Sailing12Away

All I keep seeing is a hippo/alligator mounting a frog from behind... Beer taps! Curious to see what is on offer on tap at the bars beyond the standard bud/bud light/coors....

We did a similar cruise a few years back and I wrote up a whole trip report about it. It used to be linked in my signature, but now it's gone. If you search the boards here you may find it. We flew into Rome 2 days early. Did a golf cart tour at night around the city which was great (through Viator), skip the line tour at the Vatican the next day (also through Viator), and then found a private tour that picked us (and our bags) from the hotel, and took us to Tivoli to see Villa D'Este and Hadrians Villa. Stop for lunch at a great place on a cliff, and then they dropped us right off at the port for the cruise. After the cruse we took the train to Venice for a few nights, then trained it over to Florence for a few nights before finally returning to Rome for our flights home. I'll try to dig through my email for the company name of the private tour, but if you're able to sleuth through these boards to find our trip on the Epic from years ago that has tons of pictures and links.

In May on the Star everything was still cancelled, and we got I think $25 for the cabin. Ended up paying for the black glass wine tasting later in the cruise, so it truly makes no sense. Why cancel 'wines around the world' but not cancel 'black glass wine tasting'.... I assure you, our cost for the black glass tasting was higher than the $25 credit they gave us.

If you expect me to pull up every single cruise and cross reference very single port we docked in and whether I got a drink and was charged or not... you've got a lot more free time on your hands than I do. Based on my personal experience, it feels as though we have been charged at every port. Whether it's a sales tax, an EU tax, a VAT, or a 'just because we can' tax... I personally don't care. If there are ports that don't charge anything, that's beautiful... I just haven't experienced it yet. It's peanuts compared to the overall cost of the cruise, but the whole thing which started this side track was that someone commented about it being unique to Hawaii, which isn't the case.

Lowest minimum bid does go down on some rooms sometimes. So I'm guessing that would affect the 'goodness' of your original bid.

@oteixeira this has potential to suite your needs...

We usually love O'Sheehans for a simple no-muss, no-fuss meal. Last trip the food all came out cold after we sat there 20+ mins waiting. It wasn't packed, but with the restaurant on one side of the ship and our table on the other I guess they just kept forgetting about us. Hoping our next trip has a better experience.

We never sail without a drink package, and have just about always been charged tax on drinks we get while at port. This was last on embarkation day on the Star in Barcelona. February on the Pearl out of Miami Last year on the Encore out of Seattle Etc, etc etc.

Once you get your record locator number you can use that to go directly to the airline's website and put in your status/loyalty number if you have one.

Go to cruiseplum and use their search feature. If you want a specific cruiseline, you can specify that. But the key you're looking for is this: Set roundtrip to "no" and you'll find all the one-way cruises available. Might not be a formal reposition - but it starts in one place and ends in another.

I don't remember that... tax/gratuities are usually included at the time you buy the package. But when you're in port I'm pretty sure nearly EVERY port charges taxes, not just Hawaii.

I've never sorted my laundry. It's always all come back pristine and nicely folded, much better than I would do myself.

The way around that is to figure out what is in the drink itself, and just ask for that separately I guess. Frangelico + vodka + something else.... I think

Checking for one week is nothing really. If you truly want to be a price hawk nerd like some of us, start a spreadsheet and track it over several months. Or... just go to cruiseplum who does just that for you. My most recent sailing last May we had booked 1.5 yrs in advance. I checked the price each month, and at the highest it was double what we paid for the same room. The last 2 months before sailing the price started to plummet where it came back to what I paid, and then kept going. It all depends on the sailing, how booked it is, and how far away it is from actual sail date. Unless you're sailing in the next month, checking prices daily when promotions didn't change is a bit of a waste. But over several months, there will be egregious fluctuations - especially closer to sailaway date.

If the prices don't come down before our 🐀 cruise in September 2023 then we'll do a full scouting report for you and find any possible options for craft beer. I thought there was a bar that had cubbys to hang out and play darts in. Didn't that have a bar and tv too? It's not so much about the number of places to grab a beer... it's all about the selection of choices at such bars. Most bars have the standard 4 types of beer. There are some folks who are a bit more discerning when it comes to their beer choices, which most cruises don't carry. District was a good option for those folks as they had less common and more craft-inspired types of selections.

