Middleager

6 hours ago, dbrown84 said:

you can book within 120 days.  that's not the rule.  the rule is the cert has to be purchased at least 120 days before the sailing

I and others had purchased CFs within 120 days of cruising and were able to use the CF.  It's not a "rule" that NCL enforced. 

NCL wants your money and your booking, and they have allowed new bookings within 120 days with CFs bought within 120 days.

19 minutes ago, julig22 said:

Maybe the rules are different in Canada. There is a TA from Canada on another site that continues to post that in order to use a CF you have to book 120 days prior to the cruise - which isn't what the US rules say.

But I've never seen a CF doubleUp offer.

It's the same rule for US and Canada.  I remember seeing some rules about 120 days, but people (including me) had been able to book within 120 days.  An NCL agent also mentioned that 120 rule, but the website allows you to apply CF.

It was in 2022 when I was able to use two Cruise First certs.  Maybe it was because NCL and other cruiselines were recoverying from Covid. 

In 2023 I took one cruise in Jan., and another in Nov.  I wasn't paying attention to the other times of the year, so didn't notice if there were CF double-ups.

Maybe NCL stops doing CF double-ups nowadays, but they certainly had done it before.

31 minutes ago, julig22 said:

That's because there is no such thing as double up for cruise first. Instead, they change the pricing - sometimes you can buy $500 certificates.

There certainly had been double up for CFs before.  I had taken advantage of that before.  That is, was able to use two CF certs.

We had tried the lobster at Ocean Blue on the Getaway once (had lots of OBC on a TA cruise).  It wasn't good. The lobster meat was kind of loose.  Very disappointed.

In Toronto, many Asian restaurants cook very good lobsters.

This is good for people having and wanting to use CN.

Haven't seen double up CruiseFirst for a long time.

5 hours ago, complawyer said:

" it's always better to ask for forgiveness than  permission"

The lady may not agree though 🤪

We went to the Baltics and then Scandinavia, on a land tour last Fall.  The Baltic nations were not expensive.  The Scandinavian nations were very expensive.  The ship has to get supplies there, and the food can get very very expensive there, way more than from Florida.

As for pricing, early last year we took a South Africa cruise out of Cape Town.  One year before the cruise the prices were around 10k/p, way out of our budget.  I was wondering how many people may be taking those cruises.  But the prices steadily came down.  Eventually we booked the cruise about 6 months out at 1/6 or 1/7 the price at one year out.

I bought Bonine or equivalent in US many times and bring back to Canada.  I have Nexus.

Never any problem.

I'm a scuba diver and takes one before going on boat diving.  My family members also takes them before going on boat diving/snorkeling.   We last bought it at Walmart a few weeks ago, it's cheaper in Walmart than the usual drug stores.  At a US Costco I asked and they didn't carry it, so I haven't asked any other Costcos since.  Walmarts are everywhere so that's convenient.

On 6/25/2024 at 6:04 PM, galveston gal said:

Guess no one else has input.

They may go on sale.  Be sure to check every day.

There, is that the answer you're looking for?

On 6/27/2024 at 1:48 PM, kitkat343 said:

The train is the highlight of Flam, but I'm a little confused as to why they didn't at least take you to the Stegastein Viewpoint since you were already in Flam, and must have had the time to do so since you were missing the train ride.

There is a ticket price for that.  Who pays that extra cost?  (The tour operator may or may not get something or anything back after purchasing seats on the train that they missed)

If it wasn't included, the tour operator would need some coordination to make that change, including needing to round people back to the bus (after they got off to go to washroom, see museum, take pics, buy at giftshop, buy food...), not knowing if they really had enough time for doing this, and if they'd be able to get ticket/space to go to the viewpoint.  A small group of people in a car or mini-van might be able to make the change, but not a big tour bus with dozens of people.

Sorry to hear the challenges you encountered.  This is probably more suited for port of calls to Northern Europe.  It's also probably not a NCL issue but excursion operator issues that all cruise lines can face.

