LIVE! * EPIC * Oct 6 – 17, 2024 * Greek Isles

[HBCcruiser]

After our tour we went up to the Haven bar, had dinner then went to the show. The singers were really good but the sing selections were odd- 1980 show tunes. Not the best decade for show tunes IMO, 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

Day 7:

 

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

So last night we hit a wave or something happened with the ship because it rattled and shook HARD a few times. It felt like a strong earthquake not the regular ship movement. The seas are not rough. Any ship experts out there have any idea what could be going on? 

[HBCcruiser]

Breakfast then relaxing at posh until we get to port. 

 

[HBCcruiser]

Coming into Malta. Amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

Palace and gardens. Knights of Malta built it now it houses the President.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

We had a relaxing dinner in the Haven, had some wine at the bar and called it. We have a loooong day tomorrow.

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

Day 8:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[graphicguy]

On 10/12/2024 at 7:49 AM, HBCcruiser said:

Coming into Malta. Amazing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love....LOVE...Malta!!!!

[HBCcruiser]

Our excursion today was AMAZING! We had a small tour to Taormina and Castelmola. Both towns are so pretty and representative of old medieval towns. Our guide was very good and provided a lot of historical info. Out included lunch was delicious with plenty of good wine including Almond wine which was quite good. 
 

[HBCcruiser]

We were full from our lunch but had reservations at Moderna so wound up having salad bar, a few pieces of filet and desert. Early day tomorrow so calling it early. BTW the rest of the ship is super crowded making the Haven so much more enjoyable. The casino takes up most of deck 6 which gives up a lot of space. It has been pretty empty this week too. 
 

[HBCcruiser]

We would up with non-refundable and refundable OBC for this cruise. Does anyone know how we spend each type? We’d like to cash out our refundable and just spend our non refundable. Can anyone help?

[HBCcruiser]

1 hour ago, HBCcruiser said:

We would up with non-refundable and refundable OBC for this cruise. Does anyone know how we spend each type? We’d like to cash out our refundable and just spend our non refundable. Can anyone help?

@Sailing12Away you guys usually have lots of OBC. Any ideas? I keep getting various answers here onboard.

[HBCcruiser]

Day 9: Naples

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

So far our semi private Pompeii tour has not gone well. It was advertised as a mini bus  tour yet we are in a large full size bus like NCL used- taking over a hour to make stops  picking up more people! I will be letting Viator know and I’ll see how the rest of the tour goes, 

 

 

Edited Monday at 08:46 AM by HBCcruiser

[Sailing12Away]

4 hours ago, HBCcruiser said:

@Sailing12Away you guys usually have lots of OBC. Any ideas? I keep getting various answers here onboard.

The onboard shops are the easiest way. On our Prima trip we had over 1k in each type because of the hot tub debacle and from the TA who took the original booking. J got some Tom Ford cologne and we got some CK for my mom. Takes up less suitcase room than liquor. Left about $100 still in the account. 

 

Used some to cover the kids specialty dining, but that was tiny amounts and you have no littles with you. Also at the VR arcade with the kids, but don't think Epic has one of those. Casino and gambling type claw games (where you fish for money and not ducks) came from our refundable OBC and not the one we were trying to use up. So that's not an option. You may be able to use it for airport transfers if you don't already have something booked, or a debarkation tour to kill time before your next adventure. They certainly don't make it easy.

[Sailing12Away]

Ooh, and the other thing with the OBC - they make it a PITA to get back your refundable credits. On Prima the concierge couldn't (wouldn't?) help us with it at all. All he did was call our butler and make him escort us downstairs to regular guest services so we could skip the line. So 100+ people deep lines at guest services the last night of the trip, and instead of packing or relaxing on my last night I'm cutting this long line with daggers being thrown to the back of my head, then waiting to get handed 1K in cash. Not what we planned at all. So now I have to worry about walking around London for a day and the airport the following morning with 1K in cash in my pocket. 

 

We split it up between the 2 of us but still.... didn't like that feeling at all. When we travel we have exactly what we need for tips in separate envelopes in the same zipper part of my carryon backpack and my eyes are on it all the time. This was just yet another annoyance on that fateful Prima trip that left me with 'ick' instead of the 'oohs and ahhs' that other folks feel about that ship.

[Seas2mountains]

6 hours ago, HBCcruiser said:

We would up with non-refundable and refundable OBC for this cruise. Does anyone know how we spend each type? We’d like to cash out our refundable and just spend our non refundable. Can anyone help?

Go to guest services to get the refundable OBC. You won’t be able to disembark if you have any refundable OBC so be sure to cash out all of it. The lines are crazy the last night so avoid waiting until the last day. 
 

For non-refundable OBC, we have used it for spa services, an additional specialty dining meal, an excursion, and we tend to go to the shop to use any remaining OBC towards expensive face cremes or things that will easily fit in the suitcase. 
 

Hoping your Pompeii tour was good despite the delays picking up people. 

[HBCcruiser]

1 hour ago, Seas2mountains said:

Go to guest services to get the refundable OBC. You won’t be able to disembark if you have any refundable OBC so be sure to cash out all of it. The lines are crazy the last night so avoid waiting until the last day. 
 

Are we allowed to go before the last day? Also we have $500 NON refundable and 600 Regindable How do I JUST use NON refundable or is that impossible? 
 

More on the joke of a tour later. LMAO!!

