KeithJenner

Dining is 120 days, unless you are in a club suite (125 days) or full suite (130 days). It is 90 days for shorter cruises (6 days or less). Shows are 21 days. It may be longer for other rooms (I never book shows). Excursions can be booked when they are listed. That could be 2 years out, or a few weeks.

Swapping to a different cruise is classed as a cancellation, so yes you would lose your deposit. Give them a call to confirm what your options are. Depending on what the actual deposit should have been it may be better to pay the deposit amount and get your cruise next refunded, if they are worth more than the deposit amount. Edit: also look into whether there may be any legal protections that can help if you have only just booked. I’ve never used any of these so don’t know the rules, but believe that companies have to allow you to cancel online orders if done soon after booking (but I could be talking nonsense).

I am planning on writing up some conclusions, but haven’t had chance yet, but will quickly cover Vibe now for you. This was our first time with Vibe passes and I have very mixed feelings about it. We aren’t really sunbathers, and only spent about 20 minutes on one occasion sitting anywhere in Vibe other than the bar or a table whilst eating, so we have very little interest in what is the main attraction for many people. We also never spend time on a pool deck, so the lack of public pool deck space (and it did look tiny) isn’t an issue for us. If you want to be guaranteed somewhere to sit in the sun then it will have value. Similarly, hot tubs aren’t much of an attraction. We had planned to maybe use one but could never be bothered. On the other hand, there was always outdoor space on deck 8. I suspect that isn’t always the case on warmer cruises. The weather was generally good for us, but there was a fairly cold wind for much of the cruise which did drive people inside at times. We did enjoy sitting at the bar, and there were a group of about 8 of us who could often be found there, especially between the time that people start to get back onboard and dinner time. Our routine when getting back onboard became to go to Vibe, maybe grab some food if required to eat at the tables in Vibe and then sit at the bar and see what others had been up to. I really enjoyed that aspect, We do similar on other cruises where we have met people who tend to use the same bar as whatever is our favourite, but we became quite a tight group over the course of the cruise. The closeness to the buffet is often quoted as a real benefit, and it was. The buffet area is small, and we tend not to use it for anything other than snacks, but it was good to be able to grab some breakfast and take it out to Vibe to eat. But it wasn’t always warm enough to sit outside, especially in the morning. On those occasions we just went across to Food Repblic which always had plenty of room (we could always get a window seat), so it isn’t that you can’t find a nice place to sit without Vibe. They also have a sign for outside seating at Palomar, but I didn’t check that area out. I was expecting the bar staff to be excellent, and they were generally good, but I have often met better. We much preferred the guys at the Local, who really looked after us. The Vibe staff learn your names quickly, but we did often find ourselves without drinks (and we had to call them to get refills, whereas we are used to the good bar staff noticing and offering). We also found that the drink selection was more limited than elsewhere. I don’t know whether that was due to rules or the staff. For example, my wife enjoys the champagne if it is available, and we hoped that it would be, but she spent the entire cruise drinking Prosecco in Vibe whilst the staff in the Local always made sure that there was Pommery there and were chilling a glass for her next drink (something that can’t be done in Vive due to the plastic glasses). We had the same with Pelegrino water. In Vibe we always used to have to ask for it whereas in the Local they always asked if we wanted some when we sat down. Overall we found the bar service to be a step down from what we usually find at our main bar on any cruise. So, we enjoyed Vibe and im glad we did it, but it most certainly wasn’t worth the money we paid (which was kind of what I was expecting). We decided very quickly that we wouldn’t even consider it for our next cruise (New England and Canada on the Joy in September) as we have huge balcony and the weather will be cooler. If the weather had been warmer then it would have been less easy to find outdoor space outside Vibe (even bar space), and more kids around the ship would also have an impact, but we tend not to cruise at those times anyway. One thing I did consider is what you have mentioned, which is booking a lower category room and Vibe. We do usually sit on our balcony for a while, but barely used it this time. I would certainly consider an Oceanview plus Vibe as an option rather than booking a balcony, and that is very likely to be cheaper.