We travelled to Scandinavian countries last Fall.  We did look into cruises and/or land tours.  We decided on land tours and did the Norway-in-a-nutshell from Oslo to Bergen (can be the other way Bergen-Oslo), which included the Oslo to Myrdal express train (scenic mountains), Myrdal-Flam scenic train, Flam to Gudvangen cruise (of Nærøyfjord), Gudvangen to Voss bus, then Voss to Bergen local train.  It's a very long day and many segments of different modes of travel.  There are tour companies selling packages for higher price than us buying the various pieces of tickets ourselves.

In your case you're doing a small part of NIN from Bergen port, but it's bus to Flam (and probably bus from Myrdal if you had caught the scenic train up).  Too bad the late docking and bus missed the scenic train.

In our own case, the express train from Oslo departed late, by about 15-20minutes.  We would've be late arriving for the Myrdal-Flam scenic train.  But half way through that train ride (Oslo-Myrdal), they announced that the Myrdal train will wait for us.  Just before arrival, they announced again and asked everyone to get on the scenic train right away, don't do anything else (no stopping for pics, smoke...)    So in this case because most of the passengers for that scenic train were coming from the express train, they were able to wait (maybe 15 minutes).

For us, knowing what we know after taking the full NIN from Oslo to Bergen, the best parts are the Nærøyfjord cruise, Myrdal-Flam scenic train, then the scenic train ride between Oslo-Myrdal,  we wouldn't take a shore excursion of long bus rides just for the Myrdal-Flam scenic train ride.  That's a nice scenic train ride, but there are many other nice scenic train rides (Alaska White Pass, Taiwan Alisan, Australia Kuranda, New Zealander...).

Europe is expensive.  Northern Europe is more expensive.

We always keep checking our flights no matter who we booked them with.

We had booked with NCL, and so far they've turned out fine.  We've had airlines change/cancel flights often.  One just happened a few days ago, while we were on the first segment, the connecting flight got cancelled and we got rescheduled.

Another time we left home in early afternoon for a flight with Air Canada.  We visited a family member on the way, and while there I checked and found out that evening AC flight was cancelled, no reason given.  We drove home and I spent close to two house just waiting to eventually talk to someone, and eventually they got us on the same flight time the next day.  (I also had to rearrange the hotel and car rental bookings)

There are numerous stories, so we're not surprised if there are flight time changes/cancellations.  Ship happens and we got to deal with them and move on.

5 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

You can order different currencies online from CIBC ( other banks are probably the same )and have delivered to house so why wait in line 🤔😁

https://www.cibc.com/en/personal-banking/international/exchange-currency-online.html#:~:text=Here's how to order%3A,up at any banking centre

I don't like to pay more for CIBC or bank rates, while the FX shops offer better rates.  And banks don't carry that many currencies (try South Africa, Jordan, Indonesia, Vietnam, etc.)

We try to use credit cards that doesn't charge the foreign currency conversion fee (2.5% for most banks, and for Amex they convert to USD first then to CAD) when abroad.

If needing to get foreign cash, we go to a local currency exchange shop.  We live in Toronto, and there are at least a dozen such exchange places within 10 minutes drive, and a few within walking distance.  The lines at those FX shops are always shorten than lines at banks.  There are also currencies the banks don't carry, so it is those FX shops.  Oh, with many of those FX shops you can check for their rates online before going.

If we are taking a longer trip and going to several countries using different currencies, we'd get a bunch of crisp new US$100 bills, and use those for exchanges in those countries.  Would need to do some research on what's the best place to exchange in those countries, and sometimes hiring a driver who knows, will help.

In the last few months, my wife and I, and other friends have flown several times.  No problem with non-AC flights.  But with AC flights there were almost always delays, and even cancellation (flight 3 days ago).

Last month my wife took Westjet to Vancouver for a conference, no problem.  Her friends booked AC flights in the morning that got cancelled, and got rebooked to a flight later that evening, that got delayed.  By the time the friends got to Vancouver it was past midnight.  Their original flight was supposed to get to Vancouver at noon.

Could just be our luck, but AC hasn't been too reliable or punctual in the last year.

9 hours ago, paddy1112 said:

What possibilities are there on the ship to refill water bottles apart from the tap in the cabin?

And tab water in many public washrooms.

The NCL buffets are pretty good, certainly not undersized.

