kitkat343

That is a fair point. My Alaskan cruise was the first of the season, and the port workers told us the US customs always sent too few agents at the start of the season. Similarly long lines of 2-3 hours to clear customs, but once you did that the Princess agents were very fast. So everything Princess controlled was fine. But it would be helpful if the cruises provided food and water to waiting passengers (on our last cruise Cunard had a table with cookies and drinks in the terminal, and after herding three kids through embarkation it was a huge relief to see snacks even though we were only 5 minutes away from boarding the ship where there was plenty of food. Occasionally embarkation turns into an absolute disaster on all cruise lines (sometimes the cruise lines fault and sometimes not) and hopefully they will provide food and drinks for the passengers (I don't know if there's enough space to provide seating).

The Prima's lifeboats are not used as tenders. This became in issue in Isafjorour, Iceland, a small port where the Icelandic government is trying to deepen the harbor so larger ships can dock there directly. That project was originally scheduled to be completed prior to last summer's cruise season, but the work was delayed and all of the Prima's stops to Isafjorour were canceled last year (some were replaced by overnights in the capital, others with sea days). IT has been reported on these forums that the Prima has been able to tender in ports like Grand Cayman, where the local authorities run their own tender ships but passengers were told the Prima does not have its own tender boats available. There are more stops scheduled this summer for the Prima in Isafjorour, so hopefully that work will be completed prior to the season starting.

I've not sailed Celebrity yet, but all the ships I sailed had an open house in the kids club on the first night. Go to the kids club open house with the child so the parent can stay with the child and help them get acclimated to the kids club. Request a phone in advance through the special needs department or during the open house because they are usually limited. Tell the kids club staff that you want them to call immediately if the child wants to leave (they may normally do this for children with disabilities - I don't know. I've seen them delay calling for neurotypical children because they try to distract them and keep them longer because some parents don't want to be disturbed. If they know you'll come right away and not be mad at them, they'll call you right away.) Also, for some kids with autism food is a huge issue. Depending on the child's level of sensitivity you might want to bring sealed food onboard for them so they always have snacks they can eat on the ship and during tours. I've also found that if you can afford them private tours for just my family are best with children, since you can control the itinerary and stay longer when they're happy and give them breaks when they need them (this is less important if you are just going to a beach and more important if you are visiting Europe and going to museums.

People on this forum have stated that the Prima was able to tender successfully in Grand Cayman. Grand Cayman provides tender ships, so NCL uses those to get the passengers off the Prima. I don't have personal experience but I believe tendering on the Prima is possible if outside tender ships are available.

The Geiranger bus that takes you around the highlights of the Geiranger lasts 3 hours, so depending on the length of your day in port you might be able to do both that and the boat cruise in Geiranger (when calculating the timing please check recent reviews of your ship, since some NCL ships have a lot of reviews noting difficulties with disembarkment that cut down on their time in port so please allocate a lot of time for both activities if you choose to do both). The sail in/sail out on your cruise ship to Geiranger is spectacular (we did this cruise on Cunard, and they took the kids out of the kids clubs to let them see the waterfalls on the sail out). Please also note that the road to the Skywalk in Geiranger is seasonal, and opens between mid-May and early June after the big annual avalanche. They will substitute a beautiful lake if you are too early for the skywalk.

On my sailing, some passengers received the email notifying them of the cancellation of a port. Others did not receive it. People tried to post the notice on the roll call, but some passengers called NCL and since NCL kept the dropped port on their website for the cruise, the NCL call reps incorrectly told them that the DR port had not been dropped. Your best bet to find out why NCL is stating this stop has been cancelled is by posting on your roll call - someone who received the cancellation email can cut and past the language and you can see what reason NCL is stating for the change. Now as Distinctive-Destinations has noted, NCL may claim that they are doing this for safety or the environment. The safety issue is a bit muddled, since there have been ports they have dropped in the past - like Costa Rica and claimed it was for safety, which was difficult to understand since they replaced it with Alcupulco. But ultimately irregardless of why they are claiming they dropped the port, their contract clearly states they have the right to make changes. There have been people posting that European laws may provide some consumer protection (I don't know anything about that) but in the US, you are stuck when this happens after final payment and your only option if they notify you before final payment is to cancel and rebook. The posts on this issue pop up periodically ( ). and someone posted on one of the previous forums after experiencing several cancellations that they only book NCL cruises at the last minute now, since they don't mind ports being dropped from last minute discount cruises. Depending on how significant itinerary is to you (on our cruise, there were some people who were just happy to be out of the cold in NY and didn't care at all about the dropped port) this might be something to consider.