[laudergayle]

39 minutes ago, HBCcruiser said:

refundable and 600 Regindable How do I JUST use NON refundable or is that impossible? 

It will cost you $18 but you could load $600 onto a slot, get $600 credit. Cash out and go to casino cashier.

[HBCcruiser]

8 minutes ago, laudergayle said:

It will cost you $18 but you could load $600 onto a slot, get $600 credit. Cash out and go to casino cashier.

That is for refundable? We can cash it out in the casino?

[cruiseny4life]

50 minutes ago, HBCcruiser said:

Are we allowed to go before the last day? Also we have $500 NON refundable and 600 Regindable How do I JUST use NON refundable or is that impossible?

NCL is supposed to, but always verify, charge your non-refundable onboard credit first. I've heard examples of folx who had to deal with guest services/concierge to have the charges swapped from refundable to non-refundable. Hopefully the concierge will be able to do this if it occurs.

 

As for my answer on how to spend the onboard credit? Massages! Acupuncture! Massages! And more massages! We never have any onboard credit, unless we get a few bucks from NCL for a port cancellation/change, so haven't had this happy problem. Therefore, our wallets become much lighter as we have our massages. 

 

52 minutes ago, HBCcruiser said:

More on the joke of a tour later. LMAO!!

Looking forward to hearing about your joke of a tour! That's too bad it didn't go as it should have (I say without knowing the details). 

 

11 minutes ago, laudergayle said:

It will cost you $18 but you could load $600 onto a slot, get $600 credit. Cash out and go to casino cashier.

Would this still be in cash? Or could it be put onto a credit card? 

[laudergayle]

41 minutes ago, HBCcruiser said:

That is for refundable? We can cash it out in the casino?

Since you can’t use NR OBC at the casino it would be your refundable OBC.  Just check your account to make sure how much refundable OBC you have…as @cruiseny4life mentioned, the ship may have used some of that in error.

 

38 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

Would this still be in cash? Or could it be put onto a credit card? 

It would be cash.  The ship never puts credits back on a credit card.  You always have to cash out.  Even if they cancel an excursion you have to get cash.

Edited Monday at 01:52 PM by laudergayle

[HBCcruiser]

So the OBC issue is due to our cancellation of two tours. Hence the refundable OBC. Our concierge has not given very good answers regarding how we can spend it so I’m turning to the experts - YOU GUYS! 
 

I want to ONLY spent the Non-refundable. Herein lies the issue. We do not have time for massages due to our port times. We have all specialty dining paid for. Can we buy expensive wine using Non-refundable or will it come out of refundable? So confusing and frustrating. jUST give me my money back!!

 

Ok so the tour. 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

 

This was the description of what was included:

 

 

How do you read that? I read it as a small group - MINI-bus. I had been trying to contact the tour operator for a few days to find out what time/where we meet. Crickets. 🦗🦗

So this morning we decided to disembark and try to find the operator. We walked out of the terminal - no one there except taxis and people trying to sell us tours. We walked around until after the meeting time, then I contacted Viator directly. They found our tour guide. She was late. 🙄

What is odd is she had our contact info and easily could have texted us where to meet etc. Anyway, there were about 7 people from the ship with us - all as confused as we were. She finally gets us all together and we started walking toward our transportation vehicle. It turns out to be a huge bus - not mini by any means. We board and my DH said, “Well, maybe this is the only transportation they had.” Not so fast -

 

We made three other bus stops to pick up passengers. It took an hour. I wondered if we had boarded a city bus by mistake!! After 3 other stops our bus was finally full. Oh, and our “guide” had not provided us with any info at all. She I did not get on the speaker to let us know that we were picking others up or anything. Zero communication. Really strange.
 

We finally hit the highway, and the “guide” gets on the microphone and announces that when we get to Pompeii we will be divided into groups according to our selected language. She told us that she is not the tour guide. Huh?  “Ok” I think, “I guess they make this a smaller group tour when we get to the destination.” Weird, but I can live with that. 
 

BUT NO! We got there and got divided up into groups of 35! Everyone met up in this huge area where they divided us up into language groups. There were 35 in our English group. Our guide was ok, but Pompeii was really crowded and we had to wait for this one family in our to register their underage children’s passports. I have no idea what that was about.

 

Pompeii was really cool! I enjoyed seeing and learning about the civilization that lived there. It is so much larger than I thought it would be. I’m glad we did this tour but would never select this tour group for anything. The name is Project Napoli Service in case you are interested in avoiding them like we are.

 

When the tour was over we met back in the same area and our guide said goodby. Some in our group were doing a full day tour, others of us only Pompeii. It was a cluster trying to figure out which guide/bus we were supposed to take back. The small group of us from NCL stayed together figuring we could catch Ubers together is needed. We finally found our bus. No number, we just had to try to find the original girl who we met at the port. Oh and luckily we were not hit by any of the huge busses pulling in and out of the lot! 
 

Yes, we in fact boarded another big bus that was going to make several stops on the way back. Luckily the port was the first stop. Those of us on the ship got a huge laugh out of this entire cluster. Again. we got to see Pompeii, but Viator will be getting our feedback! Everyone we spoke to from the USA thought it was supposed to be small group. 
 

 

 

 

[HBCcruiser]

33 minutes ago, laudergayle said:

the ship may have used some of that in error.

So how do I fix that? Concierge? Thanks by the way! 🙏