si_boy

Found a picture for you.

https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Celebrity/General_Info/Obstructed_Views/02_15_23_FLY_Obstructed_Cabins_ML.pdf

We will be doing this cruise but from Tokyo to Singapore in 3 weeks, can’t wait.

1 hour ago, majortom10 said:

I think the only real problem they are having on QA is Open Dining. People book with the thought of just turning up at a time that suits and can vary day by day. I know in July they weren't happy about that and seemed to be struggling.  They expected you to book a time for every night at begining of cruise which defeats the idea of Open Dining.

So last night, a much better service. Same time and seated in a similar area as the night before.
What had changed?

A lot more servers and wait staff working the tables.

The MDR was as busy with guests as the night before, but no queues to get in.
We stayed for coffee and petit fours and everything felt right, no long waits between courses and it was a pleasant 1 hour 45 minutes. Food was hotter too.
We overheard others talking about how slow it was the night before,

I am sure it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

3 minutes ago, TouchstoneFeste said:

Are the rooms not marked at all, or is the signage just confusing? Pix?

Signage is confusing, no text and the images are very similar. Sorry no pix.

59 minutes ago, Victoria2 said:

Was your big screen day time experience noisy?

The Open had no sound when I watched it.

 

Now the evening concerts screened  'had life' but then that's what concerts are all about. A great Queen with Adam Lambert screening had a great audience. The Hans Zimmer concert was reasonably attended but the Two Steps from Hell concert had a  sparse audience which was others' loss as it was superb. The name could have put folk off though! 😄

The Queen with Adam Lambert concert on the big screen last night was amazing, great sound quality providing an awesome atmosphere.
With the roof open until late, almost an open air concert.
Quite a few watching as we were getting ready to leave Rotterdam, which was amazing btw.

Volume not as high for the football commentary this afternoon, but then you got the noise when Arsenal scored!!

It won’t be to everyone’s taste showing the live lunchtime football on the big screen at the Pavilion pool.

Visby really is lovely, a shame to have not been able to docked there.

Currently on Queen Anne and said to my wife about passengers getting the toilets confused when I overhead ladies saying they had mistakenly gone into the gents only realising when they saw the urinals.
So guess what happened the next night…my wife came back from a visit to the ladies to say she had mistakenly gone into the gents. You couldn’t make this up!

Overhead several others saying the same, so a common problem and not fixed.

A bit of balance to what others have said, we are Britannia MDR and it is chaos…still.
Last night was Gala night, so expected to be busy, but was so unorganised.
If you are MDR, allow for 2 hours for 3 courses and petit fours and coffee.
We reserved a table for 7:45 and was seated only a few minutes after, but did not leave until 9:45.
We are ‘open dining’, but on our first night were made to make reservations for future nights by the maitre d.
Allow for around 30 minutes between courses.
We could see the queue for the upper floor, guests with reservations for 8:30 were being shown to their tables anywhere between 9:00 and 9:15.
However, what made it worse is the food arrived luke warm, I can only imagine it had been sat in the kitchen. We were on a table for 2.
Portion sizes also appeared smaller than previously. 
It is a lovely ship, lots of seating areas and never really felt full.
Much of this may have already been said, I have not read all the other posts.
It is still a relatively new ship, but hope it gets fixed because it is spoiling passengers perception and the Cunard reputation. 
For reference there are 2,912 pax onboard, so almost at capacity. 
 

Agree, @flyerbrp great atmosphere last night on Apex watching Beatles Tribute band in the Theatre. 
We were at the earlier show, hope the later show was as good!

We did an independent trip in 2019 and got to see the Northern Lights.
Small group and although the evening started early it was a trip we will never forget. Homemade fish soup and biscuits while sat on reindeer skins by a lake waiting for dusk. We drove until we found the lights and Roy, the organiser took photos which he later shared by email. No extra cost.

Search for Artic Trip Tromso, Roy Sætre. 
A number of passengers complained about the Cunard organised tour that night who never got to see the lights.

When I was in Rome at Christmas, taxis were showing as 125 euro for the trip between Rome airport and Civitavecchia port.

Used the offer too this week to pay off some of the balance for a cruise in June. 
£150 back was a nice bonus, have also used when the offer appeared some months ago.

