beastlet

I don't know if cruise ships stop there, but the beaches in Zanzibar were unbelievable. Totally calm, crystal clear water, that was almost too warm and the sand was literally like talcum powder. I have never seen such white, soft sand before or since. 

Just now, david_sobe said:

The Haven staff want to feel they are exclusive and bringing any outside food in cheapens the experience in their minds. 

Funny, I think the experience is cheapened because I can't get what I like to eat. The current Haven menu doesn't have a single appetizer I like, and the only dessert I like is plain ice cream or sorbet. 

I shouldn't have to go to the main dining room to get things I enjoy, they should be willing to bring them to me.

8 minutes ago, DaisyGoldberg said:

It's  dependent on the policy at a particular Haven, apparently. My sister had one cruise where she asked if it was possible to get a lava cake and they had one for her every night without her having asked. 

 

Next cruise (different ship) they wouldn't pre-arrange it even once, and told her to go to the dining room for it.  Really soured us on making a special request. 

My experience was similar. First Haven cruise on the Breakaway they did any special request. They gave me pretzel bread at dinner every night because they saw I loved it the one time I went to lunch and had it, and they did it without me even asking. Same for creme brulee for dessert, I said how much I liked them in a conversation without asking for it and every night after that one appeared at dinner.

On the Joy, I asked for pretzel bread at dinner every night and it was like I had asked for something totally unreasonable. I asked for creme brulee and again was treated like I was being an unreasonable PITA.

It depends on the management of the restaurant, whether they are good and about service or if they suck. In the Haven, for how much extra you are paying these requests should be fulfilled without a qualm.

On 4/16/2024 at 11:15 AM, Sailing12Away said:

 

On 4/16/2024 at 11:15 AM, Sailing12Away said:

 

On 4/16/2024 at 11:15 AM, Sailing12Away said:

None of the appetizers on the dinner menu are things I would eat, so I tend to get the onion soup or a kids mac & cheese. I don't eat seafood, so the only thing I tend to get for entree is the surf & turf and give the lobster to hubby. The prime rib has always been way too fatty for me.

 

 

You can order only the turf. Or double turf. Or the turf with mac & cheese.

My mom orders a lobster tail (or two) with every dinner, no matter what entree she gets. The one thing that makes that static menu work is that you can do anything you want with what's on it.

1 hour ago, trickylibrarian said:

I bit the bullet for the Hampton Inn across from the cruise terminal for next month,

$350.  Convenient but still 😞.   We have not spent any time seeing the sights in 

Boston so we are landing early and sightseeing the day before the cruise.  Cross 

Boston off our list.  

For $350 I would have done it. When we're going it's almost $600! For a Hampton Inn.

I've already been to Boston, so am not interested in sight-seeing. When we went, many many years ago, it was much cheaper!

44 minutes ago, 1025cruise said:

The airport Hampton Inn is actually down the road in Revere. There really aren't any easily accessible restaurant options over there.

 

$200-$300 a night is normal for Boston. Unfortunately, October is high season due to colleges, leaf peeping, and all that other stuff. Later in October is Head of the Charles, in which case you can just forget it.

It's one night, we'll Uber Eats something if we need to. Not like we'll be short of food on a cruise. 🤣

I was sort of okay in a resigned way with the $300, but most of the hotels I was finding were $500+. Some over $1k. That's more than we're paying per night for the cruise, and that includes a lot of stuff beyond a bed. 

Update: I got a room at the airport Hampton Inn for $312 total, and that includes a breakfast in case we want something to munch on in the morning. It also includes a free shuttle from the airport, so we'll only have to pay for one Uber ride to the cruise terminal.

Despite being a long time HHonors member, the best rate I found was booking through Southwest Airlines website. The best deal I could get through the Hilton website was $352.

