eileeshb

It might be more that there are few US comedians who are funny enough to bridge the cultural divide. I’ve seen howl at the moon on a few cruises and there was definite variation in entertainment level. The first cruise I went on the 3 pianists were so good and funny that it was standing room only each night they were on. Another cruise the players were so busy showing off how many instruments they could play that they weren’t really interested in vibing with their audience which got smaller each night, eventually to less than 20 people in the room.

I’m late to this thread but have listened to both @UKstages and @sweet magnolia’s recordings. I grew up in a house on top of a hill on the west coast of Ireland and I slept in a west facing dormer bedroom, the noises the roof on that house made were very similar to @UKstagesrecording but the noise @sweet magnolia experienced would have driven me demented if I couldn’t fix it myself. I have pretty sensitive hearing but can’t do ear plugs at all so I use the drown out the annoying noise approach, however the squeaky noise would break right through that whereas the random knocking just sounds like tiles rattling in the wind or the seagulls dropping things on the roof. I can however thoroughly understand how others would find that ten times worse. there is the possibility some of the noises are simply “settling” noises like you’d have in a new house and it may take a long while for joints from construction to wear-in which might be why they aren’t being addressed with any urgency. Also if they’re only an issue in heavy seas they would likely only be a factor on limited sailings given the preference of cruise lines to avoid heavy seas. But I pity anyone on a full capacity sailing that winds up in one of the noisy cabins.

Hmm but on encore and bliss there is the studio lounge which could be a bar as it’s the only one on that deck …. Either way I’m intending to carry-on a few bottles of wine particularly for use on the last night as it’s my friend’s birthday that day and I don’t intend to spend hours queuing at bars.

Yep.. like the local surf schools here banning folks from using their own summer wetsuits because the poor kids in the cheapo versions would be frozen within 30mins in poor weather.

They’ve expanded their fleet with moving Joy back from China and adding Prima, plus Viva as well. That means they’re now expanding the range of itineraries and extending the seasons for others. E.g. Bliss and Encore will be sailing to Alaska until the end of October and they started early in April. I’d suspect insurance issues may have an influence too for Ireland in particular, our ports may have had insurance refused for those months. There are serious issues with public liability insurance in Ireland across all industries but in particularly anything connected to the leisure industry. The local insurance companies randomly increase premiums or stop offering coverage entirely even when nothing has happened, it’s a mess due to being such a small market.

Try doing an overnight ferry crossing from le Harve to Rosslare in late October when a storm hits so badly the ship crew consider diverting to Portsmouth to wait it out but don’t… I pity the housekeeping crew that had to clean the cabins after we got back to Rosslare. Btw I can understand cancelling itineraries with tenders on the west coast of Ireland from October to April, that is prime surf season for us. The surfers are usually revving up their jet skis for the tow-in surf spots along this side of the country. For the folks currently sailing and having tender ports cancelled I can only says the current weather is even worse than our normal unreliable summer. The ferries that run from Doolin to the Aran islands used to have to use tenders at low tides before the new pier was built but even with their new pier they still shutdown operations from the end of September or October depending on when the weather turns. here’s a news story of the sort of wave action we can get in storms, the village of Lahinch is smack in the middle of the west coast, only a few miles from the Cliffs of Moher. In between Dingle and Galway on those ireland itineraries. I did see an national geographic cruise ship in the bay here once a few years back sending guests ashore to Liscannor village on ribs.

Afaik the breakaway+ class ships should have snacks in the observation lounge pretty much all day, it’s just at night that we’re left with The Local/O’Sheehans or room service . on the breakaway/Prima/breakaway+ class ships with studios the studio lounge usually has very limited snacks available - fruit(apples or oranges), cookies, or slices of pound cake is the usual range.

