tomk3212

We've sailed with NCL for almost 20 years & almost always book a Sailaway/GTY cabin (usually inside). We've gotten our cabin assignments anywhere from 3 months in advance (a European cruise on Gem) to, almost literally, the evening before sailing (we were using the NYC hotel's printer the night before to print our luggage tags!!). In our experience we've NEVER had a cabin change EXCEPT when we've complained about price differential & gotten an upgrade (another European cruise) or 'won' the bidding lottery and gotten an upgrade (twice in the last 4 sailings). That's our experiences with GTY cabins... So as the ol' gambler sez, 'You pays you money and you takes you chances'...lol.

Years ago in NYC on the cruise we 'graduated' to Platinum we took our adult 'kids' on a Xmas cruise to the Bahamas on Gem. As soon as the girl looked at our's & the kid's tickets we were whisked right to the front of the line & to our own check-in desk! They even put us into the Suites waiting room to wait with those pax waiting to board! My eldest, who remembered a cruise on Celebrity 10 years earlier & the long wait in line, remarked, 'I now see now why you two like cruising so much with NCL!!' So, yes, you can get in the Priority check-in line with non-Priority status members... Have a great cruise!!

WOW!!! HOLY SNEEZE!! I knew the food in the Haven was a cut above what NCL serves in the MDR & specialty restaurants but THIS is spectacular!!! Couple of quick questions @BirdTravels: 1) Do the menus change or is the same menu every day? 2) Am guessing that since you added a lobster tail to several entrees you can mix between the different entrees/offerings? GREAT job with the pix, menus, etc!!! THANKS A BUNCH!!! Now I gotta check my IRAs to see if I can do a withdrawal to pay for a Haven cruise...lol Also gotta show these pix to my cardiologist & PCP to see what they'll allow me to eat...

You didn't mention what you need the Internet for. If you just need to check email w/o large attachments or just texting you s/b GTG with the unlimited package. If you require streaming for business-type video conferences (Zoom, MS Teams, etc.) then do as @BirdTravels suggests & plan them for St Thomas/San Juan at a local Internet café there or use your cell phone plan. The quality of streaming on board will not be up to normal 'business standards'. Hope you have a good cruise & welcome back to NCL!

On our recent 16 day TA they offered TWO laundry specials at $29/bag. We're Sapphire & were able to get two bags instead of the usual one per cruise. Hint: FOLD your dirty laundry nice & tight. You'd be amazed on how much more you can squeeze in versus just packing it in as tight as possible. @valleyvillage GREAT idea re: duct tape!!! I'll have to try that!!!

We've sailed in the fall on many NCL ships &. our experience has been as follows: 1) 'Special' times games, like the Sunday, Monday & Thursday night games will be shown in all the venues/bars that have TVs. 2) For the regular Sunday games you'll see one early game (the 1PM EST game) and one late game (430PM EST) plus the aforementioned Sunday night game. I have no idea how NCL chooses which particular 1PM/430PM game is shown. That probably depends on which ship you're on. This is my experience based on sailings on NCL pre-COVID. I'd say it's probably a safe bet that you'll be able to see your 'beloved KC Chiefs' somewhere on the Bliss that night. Hope you have a great cruise! PS - DW is a HUGE Patrick Mahomes fan!!!

On every cruise we've taken the 'adults only, 18+' comedy has been at 11PM and not the 830PM show. Most of the 830PM shows are 'PG-13', IMHO. In 2013 we were on Gem & went up to the Spinnaker for one of these type shows (the Second City troupe, I think). The Freestyle Daily & the CD stated, in no uncertain terms, that no one under 18 would be admitted. Sure enough some parents were there with 6 & 7 year old kids. The comedians would not start the show till these morons left, which they finally did, at 1115PM. We've been to a few of these late comedy shows in the past few years & have noticed young teens (14-15) in the audiences. Nowadays with cell phones, TikTok, the Internet, etc. there's not much even 10 year olds haven't seen or heard so I'm guessing it's not that big an issue any longer. Sad state of affairs but that's for a different conversation or posting...

We did a B2B from Venice a few years back. It was advertised on the website as a 14 day cruise but when we got aboard we discovered it was a B2B. On Saturday when we got back from touring Venice there was another Platinum welcome package in our cabin. So we got 2 bags of laundry each & 4 specialty restaurant dinners. Not too shabby! Have a good cruise!!

Another word of advice if you're booking online in advance. Sometimes if you're trying to book a table for 2 one won't be available at the time you choose but a table for 4 will be available. Book the 4 then change the reservation to 2 as soon as you get aboard. That's what we had to do with 3 of our 4 specialty restaurant reservations (2 FAS, 2 Sapphire) on our TA on Epic a few months back. Easy, peasy. A tad dishonest, perhaps, but as long as you change them ASAP when you get aboard no harm done.

Escape hands down. More specialty restaurant choices decide it for me. Also the Waterfront on Deck 7. Epic has no such venue. ONE THING that I LOVED about Epic was the size of Headliners Comedy Club. Compared to the Breakaway/Breakaway Plus (Escape's class) Headliners it's at least 40-50% bigger.

