seemoreroyals

Johnny Rockets hot served breakfast items were on Oasis of the Seas when we last sailed RCL about 10 years ago. They may have discontinued the breakfast items there by now. At the time it was a great place to go for breakfast. The times we have frequented the AD for their breakfast buffet it was more like what you get at the observation lounge. Something limited ideal for on the go in a hurry type breakfast. Pastries, cereal, if you are lucky preheated breakfast burritos, that sort of thing. Everyone likes something different. While on a cruise we enjoy a relaxing sit down breakfast. We find that a great way to start off our day.

The one and only time we sailed on RCL years ago they had a Johnny Rockets that reminded us of American Cafe. They had a nice limited menu of hot breakfast dishes that we enjoyed. Something like that would be great on NCL. We have had the small buffet breakfast in the past at American Cafe and TBH unless you were in a hurry there was not much there.

Will make a great extra complimentary choice for lunch. Assuming it is still free when we next cruise on ship that has an American cafe in Dec I will be trying the meatloaf and the chicken pot pie. I hope they expand American Diner further to include a sit down breakfast. No use having AD there and not getting use out of it. ETA: The smoked fish dip is another added item that may be worth a try as well.

Still charging $7 for the milkshakes. The new menu with meatloaf and other items looks good. One extra free place to eat. They must be up to something. Probably about to raise the DSC an extra $5 per person per day on all of us.

Shows complimentary on our upcoming Escape cruise.

We were expecting something more like ocean blue. To start with the bread they served was more of a tasteless toast with a olive oil blended with something I thought was pesto but ended up being a flavorless something else. They were also lacking in appetizers. We were all looking forward to a decent chowder, soup, or something else you would expect to find on a premium seafood eatery menu. Don't remember what we ordered for appetizers but whatever it was it was not memorable in a good way. For our entrees my wife had sea bass, I had dover sole. Our friends we were dining with the wife had dover sole and her husband ordered a steak. Both of us that had the dover sole found it dry and overall not flavorful. My wife's sea bass was not what she was hoping for. Whenever we go to a place that has sea bass that is what she gets and usually raves about it. The only one of our group that enjoyed their entree was the one that ordered a steak. I don't remember what cut he ordered but he raved about it. We were disappointed because when you go to a seafood restaurant you expect good seafood. To top it off they had a cheesecake in a jar we decided to try for dessert and it tasted and had the consistency of a custard. Like they had just made it and it had not had time to chill properly. For us anyway the whole dinner just was not good.

We arrived there Thurs Dec 14th and left Fri Dec 22nd. No charge for parking. We only had to pay our own way too and from port. Parking seemed secure. We parked adjacent to room where we were staying night before cruise then moved vehicle to separate area near office while we were on cruise.

@mking8288We found the service at Hudsons to be very good as long as it was breakfast. We ate there almost every morning and for the most part food was very good and we had no issues with breakfast. To be fair to Hudsons we only had one dinner there and one dinner at Commodore. We had 4 SD's and one night we ate at the Local. The night we ate at Hudsons it started out well. They seated us at a great table with a great view by the window. A waiter stopped by to greet us almost immediately, took our drink orders. We got caught up in conversation with our friends we were dining with. Finally waiter comes by brings our drinks and takes our dinner order. Next thing we know people who are siting around us that were seared after us already have food coming out. We wait some more, no sign of waiter, drinks and water need refilling, finally I catch our waiter going by and we are told our food will be coming out soon. It went on this way the entire time. When the main course came out it was luke warm at best. We finished our meal without ordering dessert. It was the night the Donna Summer show was at the theater and we wanted to get decent seats. We were at Hudsons almost 2 hours. Commodore OTOH we were in and out in less than an hour. Not the end of the world but for us we had a better experience at Commodore than we had at Hudsons for dinner.

