Sailing12Away

You know we're all anxiously waiting for that review with images of you lounging in the hot tub with your wine 🙂

Have you looked at these videos? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ncl+joy+family+oceanview

Out of curiosity, what ship and what room are you currently booked in? Just because a room says it CAN sleep up to 6, doesn't mean it really can. Also how many do you already have in there? If you've already got 5 and they would be on a pull out couch sharing a bathroom with 5 other people... I don't blame them. If they're not in Haven, they can certainly spend time in your room with you but they are not permitted in the courtyard, lounge, bar, etc. They can join you for meals in the Haven restaurant, but they have to pay a fee and that needs to be pre-arranged through the concierge. Not sure when you're sailing, but just because something is 'sold-out' doesn't mean it's sold out either. No harm in going in a club balcony room and trying for an upgrade to Haven for last minute cancellations. Yes, it happens. Not often, but yes it's possible.

LOL... found the cruise and even added in flights from SC based on the OP's stated location. You snooze you loose... price already went up to $5400. Better hurry and finish that booking.

Call me crazy, but that sounds like a reasonable price to me for a brand spanking new ship. OP also failed to mention how many days the cruise is for, or where it's sailing as all of that greatly impacts the cost.

First thing I saw as well... that's my room right there so I'm excited. Just need to wait a full year and change, lol.

Yeah, but you're on the opposite coast from where I'm sailing. There's 2 different cruise port options for ships stopping in Victoria. For me on the East coast... none. At least none that are truly accurate and correct. Guess I'm an honorary yacht club member for the day?

I'm a sucker for the pesto gnocchi at La Cucina, so I have to get it every time I'm there. I can get a steak at any restaurant on board, but can only get that gnocchi in one place.

Nope. Unless any of these look familiar to you. You may be more versed in knowing what's what than I am.

Oh, no need to worry about me. That's why we opt for the balcony or bust mentality when booking rooms so I don't have to venture outside my cabin in those undies. It's @ChiefMateJRK that I'm worried about! 🐀

Yes, sneakers are allowed. Regular jeans are also allowed in those restaurants that require pants. We've never worn anything fancy beyond a polo shirt & jeans for hubby with sneakers. That's why we sail NCL as much as we do.

We're sailing the West coast in February 2023 for the first time, so can't say for sure what it's like over there. But 1K is a lot of money, and the trip from California over to Texas is nearly the same as you flying all the way over to Perth. It's far... and you're already traveling VERY far to begin with. However, Prima is brand spanking new and supposed to be wonderful (booked on her for 9/2023 so we'll see...) The only other option I would consider is to stop in California somewhere for a few days to break your trip up before heading to Texas. That would make it more palatable to me. Definitely a tough call... but what are you more interested in seeing/doing? Do you want a nice beach to relax on? Do you want some unique ancient history & culture? Do you just want some good margaritas and fish tacos? Or do you just want an escape from home for a few days and to be out at sea?

Ironically, if I search "cruise" the only options that show up are on the West coast. So not sure what us on the East coast are supposed to do, other than settle for the Charlottetown Yacht Club.

Yes. At the start of the form there are only 3 options - none say "cruise" so I went with marine. If you search for "Prince" this is what shows up.... Prince Edward Yacht Club is no where near where we are actually entering Canada as it isn't even on Prince Edward Island. It's about 14hrs away and closer to home back near NY. Nothing shows up at all if you search "PEI", and this is the options for "CH..." Someone else had mentioned there was a different website for cruise travel to Canada, but there was no link (that I could find) to a different ArriveCan website through there. All the discussions here on CC are for the Alaska sailors with a stop in Victoria. Looks like we'll be one of the first guinea pigs traveling the East coast and having to sort this out.

Definitely depends on your itinerary with regards to port times. We have a few 10+ hour days coming up on our Canada cruise in a few weeks. But your port times are listed before booking, all that takes is a simple check of google maps to see where your ship will probably come into, and what is walkable/nearby to do on your own without having to rely on a cruise sponsored trip. For any sailing right now, I'd say folks need to still be patient and understanding as we're still not back to the 'before times'. Staff are working with a skeleton crew, passenger counts are going up faster than they can restock and re-staff ships. Those tours that NCL offers are not ran by NCL employees... those have to be subcontracted and outsourced and many of those companies went under after not being in business for 2 years. Lots of moving parts still as we return to 'normal' - so try not to fault NCL exclusively. All the cruise lines are struggling to return to the level of service they once had.

Isn't Viking a bit hoity toity with their actual fancy nights and such, unlike NCL where we can walk for coffee in our PJs/Undies? We've been eyeing Virgin Voyages for such a reason... just haven't found one that fits our schedule yet. I would love to see NCL have an adult-only (but not a winky winky "adult only") cruise one day. We tend to book our trips at the opposite times when kids and families will be on board, so we haven't experienced many in our travels. It's more so because they're cheaper than to specifically avoid the germ mongers, but that's a nice plus. Not anti-children per se, but when the free at sea drinks package is flowing, I don't want to have to constantly watch my sailor mouth.