We go the Sailaway Inside route almost every NCL cruise we've been on. We've been upgraded a few times to balcony & bid successfully on a couple of upgrades to balcony. We've been assigned cabins as early as the day after we booked to the night before we sailed where we were using the hotel's printer to do our luggage tags. Like you, we really don't miss the FAS perqs; we don't drink a lot, we're Sapphire so we already have 2 specialty dinners included and we can live w/o the WiFi. Interestingly, however, we've noticed that since the end of the pandemic that the delta in price between the Sailaway rate and the lowest currently available inside cabin rate has narrowed considerably. For example, on our recent TA on Epic there was only a $100 difference between the Sailaway rate & the then lowest priced regular inside cabin rate. It was definitely worth the extra $$ to get the WiFi package for 16 days & the 2 extra specialty restaurant dinners (we skipped the drinks package; not worth the gratuities for us IMHO). Has anyone else noticed this? In any case, check the delta in prices carefully before you book & I hope you have a great cruise!

It's 'six of one, half a dozen of another'. They're both right across from the other on Deck 6 AFT, have the same menu, the wait staff rotates between the two & the food comes from the same kitchen(s). Have a good cruise!

IMHO all of the cruise lines are carrying very heavy debt loads due to the loans they had to take out during the Covid to keep themselves afloat financially (pun intended…lol). That’s the biggest reason prices are so high. But as other posters have pointed out, the ships are running at or very close to 100% capacity. So no more last minute deals available and they can charge whatever they want because it’s now a sellers market for them. Carnival, for example, who just came out of a bad quarter financially, has stated that they are assuming a 100% occupancy rate for the next year. While I think that’s rather optimistic on their part in this post pandemic environment, they may just hit that number. People spent two years cooped up wherever they were due to the pandemic, and now they just wanna get out and travel. That’s a rather simplistic explanation, but it seems to be holding true. My two cents, for what it’s worth. Lol.

We saw Arvin and Emily in this venue on the Getaway back in 2019 on our transatlantic cruise. That’s the only thing that I remember this venue being used for on our transatlantic.

We’ve ended cruises in NYC many times over 20 years & all I can say is that it’s a craps shoot & can run to extremes. One time didn’t begin getting off till 1030 even though the ship docked at 6 right on time (TSA issues) whereas on another occasion we were standing on 12th avenue at 7am looking for a taxi to Penn Station to catch a train home to NJ (new walk-off procedure). All things being equal if you do the walk off you’ll probably be ok. Just make sure you have a phone number that you can contact your pick up person with if untoward events delay you. Good luck, and I hope everything works out for you!

You didn’t mention which NYC airport you’re flying out of; Newark, LaGuardia, or JFK. Departing from any of those 3 airports at 1250 should be no problem whether you use NCL’s transportation or your own (Uber/Lyft or cab).

Someone else can confirm this but I also believe that if the dry dock is available earlier than the schedule calls for then the ship MUST conform to the new schedule. We were on a TA back in 2019 on Getaway that was originally scheduled for 14 days with the ship was going into dry dock immediately after our sailing. The dry dock became available earlier than scheduled & NCL had to cut the TA's length by 3 days. Two ports of call were cancelled, NCL gave us some OBC, compensated people for changed/cancelled flights home & hotels but the whole thing was a mess. Bottom line: I'd pass.

Yup! We got them all on our 5 day to Bermuda last February. We didn’t need the laundry on that particular cruise but it was nice to know it was available if we needed it.

Headliners on Epic is the size the comedy clubs SHOULD have been on the Breakaway & Breakaway+ ships!! We were recently on a 2 week long TA on Epic & NOT ONCE did the Headliners even come close to filling up completely; this was with the comedians & 'Howl At the Moon' (HATM) running. The other posters were absolutely correct re: Cavern Club; get there early!!! On our TA one of the the 'Epic Beatles' came down with something & most of the Cavern Club concerts were cancelled. However two of them ('Ringo' & 'John') consistently showed up at HATM & played with the guys there. Lotsa of fun!

You’re still sharing the “pipe” to the outside world with the aforementioned people. Unless you have your own private satellite in MEO for internet access.

Yes, absolutely! The problem with that, though, is you're also competing for BW with your 3000-4000 'new best friends' off YOUR ship plus whatever other ships are in port if you're using a hotspot near the cruise ship terminal. If you can find a quiet spot somewhere in the town itself you're probably GTG with that solution...

Yeah, this was our FIRST time on Epic so now WE know why...lol 🙄

As others have stated save the eDocs as a PDF. You can then import it into Apple Wallet or just save it to a documents folder on your iPhone that you can then open up on demand. Tip: download & install the NCL app on your iPhone or iPad BEFORE you board using your home WiFi!!! I had it installed on DW's & my iPhones but forgot to put it on my iPad! Tried installing it aboard en route but didn't feel like wasting my WiFi package minutes after I saw how long it was taking. Ditto if you need any other specific apps like airline or hotel-specific ones.

We were just on Epic & they had a TON of them in the gift shop!

I've taken the BTS tour & they DO have a garment steamer down in the laundry room(s). I've never heard of garment steaming being offered but you may want to ask your room steward or just call housekeeping when you get aboard & ask them. Congrats, best wishes & hope you have a great cruise!