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cavok

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  • Posts

    76
  • Joined

About Me

  • Location
    Switzerland
  • Interests
    Aviation
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Celebrity, NCL, TUI Cruises
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Caribbean

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cavok's Achievements

Cool Cruiser

Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. Many ferries to the Balearic islands (most truck traffic runs via here as the distances are short). https://www.gnv.it/en/ports/spain/barcelona
  2. We also got on board, in "Steerage" a few classes and decks below... Still a family balcony, though. Agree that this Haven room looks awesome and modern! Our upgrade bid unfortunately didn't get called upon 😂 Sadly, our impression of the ship so far is more so/so from an average level paying customer's point of view... And we don't even dislike the often critizized shower/wc/sink setup in the room. That's different, but we like it. The room is rather dusty/not very thoroughly cleaned, has little and stupidly thought out storage and in general feels cramped over what we are used to (Mainly TUI Mein Schiff and Celebrity). Let's see how our impression evolves over the next few days. Balcony showing rust everywhere, balcony door handle almost falls off and more wear and tear can be seen around ship. Also, IT/infoscreens are not up to today's standard, stateroom TV is small and slow, big screen with info about officers near guest services is not touch etc... Then the whole VAT story is in full swing. "Dear valued customer" letter at checkin, and bartenders are keen to tell you that you only pay tax, while presenting a slip over big and bold $36 or whatever (which you don't have to sign) just to show the VAT. quite confusing. As a Swiss and not part of the E. U. we might even try to reclaim just for the fun of it and principle 😜 Gotta read up on that, they even mention it in the letter. Checkin was a relative breeze around 11ish, but we saw queues get much longer, later in the afternoon. Overall, generally pleasant experience. Also parking is close to perfect and quite affordable for the length of the cruise. Cruise director and assistant cruise director are somewhat hard to understand, and this from a non-native speaker with a lot of leniency towards less than perfect pronounciation... Guess they give them somewhere a chance to try out *LOL* Also, lots of french speakers / canadian french pax. And rather unusual, even french announcements on board, at least for the safety stuff (from a guy who actually speaks perfect French) ... Initial impression of crew otherwise is quite positive. Upcharge stuff is generally very expensive, not limited to shore excursions. Got for instance stuck with the kids in the arcade hall (didn't spend any but they wouldn't leave and mistreat the buttons for a bit), nothing much below 2$, a "pass" for the cruise going for something like 175$ and not even applicable to all machines?! Yeah right. Starbucks much the same, not even the basic of the basics coffe is "free at sea" *lol* Expected it to be much that way, but considering NCL isn't exactly cheap in the first place, either customers are just very happy to spend big time or they are really trying to squeeze... And what they consider "premium" and what not really comes down to the fine print and less to common sense 🤣 But it's nice to be on another ship and we'll sure enjoy the next almost two weeks!
  3. @graphicguy Since you took great care to hide any personal information in your email excerpts, you may want to remove the tiny "Print Luggage Tags Here" Link as it gives away the stateroom #... Have a great trip!
  4. Just checked in our family of four 🙂 What a disaster that NCL checkin website is for our group! Had to watch the same youtube movie 4 times, before it let me set the tickbox each time. Had to enter the exact same full address details etc... 4 times separately (no function to copy the primary address) Had to prepare pictures of the faces (NCL really lets you do the work...) of which, all 3 other than the lead person got a "could not be validated" and so on... As if a 3year old is going to watch that movie *LOL* The only aspect which went easy was the credit card, go figure... Not impressed.
  5. Different cultures, you bet 😉 Kids club doesn't quite cut it for this use case. Little one will be 2 weeks short of 3yrs, which often is the magic cut-off age being applied to the exact day. Let's see how NCL policy turns out. Then they typically close at like 2100. And last but not least, it would imply both kids wanting to spend time there, something we'll only see once we are onboard. Add in some potential language barriers. I'm sure we'll enjoy ourselves, irrespective of how we can organize.
  6. On all the cruises with our german friends (AIDA, TUI) we had the possibility to reserve a babyphone for free, or at a small flat rate. That worked awesome. Via a dedicated part of the ship WIFI. Essentially a camera that could be set up in the stateroom and a paired mobile device which gave audio and limited video access to it. Now, our kids are 6 and 3, so not exactly babies any more. Nonetheless, we always enjoy taking them to the buffet at like 6p.m., after which they go to bed, listening to fairy tales etc... while they let us go for a nice and relaxed dinner for two. Works perfectly well 🙂 Now, we're obviously wondering whether NCL offers something similar? I read about the cruise norwegian app offering a flat messenger and phone package? However, i can't find any info about the cost and its limitations? Has someone used this the way we imagine? Will it allow to setup a permanent call between a device in the cabin and a mobile device? Or will that call drop real easily? We'll be in port overnight at 3 locations, where landside mobile access might work, however would prefer a local to the ship solution of course... Thanks for further information.
  7. We'll be following as we're going to be on the same cruise... Fare was really good compared to similar cruises in the same timeframe and it fits perfectly within our fall school holidays. Another big bonus was that we can drive to Marseilles from Switzerland and park the car for the duration in a secure parking right at the port. Flying for a family of 4 this summer in Europe can otherwise be unreasonably expensive. We know our way around all ports and the region, in case you need any local knowledge... regards cavok
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