fowler9

Was on the Costa Smeralda in April. Haven't been on the Europa but heard positive reviews. Have been on other MSC ships and have to say do prefer them to Costa. Depends on what you're after. Costa I would say suits the younger crowd more, quality of food not as good as MSC, bit more loud. However if price is a factor, I'm guessing Costa comes in cheaper than World Europa. For me, would choose Europa

Yes I have. A fast 15-20 mins walk to Messina station and easy train to Taormina. The bad news is that the station is out of the centre. There is a public bus you can get which gets busy. Last time we decided to walk which wasn't a good decision! Big hills in August are not recommended! So wait for the bus or get a taxi. Think EUR15. Something like that.

Easy to get a cab. Always lots of taxis outside Palermo port. Just be careful with price. Last time, we walked 5 mins into Palermo and caught the public bus to Mondello. If I recall took about 20 mins

The bus from the cruise port drops you at Piazza del Municipio https://goo.gl/maps/Z9B44PFh4ijChNuS6 It's quite a walk then to the station - 30 mins ish Or across the road from where you get dropped off is a shop that sells bus tickets (it's a flat rate wherever you go). Then you'll need a Lam Blu to the Rail Station. Closest stop is outside H&M on Via Grande which is just a few mins walk from the cruise bus drop off

I was also on this cruise and what was the 1st post Covid (although we may never be post Covid!) and the 1st NCL one for about 15 years. I wholeheartedly agree with all the comments made by Utas2. I thought the shows were excellent. All varied. We particularly loved Choir of Man, Malevo and Howl at the Moon but thought even the others were of high quality. Light and Shadow was good in terms of the technical delivery but it's all a bit the same. It's fantastic how they do it but it struggles to fill 30-40 mins as what they do doesn't really differ. Like the reviewer, NCL should close the doors after 5-10 minutes of the show starting so we avoid people wandering around with their phone torches on trying to get a seat. If they can't make it on time, then tough! All credit go to the staff who have had a terrible couple of years. Their enthusiasm and dedication does not go unnoticed. How they have the patience to put with some guests is beyond me. People can see staff are working hard in the buffet to clear tables yet some feel the need to stand there and click their fingers at the nearest steward and point to the table without a please or thank you. Just rude. So a big thank you to all the staff. Absolutely loved everything about the cruise and glad we came back to NCL. Fantastic from start to finish. A shame we didn't make Mykonos but that's 1 of those things and Santorini was just too busy. Apart from that, I thought all the other ports were great with plenty of things to do nearby (we did all our port days indepenently as all places had good public transport links (bus\train))

There's 4 of us going on a cruise. 2 adults and 2 kids. Adults 1 and 2 have the Free at Sea Beverage package so was looking to buy the soft drinks (Soda) package for the kids (Pepsi etc). When looking to buy it online, the people who will be assigned to are the 2 adults. You can't choose the 2 kids to assign it to from the list. Is that correct? If so, does that mean they'll need the adult cards for them to go and get a soda? Do they not get their own card that the soda package be on or is it done on the cabin so they can use their own cards? Thanks in advance.

Sailing out of Europe in August. Is it good that I don't have to worry about that Covid test so close to departure or that potentially I'm on a ship full of Covid positive passengers? Ummm. Think I'd prefer the former (at least when they tested 72 hours before anyway as good as that is)

So it is. Sorry. Just seems to be the 10 day cruises affected

We're on the 3rd August sailing out of Rome and got an email last week to say Corfu had been dropped and replaced with a sea day. Also longer stops in Valetta and Mykonos. Looking at the NCL website, it's been dropped from every NCL Escape cruise this summer and replaced with a sea day. No idea why though??