buckeye82

We got off the Jade on the seventh of June and the ship was not even cleared until 8:30. There was a very long line to get off the ship and it was very slow going. That is when we were glad we had chosen to fly out the next morning instead of disembarkation day.

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We just got back from Venice last weekend. When we used the people mover to get to our ship two of the three ticket machines were not working. Longish line, and we probably waited ten minutes. Having to wait gave people enough time to have their money ready. You can buy the number of tickets you need at one time. The people mover is elevated but there is an elevator up to the platform if you have bags.

Once we got off the people mover we knew we had a long walk to the NCL Jade. We saw two coach buses parked right at the curb. My husband decided to check them out. One of them had a piece of paper in the front window with Jade scrawled in pen on it. My husband talked to the driver and it was indeed a shuttle to the ship. So it is worth looking for that.

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Just off the Jade last Saturday and I think the ship is lovely. Some of the Hawaiian decoration is beautiful. I began to realize that the ship had a very familiar lay out and was therefore very comfortable. The forward lounge, as someone mentioned is very nice, the furniture is eye catching in green and purple. My husband and I shared a double lounge in there. Very fun.

The Captain is interesting. Be sure to listen to his announcements. He will talk over the PA about anything that seems important to him from the weather, to why he likes certain ports, or the craziness of docking or leaving from certain ports. They had to back out of Split (I think it was Split. We were supposed to tender there but didn't) at a hasty 7 knotts. He said we would probably never experience that again. Apparently we were holding up ferries. He gave a lecture about why he doesn't wait for tardy onshore guests. Just as an airplane or train leaves on schedule so does his ship. It is our responsiblity to be on time. When we met him at the Captain's cocktail party he was warm and friendly. From our aft cabin I saw him taking a walk on the pier and he would stop and allow photo ops.

I have to agree that sailing into and out of Venice was a real treat. We enjoyed it from our balcony.

About those aft cabins. We loved our cabin, but there was a lot of soot and each morning there seemed to be an assortment of sugar pack wrappers and other debris from the Great Outdoors two decks up on our balcony. Once as I lay lounging a big wad of wet paper towel landed on me. Yuck. However the sweet smell of baking goods almost made up for these!

On the whole we found the staff to be helpful and friendly. We had a little snafu with our bill that made our last evening on board rather tense. We were not that thrilled with the way it was handled, but in the end it was resloved and I can still say I had a very good time aboard the Jade.

Not my favorite ship, but nice decor. I liked how they had the photo gallery tucked away out of the main traffic zone, but on the other hand they had the Blue Lagoon right in a high traffic area off the atrium, so if you don't mind lots of people walking inches from your table, go there! I thought the shows were good.

When are you cruising? We went in March and that ship was rocking and rolling. I had never played trivia with a social crew member who was literally green before. Poor guy. Of course my husband didn't look much better the first morning of the cruise. Thank goodness for Bonine!

I loved the lounge (Galaxy) up in the front of the ship with the stair way down into the bridge viewing area. Big windows, cozy seating area and interesting things to look at.

We were in a suite and it was large with 1 1/2 baths. But it had dark wood and it seemed dark and cold to me. Didn't hate it, but didn't love it either.

We had a UDP package and found the specialty restaurants good with the exception of the Italian one.

Just saw the new thread titled, "Qs about free UDP for BA/GA. This explains everything! My husband and I got on the wrong ship! :rolleyes:

Yes, OP says paid for UDP but was told not on account while on the cruise. Was charged for all specialty meals. apparently an NCL rep removed UDP when OP called in for help to reserve at a resty.

 

bottom line ... OP charged for all resties.

 

PS, OP sees reversal of charges for UDP but also sees promo DinDis on reservation paperwork.

 

Wonderif DinDis could mean Dining Discontinued?

 

Anyway, charges reversed again. Lesson learned.

My husband has decided that dindis must mean dining disaster! :D

started reading but way too long.

lol! Luckily my husband came home or I'd probably still be writing! :p

I will start off by saying that we had a very nice cruise on the Jade departing Venice on May 31. Couple of glitches on embarkation day and a major glitch on the last full day of the cruise.

My husband and I enjoyed the UDP when we sailed on the Spirit, so I signed us up for it again a few days after booking our sailing. Between the time I booked and final payment the cruise price was lowered a couple of times and apparently some other perks added (OBC that I knew about). So I called NCL to get those adjustments. I also called to reserve a post cruise hotel. I reserved and paid for a shore excursion online. When the proper time came I made dinner reservations online at the specialty restaurants that we wished to dine at. I had trouble booking Moderno for one of the nights so called NCL for help. They could not book it either so I had them replace it with another. No big deal. We could get into Moderno on the first night of the cruise. So, most of the dinner reservations I made online. When I placed them in the shopping cart and then reserved them it came back with zero dollars owed (but maybe I misunderstood that).

