Janicept

MSC is the only cruise line that does a status match.  They match airline and hotel programs also.  If you try to status match look through the list first to make sure you submit the best one.  My husband is diamond MSC and still hasn’t stepped foot on an MSC ship. I think he status matched his Hilton Honors.

The unlimited wifi prices are the same whether or not you have the 150 minutes included in your cruise.  I'm not sure if the prorate if you start the unlimited wifi after day 1.

We flying from Orlando for the Alaskan cruise Vancouver to Seward.  The bogo airline price was almost $1,700 (probably coach).  I was able to get flights for under $1,600 but they are premium economy with extra leg room and free drinks. 

The boarding groups are called from a large room at the port.  There’s plenty of seats there.  Does he use a wheelchair?  If you want to get off the ship fast take your own luggage off.  If you let the porters do it it doesn’t save much.  For us we go to breakfast in the morning, go back to the room to pick up our luggage, walk off early.  You don’t have to wait to debark or look for your luggage in a sea of luggage.  Once you have your luggage and if you have passports it’s a shorter line to go through customs 

Sounds nice.  I hope it works out for you.

Agree with the above.  You can go to the NCL site like you want to book Haven to see if it’s open.  No sense hoping for an upgrade if it’s full. 

If possible consider changing it to earlier in the cruise.  You get the daily planner the night prior so you can see the theme at the buffet.  I think they do a seafood night.  You have to cancel within 24 hours if you want to change nights.  

CASINO8R on mine August 2023.  I "purchased" a free cruise through MyVegas gaming app.

LATRIPLE = Latitude triple reward points.

META8R probably something to do with the MyVegas cruise

On 8/7/2022 at 12:11 AM, wcook said:

Anything you happen to find on room service trays left in the hallway. 

Plenty of milk there.

On 8/9/2022 at 11:08 AM, Sandyfeetdeb said:

Satellite is down and had been fir a while evidently. So no tv or movies! Also if you chose 1 device WiFi make sure you sign on to the device you want to use for the whole cruise. I signed into my phone so it was easy to take pictures at ports. Wanted to switch to my iPad for emails but that’s not allowed!!! Literally only one device period. Can’t switch between phone and iPad! Ridiculous! 

I was on the 8/7/22, 7-night sailing.  I agree the TV did not work except I was able to get channel 20 which had movies (maybe four different ones) and Bob's Burgers playing on a loop.  

I had issues with my phone when I switched to the Ocean Cay wifi.  I went to guest services and they fixed it.  I was sailing solo and only had my phone but it was giving me an error that I had too many devices.  If you are having trouble switching between devices try guest services or the internet desk for help.

Agree about the marketing tactics.  RCL and NCL do the same thing when it comes to promotional "free" items.  

Is the sports complex the gym or more like tennis courts or basketball courts

They don't currently routinely covid test during the cruise but if there's a positive case onboard they will likely have some protocol.  I purchased at home tests through the Royal Caribbean site link and test myself before returning to work.  We already get tested every Monday right now.  The at home tests are similar to the rapid ones from CVS covid testing sites and the ones CVS did for Norwegian at the port before our cruise in September.

Thanks everyone.  I figured out how to make album and I puts links to them in my post instead.

I took sceenshots every morning of the dailies from the NCL app in case I was in an area the WiFi wasn't good.  If you're going to carry your phone definitely use the app.  It's free through the ships WiFi.  They came up in reverse order but it's all there.

This album has pictures or screenshots of the MDR menus breakfast, lunch, and dinner; specialty restaurant menus (except somehow I missed the complimentary Asian restaurant menu); the room service menu; and some bar menus.  Every morning I would go and take a pic of the breakfast menu at the MDR.  The menu was mainly the same everyday.  There were two breakfast items that changed daily on a three day rotating schedule.  I would take pics of the lunch menu for the MDR on sea days, and the dinner menu for the MDR daily.  In the future we will not be booking restaurant reservations ahead of time.  I found the knowing the entertainment schedule and MDR dinner menu was important as well as trying to estimate when we might be hungry for dinner.  Obviously this is impossible to calculate months before the cruise.  

These are pics of the food and drinks we had.  Omg, so much food.  I definitely didn't take pics of all the drinks.  I mainly drank pinot grigio or sparking wine.  My husband mainly drank bourbon on the rocks, Kraken and diets, and bloody Marys.  I did have some morning sparking wine with a little cranberry juice which was surprisingly good.  I made some great friends at the Atrium bar and we met almost every morning for breakfast drinks before heading our separate ways.  

