Ship2shoreCO

We had cell signal in Half Moon Cay. I posted some pics to Facebook from the beach.

The guide offered the man a compromise, take a seat and then reserve your seat for the next stop. That wasn't good enough for him, so the guide asked who was in his seat. That's when the guy pointed to us. It was pretty clear that the guide was going to ask us to move, so I offered first.

We saw the guy around the ship a few times with his wife (who had not gone on the tour). I was so tempted to walk up to him and tell him how much we enjoyed getting the chance to meet him and get to know him during our tour.

With the bus incident, our issue was not that the guy wanted the seat back. It was the way he handled it. Had he just approached us directly and asked us if he could have his seat back, we would have graciously moved. Instead, he went straight to the tour guide and started yelling. That was what got my wife so upset and wanting to stand her ground about it. To top it off, at the second stop, he was late getting back on the bus. I overheard some of the passengers talking about how we should just leave him behind. So, he didn't seem to win very many friends for himself.

Had I been there in the Lido Market, I would have snapped a pic of that couple and gone to the front desk. The trouble is that my wife said she wouldn't be able to describe them well enough for staff to identify them absent a photo.

As for the excursion, my plan was to return to our original seats in the back of the bus when we got on, but the other passengers told us not to bother. My wife asked the driver and he said to just grab any open seat. If the upset passenger had simply asked us nicely if we would be willing to move, we would' have done so without thinking any less of him. I thought about reporting it to the shore excursions team but they had limited hours and lines for the next couple times I went by.

I recently returned from a cruise on the Zuiderdam with my family. Overall, we had a wonderful time but there were a couple things that happened that weren't so pleasant.

One night, my wife took the kids to the Lido Market before dropping them at Club HAL. When I met up with her later on, she was almost in tears. She explained that a very drunk passenger had approached her and demanded that she get him more drinks. She explained that she was not a crewmember and walked away, Instead of apologizing, the drunk man and his wife both proceeded to follow her, point at her and laugh before eventually leaving. My wife is Filipino and she thinks that her race may have played a part in how they treated her. I told her that perhaps she should have told a member of the crew that she felt she was being harassed.

A few days later, on one of our shore excursions, the last passenger to get back on our bus after the first stop threw a tantrum when he found that "his" seat was occupied by my wife. Mind you, he hadn't left anything on his seat to indicate he wanted it back and our guide had made no mention of reserved seating. After the guide unsuccessfully tried to convince the man just to take a seat, I offered to move, not realizing that my wife would have preferred to stand her ground. The man didn't even say thank you. I have a sight impairment and use a white cane but he didn't care about that either. My wife, my two kids and I all moved to the back of the bus so he could have his precious seat.

I don't know why some cruisers have to be so rude.

HAL has redone their website since we booked our last cruise with them last year. Last time, it was very transparent with pricing for 3rd and 4th guests in a cabin. Now it seems I have to complete a booking, including entering all the info for each guest, before it will disclose a final price quote. This is particularly a problem for itineraries that advertise the 3rd and 4th guests as being discounted or free. Am I missing something?

Our kids are 7 and 3. My 7 year old loved how Splash Academy had different themes on different days. I can't really speak to the programs for older kids, but we were pleasantly surprised how many other kids were taking an extended spring break.

Our last NCL cruise was on the Jewel in Alaska in 2013 and the crew were amazing. I suppose it's hard not to compare. My wife was the one who brought up the subject with me, so I wasn't theonly one who noticed.

As for the food, I'm sure they had to deviate from their usual menu somewhat because they were using different ingredients than usual. The hotel director alluded to this during a Q&A event near the end of the voyage when he said that our cruise had been a particular challenge for the culinary team.

Just back from the March eastern Med cruise on the Jade and have a few random thoughts to share.

Ports of call were great. The shore excursions team was very well organized and ran a very smooth operation.

The kids loved Splash Academy. It was a good sign coming back from shore excursions and finding that the kids didn't want to leave.

We had the UBP promotion and were very happy with how well it worked. The selection was quite good.

The captain always had something entertaining to say during his daily announcements. My wife thought he might have been a bit too chatty, but I thoroughly enjoyed his commentary.

The food was the worst we've had on any Norwegian ship so far. Apparently there was an accident that disrupted the shipment of food supplies from the U.S. Hats off to the hotel director and his teamfor being able to get replacement stock from local suppliers. It was better than having to cancel the cruise, but I wonder if this impacted the quality of food we are accustomed to.