You should have no problem. I’ve made part payments quite a few times though the app (including twice on this offer) to get Cashback and never had any problem. £300 off our upcoming cruise is very handy.

At least you got there in the end. I’ve been lucky in that I have always had cruise fare payments that I could make to get the credits, so I’ve never tried doing what you did. It sounds as messy as I had feared.

I've flown into and out of Rome a few times, and never had any problem at all. The biggest issue we had on disembarkation day was that they were only using one small door to exit the cruise terminal, so there was quite a queue for everyone to get through the exit with their bags. It took us about 15 minutes from getting to the gangway to leaving the terminal. I don't recall ever having that issue before. We booked a flight at 12.55. There was an earlier one (at about 11am) that we could have caught, but I wanted a relaxed morning. We had a transfer booked for 12 and got off the ship when they started to get a bit insistent about people leaving at around 8.30. Our driver was waiting for us and we were checked in for our flight and through security before 10am (luckily the BA desk opened a bit earlier than usual). The airport itself seemed relatively quiet. We have lounge access so didn't spend much time in the main terminal, but when walking to the gate it all looked fairly quiet. We could have easily made the 11am flight if we left the ship a bit earlier. As usual at Rome, all very quick and easy,

It’s amazing how much it seems to bother some people that others have different preferences.

I think you’re getting confused between venues/cabins. Syd Norman’s and the Club Suites with large balconies are both on deck 8, so one can’t be above the other. The Large Balcony Club Suites are above the theatre backstage area. Directly above Syd Norman’s/Cavern etc are some standard balcony rooms, as is the case on the Breakaway and Getaway (and most, if not all of the Breakaway plus class), so this wasn’t a first time on the Escape. I wonder whether you are thinking of the District Brew House, which was a new venue on the Escape and I have some vague memories of noise issues being reported from there in the past.

As stated by others, the NCL rep was wrong (surprise, surprise). You can certainly book the same restaurant multiple times if you want. There has been some confusion regarding this area. The terms of the latitudes meal state that the two vouchers can't be used in the same restaurant. However, I think that what they are trying to say is that you can't get a group of four people and take the two vouchers to try to get a meal for four. Whilst I haven't tried it, I'm fairly sure that a couple could use them both in the same restaurant on separate occasions. In addition, for a time after the reopening after Covid, the online booking system didn't allow you to book the same restaurant twice, but it could be done over the phone or onboard. Now it sometimes does seem throw up an error if you try to duplicate a restaurant online, but for my past couple of cruises it does actually allow it, even if it didn't look like it worked at the time. So, basically, typical NCL confusion. However, you can certainly book places twice (we have done so on some of our past few of cruises, including the one that finished a couple of days ago).

Joy for us. We were looking at the Sky, especially as it is a longer cruise, but went for the Joy as we wanted more dining options and the shorter cruise gives us some extra time for Quebec and Montreal at the end. From memory the Sky was the better itinerary though. It was a tough choice.

We flew home yesterday and were back at work today. Back to earth with a bump. Next cruise is New York to Quebec in September. Looking forward to it already.

Yeah, that’s got to be a good couple of hours to Tarifa, especially on any sort of bus. We went as far down as Trafalgae on our tour and it was slow work getting back, even taking into account the detour to Conil. Personally (and we have travelled quite a way from port on occasion), I don’t like the sound of that at all. I would go that sort of distance if I was driving the whole way myself in a hired car, but not relying on transfers and ferries.

The Marathon was on when we did this, so it was a bit disrupted, but my understanding was that we were dropped off at roughly the usual place. The coach dropped us off near the Ponte S. Niccolo where there is a bit of a loop in the road that the coaches can drive round to drop off or load up. They then walk you as a group to Piazza di Santa Croce which seems to be the meeting point for many tours. It is about a 5-10 minute walk depending on the speed of your group.

Same for us. It was really handy. Motril is a port in that area where a shuttle was required to get out of the port. I wonder whether they got confused between the two.

This discussions comes up regularly. If you book online pre cruise then all discounts apply correctly, but if you do it onboard then they don’t. Every single time it gets discussed on here we enter into this confusion as to whether people are talking about doing it pre cruise or onboard.