@graphicguylooking forward to your review. Good luck with GF being able to join. Just a few observations from our recent ride on Prima. 1. If you decide to choose Palomar as SD keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. It is in a bad location near buffet on deck 17. Cagney's, Los Lobos, and Hasuki were very good SD's for us anyway. 2. Get familiar with elevators and deck plans. Ship is laid out differently and can be awkward . 3. If the band Familiar Strangers is still on ship they are very good. 4. If you have not already done so try to get into the vibe beach club. If interested, it may be hard to do as you may or may not have GF with you. 5. The only negative we experienced other than underwhelming meal at Palomar was an abundance of kids on our cruise. Since you are going in Feb that should not be issue. 6. Prima is a great ship for non-smokers. Never smelled cigarette smoke entire cruise even while walking through casino. 7. We had better service in Commodore room than Hudson's afa MDR's go. Enjoy your cruise. Look forward to following along.

On our cruise on Prima there were several attempts by people without vibe passes to enter every day we were there. The staff was courteous in the way they dealt with them and nicely escorted them out. On our first day of accessing vibe they put a yellow smiley face sticker on both of our room keys and there were also so few of us in there they knew who belonged and who didn't. Agree it is worth every penny.

Last time on Prima about six months out and this time on Escape almost a year out I got no help from CAS reserving vibe passes. Maybe I should call them back and call them on it. I have to call back anyway first week of Feb when I convert the reservation to 7 star cruise. Right now I am holding reservation with CN certs. I would have rather paid for everything later for obvious reasons among them being which of our credit cards offers the best incentives.

We just pulled the trigger for our cruise in Dec of next year on Escape. Went through CAS. Tried to buy vibe passes while booking but CAS agent said I would have to wait until 4 months before cruise. Tried to argue with her to no avail. After completing booking I went to my new reservation to look around and lo and behold vibe passes were available for purchase. Even though our cruise is almost a year away I was able to book our vibe passes and not risk being left out. IMO even though you have to pay for them in full if you buy them ahead of time, it is better that waiting to see if they have one or two available when you get on the ship. We try to do everything ahead of time even though we board early and often have to make last minute changes.

@Roses_Are_Redall you have to do is get in touch with room steward, let them know you want coffee maker, reg or decaf coffee and how many single serve packs of coffee. They will bring you cream, and or sugar if you need as well.

You can still get coffee makers in room. We just got back from NCL cruise and had no problem getting coffee and coffee maker in room.

No inner circle for us. Don't even know what it is. Guess we are not profitable enough to NCL. We are loyal but we only cruise once a year and rarely play in the casino or purchase shore excursions and other extras. We did pay about $500 extra for our vibe passes this last cruise so maybe we are headed in the right direction and may some day be part of the inner circle. Whatever it is.

Thanks for showing where elevator to vibe on Escape is located. The way deck 19 is laid out it looks like it would be easy to eliminate public sundeck, make vibe larger with added hot tub and extra revenue to NCL.

We had a couple of NCL over achievers we still remember from an Alaska cruise on the Jewel in Sept of 2015. Ivana or Ivanka can't remember which and Agus. Both gave us fabulous service in one of the bars throughout. If hero cards were around back then we would have filled them out for them. We still look for them on every cruise but so far have had no luck seeing them again.

Like your idea of taking picture of their name tag. The young waiter who we received exemplary from at the vibe all I could remember was that his name was Made and he was from Indonesia. He also told me he was one of several Mades on the ship as it is a common name for the part of the world he is from.

@JGmfI think we are about to pull the trigger on the Escape for our next cruise and with it the Escape Vibe. Looking at the deck plans it appears vibe is on deck 19 and am trying to determine if elevators go to deck where vibe is at or if we have to use stairs last couple of decks. On the Prima we just got off of, elevators drop you off just outside the vibe for easy access. Please advise how this works to get to Escape vibe.

