hallux

If the Encore and Quantum are your choices for Royal and NCL, I'd agree that Princess is the one to take. The Princess ship can go to some places the others might not be able to, plus I hear that Princess would get priority in places if they're going to be congested.

I don't know if it's considered Cocoa Beach but there's an Alamo/Enterprise/National rental office ON the cape. 710 Mullet Rd. 5 minutes from there to the NCL terminal, maybe a little longer to RCL. SUPER easy, but if you get there too early you'll be waiting until the cruise line tells them they can shuttle people over. The hours make it seem like they're only open during cruise days.

I stayed in the attached Hampton Inn. It was perfect - free breakfast (with multiple rooms with different buffet-style options), 5 minutes to the Alamo/Enterprise drop off, and a gas station right across the street. I was waiting for the (free) rental car shuttle to the cruise terminal by 9 AM. I spent less than 12 hours on hotel property, I won't say there was great value for what I paid, but that was partially due to my planning and scheduling so I can't fault the hotel too much there.

The TV in my Studio on the Escape was at a nearly identical angle and I was not able to adjust it. As you're most likely to be laying in bed while watching this isn't actually all that horrible. I didn't watch much TV, it was mostly my 'white noise' for going to sleep. I've sailed in Studio cabins on NCL twice now and have really enjoyed the concept!

@Gardyloo you're about a year late...

I don't carry on anything I'm not comfortable carrying for a little while. This is the bag I carry on - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L675RJW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It carries a water bottle, my camera and misc. stuff I wouldn't want to put in my checked luggage. NCL used to have them ready between 1 and 2 but on my cruise last month they told us not to expect rooms to be ready until 3, and the last batch of rooms to be ready was right around 3. My luggage arrived around 4 or 5.

I haven't read the thread but someone did a 'live' thread just last week! This thread bubbled back to the top and was only 2 above yours in the thread list when I was visiting. Hint - if you go to the main topic list for NCL you'll find a drop-down with a list of ships. If you select the ship you want to see topics from it will do a search for you and show you topics where that ship is mentioned.

When my parents had cats (last one passed 2 years ago, I think but it seems longer than that), a neighbor would go in once a day to put down wet/canned food and check the water. I'd go in every few days and scoop the box(es) and then stay longer to give more attention on the weekend.

When I debarked in Vancouver in 2019 I stowed my luggage at the Pan Pacific hotel. I think it was all of $5. I did a non-ship tour, the company I used now appears to have the option to bring your luggage and drop you at the airport. They don't currently offer the tour I did 4 years ago, and did not offer the airport option when I used them 4 years ago but since my flight was so late (11 PM) I'm glad for that. From my email history this seems to be the company I used - https://vancouvertours.com/

Since this got dug back up.. When I was on the Escape 2 weeks ago the CruiseNext manager did an EXCELLENT job explaining this during his presentation that I saw. He made it VERY clear that the 'OBC' issued for the purchase of two or more CND's simply offsets the purchase price of half of the deposits up to 4 and does not require you to make any other purchases on board in order to 'use' it.

That's because the color doesn't make a difference once the bags are on the ship.

I don't believe you can. I've heard that you can change names on a reservation but at least one name on the room needs to remain from the original booking. As there was only one person in the room you can't swap them out.

I don't know for certain, it just seems coincidental that we were awaiting clearance by the port and an entire family was being called to guest services.

@Panhandle Couple I don't believe there are set days for any particular menu to be served. I saw a 'day 3' menu on a day other than day 3 of my cruise on the Escape. NCL has a rotation of 14 or 21 menus and you could get any one of them on any day of your cruise. You might have known - if you pull up the bottom of the menu you can see the name, which includes the day # in the rotation.

Last week

I must have been overcharged then, I definitely paid $109.93 and definitely upgraded on day 2. Too late now, I guess.

The pre-cruise purchase is a discounted per-day price, accounting for the $30 difference. Why wait? Some, like myself, want to spread out the spending. In my case, buying the internet on board was supposed to put my purchase on the next month's credit card statement compared to buying it pre-cruise (statement was scheduled to close 3/26, cruise ended 3/25, I planned for some processing time but it cleared immediately, oops).

It's 45 minutes or an hour to get to the airport. If you walk off your luggage and can be one of the first off the ship I would say the absolute earliest flight I would be comfortable with is 10 AM, but that might be tight. It depends on how quickly CBP processes the people in front of you, how quickly the shuttle to the airport departs, or how quickly the car rental agency processes your rental and boots you out the door.

@cruiseny4life maybe it does? It's been a year since I used the metered internet.

THIS! If you have a small party you could try just walking up to the host station for the restaurant you wish to dine at, at the time you want to go, and there's a possibility someone no-showed and created an opening. For what it's worth - on my last cruise the solo host was able to get a table for 8-10 people at 6:30 in Moderno, calling on Tues. or Wed. for a Thurs. or Friday meal! I'm not sure if he just has that pull or if the venue just had that many cancellations.

Someone was looking for your "haven lite" post, I tagged you to get your attention, and so they could use the tag to find posts by you...

Log in/log out as needed. I don't believe it rounds up to the nearest minute (if you use 1 minute and 45 seconds, that's ALL it counts). As I noted above - if you decide to upgrade on board you can wait until day 2 and save the cost of the first day. This allows you a discount of $100 if you don't use any of your 150 minutes. If you need a VPN for your work connection you would need to upgrade to the top level internet plan. I don't know about upgrading for a single day. I didn't try it, but if the device allows for sharing of a WiFi network (hotspot used to only be for creating a WiFi network to get a data connection on a wifi-only device when only a cellular network was available) it's worth a try. Do you REALLY need multiple devices on simultaneously if you're not even sure you're going to do the upgrade anyway? If you need a different device on at some point you can just kick the first one off, I did it on my last cruise, the system prompts you when you log in on the second device.

My direct flights on Southwest to MCO from ALB were under $450. Try to beat $400 airfare on one of the others, which accounts for the $50 in bag fees I'd have to pay on other airlines. Actually, that also factors into the calculation of using NCL air compared to booking myself.

@Sthrngary (this calls him to the thread, but you can also use it to find topics he's posted) did those...

Yup, my direct flights were on Southwest. MCO is one of the few destinations I can go to from my home airport and get a direct flight, unless I want to go to the South Side of Chicago or somewhere near Baltimore. The other major airlines don't fly direct to MCO...