The Traveling Man

Good catch !

Sorry. Post-graduate economics curriculum.

No, you're not wrong. Have you ever heard the old saw "if you have to ask the price, then you can't afford it"? The corollary to that is that if you have sufficient resources for your necessities and your caprices you may not feel the need to budget your expenses or even closely monitor your expenditures. Most "old money" people don't spend their money like a drunken sailor. Some "new money" folks likewise are thrifty because that's the way they managed to acquire their new money. They are comfortable with a lifestyle which eschews extravagance. When they want to spend money, though, they simply spend it and don't give it a second thought. Sounds like you may fit that mold.

I have truly enjoyed the many opportunities we have had to meet, have dinner with, get to know, and become friends with many of the officers on our cruises. Aside from the simple pleasure of getting to know folks from many different countries and cultures, I must confess that there have been other benefits. Some of those officers have comped us for additional nights in specialty restaurants. Several times we have been allowed to join suite passengers for breakfast in Moderno or Cagney's even though we were traveling in a just a standard balcony stateroom. The best part of getting to know the officers, though, is that most of them grew up in a culture vastly different from our own. Meeting the ship's officers make for a wonderful educational experience.

Because anything less than infinity is, by definition, limited. By definition, any assets not required for the necessities of life or savings for future necessary expenditures are available for discretionary spending.

I envy your ability to create a word picture. You expressed so clearly what I was trying to say. My best effort was a simple "to each his own." I enjoyed your version much more than my own.

You're right. On closer inspection, it looks like about 100 feet in the clear. NCL's press release indicates that the Aqua is designed to be 75' longer than the other ships in the class. That leaves about 25' to spare. The vehicles, containers, and other equipment that appear in the satellite photo, though, would need to be moved to some other location. The shipyard probably needs to leave a little room around the sides and back of the ship for access to the hull.

If you focus in so that you can see the V!va, it looks like that ship takes up almost the entire length of that shipyard's dry dock facilities. There may be an extra 50 feet or so of additional space behind the V!va's stern. Reports have indicated that the Aqua (@4u@ ?) will be longer than the first two ships in the Pr1ma class. It looks like it's going to be a tight fit for the Aqua.

The one to the right of the photo is the Pr1ma, which would seem to indicate that the one in dry dock on the left is the V!va. Since the Pr1ma is far from complete in this view, that dates the photo to sometime in late 2021 or early 2022. If you navigate to Google Maps and enlarge this view today, you actually can read "Norwegian Prima" on the bow of the ship.

To each his own. Some folks like to save money by traveling in steerage so they can afford to travel more frequently. Other folks like to splurge for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Some folks like to splurge all the time. Whatever floats your boat.

The shorex credit is $50 per stateroom per tour, but in the past it only could be applied to the passenger whose name appears first on the cruise contract. If the first passenger chose not to take a tour in a particular port, but the second passenger did, they would not receive the discount. That policy may have changed recently, though. I can't be sure, since my wife and I each have taken the same tours on our recent cruises. A couple of years ago, when she wanted to do some scuba dives and I just wanted to walk around town, we were told that she would not receive the $50 credit because my name was listed first on the reservation. We walked across the atrium from Shorex to Guest Services, asked them to reverse the order of our names on the booking, walked back to Shorex, and everything was hunky-dory. She got the $50 on her excursions. The credit is good per tour, not per day. If you can find a couple of tours that you can take on the same day, say one in the morning and one in the afternoon, not overlapping in time, you can get $50 back on each of them.

Thank you for refreshing my memory and correcting my mistake. Yes, it is called the Garden Villa, not the Owner's Suite. Poh-tay-toe, Pah-tah-tah ? A rose by any other name would still be an amazing three-bedroom suite with more amenities than you can shake a stick at. Dining table for eight, grand piano, giant big screen TV, living room with enough sofa seating for eight adults, etc., etc., etc. Simply amazing ! Oh yeah, and wrap around one-way mirror windows from one end of the living room to the other that overlook the pool which is one deck below.

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No, the points are added to your account and your status upgraded only at the conclusion of the cruise.

Movie or theater matinee?