I don't mind seeing 😁, but I don't remember seeing ladies wearing bikinis with crochet/knit see-though coverups in MDRs.  Maybe other ladies don't wear that to go into MDRs or they are not allowed.

14 minutes ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Luckily they don’t included my replacement parts as a pre-existing condition 🤣

spouses? 🤪

We got Nexus a few years ago.  So for pre-clearance to US on the way out,

or coming back to a Canadian entry point, Nexus has helped to get to the shorter line.  It works when driving too.

Then again, in the last few trips, in YYZ, we found the non-Nexus lines are also not too long and people to get through US pre-clearance, or Canadian immigration on return pretty fast.

There are many credit cards that would rebate Nexus application fees, so for years I've been telling friends and relatives to get Nexus.

18 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

I thought it was called early bird. I don't usually keep all my FS dailies, but here's an example of the "get off during an early window with no ticket", and there was something similar on the Escape when I went. 

free-style-daily-5 (3).pdf 745.27 kB · 16 downloads

In that example, the ship's time in Kona is 7am - 5pm.  Most excursions in Kona don't start that early, and from experience most people don't get off the ship when it begins to tender at 7am.  From their experience, it'll be closer to 8am when people will start to want to get off, so from 7:45am they start with ticketed tendering.  The tendering from ship to shore isn't too long.
 

In Kona's, 7am is the earliest.  There is no special treatment or "Early Bird" that is 90minutes before everyone else.  It's everyone, not everyone else, starting at 7am.
 

We've been on NCL cruises to Hawaii twice, and we did remember the tendering process there.

14 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

 

So on just about every NCL sailing I've been on, for tendering, it goes like this:

The first lifeboats/tenders are dropped and crew goes over to the land to set up the security area and where people get on and off the tenders. (Edited to add: I remember there was a post from someone who got to over with the crew, due to a super early excursion. That was dependent on the crew being really nice, though.)

 

Next, there is a 90 minute window, called Early Bird, where you don't need any tickets. You go down to the deck where the tendering will take place and just get on. 

 

After that Early Bird window is done, now starts the ticket parts, with Groups 1 to whatever. Never having been Gold or above, I have no idea how the ticketed groups work, since I always go early bird. I assume that I would have had to go to the assigned place to ask for my tickets and hope that I get a good time. High level Latitudes might be able to just get on, I don't know... someone with high Lat status can chime in.

We've been on several NCL cruises, including 6 since Covid.  Never heard of "Early Bird" window for tendering.

Before we became Gold/Platinum, we always had to either get a tender ticket or an excursion.  For excursion, we'd go to a specific area and are given/assigned tender tickets there, and basically followed the group as we're called.

For Gold/Plat and up, we were told to wait in a (different than the excursions) specific area.  While waiting there, we don't need tender tickets and we're just escorted to get on a tender.  There's usually not that many people, and we thought we were on the first tender going out, for guests.

Never heard of "Early Bird" tendering, for all of the NCL cruises we had been on.

I have seen excursions I booked, disappear.  My friends couldn't book any more, because they are sold out.

I've also encountered an excursion that shows up, but when I tried to book, I found there's only one spot.  After talking to NCL, I booked that one spot and kept checking to see if a spot come up (it did, and my wife and I were able to get on that excursion).

Wait till you guys travel to many other airports.  In some other airports there's no heating in the winter.  In some others there's no A/C in the summer.  In many airports there's no place to buy any food, and definitely not finding charging stations.   Many airports don't provide wifi (try Cairo).

At Pearson at least they seem to have improved in getting people through immigration, and the luggages are coming out fast enough.  We've travelled quite a bit since Covid, and have seen so many airports where luggages come out much much slower.

1 minute ago, chengkp75 said:

They pay their own way home.

Do they need to wait for the next turn-around port to get off, or they can get off at any upcoming port? 

Before getting to the port where they can get off, are they then charged the room & board for those days they don't work?  If it happens to be a long cruise, that could be many days from the time they said they quit.

5 hours ago, www3traveler said:

Over the years, I  have seen so many crew members not surviving the first few weeks of a contract.

What happens when they don't survive the first few weeks of a contract?