lepidoptera

I love the ginger bread display! Watching more and more decor get put out was one of my favorite parts of my December cruise on the Breakaway. Great pics of the Francis Scott Ket! Last year my sister and I took a girls trip to Baltimore for a knitting festival. We talked about doing a cruise and the knitting festival if we could get the dates line up when we driving near the cruise port. It is weird to think that so much has changed in less than a year. I was definitely shocked when I saw the video…Im already not a fan of heights and bridges. I am hoping Susan won something and spent some time in the Spa. I know the Sun doesn’t have a traditional thermal suite, but am interested in hearing about it. I usually get a spa pass-can’t buy one online so I plan on touring it on embarkation but any info or pics would be awesome.

I just read the thread. Very excited to see your trip, I’m on the Sun in 36 days, not that I’m counting the days or anything 😉 This will be my first trip on her.

NCL has been my line of choice-I’ve sailed solo on them at least once a year since 2017. I’ve mostly done longer special itinerary cruises. I’ve been okay with paying a premium as a solo sailer for an interesting itinerary. It has gotten to the point that I believe NCL is selling cruises to places that they know they won’t go. It has made me think twice about booking on NCL for any trip itinerary is important to me. I did book a cruise for this year after final payment-because it was more a get a way where itinerary was not super important and it worked with my schedule best. I did much more shopping around than I normally do.

I love the sole, it is my go to in Le Bistro. Also highly recommend their Iles Flotant for dessert.

In the dark days of no cruises, I had a cruise with a cruise next deposit paid on that I didn’t bother to cancel and just didnot make final payment. The certificate was expiring soon, I had so many credits on my account and I just was so over having to call and cancel cruises. It did end up eventually showing up in my account as a partial credit.

Maybe it changed, my last cruise with them was last year. I did really like it. I found the menu pretty dairy heavy and often ate off the vegan menu instead. I did really like being to see all the menus in the app and plan ahead easier.

I would expect the opposite. They keep the dishes at their specialty dining restaurants unique, or no one would choose to dine there. I do think NCL needs to up their vegetarian/vegan game though. When I was on Royal you could see their vegan menu for the MDR in the app each night.

For Tortola I highly recommend NCL’s excursion Escape to Jost Van Dyke-a catamaran ride to different island with a lovely beach with really good beach bars. For St Thomas I generally go to Magen’s bay. A beautiful beach. It is like $5 per person for entry into the park and a shared shuttle is very cheap as well (you will ride in open air truck things there and it is less than $20 pp each way). I was on the Breakaway for 14 days right after Thanksgiving last year and had a fantastic time, I am sure you will enjoy it. I dress for dinner every night (except for a few nights when I was not feeling well and did not go) I wore dresses or a nice blouse with palazzo pants each night with flats.

I went in like the last week of September 2021. It was chilly and rainy everyday-except in Juneau where we started out the day snowing and then it turned to rain as it “warmed up” For tops I wore a Columbia rain jacket with a Columbia fleece and T shirt most often off the ship. In Glacier bay and when on my whale watching tours I wore a packable Columbia jacket with a hand knit wool sweater and a tee underneath. For bottoms I wore ripstop hiking pants to block wind and rain and if necessary I layered a pair of wool leggings underneath. On my kayaking trip in Ketchikan I dressed pretty lightly, since they had a suit to put on over everything to keep i us dry and warm. On the ship during the day I wore mostly joggers and a t-shirt with a light weight zip up sweatshirt, unless I planned on spending a good amount of time outside. I was on a pretty casual line (NCL) but did all specialty dining so I wore a tunic, sweater or dress with leggings in the evening. Only time I was cold during dinner was the day we stopped in Glacier Bay. The specialty restaurant I had that night was on the deck that had the water front and the prow of the boat which they opened up for viewing. The deck was very cold still from Glacier Bay and dinner was unpleasant. I had a baseball cap that I wore a ton as well. It helped keep the rain off my glasses. If it was chilly I just wore my hood over the hat. For shoes I had a light weigh slip loafer things that I wore around the ship, a pair of sneakers and my hiking boot for off the ship. I would really scrutinise your excursions before packing hiking boots. I did mostly boat excursions and the hiking boots were overkill, but at least I already had them. I did not bring any jeans since they take a long time to dry. By having on the ship and off the ship outfits (that always got hung up when I got back on board) I always had dry clothes for my excursion the next day. Since I layer a lot I really didn’t bring a lot of clothes (3 tees, 1 tunic, 1 sweater, 1 zip up sweatshirt, 1 fleece, 1 rain jacket, 1 pack able jacket, 3 pairs hiking pants, 2 pairs leggings, 1 jogger, 2 dress, 2 pair pj and under clothes socks). Important if you are layering try on the layers you plan on wearing before you go and make sure they fit with each other and that your range of motion is not compromised.

I saw that as well! I do like it a lot for looking into repricing cruises.

Congrats on retirement! Can’t wait to read your adventures while I wait for my June 7th cruise. Hopefully everything goes smoothly.

I did one that ended in PC in 2022-we did talk to agents but the line went fast. I was on an excursion to the space center and our bus got there before they opened at 9:00. The excursions were about 3/4 of the way through the bag colors. I don’t feel like it was more involved for the passengers than a normal cruise. I was on a smaller ship RCL Jewel of the Seas, so that may affect disembarkation speed.

I love your review! The Nara deer look so cute and all the food looks so good. Sorry they had you in the wrong port and such a short time ashore-that is really crazy.

Sorry you are having to deal with this, and that you will have to jump through hoops for reimbursement. I swore after a debacle that I would never, ever sail back into NYC from the Caribbean -NCL first changed disembarkation to like 2 pm after we detoured out of the way for a medical evacuation and then we actually ended up getting delayed even more until around midnight. Luckily I had rebooked my flights until the next morning and booked a hotel (that I spent about 4 hours in 😂) after the first delay since some people including international guests had to rebook 2 times. The most frustrating was we spent several frustrating hours bobbing in the Hudson waiting for the current to be weak enough for the Breakaway to be able to turn into the dock. I was a decently experienced cruiser, but this made me realize how much can go wrong with returning to NYC and how tight it is to make it there on time. The stress is not worth it! I only do repos out of NY or Boston because of this. Now that those are getting pushed later in the year to colder weather, I think I might just start flying to Florida and cruising from there instead.

We ended up having 7 time changes because we boarded Spain was still on Summer time and disembarked on the day daylight saving time ended- six of them in a row due to our route changing due to bad weather. I was on royal with fixed dining which I did not think helped, since I couldn’t eat later. I will totally do a transatlantic again though. Jet lag shouldn’t be that bad for West Virginia to Vancouver.