sherrihall128

My husband has allergies to tree nuts and shellfish. If anything, they took it TOO seriously (which is not a bad thing for most people), but it annoyed my husband. They had to separately prepare some dishes, so he regretted putting his allergies into their system. He would have preferred just NOT ordering foods with his allergens instead of having separately prepared food.

Thanks for this info! I don't remember filling out a special needs request last cruise, but I'll probably have to do it for our upcoming one. Luckily, the allergies are to nuts/peanuts, which are well-labeled and easy to spot compared to other allergens.

Hello, We cruise on the Breakway in ~2 weeks. We have already checked in our family, but I could not find the section on where to enter food allergies. On our last cruise in November, we entered that info during check-in. Any advice? Do we just have to notify guest services after we're on the ship?

I've really enjoyed your review and following along. We board in 3 weeks. Any tips for food/shows/experiences that are not to be missed?

That's nice they have quick options as well as sit-down options. Are the almond croissants as good as other people have said?

Does the Haven restaurant have a sit down menu, as well as buffet-like options to grab?

I'm excited to follow along. My family and I are taking this cruise in 4 weeks.

We went as a couple on one the smaller, mid-size ships (the Gem, part of the Jewel class). It doesn't have a lot of family stuff (water slides, go carts, etc), so there may be less kids/families, depending on the itinerary and time of year. We had a great time, and there was always something to do. If you want lots of options, some of the bigger ships may have more stuff, but may also have more families. I guess it depends on if you're trying to avoid them on vacation 😅.

It was pretty easy to do so through the airline's app. We also had the option to upgrade most legs of the flights as well (we didn't, but still).

Ours worked well for only 2 passengers in 1 cruise cabin to and from Italy from Seattle. I don't know if I'd use it for a family or a group unless they can guarantee the same flights.

We did a 2-day deviation from Seattle to Italy. We only had 1.5 days of visiting prior to traveling to the port to embark the ship. You might get a flight that lands earlier if you're flying from East Coast vs West, but I wouldn't bet on that.

One of my fondest cruise memories was of this view of Curacao. I remember waking up and seeing the colorful building outside of the window, and I was entranced. It was my first cruise as a teenager, and it's a core memory now. So pretty!

When I was looking at the Dailies, I couldn't see if the kids club (Splash Academy) was open. Do you know if it was open at all? Thanks!

We got our flights to/from Italy about 60 days out for our cruise in 11/2022. Because the flights were booked through Delta's air partners (Air France & Italian air), we had the option to upgrade most of the seats if we wanted to pay for that. We were also able to choose our seats ahead of time as well.

What an awesome excursion!

What kind of vegetarian options did they offer? I've seen a lot of Indian food vegetarian offerings for other people.

I am so tempted by these coupons! We live in Seattle, so an Alaska sailing from Seattle would be super easy. I wish I could rationalize spending 2-3K plus excursions for 1 week, but we're planning too many other vacations this year.

Thanks for your review. I sailed on the Gem right before the refurbishment, and I would agree with you on a lot of these points. The meals were hit or miss, but overall were just "ok". The individual chairs in the Spinnaker lounge were too deep; I had to pick my seats accordingly because I have short little legs. The negatives aside: I still had a great experience, and I would totally still cruise on NCL and smaller ships again.

On the last one she posted, SIX was showing at 7:30 and 10 PM.

When it gets closer to your cruise, more excursions will open up. When I was planning my first cruise, I was trying to get some outdoors stuff too. NCL did offer some of these tours, but I'm sure outside vendors offer them as well. For example, in Naples, there's a bike ride around the city. In Corfu, there was an ATV tour or mountain biking. In Santorini, you can swim around the caldera.

I also recommend Rick Steves's book! He gave me enough confidence to do some ports on our own, and we didn't end up doing any of the cruise line excursions. He also has (free) walking audio tours of certain cities.

Here's one of the tours I found: https://www.santorini-view.com/boat-volcano-tours/volcano-boat-tour-including-hot-springs-therasia-caldera-boats/

Hey, just noticed that you're from GH, WA! I live here too (although I did put a much more broad area in my profile like Seattle). Nice to meet someone local here on CC.

Thankfully, it looks like they depart late most days to allow more time (and also because often the next port is still in Israel--Ashdod).

According to NCL.com, when you search for embarkation port of Tel Aviv on the Epic, most of the times are between 10-11PM. If you "view cruise", you can see the exact time of departure.