Ellis1138

Did you rent a car to do all this? We'll be renting one for when we arrive in Reykjavik and keeping it for a couple days and using it to get to the airport. One piece of info I can't find is where to park the rental car at the place the Prima docks in Reykjavik and whether it's free parking.

It should not set off the smoke detectors unless the humidity in your cabin reaches 85%. That's pretty extreme humidity. I take along a nice Accurite Hygrometer and stick it magnetically on the wall in my cabin. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013BKDO8 You could take one of those along and if it looks like your humdifier is getting up to 80%, you can turn it off so it doesn't set off any alarms.

1. It will depend on when the ship clears customs. Whatever time it generally says on the Freestyle Daily for arrival is usually the time they will let people get off, not when the ship starts docking. This can vary based on weather, port issues, etc. My strategy is: get up early, eat as early as possible and go down to the deck with the gangplank so that when it does open, we're close and not waiting on elevators. 2. Check the Freestyle Daily for tendering instructions on "Early Bird, no tickets". You don't need to pay for Priority Access, nor should you, since it won't get you off earlier than Early Birds. And for tendering, you don't get Priority Access on the way back; you have to stand in line. Get to the waiting place for Early Bird and wait until they let you on the first tenders.

Free at Sea plus opinion: I don't drink, but for the plus, you also get the soda and carton water and (I think) specialty coffees. The unlimited non-streaming internet is a $250 value by itself, so if you're going to use it a lot, it's worth it. 2 specialty dinings are worth about $160-ish. So, if you will be drinking and using all that, it's a decent package price. (Why I never took it: I don't drink alcohol or soda, the tap water on the ship is great to drink and I was in the Escape Studios with the best coffee machine for free. My itinerary was port-heavy New England/Canada, so I had nearby wifi and data coverage and didn't need to use up the 150 minutes.) I tend to go Hobbit Mode for breakfast. I would get up at 5 am, have a coffee from the Studio Lounge machine and then head up to O'Sheehans for extra crispy bacon. (I can't swallow pills with water alone, so I use bacon to help me get them down.) The regular coffee there was good and they do have some nice stuff, like corned beef hash. After my pills and bacon, I went to the buffet for the 'made for you right there as you like it' omelet. Then down to Taste (MDR) for pastries, pancakes/waffles and tea. I never went to the Starbucks but I think they had pastries too. I did Moderno twice on the Escape. I love that salad bar, the pao de quiejo and all the meat. I also like not having to keep track of 1 appetizer, 1 entree, 1 dessert. They cooked the meats as I requested and brought me new ones if I thought the meat was overcooked. My favorite night for the MDR is when they have chimichurri beef. I did none of the entertainment, so do not know how that was. There was a lot of it and the stuff in the Atrium was 85 decibels. I had to wear Hear-Os. The casino tends to be smoky, but I had fun at a slot pull. The Escape is a really good ship and I enjoyed it.

Is it a specific Amex card that does this?

The Mandara spa's usual hours are 8 am to 10 pm. The exceptions are the night before disembarkation, they tend to close at 8 pm. The day of embarkation, they tend to be open for tours and the raffle from boarding time until the time the muster drill used to be. Then somewhere around sailaway/departure, one would be able to have spa services or use the thermal suite. This is generalized and it could vary per sailing.

Just to clarify: Are you on the regular or the "Premium" wifi? (And if anyone is on the Prima with the Premium wifi and wants to post their Speedtest, that would be cool.)

And in shows, people run away from explosions without messing up their hair. They shoot guns that have no recoil. I'm not sure I would base my expectations in life on what happens in a TV show.

I knew when I booked the Prima that all this stuff is possible.

It's funny that it's getting so much news coverage these days. But maybe word will spread that if you do an independent excursion, aim to be back an hour before all aboard, just in case of delays. Also take a day or 2 of important medicines, necessary items and passport with you. I also always (even for non-cruise vacations) bring a list of all the Plan B places and what to do if the original plans are awry. But they got back to the ship, which is a happy ending.

There's three types of stocks: The one where it looks like a staircase going up. The one where it looks like a staircase going down, or worse, a slide. And then there's the Mountain Ranges. NCLH has been a Mountain Range. When I saw the 2020 crash, I grabbed 100 of NCLH at 10 and 100 of CCL at 7. Not for pure investment purposes, but I knew I would be going on cruises, post-pandemic, and I had faith the industry would make it. I could not also afford to get 100 of Royal, which was 24 at the time. It's going to be rocky rides, with the stocks going up and down due to investor emotions and not based on actual performances. Just hang on for a while and get your OBCs. Right now, the industry shoud be ok and NCLH is still filling ships on NCL, Oceania and Regent.

In my opinion, do not get an aft balcony. Owing to the complaints I compiled over the past couple of years, the aft cabins on the PoA can suffer from a "sewer smell" that ranges from annoying to nauseating. The main cause needs a combination of factors: The wind has to hit the ship's funnel at the right direction, which then causes the both the sewage plant output and the funnel exhaust to be blown into the AC intakes for those cabins. It worried me so much that I moved our cabin to mid-ish and ahead of the funnel. (Ours was 9622). And without the Na Pali sailing, there's no right or wrong side to be on for scenery. Most of the time, by the time we got underway, it was after sunset, so no scenery at all. I've stopped updating the reports, now that I've taken the cruise.

I happen to be a weirdo who enjoys being out in cold, damp and dreary weather, so as long as it isn't icy or lightning. But yeah, I had a similar thing on the Escape for a New England/Canada cruise, where I was out in the hot tub on deck 19 by myself in the pouring rain. Or where I was the only one in the pool on the NCL Sun in Alaska when the outdoor temperature was 30 degrees. But yeah, our sailing on the Prima is a holiday one and probably very full, so I expect the food venues to be zoos. We'll find out in June/July.

I thought NCL ships were no longer going to do currency exchange on board. I can always check with Guest Services when I get on ship. The trouble with the ATM thing is the same: We dock and I immediately have to be at the shore excursion. No time to run off to a bank and back.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but in addition to the $10 waterproof Walmart wristwatch and my phone's clock, I also set an alarm on my phone, based on hours, not time. Like if we're being let off the ship at 9 am and all aboard is 6 pm, I set an alarm to go off in 7 hours. So no matter if the clocks are not set to local or ship time, I have a backup for the exact amount of hours that we're allotted in port.