The breakfast buffet at Garden Cafe was crazy. I'm guessing this had something to do with most excursions leaving first thing, instead of being more spread out throughout the day like other itineraries we've been on. If you like to sleep in, this is probably not the cruise for you.

The crew didn't seem very happy on this ship. They did their jobs but we didn't get smiles out of very many.

Despite some drawbacks, we are so glad we seized the opportunity to do this cruise. You get to see some really amazing places.

When we booked, the agent at NCL that we spoke with advised us to go for the UBP. He said that unless you are a foodie, you're better off with the UBP and then paying the up charge to eat at the specialty restaurants only on the days when you really want to.

We just got off 4 weeks ago pick up for 9.30am,we were in rome city by 10.45am they were pretty much calling everyone to exit by this time :D

I was thinking sometime between 9 AM and 10 AM, so 9:30 AM may be a good compromise.

See this thread:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2176326

 

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I checked that out, but my French isn't that great. :)

Thinking of arranging a car service from Civitavecchia back to Rome after cruising on the Jade later this month. I can't figure out what time to have them pick us up. When I called NCL, they couldn't give me an answer. They told me to ask at guest services once we are onboard.

Any suggestions?

I always price things out on the website first, but when I am ready to book, I find it much faster to call. Last cruise I booked, I was only on the phone for about five minutes after reaching an agent.

On our first cruise, we thought the same thing. We weren't sure what we could possibly do to use up all of our onboard credit. We ended up with a rather hefty bill despite the onboard credit. :)

We received two email confirmations with PDF documents attached after booking. The first PDF was a confirmation for the cruise itself. The second was on amenity confirmation for the UBP and onboard credit. I don't recall seeing anything in my MyNCL account about it.

We got a steal on our 10 day eastern med cruise by booking 43 days out. We paid $619 per adult and $449 per child for a BX for four. We got the kids sail half price and UBP promos included. Had we waited a few days, we could have gotten the UDP too for about the same price. We wound up with an upgrade to a B2 though, so I'm not complaining at all. I'm just not sure how NCL can make any money at those prices. I checked the following week and they were wanting $800+ per person for ocean view GTYs. Definitely glad I booked when I did.

Actually, the Jade was originally in Hawaii.

True, but the Jade has been in Europe for the past seven years and was in dry dock for renovations a few years ago. Given that, I don't see how my question was not a reasonable one to ask.

They do not change the power systems when they travel somewhere else.

Since the Jade has been NCL's year round Europe ship, I just wanted to be sure.

I can't answer that because in a million years, I would not remove (or adjust) the DSC.

Neither would I, except under extreme circumstances where I had attempted to get major problems resolved and had gotten nowhere with guest services.

On my last cruise, for some reason the Latitudes mail was not being delivered to us. I repeatedly asked to guest services to fix this and they kept telling me they would, but they never did. As a result, we missed out on several onboard Latitudes promotions. In hindsight, I should have pressed harder for some compensation

My question is, in practice if you were to try to get the DSC adjusted to zero, how much of a fight would guest services put up? i've had a hard enough time getting them to remove small things that were charged to me in error.

To me, it wouldn't matter much what the contract said, if you couldn't get anybody on the ship to actually follow through on it. I once had an airline attempt to charge me a change fee on a ticket that stated right on the receipt that there was no fee for change. I was amazed at how the airline staff could ignore something that was in writing on their own ticket. Fortunately, I was able to convince a ticket agent at the airport that I was right, but when I wrote customer relations afterwards to complain about how many staff refused to change the ticket, they still would not admit what was written in plain English on copy of the ticket receipt that I had sent them.

We are doing the Eastern Mediterranean on the Jade next month for our anniversary. There's no other way I could justify paying the airfare to get over there.

I think it must depend on where you are going. We booked a ten-day eastern Mediterranean cruise last year that we then had to cancel. We were able to rebook it again for next month at a much lower price.

On our Alaska cruise, I remember buying a drink on board while we were in port in Victoria. I can't remember if they charged me in Canadian dollars, added provincial sales tax, or both. I just remember there being some weird quirk with that item on my bill.

On the European cruises, do the ships charge in dollars or euros?

Are the electric outlets American or European style?

It would seem that your relatives could give you a more definitive answer to your question

Unfortunately none of them work for NCL, so the value of thei input may be somewhat limited regarding this particular discussion.