Cruise Weddings ??? Please help!!

Myself and fiance are going crazy trying to plan our wedding. We have finally found a ship that is sailing from NY/NJ during March 2006. My fiance has a strong fear of flying so leaving locally was our only option. The board has provided me with so much info I sometimes signed off from overload. The good, bad and sometimes ugly has been exposed!! I love it. But, now back to my situation.

The cruise line is Norwegian. We have sailed both RCI and Carnival, but not Norwegian. I have not seen any mention of this cruise line as far as weddings. Has anyone marrried on board or in port on Norweigan? If so what was it like? Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I use the on board co-ordinatior or utilize someone in St. Thomas? We want to marry in a Gazebo overlooking the water.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We want to book this asap, so that we can send out save the dates to our family.

Thanks.

shbroc - We crusied on Norwegian for our cruise wedding March 2003, but did not use their wedding coordinator company. We married offship in port of St Thomas, but on St John a short ferry ride away (on a beach). Although you can plan everything yourself, we chose to utilize a local wedding coordinator on St John. You use the courthouse in Charlotte Amalie (St Thomas) if marrying on either St Thomas or St John. Legalities are very easy.

Even though we did not book our wedding/reception through NCL's company, they took extremely good care of us on the ship. We cruised out of Miami on Sunday and married on Thursday. NCL gave our group the Captain's table for dinner each night, concierge had our group meet separately the day of St Thomas so he could personally escort us down, and he also made sure hubby and I had a spa pass for the week (that ship had a spa area). The staff overall took really good care of us. We are returning to NCL Sun this June for Alaska (along with about 12 other friends/family who have booked with us - mostly from our wedding cruise). Our first cruise was NCL Sky freestyle, which I believe the Sky has been renamed now.

I believe the Marriott Frenchman's Reef has a gazebo overlooking the water and is a very short ride from the Havensight dock. Our engagement pictures were done on St John about 4 months prior to the cruise - and the Westin Resort there has a gazebo. However, the Westin is not perched high up like the Marriott is on St Thomas.

There is an abbreviated review linked in my signature but I would be happy to email you the full review - about eight pages (CruiseCritic limits posts to 10,000 characters with the new database they switched to last year). Another link in my signature links to engagement/wedding pics. mandygirltx at yahoo dot com

Personally, I think you will enjoy cruising NCL (freestyle is great!) and absolutely love the USVI!!:)

One more thing... I know in the past by posting my positive results of our wedding/reception... and NOT using the cruiseline coordinator.... I have been totally slammed on this board. Because we were not marrying in hurricane season (which is technically June 1 - November 30), we were not marrying onboard, and because we were adamant about marrying in St John (and not other port), we went with the attitude of "St John or bust". Had our ship been rerouted or missed port, our coordinator would have rescheduled up to 12 months later and applied our money that way (versus losing it all). We would have flown back to St John (via STT) marry on the beach we had picked out, and our families would have still had a terrific cruise that week - wedding or no wedding. So definitely make sure you read everyone's pros and cons of going with (or not going with) a cruiseline coordinator. Our personal decision was to NOT go with one because the NCL coordinator company at that time gave us incorrect legal info and could not (or would not) let us book a catamaran for our reception. By choosing to go with a local, independent coordinator, we received correct legal info and were able to book a catamaran for our reception. (There's more details in my review). If you ever have any legal questions, don't hesitate to call the Charlotte Amalie courthouse directly (if you have Sprint PCS - it is a "local" call with no extra fees). They were very happy to answer my questions and it gave me peace of mind to know the facts directly from the source. (We were wanting to get sworn in during our land vacation so we wouldn't have to deal with the courthouse the day of the wedding... NCL coordinator company said that was NOT possible and the courthouse said it WAS possible... so we went with what the courthouse said and it worked just fine.) :) Just do like you have been doing - read everything you can and if any questions, go directly to the source to ask (such as what we did by calling the courthouse to verify facts).

I am getting married this May on the Carnival Legend out of New York. We considered doing a wedding on the NCL Dawn out of New York in port. I like the NCL onboard packages. We wanted the port of New York, so non-sailing guests could attend. We even went to New York last April and met with the wedding coordinators when te awn was docked on a Sunday, from the Wedding Experience. They were great. Ultimately, we picked the Carnival Legend because of the intinary. The Dawn was only doing Flordia and Bahamas vs. the Caribbean on Carnival. However, I think the Dawn does a 10 day in March to the Caribbean. Both the Carnival and the NCL wedding packages seemed to offer more for the money tan RCCL's.

I just booked my wedding out of Cape Liberty NJ on AUG 6 2006 because we wanted it to be local too. We decided on Royal Carribbean Explorer of the Seas because it is a 5 night to bermuda, we thought 5 nights would be easier for all our sailing guests plus it is a little bit less expensive since it is only five nights. Good luck with whatever choice you make :)

Congradulations on your decision.

It should be a great wedding. You may want to think about doing the wedding before you leave port. There was a couple last wek on the Today Show that missed thee wedding. They were to get married in Burmuda but the Voyager went to Canada instead because it was re-routed because of a threatned Huricane.