I forget who I was checking flights for, but on kayak they once showed me a flight that landed in LGA and then you had to transfer to EWR for your connection overseas. I don't care if that flight was free, there was no way someone was making that connection in time.

You're asking the wrong person... I can never figure out any of the light switches or curtain buttons in my rooms. They need to label those things like I'm a 5yr old. I kept raising the curtains in the bathroom instead of turning on the lights all the time on our last trip. Blind leading the blind if you're looking for me to guide you 😛 On our RCC trip I had left my rat pack friends out on the table. Came back to a 🐀 towel animal on top of our cheese platter. So yes, some stewards know how to make bonus critters. 🙂 Snorkeling in the rain is no fun.... generally the water isn't clam, which means the water isn't clear. All the sand and such gets stirred up which means no visibility to see anything under the water. So it's not about the wet part, it's about the visibility. We did a snorkeling trip in Barbados when it was overcast and intermittent rain. We saw nothing. Had a nice swim in the warm water, but that was about it.

There's plans listed here... but everything is still open for changes https://cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/Norwegian-Viva

@oteixeira deck 7 has a Syd Normans Pour House.... will that be similar possibly? Or at least have something akin to a Blue Moon as opposed to the lowest of the low.

How long did you guys last in the ice bar? When we went we were the only ones who stayed the whole time. I've always wondered if I could order that hazelnut cocktail outside of the ice bar...

That's understandable. Once you have an idea of what you want, give them a call. I used to book everything myself online until I finally found a great Personal Cruise Consultant (the folks who work for NCL and book trips for you). She has always found a way to get me a lower price than what I see online, or to add in extra bonuses and perks that are not available to me directly. We're not allowed to share their info here on these boards (does anyone even know why???🤷‍♀️) otherwise I would have to speak with her directly when you were ready to book. Want to play a game of hangman? 😉

Pro tip - if you're too full for dessert but something (non ice-cream) catches your eye, they can always send it up to your room with your butler so it's waiting for you later on in the evening. We've done that a few times and it was nice to have slice of cake or something waiting for us at the end of a night of drinking.

That's funny to me, because I can't stand Royal's website. When you search for a cruise on NCL based on date, ship, destination, etc... you can easily right click on ones that are interesting and open them in new tabs to price it out to the end for comparison. With RCC, Celebrity and MSC, you can't do that. So you have to redo your entire search every time. With NCL, you can see everything except the gratuities in your final cost breakdown before committing, and grats are flat based on which cabin you're in so easy to add on. With RCC, you have to add on separately the drinks, specialty dining, and everything else. And those prices change every time you look at them. When we sailed with RCC last year I couldn't even get back into my reservation without having to jump through hoops to be able to add on our drink package (which was 4x higher than what we've ever paid on NCL). For NCL, to start getting familiar with which would be 'right' for your family, head over here and search by "ship category": https://cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/cruiseline.php?line=Norwegian Breakaway-Plus is their larger, newer ships that have all the bells and whistles (water slides, race carts, etc). Breakaway is a smidge smaller, but still lots of bonus activities on board of stuff to do. Dawn & Sun is a bit older and smaller ships. Epic is a class unto itself.... Jewel are smaller ships without a full 'proper' Haven. They remind me of the Jewel of the Seas on RCC, so whatever that category is on RCC. Prima & Leo are brand spanking new and not even sailing yet. And America is just one ship - Pride of America that sails around Hawaii year round. Once you see a ship that looks fun, then search for those cruises on the NCL website.

We had to send ours in twice. First time got no response so after 3 weeks we sent it again and then it was processed within 48hrs.

Wow... that is small. I booked my sister, BIL and their 2 kids in a family OV cabin for next September. This definitely does NOT look like the renderings. Maybe this is a crew only 'smaller' OV room? I may need to reconsider and save up some more money to move them into something bigger...