AmboyValentino

NCL is probably one of the most conservative lines when it comes to the safety of its ports of call. An example I've read about to illustrate this is what happened in Turkey a couple of years back, when it was among the first to reroute compared to other lines.

This reputation was called out in the recent happenings in Russia, but the fact that the Breakaway is in St. Petersburg today probably means that NCL has made a thorough assessment and deemed the risk to be manageable.

I would expect the same due diligence to have been made for this decision, only unfortunately, that the Big Island would be skipped.

I use https://www.bahn.com/i/view/index.shtml

Warning: This is another -Away Class smoke post.

I am still holding on to the hope that they do something to contain the casino (out of concern for the smoke). *Insert post about subjectivity of smoke sensitivity here.*

For those going to the Baltic, I read that the Getaway casino smoke wasn't so bad last year perhaps due to the itinerary and the types of cruisers it draws.

Same menu, different "ambience."

I've logged on a couple of times in the past week with no issues.

Russia has been ranked No. 3 recently. The US gov't wants you to reconsider traveling to Russia.

Only IF you are going to Crimea or the Caucasus (specifically Chechnya). The State Department's Travel Advisory spells out as much.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/russia-travel-advisory.html

I've been monitoring roll calls before and after our cruise. What's strange is, some people got notices about Burn the Floor specifically. We got an e-mail about Rock of Ages. I went to NCL.com and rebooked. Our Burn the Floor reservations were still showing up correctly.

What I did notice was that they had "rescheduled" Rock of Ages from earlier in the cruise to later. Our Burn the Floor reservation was originally later during the cruise anyway. Maybe this only affects those whose reservations are in the first half of their cruises?

I don't know about a full list of when ships are going on dry dock, but I do know that the Breakaway is headed for a dry dock (in Brest) after the TA (to Southampton) that ends on April 27. First cruise after that will be the 9-Day Baltic Capitals on May 11 from Copenhagen.

A little knowledge is dangerous. You don’t have even the slightest clue of what your talking about. You were not even there.

Check out the guy's post history. He's the real deal.

I think it will be a challenge to get 1 reservation for 10 immediately.

How many cruise reservations do you have? If you have more than 1 and you really want to reserve in advance, you can have some of the reservations book for a smaller party size (say, 2 for 5, 1 for 6/1 for 4, or something like that) for the same dates/times. Then, you can just link the dining reservations when you're on the ship.

Or you could just make a standing reservation for the dates/times you want once you're onboard. They typically release only a fraction of the seats (around 1/3, or so I've read) for online reservations, so there should still be availability onboard.

I've gotten help before from the special events staff to make a group reservation. However, it always comes with a caveat that there's no guarantee that we can all sit on the same table given the size of the party.

If you look at the list of ship excursions, NCL's Nynashamn tours are about $20pp more expensive than their Stockholm tours, so the upcharge is the same.

RE: Ports, even the tour operators have it that Breakaway is docking in Stockholm for May sailings, even though the Ports of Stockholm website does have it dock in Nynashamn. I'm also monitoring roll calls to see if any of these change.

Based on the little research I've done, most CC posters place Teppanyaki and Cagney's in their Top 2 for the BA. I'm not sure you could call these two "ethnic," however.

clobbering comes when a poster is totally negative and not objective in any way, then they do not come back to defend their comments. I feel the same when people write how great the cruise was with absolutely no negatives. they are not being realistic and can not be taken too seriously. I believe they are called cheer leaders. Even objective cruisers but ones who favor a certain line are often referred to as cheer leaders. It works both ways.

This. Very well said.

Another totally negative and not objective poster^^^^^

For somebody who claims to be underwhelmed by NCL, he sure posts in the NCL section a lot. :)

Yup. Can confirm. You can change Free at Sea promotions by calling them.

I prefer Coke to Pepsi, but I am a bigger soda pop junkie than my brand preference. I have eaten and will continue to eat in restaurants that serve Pepsi exclusively. If I really wanted to drink soda, Pepsi is a good enough choice than to drink something else just because Coke wasn't available. It's not a big deal.

OP has been very militant about his opinions on his BA trip, and has posted in a couple of threads about the same thing. Maybe he felt the need to create a thread this time. However, I always noticed that in his previous posts, people on the same cruise as him have always been fairer about their opinions, and that things weren't as bad as OP said. So take that whatever you would. I only noticed because I'm researching for an upcoming BA trip, and I've picked up on who posts negative reviews, and was surprised to say it's usually (but not always) the same people.

I think you have to call to cancel that old reservation. But, you can already make the new reservation online.