 I checked the old app and it still wasn’t available but when I opened the new app it was allowing us to check-in already, so we got in a little bit early again.

 

I think I prefer the new app for checking in than the old app. They streamline the process by letting you click a check box to apply things that are the same to all guests on the reservation. That means passport, picture, and watch the safety video are the only things each passenger has to do themselves.

 

The passport section has an option to just scan your passport to auto fill the information or you can manually enter it. For the photo it does not allow you to upload an existing picture to use. It makes you take a new selfie. The safety video is embedded into the form itself and it will stop playing if you try to scroll away from it, so it tries its hardest to force you to watch it. Highlight for me was the TV in this screenshot giving an indication of just how old this video is.

 

So if anyone on the cruise wants to complain about how small the TV is, it used to be worse.

 

Got the earliest check-in time which was 11-11:30. I thought New Orleans check-in times were late compared to NYC, but this is far and away the latest we’ve seen. Fingers crossed that just means there’s not much room to sit in the Quebec terminal and we will be able to pretty much walk onto the ship after checking in. Also new in the new app is a list of how many spots remain for each check-in time. Looks like there were roughly 333 per half hour slot for this cruise. 
 

Already had an email waiting for me when I got up this morning that our eDocs were ready. New app makes them easier to locate than the old app did as they pop up in a new box added on the screen. 

Same old eDocs as before though, so your luggage tags are still buried and easy to overlook in the eDocs.

 

Got me looking forward to seeing what other new or improved features this new app has in store for us. 

[boffoboffo]

A week since booking and about two and a half weeks to go. This cruise is no longer book able on the NCL website so it looks like it may have sold out. Also got our $100 shareholder credit added to our account yesterday, so that’s good to go. Not really sure what we’ll spend $100 on since it doesn’t look like this is a ship with a lot of extra things that cost money to do, but we’ll find something I’m sure. 
 

After booking the cruise last Saturday I had to scramble to figure out how we were going to get to and from the cruise. In the past three of our cruises have left from and returned to NYC, so it’s an easy 7 1/2 hour or so drive the day before the cruise to some cheap motel in New Jersey. Then a short drive the morning of to the pier and pay a small fortune to park right there. Even the New Orleans cruise we turned into a road trip with nearly 20 hours driving each way. With this cruise starting and ending in different cities driving wasn’t an option. Really narrowed it down to bus, train, and plane. 
 

Canada no longer has a long distance Greyhound or Greyhound like bus service so that narrowed the options even further. Both plane and train were actually very similar price wise for us until you factor in the extra cost for luggage when flying. The train station is about 10 minutes from our apartment and we can take the city bus there and just leave our car at home. A plane we’d have to get to Toronto and either pay to park our own car or get a taxi or something to get us there, and deal with weekday morning Toronto traffic either way. Travel time the train is about 13 hours and the train station is a 15 minute walk from the cruise terminal. A plane was three or four hour since they involved transfers in either Montreal or Ottawa. Plus the hour or two to get to the airport and the extra time to clear security and a 23 minute drive to get from the Quebec City airport to the cruise terminal. This is a very long winded way to say that going by train seemed to make the most sense. 
 

Train ride will be a roughly 1 1/2 hour ride to Toronto where we wait 1 1/2 hours for our 5 hour long ride to Montreal where we wait 1 1/2 hours for our 3 1/2 hour ride to Quebec City. Arrival time is supposed to be 9:48pm so it’ll be a long day but at least we’ll be sitting back and relaxing the whole way. We’ve driven this way several times but this’ll be our first time taking the train so it’ll be nice to see the slightly different scenery as it looks like the train stays closer to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River than the highway does. Then it’ll just be a 10-15 minute walk the next morning to get to the ship and it’ll get us to Baltimore. 
 

From Baltimore we had the added option of a bus to get us home. Train and plane were once again similar price minus luggage fees. A bus was about half that price. The bus and train had similar travel times around 13 hours to get to Buffalo. A plane was more like an hour and a half but for some reason none were leaving until later in the evening, so we’d have to kill a day in Baltimore carrying our luggage around and then still end up in Buffalo at a similar time as we would with a bus or train. So we opted to go with the bus to get us home.

 

The bus leaves at 9:30 and is a 10 minute taxi ride from the cruise terminal so we should have time for a non-buffet breakfast and won’t need to rush off the ship. Bus ride is 3 1/2 hours to Manhattan where we wait for an hour for our 8 1/2 hour ride to the Buffalo airport which is set to arrive at 10:25pm. Another long travel day, but at least it’s sitting back and relaxing. We’ll stay in a motel near the airport that night, then the next morning my mom will come pick us up and take us the last hour and a half back home.

