BOOBOO172

We are Bob and Tish from the greater Nashville, TN area. Tish was a PanAm way back when flying was actually fun.

Tish is a member of the World Wings Atlanta chapter, and many members of that chapter are cruising.

Hello. DW and I cruise occasionally, and love to play Hand and Foot as well as (I am probably going to spell it incorrectly) Sumba.

Our next booked cruise is Aug 4, 2018 on the NCL Bliss to Alaska. We would love to connect with other card players!

I have my first cruise with NCL on Escape on Nov 25 2017. How do these certificates work? Can I use them on an existing reservation?

My apologies, but I am not sure. I have used four of them in the past, but I only used them either for down payments or for final payments when I booked the cruises.

OK so there's lots of talk about this new upgrade bid system that went fleet wide recently.. so Im wondering

- what offer everyone received

-what cabin do you have now?

-did you bid ?

- if you don't mind telling what did you bid

- was it accepted

-how long did it take to get accepted?

 

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Hello!

The up bid system on cruise we took in Apr 2017, appeared to be used to trick newbies, who had some guaranteed category, into spending money for a possible upgrade that they may have gotten anyway with no additional costs. I bid $1100 dollars on an upgrade from a category B9 to H9 and it was turned down. Two others, on the roll call board had a guaranteed balcony and their bids for other Haven categories were both in the $805 and $845.

I had already paid for one of the most expensive standard balcony staterooms, but the others had only paid a minimal amount. I bet several folks who had a guaranteed interior or ocean view also paid for an upgrade to a higher category as well.

NCL did not tell me my bid was not accepted until about 32 hours before departure. We were on the way to Miami when we got the news.

We had been at sea with NCL for about 35 days before the cruise we took in April. We had taken this same cruise in April 2016 as this is a birthday week, and things were perfect! However, in the year since then, apparently things changed at NCL. The list of cutbacks and shortcuts that they took between our last two cruises is too long to go into, and many others have detailed them.

I have two each, $250 cruise next certificates that I would like to sell since I am so upset with the new business model of NCL.

Send me a bid on them!

Boo

Hi!

NCL management seems to be on the way to becoming the blue light special of the cruise industry. We have had numerous cruises with NCL until the last Getaway cruise our of Miami in April 2017. This cruise was sub par from the moment we arrived at the terminal until we actually were able to get off the ship after about 1.5 hours standing in line.

After several nice experiences with NCL, we came to expect certain things like lobster on the menus in the specialty restaurants, priority boarding, and other things that have been eliminated. I noticed that NCL has a new CEO, and I would wager that he has something to do with the great reduction in services and amenities.

Bottom line is that we also have two each $250 cruise next certificates that I am trying to sell cheap. After 35 days on cruises with NCL, I am going to try another cruise line this fall.

By the way, Latitudes points have become virtually worthless.

Boo

Now, before I write this next, I must tell you that I have children - between us, DH and I have 4. They range from 18 to 13, and we love children whether they are ours or not. Children are wonderful. They are cute, and endearing, and challenging, and worth every minute. They are proof that life should go on, etc. BUT. . . on this cruise, they were mostly horrible. Not all of them, and not all the time - one night, we were waiting for an elevator that showed up with 8 teenagers in it, sitting on the floor and playing Uno. They were having a blast and invited us in, but since the elevators on Getaway are plentiful and fast, we smiled and waved them on. THAT was cute. The family eating in the buffet on "dress up or not" night, sitting next to a table of their four kids in tuxedos and tennis shoes - THAT was pleasant. Sitting next to unaccompanied, sobbing 10 year olds at breakfast? Not pleasant. Eating at one of the specialty restaurants while a baby screamed across the room and the parents didn't take it out? Not pleasant. Watching your mother get tripped by a 10 year old who said "I'm in a hurry" and kept running? Most unpleasant. Eating lunch next to a crew of teens with the foulest mouths I've heard since Robin Williams? Impossible. On Getaway, we learned that appropriate cruise behavior for many parents with children ages 8 and up is to get on the ship, give them their key cards, and say good bye for the week. I expected to see a bunch of children - we cruised in June, for heaven's sake - but I hoped for better behaved or supervised children. They were inescapable. Even if you go to the adult pool, the crew will show up with a Nickelodeon-themed game and you'll have to cheer through it. The only safe place we found was Spice H20 and the ever wonderful and cheerful Bartender Rudy. So yes, my grumpy, kid-avoiding self has been broken from summer cruising. Rant over

Double L, aka LL, and I made the same cruise in mid-March 2014. We had a most enjoyable cruise; the ship was wonderful and although we spent a lot of time exploring the ship, we were only able to cover about one half of everything that was available. One of our favorite places was the Spice H2O area. The only negative thing about the cruise was the large number of children running amok. We are in our mid-60's, and were both ran into by running, screaming children five times between us. One time an urchin was running on the pool deck, looking back at another urchin chasing him and was on a course to collide with me. I just stood there and braced for impact. The urchin got the worst end of it, but he had the audacity to tell me that I should be watching where I was going.

Children certainly behave differently today than they did when I was growing up!

The spring breaker's were mostly entertaining, especially at Senor Frog's in Nassau where the drinking age is 18. The afternoon at Senor Frog's was most entertaining, especially when two sets of parents came to retrieve a young boy and girl that had seemingly met each other on the ship and had become incapacitated by alcohol. I wonder how the parents were contacted.

Except for the urchins I cannot say enough positive things about the cruise though! We liked it so much that we are going on the Breakaway out of NYC the week after Labor Day. There was also a promo running that if we purchased a certain package on the Breakaway, we would get a free cruise on the Pearl out of Miami. What a deal!