8 hours ago, lx200gps said:

How are you arriving into Boston do you have the flexibility of being able to stay farther out and driving in? We are sailing in mid-July a VERY expensive time of year, and I was amazed at how expensive Boston is. As we are driving in from the north, we elected to stay far outside of downtown, in Burlington, and drive the 30 minutes to the port on cruise morning. That specific area was still far cheaper than pretty much any other area I could find. As in hundreds of dollars cheaper. 

 

i can highly recommend using a site like Tripadvisor to scout hotels. Enter your desired date(s) and use the map view to have it show you hotel pricing by location. You will quickly get a good idea of the relatively expensive, and cheaper areas.

We are flying in. I am willing to stay further out and uber in to the port assuming the Uber doesn't add $200.

I did find a hotel for $330 total, which is painful to say that is a "good" price, but I did book it. It's just annoying to pay that much essentially for a bed for the night. A Hampton Inn, our usual go-to for cheap hotel stays was almost $600.

Can anyone recommend something relatively cheap for the night before a cruise leaving from Boston, staying October 3, 2024 for a cruise leaving on the 4th?

The cost for the hotel rooms I can find are 5% of the cost of our cruise, and that's staying in the Haven on Norwegian. 

1 minute ago, Laszlo said:

Dumb question about Passports. I saw it mentioned their passports were giving to someone at the port. When we cruise we cruise with our passports. Sometimes we put them in the cabin safe and sometimes they are kept in our luggage in a pocket. How does the NCL crew where to know to find them? 

Some ports requires passport inspection all all people on the cruise. The cruise line collects all the passports and keeps them. Sao Tome is such a place.

When in places that don't require this, I'm not sure what the deal is. This is why I always bring a photocopy of my passport on all excursions, in case of any problems.

23 minutes ago, Tyler414 said:

They returned when the gangway was still down and the captain refused to let them board, but anyhoo.

You know this is BS since this was a tender port. Never was a gangway.

15 minutes ago, njkate said:

Even then Russia is not a place to be stranded 

That's why they took an official ship excursion and not some dodgy private tour. 

22 hours ago, njkate said:

St Petersburg Russia? That’s a horse of a different color, last place someone needs to be stranded 

This was years ago, before the Ukraine invasion. 

2 hours ago, dmwnc1959 said:

Doesn’t matter. That’s what the vast majority of the public will see. That NCL has failed.

2 hours ago, dmwnc1959 said:

I’m not an NCL cheerleader, I’m not an NCL shareholder, and I’m not an NCL corporate shill. And in the court of non-Cruise Critic public opinion, NCL is guilty. 
 

GUILTY. 

You overestimate the attention span of the public. In 5 minutes there will be another story and everyone except cruisegeeks like us will have forgotten this.

Remember a few years ago, a family all over the news because they hadn't bought the cruise insurance and their kid was diagnosed with leukemia and they couldn't make the cruise and wanted their money back or a credit? All over the news. I bet very few people remember it now., And same situation. Family thinks they're special and should get a special exemption when they chose not to buy the insurance and instead took the risk. Their child being diagnosed with leukemia was sad and tragic,  but isn't different than if their child had gotten appendicitis which is less sad, less tragic, but also would have made them miss the cruise. 

16 minutes ago, Sacruiser62 said:

That is for harbor pilot and quick trip to bridge.  How high above water is door we use at ports?  Some ships a low as 10 feet.above water line.   Think how high the harbor pilot ship usually is snd then how high rope ladder is and realize how far above the door we come and go from at ports!

Assuming this story is true, which I have my suspicions about, do you really think NCL is going to take the liability of people crossing from a vessel not designed to merge with the ship, onto the ship? Or should the unseal everything and re-lower a tender for people who couldn't follow clear directions about when to be back?

8 minutes ago, Sacruiser62 said:

One of the news reports say the local coast guard was bringing them to shop and NCL said they had to get to Next port.....

Yes, and how were they going to get onto the ship? Someone earlier in the thread posted a video of how the harbor pilot has to jump to a rope ladder from the boat to the ship. People who according to these sob story news stories are all older and disabled? If one of them fell into the ocean, that would be a real lawsuit. 

