Why Knot Me

I am still LOVING this Don! An excellent report...I am so enjoying the stories and the pictures and some past memories! I had milk come out my nose when I saw your men's toilet picture. It came out easy because I too had water up the nose from the first purple slide last October. Hey, I just put two and two together when I went over to the roll call boards earlier this evening. We are on the same sailing/ship next year. Wooo-Hoooo! Looking forward to meeting you in person!

 

coka:D

Well then, we are in for a real treat because both of you write amazing and entertaining reviews.

Is it on the Star? If so when? We're doing a B2B in March of 2012

I just called NCL directly. They said the family suites will be started in dry dock and will be open for use in September. They said "for now" they will be treated as suites but will not be "definite" until after May. They did say that most likey they will be treated just like the Star family suites (which are with suite benefits). I am just a bit leary now because if you rememeber- mini suites once had butler/concierge service and it was pulled from that category...... Scary that even NCL didnt know- he had me on hold for quite awhile to figure out the answer!

Mini-suites did not have butler services only concierge.

We were on the Epic in an AFT Penthouse, so the location is the same. We like the AFT for the view, virtually no wind and it is very quiet since traffic in the hallways is very light. You will have some noise during docking but it is never a bother to us. We were on the 12th floor and had martini's with our friends next door that were in a balcony category room.

NCL will not make any accomodation for you at all. You can ask and they will tell you NO.

 

Carnival will be flexible. Royal has been flexible with us before. But never NCL.

 

The only time I was able to work it on NCL when I wanted my younger daughter to be in the same group as my older dd and her cousins she never gets to see (imagine they WANT to spend their vacation with their cousins they never get to see and be grouped together?!") The only way I could work it is to play way ahead. When I booked the cruise I lied about her age I made her one year older than she was. So if her birthday was 7/10/99 I lied when I booked the cruise and told them her birthday was 7/10/00. Then when we checked in at the port they don't even look at the birth certificate at all. I was holding my breath at that point but they didn't so much as check with the lines out the door and wrapping around the building they didn't give a birth certificate AGE a second look. I was all prepared if we got caught at the pier........I would have been "mistaken.....sorry". It worked out great. My dd got to enjoy kids club with her sister and cousins and no one was the wiser. I've had several friends who've done the same thing with no issue either. I think if you have a well behaved kid that isn't going to cause them any suspicion It will work.

 

It certainly would be nice if they could have some flexibility with this as their competitors do though! When a kid comes on vacation with their cousins who live across the country they want to spend time together, not be seperated. It's a customer service issue!

Pass the popcorn, please.

Giddy? That would be ME today since I just made final payment for the Epic TA!!!!

Yes. You'll be charged $12 per person per day as a Daily Service Charge which is the 'gratuity'.

We also tip room servers though since that's additional work.

Also, if our cabin steward has done extra things for us we give him/her an additional tip at the end of the cruise.

And, luggage handlers, cabs etc.

We always pack extra wire hangers because even though we know the cabin steward can bring us more hangers, he/she is very busy on embarkation day and we often don't even see him/her until most or all of our unpacking is done.

Also, since the cabin stewards are so busy on embarkation day, we don't like to take their time to bring us hangers when it's so easy to carry some wire hangers in our luggage.

We leave them in the closet when we disembark the last day.

I too use the wire hangers, but I pack with my clothes on them. It makes it really easy to unpack. With pants, I fold them over the horizontal, lay them in the suitcase, and lay the hanger flat back over them. With shirts, use the horizontal bar too. Trust me, it works really well.