It is warm by OCEAN standards. You’re landlocked and lakes are a lot warmer in the summer than the sea at any time. The Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean are exceptionally warm relative to the Atlantic and large parts of the Pacific Ocean. I’ve swum in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, as well as the pacific coast of Central America, none of which were appreciably warmer than the 22C in Ireland. I’ve dealt with surfers and divers from all around the world in my day job and the only ones I’ve met who think a sea temperature above 20C is not warm are equatorial or tropical climate dwellers. In many ways the air temperature has as much or more influence in how the water temperature feels. When there’s a big difference then even warm water can feel cold, in Ireland our sea temperature is usually higher than the air temperature during the winter which is why we’ve so many winter swimmers who don’t use wetsuits and it can then feel colder in the summer despite the water temperature increasing. When I was swimming in Roatan it initially felt cool despite being 26C (80F) simply because the air temperature was significantly higher.

Another aspect not mentioned so far is folks from varying time zones so your 9am is not the same as mine! I tend to be an early riser on cruises from the USA but that’s because my body clock is set for Ireland, however on a Mediterranean cruise everything’s happening an hour earlier than at home. I am one of the post show snack people so I’ll be bringing a stash of sweets with me to satisfy that habit in future. Thankfully I’m staying in a studio cabin and sailing on Bliss next time out which means snacks should be available in both the studio and observation lounges for far more hours than the buffet.

In Europe you can do a fair bit of exploring on your own if you research properly, depending on the port you can use relatively cheap public transport, or find a local tour company that will be half the price of the cruise excursion with a lot more flexibility. Icelandair offers budget transatlantic flights and sometimes allow a free stopover in Iceland for a day or two. My flights to Seattle from Ireland are costing under €800 return with a checked bag & 2 carry-ons via Boston with Aer Lingus & Alaska Airlines/Jet Blue.

🤣 the average water temperature in Bermuda is way above wetsuit temperatures. It averages at 23C, the highest I’ve ever experienced in Ireland is 22C which was extremely unusual and only lasted a couple of days. For swimming any open water competition(swim or triathlon) with a water temperature that high bans wetsuit. The only reason for a wetsuit at that temp is if you’re diving! (Or in my case violently allergic to jellyfish, even then I’d use Lycra at that temperature)

Generally folks on NCL ships are pretty welcoming. Dawn is one of the smallest ships in the NCL fleet so it doesn’t have the studio cabins or studio lounge which may mean limited other solos aboard. There should be a meet-up on embarkation day at a specific venue listed in the daily newsletter. You’ll also possibly meet other solos on excursions as seatmates on buses. I’ve only sailed on the bigger ships with studio cabins but have met other folks outside of the solos meet-ups. On my western Mediterranean cruise I met a couple from the roll call a couple of times around the very sparsely populated ship (it was just after the resumption) and another solo on my very first excursion that I ate with a few times, there were no solo meet-ups at that time due to the covid restrictions.

Breakaway is an exception as it was the first NCL ship to get Starlink , after the original pilot there was supposed to be roll-out to all of the NCL ships by October but last update was a delay and a second pilot phase on Breakaway.

Different airlines and different travel agencies have different requirements for minimum connection times. I’m flying from Ireland to Seattle via Boston, the original flight times gave me about a 2 hr layover then Alaskan Airlines changed their schedule which reduced the layover to 1hr15. As a result Aer Lingus deemed it too tight a connection and switched me to a flight much later in the evening to have a 4hr layover. I’ve made a connection as short as 30mins in Newark going from Ireland to Arizona because we have US pre clearance at the 2 main Irish airports so get treated as a domestic arrival there. Shockingly my luggage even made it. CDG is the only airport where my checked luggage went missing for more than a day. Thankfully I was already well travelled enough to keep a few essentials in my carry-on. I do know I wouldn’t be at all worried about delays on a return from vacation as I would going to. After all it’s not like you’re going to miss anything but a day of work, I’ve had a few trips with tight connections on the return and had bags not make the connection… silver lining I didn’t have to worry about customs as the airline has to deal with them instead. The entire Irish surf team had it happen coming home from South Africa so all their lovely new surfboards didn’t have to be justified to the Irish customs officers as we left the airport.