53 minutes ago, MizMoon said:

Interesting story - now, don't hate me - but, is a paraplegic allowed on a tender?  I've had to get realistic about my touring as time has gone by.   Just saying.  

I hope they are allowed on a tender, since that is also the lifeboat in case of emergency.

54 minutes ago, Boatdrill said:

The location for filing law suits against a cruise line is printed on the cruse ticket's terms and conditions. 

 
The terms and conditions also say that if you're not back on the ship by the listed time you will be left behind. These people have no case. They signed the same contract as everyone else.

13 minutes ago, Buford T Justiice said:

My question is: Why did the strandees let the tour operator off the hook and why did the tour operator's error become NCL's problem?

 
That is the $1,000,000 question.

Of course the answer is, it was probably some rinky-dink tour company with no significant assets and the people really have no recourse against them. They see NCL as a big target for their and the tour company's mistakes. 

Another reason to book NCL tours is your have recourse for many things. On our cruise there was a shore excursion where the boat broke and everyone was stranded for an hour, in the sun, on a rocking boat. People were getting seasick and throwing up over the side the whole time. Nothing could really salvage the day,  but NCL at least refunded the money for the shore excursion when asked. 

2 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

To be clear, once the ship-sponsored excursion returns, the guest doesn't get to wander around the port window shopping figuring "....they'll wait for me...I was on a ship's excursion...". 

Of course! The ship will only wait until the excursion returns. It's just protection against a late return of the excursion, not being an idiot afterwards. That didn't even occur to me that someone would think that.

4 minutes ago, mjkacmom said:

Unless they can’t, then they will get you to the next port. 

Yes, I suppose. But you are not stranded, and any expenses will be on Norwegian's dime.

They do wait a while though. My parents were on a tour in St. Petersburg that got stuck in traffic and was hours late. When they got to the ship, the captain was standing there waiting and people were on the deck and clapped while they all got on the ship. 

30 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

If an over-priced cruise line's excursion comes with the assurance that the ship will wait (up to a point) if I am late, I'll pay the extra...especially since I can use OBC to pay. 

It is not "up to a point." If you book the tour through NCL, the ship will wait for you period. 

This is why we only take the more expensive Norwegian tours, instead of booking local tours. It clearly says if you are not back by a certain time, you can not get on the boat. If they had been on a tour booked by Norwegian the boat would have waited for them.

I don't know how I feel about this. The guidelines are pretty clear. Their tour guide should have been careful to have them back in time, and they should have been paying close attention to the the time. I don't know in reality how easy it would have been for NCL to send a boat back for them.

I just got off the Joy a few weeks ago, and the premium, unlimited streaming package wasn't enough to stream. At best I got speeds of 3MB/second and more commonly the speed was <1MB/second. Perhaps it is different on other ships, but I was pretty peeved about it. I went to talk to the internet guy about it 4 times, and each time there was a huge line, and clearly >1 hour wait to talk to the single guy. I finally got to him at the end of the cruise, armed with my numerous screen captures of how slow the internet was, and got my money refunded.

I'm not sure if you can count on speeds fast enough to stream. That being said, they do pro-rate the internet if you buy it later in the cruise. So if you can ration your minutes the first days to make them last as long as possible, you might be able to save some money. Just make sure to log off as soon as you're done using the internet. 

I'm also not sure what package you have, but the one we had gave both of us 150 minutes. So you are traveling with someone willing to give you their minutes, that's double the free time before you run out.

1 hour ago, julig22 said:

 

NCL does not assign seats - that's done directly through the airline. So if you go to the airline website, hopefully you can get seats that you like - should be able to pay to upgrade within the economy cabin if you want more legroom.

If they don't assign seats and you get your tickets 30 days in advance, I assume that means 3 separate middle seats. When I buy my own tickets I pick the seat right away. Or were you able to get decent seats?