Some other cruise lines offer ways to add points to their frequent traveler programs without actually going on a cruise. Celebrity, for example, sometimes emails a link to a promotional video. You watch the video, then take an online quiz about it to receive "Power Up Points." You then can trade in several PUPs for one point in their Captain's Club. The best you can do with PUPs, though, is maybe to add one or two CC points per month. That doesn't amount to much when you consider that passengers receive several CC points per night on board, more for suites than balconies, so trying to bump up your status using PUPs could take forever. NCL does not offer a similar way to gain Latitude points without actually taking a cruise. When comparing the advantages of one Latitudes level to another, Sapphire offers better discounts on shore excursions and wifi than Platinum. You receive twice as much free bottled water. Sapphire members are eligible for priority seating in restaurants, although I've never experienced any real advantage there. You also are entitled to have dinner with an officer. Some Latitudes members say they see no benefit in that perk. I would say, to each his own. Personally, I have enjoyed the opportunity to dine with officers. My wife and I have done it 20 times with a total of 34 different officers, frequently with just one officer at a time, but sometimes with two. Two-thirds of them have been senior officers (three stripes or more). That includes two Captains, six General Managers, four Cruise Next Managers, two Guest Services Managers, and others. Most of these are folks who have the authority to make exceptions to established rules. Quite often, after having dinner with them, some of those senior officers would offer additional benefits to us. We have been invited to tour the bridge, a place which generally has been off limits to passengers for many years. I have lost count of the number of times we have received additional nights in specialty restaurants, extra bottles of wine delivered to our stateroom, or suite dining privileges even when we were booked in a balcony stateroom, not a suite. Breakfast and lunch in Moderno or Cagney's instead of the buffet is something we always appreciate. We wouldn't have received those benefits if we had not gotten to know those senior officers who were in positions that allowed them to extend those extras to us. So, yes, I think that particular Latitudes benefit has some real value.

Airplane? What is it? It's a 1980 movie starring Robert Hays and Leslie Nielson, but that's not important. On our last cruise, the GM managed to keep all the bars open. I don't know how he did it. Howie did it?

Every night?

I try to avoid them since our experience on the Getaway in 2019 when they cut short our cruise by two days so the ship could enter dry dock a couple of days earlier than scheduled. The cruise after that dry dock also was cut short by a couple of days.

It doesn't look like NCL has a cruise scheduled immediately prior to your cruise. That could mean that it already is sold out, so it no longer appears on the website. The other possibility, though, is that it is scheduled to remain in dry dock right up until the start date of your cruise. That raises a couple more possibilities. The repairs may take longer than planned, meaning that NCL may delay your embarkation day and skip one or more ports of call. An even worse alternative would be that workmen would remain on board and some of the work might still be ongoing, with all the fumes, noise, and closed off venues which that entails. Our TA on the Getaway in 2019 was cut short by two days so the ship could enter dry dock earlier than planned. Even that was not enough, however, as the start of the first cruise after the dry dock was also delayed by a couple of days. Let's hope you don't run into any problems, but I just wanted to advise you that it can happen.

We have done three TAs with NCL, one on the Epic in 2018 and two on the Getaway, in 2019 and 2022. None of them were at full capacity. The average passenger age was a bit higher than we have seen on other cruises. Most passengers were experienced NCL cruisers, with lots of upper-tier Latitudes members. Also there were only a few minors on any of those cruises. If your cruise is sold out, it would be a bit of a change from previous years. Hope you enjoy the ship and the itinerary. Bon voyage.

You seem to be correct. There are a few of them on CC. I guess I always look for the best in other people, so when someone acts like a troll, offers snide remarks in response to an earnest question from someone else seeking advice from other CC members, or tries to be "just so cute" with their postings, my first reaction is to assume that they are being genuine, honest, and forthright with their response. So, yes, sometimes responses like that tend to slide by me. It now seems that @n4w thinks that by warning others away from a cruise which he plans to take that he will find himself sailing on a less-than-full-to-capacity ship.

Okay, I'll ask. What's so bad about sailing in the Mediterranean in July? It's hot then, to be sure, but I've done it before and enjoyed it. So what's wrong with the Breakaway in July in the Med?

According to @justhappy in post #16, the Breakaway is scheduled for a dry dock in February 2025, shortly before the OP's planned cruise.

Thank you for bringing clarity to this matter. Your posts are always insightful.