The itinerary of that sailing looks great. I hope they continue to sail that in the future.

You can find the kosher sailings here: https://loyaltoyoualways.com/news/kosher-dining/

Hope you get somewhere good! It's really easy for RC to refund everyone for Labadee excursions, so I think it's fine for them to sell them just in case. I'm not really into beaches, so I'd be thrilled to have Labadee substituted (it was a very beautiful beach but I'd rather go somewhere else too).

The plantations I've visited in the Caribbean were different than the ones I visited in the US. In the Caribbean (at least at the plantations I've been to) they are still either working farms, in which case you watch the process of growing and harvesting crops or they highlight the history of the plantation, which includes looking at the buildings where the slaves lived. The highlight on the tours I visited in the Caribbean was not a beautiful colonial home like visiting a plantation in the American South, so I personally found the Caribbean plantation tours to be less concerning (you are still visiting a place where people suffered, died and probably are buried) but it felt less concerning in the sense that we weren't admiring the wealth of the people profiting from slavery. When I visited the plantations in America (like Monticello) you are admiring the beauty of a building built by the slaveowners. Among some circles in the US, it has become controversial to hold events/weddings at historic plantations in the south. It's possible there are Caribbean plantations that are primarily about the beauty of things built by the owners, but I wouldn't know since I travel with kids and plantations aren't our first choice of excursions so I've only been to a few which either highlighted how you grow and harvest crops or didn't leave behind beautiful historic buildings.

Totally understandable to be upset to lose Bergen. Olden was one of my 3 favorite ports, and it has both the Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier. Flam and Geiranger were also 2 of my other favorite stops so it's really up to you if you want to switch to Celebrity (our day in Bergen was what the port staff described as one of the worst weather days they'd ever seen, so we really couldn't get much of an appreciation of it so I can't really help with Olden vs Bergen. Everyone else really seems to love Bergen though)

Amber Cove has Monkeyland right in the port. Further away, there is a larger monkey land and also Ocean World. Bermuda has a nice zoo. If you like, you can arrange a private tour at feeding time to get closer to the animals. The public buses are completely safe in Bermuda, and the kids might also like the public ferry In Nassau, you can research if you want to choose Atlantis (very large, sometimes very crowded water park hotel complex). The Atlantis is cheaper if you purchase directly.

I don't know the OP's situation, but my children's four grandparents perspective is "I worked hard my whole life and now is my time to enjoy myself." They like visiting, but absolutely do not want the responsibility or work required to take care of a child for a week or two so the parents can get a break. We didn't take trips until our children were a minimum of 2 years old, and only cruise because the daycare is the only way we could survive travel with small children. The upside of cruising that we were able to take much more significant trips with our children than if we had gone to all inclusive resorts (my 3 year old loved St. Petersburg, and we were really grateful to have gotten there while we could, and for the daycare we brought our son to the second we returned to the ship).

I'm not familiar with the ports of the longer cruises that travel to the north since I took a 7 day cruise to the heritage fjords. But if you are looking to see the heritage fjords, Olden, Flam and Geiranger were my three favorite ports. Olden has both the Loen Skylift and Briskdal Glacier (if you have a longer port day you can visit both), Flam has the Flam railroad (just buy tickets independently in advance) and Geirenger has many lovely viewpoints and a spectacular sail in.

I usually purchase non-cruise line travel insurance. If something like this happened, I'm sure the cruise would be reimbursed, but what happens about the hotels? How much of an obligation does a passenger have to try to limit costs or can they just check into the four seasons and call it a vacation (I'm sure that's not going to be reimbursed but what level of hotel would at the last minute?) I would imagine your first call would be to your trip insurance hotline, but does anyone know how something like this is handled halfway around the world?