goddessofchaos

I too am trying to decide on the FCC or the cash back. Paulchili had this question:

Let's say you have $10K/pp FCC and the cruise you book with that FCC is only $8K/pp.

What happens to the $4K of the remaining FCC? Can it be OBC, or can it be used for another cruise?

I too want to know if we can carry over FCC if total is unused. Hoping someone with past experience can answer this.

Zuiderdam April 8 - Panama Canal

Jacqui Marlin and Leslie Brewer - join us for the Meet and Mingle on April 10th.

One thing I might add for anyone flying - bring a washcloth in a ziplock bag. I wet the washcloth and breathe through it to help alleviate the effects of dry air on the plane. Really helps. Obviously you don't need it on the cruise but since I have to fly wherever I go it is mandatory for me to keep my skin and mucous tissue hydrated.

I am totally enjoying your commentary and particularly your excellent photography! I will be doing the Panama Canal in April and we have an aft cabin on the Navigation deck. I plan to take a ton of photos! Yours are giving me much encouragement.

Thank you to everyone for your most helpful information. I think I will see what my cabin mate decides about the Embera excursion. I am signing up to visit a native village in Puerto Limon. Definitely will be getting up early for the entry into the locks!

We are booked on the April 8 Panama Canal cruise and I am agonizing over whether to stay on board through Gatun Lake or take the tour to the Embera village. First question is if anyone has done that is it worth it? Next is how difficult is it to get into and out of the canoe? I am older and in pretty good shape but have poor balance so I am concerned since the tour shows it as being moderately strenuous and the Canoe would be my biggest concern.

Also, we are in an aft facing cabin and plan to head forward for the canal entry. How early should we plan to be there for a good view?

If anyone has other information about this cruise in general I would love to hear it. Excited!

We will be sailing the April Panama Canal cruise and I have never been to that area before. I have heard they have limited programs on sea days and there are quite a few. Any recommendations to occupy time if we don't spend it in the pool all day? How active/noisy is the Lido pool area at night?

We booked the Sel de Mer dinner - did anyone try that? Any other advice would be appreciated.

We had heard that one of the shows on the Spirit was excellent and had a nice variety of music. We had only gone to one other show which was just okay. I felt the sound system needed some work It was rough and seemed to have much static)The performers seemed amateurish. None of the music was familiar to me or my daughter and we were not only bored but uncomfortable. When it was between numbers we tried to leave as unobtrusively as possible but did not want to waste an evening sitting and watching a show that we didn't enjoy. I am sorry to be disrespectful to the performers but you can't please everyone.

I live in Hilo, HI and have Verizon service. On shore as long as you aren't in an area with spotty service I would think it will be fine. I had ATT which doesn't have quite as good coverage as Verizon but in most areas it should work. Off shore I can't say but I don't think the ships are so far from shore for any length of time that it should matter.

We have dining credits and I have reserved leBistro for my birthday. I spoke with NCL and the package includes appetizer, entree and dessert as well as gratuity. Is the soup separate from the appetizer or is bouilliabaise an entree itself? Any recommendations for a fantastic meal?

I eagerly read all of your posts and loved seeing the photos as well. I will be cruising from Barcelona to the Canaries Casablanca, etc. and the only port we will be duplicating from your cruise is Malaga. But I have been to Athens,Naples, Pompeii and Rome so it was lovely to revisit those places via your photos. We are booked in a guarantee BD on deck 9 and fingers crossed we don't have a problem cabin. I do have one important question about the Spirit cabins - what is the situation with electrical outlets? My first and only other cruise was on HAL Volendam which I heard was just a small step above the Spirit. That cabin only had ONE electrical outlet to share for everything. Fortunately I knew in advance to bring a power strip which worked out will so just wondering if I will need one on this ship as well.

Thank you for ALL of your information - especially on the restaurants. I will be celebrating a milestone birthday and plan to book dinner in Le Bistro for that night (I hope!) Loved the photo with the snail, and especially the full moon as well. Awesome and the tour of the caves in Malaga sounds like something I would really enjoy. Thank you again for taking the time to do this!

Thank you so much for your good advice. I think when I visited Spain many years ago we went to Granada and the Alhambra. I will have to check my trip diary and photos for that. Good advice about checking distances on tours as I know this can be a danger for a private tour.

If anyone has been on the NCL Spirit cruise 10 days Barcelona/Canaries I have a few questions about the offered shore excursions. Of the ship sponsored excursions, which would you recommend? Which would you totally avoid?

My daughter and I will be on the Feb. 3 sailing and I have an excursions discount of $50 for each port. I am fairly independent and would seriously consider making my own arrangements but want to make the most use of the discount wherever it is a decent choice. I have had one recommendation to take the ship excursion in Casablanca. Any thoughts on that?

On another note - neither of us are particularly much of drinkers (not soft drinks either) but if the shore excursion deal isn't worth it, would it be better to take the drinks package? We also have shipboard credit that might be useful for drinks.

Thanks for your reassurance. On another thread for a different NCL ship people said there wasn't a problem across from the elevators. I guess there really isn't much that we can do about it anyway so fingers crossed. I knew the rooms are small but we are not all that big so we won't trip over each other. Hoping for some nice weather to enjoy the little balcony.

Thanks for the info. I had read all the stuff on the ports but wasn't sure how to figure the terminals actually used. I am traveling with my adult daughter so as soon as I know how much time she can afford to take off work in addition to the cruise I will get to work. I checked on some a friend recommended and they were booked up for February already! She was just there beginning of summer.