 

There are times where I think I missed my calling and I should have been a travel agent as I got all that pieced together in about an hour last Saturday night. I’m actually a starting to look quite forward to the train portion of the trip as I’ve only taken one train trip before up to Moosonee in Northern Ontario. The bus portion I’m very indifferent to since it’ll probably just be the same roads we’d take if we were driving to NYC ourselves just with someone else doing the driving and dozens of strangers riding with us. 
 

Both the bus and train have similar included luggage allowance with a medium sized bag and a carry on bag per person. We’re thinking two medium sized spinner suitcases and one or two backpacks should be enough for a 10 day cruise. We’re always trying to minimize our packing for cruises so this’ll force it even more. Over the last year or so I’ve been working to get a separate set of travel clothes and toiletry items from my every day supply, so at this point I haven’t done any packing yet for this specific cruise but I’m already almost completely packed. I’m liking this system so far. 
 

One final side fact for anyone still reading at this point and especially for anyone who has ever cruised out of Manhattan and paid to park there. Our next cruise in December we will park at the pier in Manhattan. It’s a 10 night cruise so parking will be $USD 450 or roughly $CAD 620. The cost for our train and bus rides for two combined is $CAD 520. Parking in NYC is expensive. 

[boffoboffo]

Wife has her duck tags made up and now just has to go through her big bag of ducks to choose which ones to bring.

 

We’ve officially got someone to come over and take care of our cats while we’re away. 
 

I got about 80% packed today. Looks like my stuff will barely take up half a medium sized spinner suitcase, so we should have little problem with having enough space to fit everything into the bags we planned to bring. A benefit of being a stereotypical Canadian in that it won’t matter what the temperature is on this cruise because it’s all shorts and t-shirts weather to me. 

[boffoboffo]

Guess I’ll detail the itinerary next. Here’s the map

Usually when we travelled prior to cruising we did road trips where we focused on seeing as much of the countryside as possible and didn’t really care about exploring cities along the way. So we’ve driven past Quebec City several times on our way to the Maritimes but have never gone into the city. That will technically change on this trip, but with our train arriving at 10pm-ish the night before the cruise and our check in time 13 hours later we won’t be seeing any of the city except what we pass walking from train to hotel to ship. 
 

We’ve never been to Saguenay. Seems like it’s a quiet, out-of-the-way sort of place so unless we suddenly stumble upon some great looking excursion the plan is to just eventually get off the ship and then wander around for a bit.

 

We’ve been to PEI before. We drive around roughly two thirds of the island from south to north to east. No interest in Anne of Green Gables and we’ve driven across the Confederation Bridge so that takes the majority of the excursions offered off the table. We went into Charlottetown only to pick up a few things at Walmart and get something to eat, since almost everything on the north shore where we were staying was closed after Labour Day. Even the Tim Hortons up there was closed for the season when we were there. So the idea of seeing more of Charlottetown is of interest so another wander and explore port. 
 

We’ve been to Cape Breton Island three times before and it is probably our favourite place in Canada and while we’ve driven around the vast majority of the island before we’ve never actually been into Sydney proper before. Done the Cabot Trail each of those three times and while we’d have no problem doing it again looking at the descriptions for most excursions shows they barely even do any of it. The best part of the Cabot Trail is the section between Ingonish and Cheticamp and most of the excursions only make it to Ingonish and then turn around and head back. That’s just when things start getting really good. So that means Sydney will be another walk around the port area stop for the exact same reason as Charlottetown was. 
 

Have always wanted to go to Halifax but every time we go to Nova Scotia we keep getting drawn back to Cape Breton so we’ve basically only seen the highway in mainland Nova Scotia. The day will come when we road trip to NS to drive around the whole province, so once again it just seems like exploring Halifax on foot is going to be our best choice here. I know this is getting very same-ish here but this really is the sort of thing we wouldn’t normally do on a trip so now seems like a great time to just see some of these cities. 
 

I’ll cover the US cities in my next post in a couple of days but I’m sure there’ll be some wandering around the port areas involved. 

[boffoboffo]

Now the US ports. We’ve driven through Maine just once and mostly stayed on the interstate so we haven’t really seen much of anything in this state but it looks like we would have driven through Portland. Never been to Bar Harbor at all.

 

Portland is almost guaranteed to be a get off the ship and walk around the area stop. As of now Bar Harbor is going to be the same but I think if there was any port where we end up deciding to book an excursion Bar Harbor seems like the most likely one, followed by Saguenay. Still haven’t really looked all that extensively but we’re much more likely to be interested in some sort of nature/wildlife tour than a city or history tour and Bar Harbor sounds like the best place for that. 
 