I am getting married on the NCL Majesty August 28th. We live 15 miles south of Boston. We only have 11 sailing guests and 34 non-sailing guests that all live close by, so it just made sense to "do it here". I'll post a review and let you know how it went.

Patty

we will be gettin married in port! I think it is safer that way plus I have quite a few nonsaling guests that will be attending. I am getting really excited.... I was also wondering if any body is providing transportation for their saling guests we were thinking of gettin a limo bus for everyone .... ttyl thanks :rolleyes:

I had two groups of people coming to my wedding in the port of NYC aboard the Carnival Legend. One group was from North Jersey (35 minutes from port). The other group including myself was from Valley Forge, PA area-- 2 1/2 hours from port--this group was 21 people of which 13 would sail.

For the PA group, I rented a full size bus that had been converted to 30 passemgers with a bathroom and gally area for 12 hours for $805 (to;;s and parking inclued). The bus picked us up at a nearby mall where we were able to pick up a catered continental breakfast. My husband's children were the bus servers for our guests. The bus returned after the wedding and took the non sailing guests back to Pennsylvania.

My invitations to the PA group inducated that complementary transportation was provided the day of the wedding. For those sailing, we shared the cost of a small mini bus back after the cruise for $35/per person.

I have sailed on NCL, but ended up getting married on RCCL. In the end, it had more to do with the itinerary than the cruise line. We had a wonderful ceremony onboard while in port at Key West, with our 56 sailing guests in attendance. It was wonderful.

You might want to consider a wedding in port in NY if you have family and friends who can't sail with you. In our case, nearly everyone we invited sailed with us, so the "destination" port was an easy decision.

If you do decide on an island wedding, I am a big fan of St. Thomas. (I got back from a land vacation a few days ago and will be visiting again on a cruise in Sept). There are several wonderful spots to get married on island. Marriot Franchman's Reef has a great gazebo overlooking the sea. But you might want to check out Bolongo Bay, Secret Harbor or the Wyndham Sugar Bay all of which are lovely locations. For a mountain wedding in STT, check out the Old Stone Farmhouse which is also quite special -- but you won't have a beach front view.

I used the cruise line wedding planner (which worked great for me). But there are several good wedding planners on island in STT. Others on this board could help you more with that.

Good luck

Hi Mandy,

We spoke quit a bit last year.

You gave me the best advice for my weddng on St. John last October.:)

I used to be known as " Soon2BMRS" other wise known as Kathy.

email me at my home address, so much has happened, let's catch up!

kathy.prz@hotmail.com

Look forward to hearing from you!

Kathy :)

Hey Kathy!!!! :D I just emailed you but it came back to me for some reason... try emailing me... mandygirltx at yahoo dot com

I am a big fan of St. Thomas. (I got back from a land vacation a few days ago and will be visiting again on a cruise in Sept).

dcdiva - What a wonderful trip!! Isn't it just beautiful there?!? On your upcoming cruise, consider renting a dinghy on St John to go beach hopping along the north shore. Very affordable, do what you want to do (when you want to), and visit several beaches. We did that during our Nov 2004 cruise and had a blast!:D Our most favorite vacation ever was when we spent Thanksgiving week in the USVI (mainly St John, but also visited St Thomas, especially since that is where we had to fly into). Such a memorable vacation!:)

I swear married life has made me lose my mind! LOL

I gave you a bad email.

kathy.prz@comcast.net

I did email you at your email address.

Talk to you soon!

SHBROC, can you tell me how your wedding was at NCL? I am getting married June 2007 at Norwegian Crown before it sets sail.

Myself and fiance are going crazy trying to plan our wedding. We have finally found a ship that is sailing from NY/NJ during March 2006. My fiance has a strong fear of flying so leaving locally was our only option. The board has provided me with so much info I sometimes signed off from overload. The good, bad and sometimes ugly has been exposed!! I love it. But, now back to my situation.

 

The cruise line is Norwegian. We have sailed both RCI and Carnival, but not Norwegian. I have not seen any mention of this cruise line as far as weddings. Has anyone marrried on board or in port on Norweigan? If so what was it like? Does anyone have any suggestions? Should I use the on board co-ordinatior or utilize someone in St. Thomas? We want to marry in a Gazebo overlooking the water.

 

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We want to book this asap, so that we can send out save the dates to our family.

 

Thanks.

Hi there,

CONGRATULATIONS on your upcoming wedding! I will be cruising on the NCL-Jewel 01/07/07 sailing. We have planned a St Thomas beach wedding with Cheryl Toner of http://viweddings.com We chose a morning ceremony at Magens Bay.

She has been absolutely wonderful and I would highly recommend her!

Good Luck with your planning!

Enjoy...Kathy

I dont know about about weddings but I had a GRAND time one NCL Dawn ...which leaves NYC port! It was SO much fun. Their private island is a real treat.

The only downfall I could tell u about NCL is their freestyle dinning makes it hard for them to seat a large group without advanced notice. You would have to either pick a dinning room and tell them (blank) about of people will be eating at 8pm (insert your time), or you would have to talk to the dinning room of your choice that day to reserve that many places for your guests.