Imagine my surprise when a few weeks later I was going through my credit card bill and saw that NCL had refunded the exact amount for two UDPs to my card. I thought that some mistake had been made and remember being worried that perhaps the UDP would no longer be available. Again a call to NCL. The representative looked at my records and said that she saw the refund. I said that I really wanted that package and could she please put it back on. She told me that I still had the UDP but that I had gotten a promotion for free UDPs! What?! Wow! I told her that I had not noticed that in my account or reservations and she said that she would send me the document that showed the promo code. OK!

Now, I have to admitt that I wanted that email to say in very large letters, " NCL has given you free UDPs!" Instead it was a confirmation of my cruise and the price I had paid for the cruise, the hotel, the shore excursion etc. In the top corner were three promotion codes where before there had only been two. The third one was news to me. It said dindis. Looks like dinner discount to me! :)

Jump to embarkation day. We had finally gotten on board. My cruise card did not have my name clearly printed on it. Part of my first name, part of my last. No worries I was told. It is the magnetic strip that counts. Try telling that to the security person who compared my cruise card to my passport! Back to the counter I went.

Once on board and to lunch, etc. we got back to the cabin to find a voice mail from our conceirge. Too bad. Moderno is closed tonight so you won't be able to dine there. Guess not! We asked him to switch Moderno to the next night and put us in Le Bistro instead. 7:30 reservations became 8:15 after a five minute promised call back became half an hour and when we called him he still hadn't arranged it. Oh well.

At some point I realized that our cruise cards did not have the UDP stickers on them like we had on the Spirit. I mentioned this to the Concierge and he said not to worry that they would fix that when we went to dinner. I didn't like that answer, so off we went to the front desk. The nice young man behind the desk looked on his computer and then went into the back. He was gone for about 10 minutes. Red flags waving! But back he came, put stickers on our cards and gave us a little receipt for each night of dining with the name of the restaurant, the time and Pre Paid typed on it. Life was good again!

We enjoyed the cruise. Had some nice dinners in the specialty restaurants. Mid cruise my husband asked to see our bill so far and all was well.

Well, the last day of the cruise came. We were on a shore excursion and when we came back we had a voice mail. What, the restaurant of our choice was closed? No, it was the maitre'd of Le Bistro asking us to give him a call. He wanted to know if we had the UDP. I answered in the affirmative but the red flags had started waving. We got ready for dinner and stopped at the front desk. We asked to see our bill. Of course you know what it had on it. Cover charges for all the restaurants. We explained our situation and she went in the back and came back and tried going over the bill with us again. She said the records indicated we had not paid for UDPs. By then we had been there 30 minutes and we explained that we were now 10 minutes late for our dinner reservation. She said to go, and relax and have a nice dinner and when we came back she was sure everything would have been worked out. Off we went.

In the middle of dinner we were approached by an assistant financial officer who told us that he had no choice but to charge us for our dinners. I told him that I had charged the UDPs initially. He suggested that perhaps our credit card had been rejected! After some discussion he agreed that we could bring him some documentation after our now spoiled dinner. We finished in record time (we still had to pack too! lol) and went to the internet cafe to print out the documents showing the promo code and the paper that said something about our dinner reservations under the UDP. Of course we never saw that Officer again or the first woman who helped us earlier in the evening. They photocopied the documents and said they would send them to Miami. They would call us within 30 minutes to update us with what was going on. We went up to pack and at 10 PM still had heard nothing. Back to the front desk we went. New people, rehashing explainations. They no longer had our paper work. No surprise. My husband went back up to get our copies. They had emails from the office in Miami saying that I had called NCL and canceled my reservation because I had made "other NCL plans."

A few times I asked what does the promo code dindis mean? I didn't get, "I don't know, let me call and find out." I got no response at all. Finally we obviously weren't going away and a more senior finance person showed up after we sat and waited in the lobby awhile. She listened to the story, looked at our papers. Told us she believed us but was not authorized to give out free meals. She called Miami while we were standing there. She became authorized to remove the meal charges.

So lessons learned? Of course. I should have reconfirmed the UDPs again. I will document every call made, every person talked to on the phone. So nothing is truly free. Our last night on board the Jade was completely ruined. If it sounds too good to be true.......

Any comments about this are welcome. Has anyone every gotten a free UDP? I thought I had read (now that I am home) that it has been a promotion in the past for certain ships.