There's prizes at trivia sometimes... nothing to write home about, usually just an NCL koozie or one of those endless free bottles of sparkling wine. Bragging rights are always more important to me. We won the escape room on Epic and got a whopping koozie... that we ultimately left behind in our cabin 'by accident'.

They're entering the ship separately from us, so that's why I want them to have their own documents. Everything I keep seeing says that everyone on the same ArriveCan form needs to be together, which we won't be. I just filled out the first half for us, but it's too soon to complete the rest. The only problem I have is where it asks for your first port of entry. Our first stop in Canada is Charlottetown PEI. That's not listed as an option for the available ports of entry. Do I pick the yacht club in Charlottetown since it's the closest to the cruise ship port?

Updated link that isn't requiring a member logon: https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/Norwegian-Joy A few of them have videos attached... all of the videos show the 2 bedroom layout. But if you look at the actual deck plans there's a lot of variability in room shape/size, so I'm curious. But I would assume they all have that 2 bedroom 2 bathroom configuration with the virtual balcony.

For those of us who need fresh air and prefer the privacy of a balcony for it, I'll take any balcony over an oceanview any day. Vibe is nice, but an extra cost. And I can't just stumble out to Vibe in my PJs like I can with my own balcony.

Yes, the standard NCL app you already have. However, I personally have NEVER gotten it to work onboard. The menus I have saved in my NCL Menus folder on my desktop are ones I 'borrowed' from other people here on the boards posting them over the years. In theory, yes, you should be able to see the menu but like I said, I have never gotten it to work. The 'mobile' designation may just be from folks scanning the QR code on their trip and viewing the menu through their phone that way once onboard and in the restaurant. If you're fancy and in a Haven room... you can ask your butler nicely for a sneak peak view of the next day(s) menus coming up. We did that on our February trip and used that as a guide for when to use our specialty dining credit and when to eat at the MDR.

Again, just a sample of the MDR options. They vary from day-to-day. The section called Classic Entrees is always there, the rest will vary a smidge. There's talk though that it may start to stay the same from night-to-night... not sure when that goes into effect. But this gives you an idea of some of the options they've offered at one time from the 3 different meals. Fleet_MDR_Dinner_D2_Mobile-Menu.pdf Fleet_MDR_Lunch_Mobile-Menu_Day-3-V2.pdf MDR_Breakfast_Starbucks_Day-3_Mobile-Menu.pdf

This is the info for the upgraded drink package. Anything on this list is free with the upgraded package, or will have a small fee for the regular drink package. Regular drink package has a discount on bottles of wine (25%? 40%? I can never remember which) and the upgraded package has a list of bottles that are completely free, with a discount on the ones which are not. Maybe it's 25% with the regular and 40% off with the upgraded... premium-plus-beverage-package-2021v2.pdf

The free at sea deal is great, but there's some caveats to be aware of. The free specialty dining is not every day - the number of free meals is based on the length of your cruise. But there are tons of other free options to pick from that are fine to eat at, and you can purchase additional meals if you really want to try them all. Unlike RCC, with NCL you just have a free credit and can use it to book a reservation anywhere. With RCC when we sailed, I thought we had to specifically pick the restaurant ahead of time and buy the voucher for that one. So if we changed our minds between when we bought it and were hungry, we were SOL. Free drinks is 100x better on NCL than RCC. You pay for the gratuities ahead of time, so that "free" drink package costs about $250/person depending on the length of the cruise. But again, for comparison, our trip with RCC cost us over $600/person. Drinks up to $15 are included, anything above that you just pay the difference (usually only $1-3 per drink for most). You can upgrade to the better drink package if you're particular about what liquor goes in your drinks or if you like a bottle of wine with every meal. For some it's 100% worth it, for others its cheaper to pay as you go for those upgrades. Free internet is the biggest mis-advertisement of them all. You get an allotment of free minutes. Once they're gone, they're gone. And it's not super fast down/upload speeds, so forget about blogging, streaming movies, uploading tons of photos to FB or anything like that. It's good enough to check in back home and let friends and family know where you are in your adventure, check a few emails, look at a map for the upcoming port, check the weather.... things like that. Again, if those things are important to you then you can upgrade to the unlimited package. But just go in with the right expectations. Same thing with the 'free' excursions... you get $50 off the first passenger towards an NCL sponsored excursion. There are very few trips for <$50, so it's not free at all. Discounted, yes, but certainly not free. On a port intensive trip where NCL offers a bunch of things you want to see/do, it adds up to some good savings. But again, it's not free by any means. The rules on this one keep changing so it may be allowed to be used multiple times at each port, but I've never had the time or energy to try and do more than one trip in a day so I don't pay much attention to those changes.

Ironically, we actually did end up winning that upgrade bid to the villa. I've got a ton of more recent photos than the ones posted here, so if anyone wants to see anything specific about the 3 bedrooms or the enormous outdoor space, just let me know. We sailed around Spain & Portugal this May with only 2 of us in there. Spoiled rotten...