Boston will be the most familiar port on this itinerary. My wife is originally from about 30 miles outside Boston and her family still lives in that area, so we’ve been there a few times. Obviously haven’t seen everything there is to see but it also means there’s much less concern about not getting to see something because there’s really no issue with going back there. That’s kind of the issue with every port on this cruise. As people very likely to just get in our car and drive somewhere for a week, all these ports are within an easy day or two drive of home so it feels like if we really want to see or do something we can just come back and do it some other time. Excursions can often be crowded and long and stressful and we’re just trying to relax as much as possible on this cruise so those are the kinds of things we’re trying to avoid. My mother-in-law is going to try and find someone to give her a ride into Boston for the day to hang out and do something with us since she hasn’t seen us since Easter.

 

Not really any time to do anything in Baltimore since our bus leaves at 9:30am. We’ve driven through Baltimore once before and I know it doesn’t have the greatest reputation for a city. I’m sure there are some nice areas of town and some cool things to check out, but I’m not exactly upset that we won’t have time to consider doing any of them.

 

So no real plans at any ports so if you’re one of those people that doesn’t really want to spend money on excursions and hopes there’s enough things to see and do within walking distance of the ship then this should be the live report for you. 

[Bobby Winds]

We have been to Bar Harbor twice and will visit once again in a few days on our Breakaway NE/Canada cruie. It's a really small town that you can easily see by just walking around. There is a good and very reasonably price restaurant there called the Stewman's Lobster Pound that's right on the water. Great spot to get a lobster dinner IMHO.

 

Since we have seen the town by foot and car I booked thru AAA to see Bar Harbor by sailing in a Schooner that was VERY reasonably priced.

 

We also seen NP Cadillac Mountain twice and IMHO it's nothing I would pay for thru a excursion.

 

Here's hoping we both have great sailing weather (no hurricanes) 

[boffoboffo]

The Sky doing something that would be very familiar to me if it wasn’t so foggy, sailing down the Hudson from the Manhattan cruise terminal. Starting its journey back to Quebec City to pick us up. 

[boffoboffo]

A beautiful day for cruising. 

[Bobby Winds]

45 minutes ago, boffoboffo said:

A beautiful day for cruising. 

As long as the ships GPS is working 

[boffoboffo]

From a strictly selfish standpoint the ship is scheduled to get to Quebec City on the morning of October 8th and spend the night there before the passengers disembark and we get on on the 9th. So I’m fine with them taking their time and getting to their destination safely even if they arrive in QC late because there’s very little chance they could arrive late enough to affect the start of our cruise. 

[Bobby Winds]

8 hours ago, boffoboffo said:

From a strictly selfish standpoint the ship is scheduled to get to Quebec City on the morning of October 8th and spend the night there before the passengers disembark and we get on on the 9th. So I’m fine with them taking their time and getting to their destination safely even if they arrive in QC late because there’s very little chance they could arrive late enough to affect the start of our cruise. 

You'll be fine. The ship can always make up time for going slow in the fog for a couple of hours. Just hope no ice bergs are out there...........LOL

[boffoboffo]

10 days to go. Well I guess actually 9 until the whole adventure begins. You get so focused on the countdown number on their app/webpage that you forget the travel day is the real beginning of the vacation. 

[boffoboffo]

I didn’t pick this cruise for the itinerary or for the ship, but what about the Sky? I had seen very little on it prior to booking and didn’t really start looking until after already booking. I’ve sailed on the Gem, Getaway, Escape, and Breakaway before so this will be a different class of ship from what we’ve done before as well as the oldest and smallest ship. I certainly see where the Jewel class ships drew inspiration from this class and the Gem is still our favourite ship we’ve sailed on, so I’m not too concerned with the amenities that will be onboard. I don’t need all the fancy bells and whistles and I don’t particularly like crowds or people in general so the fewer people to avoid the better.

 

Barring an unexpected upgrade our cabin is on deck 4 under one of the main dining rooms. Doubt that’ll be a problem. Our last cruise on the Breakaway we were on deck 5 and it was fine. It’s nice when the cabins are announced as ready on embarkation day and everybody starts heading up, we’re among the few people that get to go down. Also very easy for getting off and back on the ship at ports since we’re right near the entrance/exit. This is also where I’ll appreciate the small ship since there’s only 12 decks and I avoid elevators at all costs, due to the aforementioned avoidance of people. Never having to go up more than 8 flights of stairs will seem like a breeze after doing as many as 16 on the Escape.

 

As far as on board activities go I’m happy with a promenade deck and a basketball court. I especially like the promenade that goes all the way around the ship without requiring you to go inside like the Waterfront does on the Breakaway class ships. The Gem promenade was also very sparsely used since there isn’t really anything down there, so I’m hoping that’ll be the same. The Spinnaker lounge was also greatly missed on the Breakaway class ships we sailed on, so it’ll be nice to see that again. The outside observation deck in front of Spinnaker is different and sounds cool since so many ships seem to limit the forward facing open areas on the ship, for whatever reason. My wife also quite likes the Great Outdoors and prefers it to Spice H2O since it opens up the aft view a lot more.