I booked through Vacations 2 Go and couldn't choose a cabin but was assigned a guarantee. On my first cruise with HAL we had the same thing but lucked into a great inside cabin for handicapped so was larger than normal. This time we have a balcony BD which appears to all be on deck 9 and the cabins don't look like they have any major problems. Has anyone had a bad experience with a BD cabin? Not that I can do anything about it but just kind of want to know what to expect.

Does anyone know which of the many Barcelona port berths the NCL Spirit uses? Or does it change? I will be on the Feb. 3 cruise and hoping to plan a few pre-cruise days in Barcelona. It might help with planning if I know which port they use. Thanks for any info.

:) I'll take Hawaii over a Brit. winter any time. Just hoping for moderate temps but we aren't there for very long. :(

Thank you for your helpful response Keith. We chose this because the ports were interesting and I wanted a smaller ship. My first cruise was on HAL Volendam and the size was just about right. I knew the cabins would be small and I don't figure on spending too much time there except to sleep.

I love French cuisine and there isn't anywhere near where I live in HI that serves it. Steaks I can get any time so if LeBistro is good I will plan that. I am researching excursions and your comment about Casablanca was helpful. I am fairly adventurous but not if it is a confusing place or dangerous in any way. I like a good excursion but I also like learning about places and doing my own thing.

I have quite enough time to really build up my excitement! Even refreshing my Spanish.

I will be taking this cruise in early February 2018 and I am kind of expecting cold weather - can anyone who has done this previously tell me what weather they had? (I know, never the same.)

As this is a special birthday cruise I would really like to plan which specialty restaurant to choose for that date. If anyone has anything good or bad to say about the restaurants and the menus I would most appreciate that.

Also, were there any excursions that were well worth the price? We did sign up for the excursion discount so that will make them only slightly more reasonable. :)

I have found a lot of info on the balcony cabins so I think I know what to expect. Vacations 2 Go would only book a guarantee but it looks like all of the balconies are not too bad.

Any other experiences to share? I found lots of info for other NCL ships but not much on the Spirit other than it is older, a bit worn but still nice.

Hawaii is "international"?

Last I heard and I live here. Hawaii is one of the United States. Of course if you are from another country it is international.

I too thank you for the drinks info. I am thinking prices will be similar on all of the NCL ships. I wll be celebrating a special birthday in February on the Spirit and did not take the drinks package because I likely will only want drinks with the birthday meal. Your photos of the drinks lists was most helpful and most appreciated!:)

Thank you Peregrina651 for saving me a lot of time by posting the links about this cruise. Most helpful and they have pretty much given me all of the information I need.

Your review of excursions both paid and free was exactly what I have been looking for. I plan to watch the video in a few minutes. I definitely have to factor in paid excursions since this cruise is a big stretch for me but I want something special for a special birthday!

The first thing I'd suggest is that you take a look at the full list of shore excursions, prices, and start times.

 

In San Juan, I truly enjoyed the Old San Juan Historical Walking Tour. I've been to San Juan many times, and toured El Morro on my own, but this walking tour brought it to life a lot more since the guide was VERY knowledgeable. She was able to provide a lot of details that I did not pick up on my own in my previous visits to San Juan.

 

If you're a beach person and are interested in spending time at a beautiful Caribbean beach, I'd recommend the "Escape to Jost Van Dyke" tour in Tortola. A very nice boat takes you over to Jost Van Dyke and drops you off at the beach for a few hours. Enjoy a fantastic beach, and buy yourself lunch at the world-famous Soggy Dollar Bar. On the boat ride back to the ship, there are free drinks.

 

Definitely DO NOT sign up for whale watching in St Lucia. I actually went to the shore excursion desk to sign up for this, and they strongly advised me NOT to book it! During the previous week, there was not a single whale to be seen on this excursion, and people on this tour were very unhappy with it. A few days after getting this excellent advice from the shore excursion person, I actually ran in to someone in the elevator who had been on the whale watching tour earlier that day... and she said that it was horrible and that they, too, saw no whales.

 

If you've never been to St. Kitts before, you might want to do the scenic railway excursion. That gives a nice overview of the island for someone who is a first time visitor.

 

In St Maarten, there is no need to book a shore excursion through the ship. Either grab a cab and go to world-famous Maho Beach, located right at the end of the airport runway, and enjoy the beach while planes fly very low overhead as they approach the runway...

Or, take the ferry for $7 each over to the nearby beach on Great Bay and enjoy that beach, with no airplanes landing overhead. At either beach, you can have lunch at a fairly decent beach restaurant, while you're there.

 

In St Thomas, the excursion to St Johns Beach takes you to one of the best beaches in the world. Or the Turtle Bay snorkeling excursion is excellent, too. I saw more turtles while snorkeling at Turtle Bay during our cruise than I had seen in either of my two previous visits. The fact that I've now done the Turtle Bay excursion three times should probably tell you something.

 

Also, I'd recommend that you leave at least two days wide open without booking any excursions. That will allow you to stay on the ship and just enjoy what the ship has to offer, while most of the other passengers are off on adventures. We actually stayed aboard the ship on 3 days, and we just really enjoyed those three lazy days with an empty ship and nothing to do but relax. But for most people, three lazy days would probably be too many. Do at least leave one or two days open, though.

 

I hope that's helpful!

This would be the cruise that leaves Jan. 26th 2018. I did not find anything on this tour on the Viking Sea but I am hoping to find cruisers who are familiar with this ship. It sounds great but I do have a couple of concerns about the cabins that are still available. Funny that my info re cruise date didn't seem to show up on my post. I don't believe this is a new one but I really don't know for sure. Viking seems to offer so much more and we are interested in excursions that teach us some of the history and culture, either ship sponsored or private. We have narrowed our choices down to 3 possibilities and seeing how cabins are booking rapidly we need to make our decision ASAP. Wishing you a great cruise to Panama and Central America.