We are once a year cruisers and have been for the past 10 years with the exception of one year when we did two. We are very loyal to NCL and would like to see them succeed and at the same time make improvements to their product and reward employees that provide their guests with exemplary service. In regards to hero cards we filled out four of them on the cruise we just returned from a week ago this Friday on the Prima. One of the cards went to a young waiter in the vibe beach club that always had a smile on his face, kept our drinks coming, kept our carafe of water filled with ice cold water, and in general seemed to appear out of nowhere whenever we needed anything. We gave another one to a bartender at the Metropolitan Bar who called himself Dr. Bong. Whenever we ordered wine he would put the wine glass on top of his head and pour wine in it. And considering the circumstances a pretty good pour I might add. We also gave one to our room steward because he always met whatever request we had, and we gave one to the best entertainers on our ship IMO Familiar Strangers. Don't recall the lead singers name but he can sing anything. To what extent do these hero cards help NCL in recognizing which employees promote their brand the best? Hopefully more than just a pat on the back as there were several instances mainly in the Hudson MDR where we encountered less than our expected level of service. And also when filling these out, in addition to name and cabin number, they also wanted to know what our email address was for some reason. In regard to post cruise reviews, we did our duty and filled one out like we do at the end of every cruise. The manner in which the survey is written does not really allow you to go into detail unless you give whatever item you are ranking at the time the worst rating possible. When whoever gets their hands on these post cruise reviews looks at them what happens next? Maybe it is just me but when we filled out our post cruise survey I was unable to provide NCL with what I was hoping to provide regarding our cruise experience. In summary I want to see NCL succeed. Just curious what part the Hero Cards and the post cruise survey play in this process.

Thank you. We always book through CAS and usually finalize something first week of Feb once NCL announces which cruises qualify for CZR 7 Star Cruise. Last year we changed our mind from Encore to Prima in May. I made sure while I had CAS on the phone that I was able to get vibe passes. We used CN certs for deposit and paid in full for vibe. Galveston is drivable for us so that may be the tie breaker and have us going on Escape in December.

On the Escape deck plans it appears to only be on one side. It seems that it may be smaller than vibe on Getaway. On our sailing in the vibe only about 80 passes were sold and we can't remember a time when there were half that number using the vibe. I was wondering if you had any info on both Escape and Getaway in regards to how many vibe passes were sold on each and if one felt more crowded than the other since in print anyway Escape vibe appears smaller?

We recently finished our sailing on Prima where we experienced the vibe beach club for the first time. Absolutely loved it. It was even better than what we were expecting. Don't see how anyone would have anything bad to say about the vibe if they have experienced it. No smokers, no screaming kids, private bar, quiet tranquil ideal for reading. Now the problem is we don't really want to take our next NCL cruise unless it has the vibe onboard. To those that have experienced the vibe on different ships which one has the best vibe? We are trying to decide between the Bliss in Nov 24, Escape Dec 24, and Getaway Dec 24.

@laudergayle we stayed at Gaidos Seaside Inn. Price with taxes was less than $80 for one nights stay. Gaidos is located on the seawall less than 3 miles from the cruise port. It is older but when I did my research and read the reviews it had as good of ratings as the more expensive places. It was clean and well maintained for an older property. They have a full breakfast free of charge. Gaidos also has two restaurants on property including Gaidos Seafood Restaurant, probably the best seafood restaurant on the island. While it is probably not as new or as plush as Tremont or Moody Gardens it provided a great inexpensive place for us to stay and eat the night before our cruise. Uber for 4 of us was only $16 total each way. ETA - free cruise parking for those driving to port.

@rmfortinWhat did you get at Palomar? Maybe we ordered the wrong thing there. Two of us ordered the dover sole, wife had the sea bass, and out other friend had a steak. All three of us that ordered the seafood dishes were dissatisfied. Must have been pretty good to finish ahead of Los Lobos. While the "show" at Hasuki wound have been better received if we had some 4 year olds in our group we all thought the food was pretty good there. We also thought it was a bit strange the times that complimentary eateries were open. There was one day we really wanted to try lunch at Hudson's and it was at 11:30 and it was not open yet. It was the day they had Monte Cristos on the menu. When we did our post cruise survey we tried to let them know about our feelings about the strange hours that the free dining options were open. Not a very good survey by the way. The way the survey is designed unless you give the worst response possible they do not give you a chance to expand upon your experiences they were questioning with the survey. Prior to taking this cruise I spent quite a bit of time researching experiences by others who had previously sailed on Prima. I can now understand why there is such a wide variation of responses to Prima. In some ways it was the best ever. In other ways it was severely lacking. The post cruise survey is one way NCL can improve in areas where they need to improve. Frankly, I don't know if they spend much time focusing on the issues that many cruisers consider shortcomings. I am sure they are aware of them, and they are now baked in. They have decided for whatever reason to leave things as is. It is a shame because there appear ti be easy solutions to many of these issues that diminish the potential of what Prima has to offer.