Those finish dates are probably related to cast contract dates. I hope I get to see Six on Bliss in October and they don’t end it earlier than said. I do know the costumes for some of the shows are seriously protected IP, when I did the behind the scenes ship tour those broadway show costumes were just about the only thing we were explicitly told not to photograph. There’s been enough commentary on here about Kinky boots regularly cancelling performances and then Priscilla had been on Epic for almost a decade so was due for replacement. That leaves Footloose and Six as the 2 broadway style productions getting the chop. Six surprises me as most of the reviews suggest it’s a popular show. j

My uncle and aunt want me to talk my mother into doing a transatlantic with them, she keeps saying the only cruise she’s interested in is Norwegian Fjords. She and my father cruised from Ireland to Australia when they immigrated in the early 70s and I think that is what has put her off the idea. (They moved back to Ireland after I was born and that trip was by air) so if anyone has tips to help persuade her…

United Kingdom(England ), Scotland and Northern Ireland all take pounds sterling £, be careful in which version of cash notes you get, Bank of England notes are preferred. In Northern Ireland the individual banks can issue their own notes which are not easily accepted in Scotland or England. Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Ireland all use Euros €. Most places will take card payments as a legacy of covid when everyone moved to cashless transactions. Some may require à minimum transaction value to take a card payment, usually five to ten euro or pounds. On a Europe itinerary I tipped the barmen with 1 or 2 euro coins. But that was a continental itinerary where all the ports of call were € .

The studio lounge varies between ships, on getaway and breakaway it’s split over 2 decks and feels quite small as a result. Escape doesn’t have a bar at all so it’s just a waiter that takes orders about the time of the daily meet-up, there is the coffee machine and a selection of tea bags in addition to some ice water and snacks. The wine dispenser is not included in the drinks package. Apparently the studio lounge on Prima has some other alcohol on tap that is included in the drink package and is self service. As others have mentioned the lounge is usually pretty quiet except for the daily meet-ups. On one of my cruises a couple of NCL guys were working from the ship and were usually on their laptops in the studio lounge.

The recent dailies I’ve seen listed a location on embarkation day for bag storage. It has probably become a necessity due to the delays in rooms being ready for guests. I’d keep an eye on postings of day 1 newsletters for your ship to see if that facility is being offered.

I’ve booked one that’s provided by Gastineau for NCL. As I’m sailing in October they don’t offer the photo safari version due to the shorter daylight hours but their other whale watching tour is called “discover Alaska’s whales”. The discover Alaska’s whales excursion description provided by NCL wasn’t at all appealing but when I contacted Gastineau they provided a more detailed description. Through NCL the Gastineau excursion is about $50 more than the Allen Marine one.

Oddly not my experience on Epic, I was streaming a rugby match, couldn’t even get the player to load when I was close to the cafe but it worked perfectly well in my cabin. I’d say keep an eye out for the access points fixed to the corridor ceilings, if your cabin is near one then you should get a decent connection. However the back haul satellite connection is a big issue so if there are a good lot of people trying to communicate with the outside world your connection could be slow no matter which package you pay for.

If you’re on Breakaway then more likely to be ok as that ship has Starlink. Unfortunately the planned roll out to the rest of the fleet has been badly delayed.

Depending on your ship there can be issues docking at Warnemunde. There is a narrow channel access and if the wind is too strong from the wrong direction it can delay docking. I don’t think they use Warnemunde for embarkation anymore so if there are issues with the wind they could skip the port. If you are booking anything with a 3rd party provider make sure their cancellation policy allows for not making port.

Has anyone ever seen those check-in times enforced at the port?

I’ve never seen that as an option on a travel insurance purchase in Ireland and that’s also probably the case in the UK and other EU countries.