JamieLogical

I have never sailed on any ship where the suites were not sold out. Even when I was on the Celebrity Summit with only 250 people onboard after the restart, the suites were sold out. Every cruise line wants to sell their suites and will price them to sell or will fill them with upgrades. I think the only time suites might be below full capacity is when there aren't a lot of kids onboard, so the rooms are only single or double occupancy.

I have a friend on this sailing with you. Since you aren't scheduled to leave Halifax until 9:00pm on Friday, I think you will likely be leaving early if you make it there at all. Projection right now is that the hurricane will hit Halifax at 8:00pm on Friday.

Yeah, the better way is the way Celebrity does it. Your OBC shows up as a potential payment method when booking anything through their Cruise Planner website when you book excursions, package upgrades, specialty dining, etc. And, if you don't have enough OBC to cover the full amount, you can put the difference on your credit card. Oh well. Maybe I will try the book, then cancel, then rebook trick.

I honestly can't remember if there is a way to use OBC on purchases before boarding. I have $100 of OBC from my Shareholder's Benefit and I want to possibly book some excursions with it. Do I have to wait until I am onboard or can I call in to use it? Does not appear to let me use it booking through the website. I have gotten spoiled by Celebrity I guess. There I can just spend OBC when booking things in advance through their Cruise Planner website.

I get 2 from Free at Sea and 2 from Platinum for a total of 4. Sorry for the confusion.

No. My brother and his girlfriend booked this sailing and with my $500 of unspent CruiseFirst and the fact this sailing was soooo cheap, I decided to join them. I don't plan to sail NCL again after this, but I guess you can never say never. My next sailing is with Princess (Panama Canal) and after that, we plan to stick with Celebrity for the most part as I am now almost Elite with them.

Not surprising with with the cheap fare!

There looks to be some decent stuff on the menu in the video, but certainly not enough to keep me happy for more than 2-3 nights. At least I am Platinum and end up with 4 specialty dinners on a 7-day sailing, but anything more than 7 days and that menu would get old fast! Meanwhile, Celebrity has four different dining rooms all serving different food on their newest ships....

I don't want to hijack the thread, but the straw that broke the camel's back for me was when we booked the Joy out of Montego Bay as part of NCL's "Return to Sea" where they swore up and down that these cruises would 100% be happening and would not be yet another COVID cancelation (of which we had many!) and then Alaska opened up and they canceled the sailings on the Joy to move the entire crew to the Encore and offered us zero compensation. We used up our FCC and a couple of CruiseNexts for a B2B to Bermuda on the Breakaway last Sept/Oct and that was supposed to be my last NCL sailing. For those sailings, I got another example of NCL's poor customer service. The price on the second leg of the B2B dropped by something like $190 per person for my husband and I and we called up expecting 25% of the difference as OBC as we had received for price drops in the past. We were told they would not give us OBC, because the total would be less than $50 per person. The price then dropped even further to where 25% would have been more than $50 and they said they wouldn't give us OBC because we were inside of 15 days from sailing. Meanwhile, I was booked on a Celebrity cruise for the following month. That one, I was sailing solo and the price dropped right around $400 (I was in the Retreat). I called them up and they gave me 110% of the price drop as OBC! Talk about night and day! ~$400 price drop on NCL = no OBC. $400 price drop on Celebrity = $440 OBC.

I checked out OnPoint and their instructions say to make sure the test box is unopened.... I only have an open box of a 5-pack of tests left (4 tests remaining), so I don't think I can use that? By the time I spend the cash for a new box of tests and pay for the proctoring, I might as well do eMed....

Nope. Like you, I am all in for about $450 right now. I had $500 of CruiseFirst that I had intended to let expire and then with no solo supplement and the cruise fare being so cheap, I couldn't resist. Plus, I was supposed to cruise with my brother the week that cruising shut down for COVID and so now I am finally going to get to do it!

The spa is stupidly expensive on this sailing, but I am going to have to pull the trigger. One thing I do miss on Celebrity is the Breakaway/Breakaway+ Thermal Spas, so I am not going to pass up the chance to use one again and on a cold weather cruise, it will be very nice to have access.