Maybe if your whole group was interested in bypassing the rug and spice places you might have a chance. In our group there were a few interested in the rug place and many interested in the spices. The rug stopped seemed very long. My husband and I walked around the rug shop for a little (rugs upstairs, other stuff down) and then we went outside and chatted with our guide a bit. We probably could have walked around for a little. At the spice and cosmetic place we sat down and they talked to us about the health benefits of certain spices. We were asked to smell and rub into our skin different mixtures. My husband let those pass him by and again when other members of our group rushed up to make purchases we went and waited outside the door.

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Traffic was fine on the highway. Normal stop and go in Marrakech and Casablanca. Actually, traffic getting out of Casablanca in the morning was the worst part. Expect three plus hours travel time including a rest stop.

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I liked Le Bistro, my DH liked Cagney's best.

Sure! And maybe an email address and/or cell number.

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I'm looking for the tour of Game of Throne. There are 2 ports have offer to tour the filming site, one is Dubrovnik the other is Malta. Can anybody know which one to go?

I am not quite sure what your question is. Malta and Dubrovnik both offer Game of Thrones filming location tours. I have been looking at the Dubrovnik one since we will be cruising there soon and there is a tour that is especially for cruise passengers. Sounds like Dubrovnik is used mostly for filming King's Landing and Malta is used for King's Landing plus some other settings in the series. I had asked if anyone had done the Dubrovnik Game of Thrones tour on this thread a while ago and got one response from someone whose taxi driver took them to some of the filming sites and they enjoyed it.

Just curious which sailing you are booked on.

Oh, I see you were recently on the Jade! What type of cabin did you have? We leave on the Jade a week after you leave on the Jewel. Have a great cruise!

Well of course DH saw right away why we had gotten three emails about the upsell. On the first offer the Rep. had put the wrong sailing date! So she rescinded the offer and then resent the upsell for the correct sailing in email number three. And we did get a phone call a little while ago also.

We have decided to pass on the upsell. It was from a lower category suite to a higher category one that would move us from the aft to the front of the ship. The most seasick my husband has ever been was in the front of the ship. And it really wasn't a fantastic bargain anyway. So we will stay in the smaller space, enjoy the suite life and the aft views! :)

write an email back! ask what the offer is before it is gone again!!!

good luck!

They were clear about what the offer is! I would have to discuss with my DH when he gets home.

Within the last hour I have recieved three emails from NCL. The first offered me an upsell. The second, about half an hour later said that the upsell rep. wished to recall the offer. A few seconds later I recieved the same offer as in the first email. Anybody have any clue what is going on? I have never been offered an upsell before. Maybe I still haven't! :p

Thank you for starting this thread. We have #10000 booked on the Jewel next year for a 9 day to Alaska. We have been on both sides, the back, the top (Haven on the Pearl, a cruise within a cruise) and now we will get the try the front. From doing a bunch of research it seems that 10000 and 10500 are most the often the desired forward penthouses. I do like that it has a full size sofa instead of a small love seat. I am very anxious to experience coming into port as many have said it is amazing on the front of the ship. I am also hoping for at least one clear night as the front of the ship is supposed to be the darkest...maybe get really lucky and have the northern lights give us a show :D

 

Still almost a year away but we have our cruise in a week and a half in a 2 bedroom penthouse :D That bedroom/bathroom is sooo nice!

Northern lights in May? You'll be lucky if it even gets darkish out! Have fun! Great cruise night or day. :)

Same cruise (Spirit-Barcelona, Morocco, Canary Islands) and didn't have to give our American passports either.

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I just checked in for my July cruise on the Getaway and my luggage tags just say 'Teal'. I'm in a Haven suite and when I sailed in the Haven previously on the Epic, Pearl, and Jewel my luggage tags said 'VIP' or 'Priority' or something like that and were mailed. Is NCL no longer doing that? No priority status for my luggage? :( haha

I got mine in the mail about seven weeks prior to my upcoming cruise. They say priority on them. Maybe yours are on the way?

Called NCL today on hold for less than 5 minutes.

Yeah. I was going to say if you are ever on hold for more than 10 minutes, hang up and call back later. Wait times seem to vary.

Thanks!

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Oh! Where is the laundromat on the Jade?

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There is no Haven on the Spirit, but they were offering the special bath menu in our suite. I kept waiting for the Conceige to tell me she was just joking when she was telling me about it, and then my husband had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I was reading the menu left on the edge of the tub. What next? :D

Hey, with the Alaskan Plunge bath you get a back scratcher! Nice souvenir? :p