I only got off the ship once in Cozumel to check out the duty free liquor store at the port.  They have some great picks that we can't get here in NC.  Our favorite show was the Blazing Boots.  Even if you don't like country music it's entertaining.  My husband loved the cigar lounge.  It was small though with only four small groupings of chairs.  Our favorite specialty restaurant was Le Bistro.  Everything we had there was amazing and the service was great.  Remember to ask for coffee at the end of your meal.  They have the French press coffee complimentary.  I'm not sure why people rave about Cagney's.  My husband's veal chop was almost raw near the bone and the server never came back to check on us after he noticed.  I would recommend checking doneness near the bone before the server leaves.  We heard from another frequent NCL cruiser that Cagney's often undercooks steaks.  I will confirm the escargot looking dish that was served for lunch our first sea day in the MDR was scallops.  We did get actual escargot at Le Bistro.  Overall the ship never felt packed and the only thing I recall waiting in line for was the service desk.  Even the elevators weren't bad on disembarkation day.  I heard the ship was only around 60% capacity.  I loved playing trivia although the questions were pretty hard.  Looking forward to our next sailing.

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from our NCL Gem cruise a week ago and I can't get them to upload.  I started a new topic then tried to add pictures all on my phone.  It looks like they're loading then says error can't load.  Does anyone know what the issue may be?

Update:  I called NCL and they said everything looks good on their end and just go to the pier at my scheduled time.

We are on the 9/26 sailing on the NCL Gem out of Miami.  We completed check-in including connecting to the CVS app for testing on day of embarkation.  We already use CVS so this wasn't a huge deal.  I received an email yesterday evening asking me to connect the MyChart app to my CVS account which I did.  When I checked my MyChart account it showed three cruise line Covid tests scheduled 9/25, 9/26 and 9/27 at the port 9:30am (our check in time is 9-9:30).  My husband's MyChart was already connected to his CVS account and he received no email.  His account doesn't show any tests scheduled.  Obviously they have us on the sailing list for check in 9/26.  Did anyone else have issues with the CVS scheduling or app?

1 hour ago, tstahl said:

check out this post:

 

 

She put a lot good info and pictures of the dailes.

 

 

 

I did see those.  I was wanting to compare two different cruises to see if they are similar.

Depending on what you're drinking RCI could be a better choice.  Their base rates seem to be lower and you can bring two bottles of wine per stateroom.  NCL allows two bottles also but has a mandatory corkage fee that you pay even if you don't drink them onboard.  Years ago we were on a short RCI cruise and my husband ordered a couple rum and diet Red Bulls.  They charged like $8 for the Red Bull plus whatever for the rum separately plus whatever the gratuity was.  it ended up being about $20/drink.  That adds up quick.  We're on NCL next week and I reminded him that Red Bull is not included in our package, lol.

Energy drinks, special juice bar drinks, and self serve wine/Starbucks stations are also not included in the drink package.  It's definitely better than well drinks though.  Be sure to look at the included brands if you like a particular spirit and don't want to pay an upcharge.  They have a list on the website.  I printed one so we can take it with us.  You are also required to pay 20% gratuity on the comped cost of the package.  You can upgrade this package to include pretty much everything but the cost is high above what's already being paid.  It could be worth it if you have to have multiple Starbucks, high end spirits, and bottles of wine with dinner.

The dining is not a dollar amount added to your card.  I think that's the amount you're required to pay the 20% gratuity on.  

We're on a 7-day cruise in a couple days and just purchased the upgraded internet package to one device Wifi and streaming for $120.  My husband has to have it for work but that doesn't seem horrible.  Hopefully the quality is good.  

I was also a RCI fan previously but when you compare the Free at Sea deal with NCL to the drink package and internet package with RCI they're fairly similar.  Depends on the sailing.  

This is straight from NCL.com.  They are very specific about which vaccines are accepted.  100% vaccinated through the end of this year then re-assessing their policy toward the end of the year.  I booked our 9/26/21 cruise as soon as I heard they were running 100% vaccinated so no kids under 12.

For anyone planning to cruise on NCL it may be worth looking into shareholder benefits.  https://www.nclhltd.com/investors Their stock is not that expensive right now.  Royal Caribbean and Carnival seem to have similar programs.

Did anyone that sailed 9/12 take pics of your dailies to post?

@BirdTravels Do you know if the Gem would have the same MDR menus as the Encore?