I wouldn't say "back to the dark side", as that sounds kind of permanent. I am just making a very brief stop on the dark side. 😋

I can't believe that after all of our NCL and Celebrity adventures, we are finally ending up on the same sailing!

I was using Rebound Patches, which no longer seem to be available. Used up the last of ours on our Alaska sailing. I am going to have to research alternatives. I also recommend Liquid IV for recovery. They are packets of powder you mix into a bottle of water. Edit: Just checked Amazon and it looks like Rebound Patches are back!

Definitely MUCH prefer Celebrity. My most recent sailing to Alaska on the Solstice was my "worst" cruise experience (ports and itinerary were obviously amazing) and I would still take it over most of my NCL sailings. I have sailed on Celebrity seven times since the restart, both solo and with my husband and fully intend to keep sailing with them after a brief departure for our Panama Canal sailing on the Emerald Princess in December. Next Celebrity cruise is currently booked for May with my husband, but may try to sneak in another solo cruise in late February or early March. Next cruise I will hit Elite, which is the Celebrity equivalent of Platinum already!

I spend most of my Cruise Critic time over on the Celebrity boards. Though, with working 60-80 hour weeks the past few months, I haven't spent much time on there either lately.

Okay. Hopefully it won't be implemented on the Breakaway in time for my Oct. 30 sailing. It sounds like a terrible idea to me. At least I have four specialty dining credits for this 7-day sailing, if they do implement it.

I had sworn off NCL a while ago and intended not to sail with them again, but got roped into a cheap cruise with my brother and his girlfriend. I haven't been keeping up with the NCL news and updates the way I used to, but I vaguely remember seeing/reading something about how NCL was going to have one MDR menu for every night of the cruise and just have a few different specials, instead of charging the menu daily. Has that plan already been implemented?

I posted a lot about my B2B back in November where I was in a Sky Suite for 5 days and then an Aqua Class for 4 days. I think for a 700 difference, I *might* do the Retreat again, but only because that includes OBC, Premium Drinks, and Premium WiFi. I don't think the difference in rooms and Luminae vs. Blu would justify a $700 difference.

For Chase Sapphire, a "point" is the equivalent of 1.5 cents when booking any travel through the Chase portal. You earn points at different rates depending on what you are buying with your card. Travel and dining purchases earn 3 points per dollar spent. Some brands/services earn additional points, for example, any dollar spent on Lyft rides earns 10 points. Sometimes these sorts of things are limited promotions. Anything else is a straight single point per dollar. So you are getting a minimum of 1.5% "return" on every purchase. For travel purchases, you are getting a 4.5% "return". And for promotional purchases you get up to a 10% "return". In addition to being able to use points to essentially book free travel (I can't remember the last time I paid for a flight or hotel room out of pocket), you get many additional benefits with a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, such as free TSA Precheck or Global Entry, free DashPass, free Lyft Pink, and free travel insurance. I find that by putting every single purchase (and bill if able) on my credit card and then just paying off the balance every month, I get probably thousands of dollars in "free" travel every year. We dine out a lot and always pay for our cruises through the card, so we get a lot of triple points from dining and travel expenses. Also, when I have to travel for work, I will book flights, hotels, etc. through my card and then have my employer reimburse me, so I get those extra points. Heck, on Celebrity, you can pre-buy casino credits through the Cruise Planner and those counts as "travel", so I get triple points from my gambling!

Have you sailed on an S Class? Curious how the magic carpet compares to the Lawn Club for relaxation.

It has been proven that COVID does not spread effectively on surfaces. I think it is FAR more likely that I caught COVID from a tablemate or sitting next to someone at a bar than it is that I caught it from the xray machine at the terminal or a drink tray onboard. From the CDC: The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus. It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low. Because of the many factors affecting the efficiency of environmental transmission, the relative risk of fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is considered low compared with direct contact, droplet transmission, or airborne transmission. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html

Honestly, probably not. I wore my mask in the casino and the theater and everywhere indoors onboard as it was. The only things I could have possibly done differently would have been to not share tables at dinner and to try to keep more social distance in the bars. Realistically, that would have made for a much less enjoyable cruise.

The math doesn't work for me to have got it on the flight home. I flew home Saturday and had symptoms on Sunday night. The turnaround time from exposure to symptoms is not that quick. Not even with Omicron.