 

Dining options are going to be rather limited, but we’ll make do. With not having free at sea perks, only being gold latitudes level, and not desiring to pay for it we will have 0 speciality dining nights. It also sounds like the Local is nearly pointless on this ship with very limited seating, limited menu and only being open for dinner and late night snacks. That means for any port days where they never serve lunch in the MDR the buffet will be the only place to eat lunch. As not huge buffet fans that means most nights we won’t want to do the buffet again so that’ll nearly force us into the main dining room or consider room service. Not expecting any lines since the two MDR’s seat more than 1000 people combined, so more than half the ship at a time. For the Breakaway class they have double the passengers but a similar MDR capacity so it required a conscious effort to go at the right time to avoid the crowds.

 

Overall I know I won’t have a problem with the ship but it will be a stark contrast going from this cruise on NCL’s second oldest ship to our next one in December on NCL’s second newest ship, the Prima. 

[boffoboffo]

 

Itinerary change notice. Lose a total of 2 hours of port time but at least NCL is pleased to share they’ve preserved the same amount of time we originally had in Charlottetown. Guess it’s some good old fashioned fuel savings, or something like that. Well my cruise is now almost certainly ruined because I had big plans for that extra half hour in Portland we originally had. 

[boffoboffo]

My wife says she has joined me in being mostly packed. Looks like we’re going to have no problem fitting everything into the number of bags that we were aiming for. Should easily fit within our limits on both the train and bus and may just carry them on board the ship with us instead of checking them. A far cry from our second cruise where we packed heavy into a duffel bag that I got to carry off the ship and my shoulder still, nearly two years later likes to remind me every so often that was a stupid idea. Will take advantage of our half price bag of laundry latitude reward perk which will also give us something to spend our shareholder credit on. Hard to believe in only 6 days from now we should be just starting out down the St. Lawrence when just three weeks ago at this time we didn’t have a cruise booked at all. Still can’t decide if I like this last minute thing or not. 

[OceanDreaming2]

On 9/30/2024 at 4:28 PM, boffoboffo said:

Sounds like the Local is nearly pointless on this ship with very limited seating, limited menu and only being open for dinner and late night snacks. That means for any port days where they never serve lunch in the MDR the buffet will be the only place to eat lunch. As not huge buffet fans that means most nights we won’t want to do the buffet again so that’ll nearly force us into the main dining room or consider room service. Not expecting any lines since the two MDR’s seat more than 1000 people combined, so more than half the ship at a time. For the Breakaway class they have double the passengers but a similar MDR capacity so it required a conscious effort to go at the right time to avoid the crowds.

 

The sports bar/Local can be crowded but it's adjacent to the Great Outdoors.  We've eaten there when it's busy and other times when it's not bad. Avoid it during football games.

 

There is a secondary seating area for the buffet (La Cucina) which is open during breakfast and lunch hours. During lunch, they will have complimentary pizza and a pasta dish.  It's not crowded. 

 

Also, the promenade deck is wide open. No seating at all. But its a nice place to walk and enjoy the fresh air. 

 

We were on the Sky last Fall for a back-to-back New England cruise. I miss her.

 

 

[boffoboffo]

Only four days until embarkation day and NCL hasn’t spammed me even once yet with the safety video to watch again. Usually they’d have sent it two or three times by now, so I’m starting to get worried that NCL is no longer concerned about my safety. 

[ggTexasGal]

8 minutes ago, boffoboffo said:

Only four days until embarkation day and NCL hasn’t spammed me even once yet with the safety video to watch again. Usually they’d have sent it two or three times by now, so I’m starting to get worried that NCL is no longer concerned about my safety. 

"For your convenience", the requests to watch will start soon, and repeatedly!

(Or, maybe not?!) 😁

[boffoboffo]

They have sent me the same email each of the last two days about the drink package benefits of More at Sea will replace the Free at Sea ones on my upcoming cruises. Sure I’ve opted out of the drink package already on all those upcoming cruises but I guess they’re more concerned about my ability to get higher priced liquor than they are my safety.

 

If I don’t get safety video emails on each of the next four days I’m going to have no choice but to already rate this cruise 1 star, worst cruise ever. 

[boffoboffo]

While I was typing that reply I received the same More at Sea email for the third time in the last two days and second time before 9:05am today. I’m getting pretty close to giving all my already booked future cruises the distinction of 1 star, worst cruise ever. 

[boffoboffo]

All that worry for nothing. NCL still does care about me.