In the recent past we have seen a fair number of people dressing the part for Gala night when it is roaring 20s, both men and ladies.

As well as the flapper dresses, lots of accessories too including ladies headbands, gloves and cigarette holder (no cigarette of course).
Amazon sell a 1920s accessories set quite cheaply.

Always found less uptake for Masquerade Gala night, usually a few wearing masks though.

Now in view off the Isle of Wight, on cam.

Since the OP has not clarified, we can only speculate.
You have missed my point which was the advice of the NCL agent on what would happen after final payment had been made.

In the UK of course, which appears to differ from US.

Agree, different arrangements in different locations.
Quoting experience in UK which is where I though OP was based.

29 minutes ago, julig22 said:

Huge difference in how a price drop is handled before final due date and a price drop after. My comments are assuming OP is referring to a drop after final payment.

Not necessarily, NCL agent said at that the time when I called if the price dropped further closer to the departure date and after final payment was made to call again and they would look into OBC and/or cabin upgrade.

Of course upgrade would depend on how full the ship was.

I am also in UK, spotted a lower price before final payment was due and telephoned them.
We had booked direct with NCL.

Very helpful agent who was able to verify the price had dropped and that we would get the new price, without cancellation or losing deposit.
Even better we kept the same balcony cabin number. We are on the cruise now!

The reduction to us was £1,000 so not insignificant.

My advice would be to try calling again.

Onboard Prima now and we were at Ibiza yesterday, beautiful island.
A little tip, much cheaper to use the public bus to go into town than the organised shuttle at $20 each return. 

A few unhappy passengers as we waited for the shuttle and public bus was exactly the same but €6 return each.

Currently on Prima, our first NCL cruise and we are platinum (12 cruises) on Cunard.
So the other way round to the question put by the OP.

We are both aged early 50s.

We sailed on QM2 to the Norwegian fjords in August, so quite recently.

Very different experiences, if you sail on Cunard during the holidays and from Southampton there will be younger passengers and a few children.
There are some fine public spaces on QM2 and the ship does not close after 10pm although we have seen this on other Cunard ships in low season where we most definitely the youngest of all passengers.
The most obvious difference is the lack of choice of restaurants on Cunard, although the food is amazing with different menus every night. The buffet also serves great food and room service is free.

Cunard passengers love to dress up and wear their finest especially on Gala nights.

Expect 2 Gala nights on a 7 night cruise when about 90% of men will be wearing black tie and tuxedo and ladies their finest dresses.

Other nights are less formal, but passengers still dress smart for dinner.

The highlight for most is of course the afternoon tea, served in the Queens room by waiters wearing white gloves.

We have loved all of our cruises on Cunard but are looking for a bit more, NCL and Celebrity are our now go to cruise lines.

I recommend everyone should do a Cunard cruise at least once, especially on QM2.
It is very traditional and is a fine cruise ship,  but the experience is a bit like comparing apples and pears.

We did it all on our own when on Constellation in June.
Took the ships tender to the shore, avoided the queue (and cost) for the cable car and made it to the top walking up the steps.

About a 10 minute walk to the bus transportation hub where the buses stop and caught a local bus to Oia for less than €2 each.  
Takes about 20 minutes each way and stops right in the centre of Oia.

Repeated to get back to the ship, including a bottle of water, we did the trip to Oia for less than €10 for the 2 of us.

I have self disembarked several times at 7:15am and it is very quiet once off the ship, most still having breakfast onboard

From memory few taxis are waiting around the port at that time so best to book in advance.

it is a small airport so won’t take long to reach check in desks, all being well you will be in the departure lounge by 8am.

if you are arriving on 23 September, there are 3 other ships also arriving that day so will definitely be busy later on in the morning, but as it is a Saturday you won’t have the commuter traffic to contend with.

33 minutes ago, redwings1958 said:

MORE NOTES:

• Solarium rules are strictly followed: A man had a bottle of beer in the pool and was told to leave.

Not the case in June, guests in the Solarium pool and hot tubs had drinks from the pool bar.

On 8/4/2023 at 7:40 PM, GLYNAGP said:

I think is an amazing deal , I‘ve done 4 NCL cruises in the last year and taken to Free at Sea Deal on all of them .I pre-purchase my excursions on the NCL app which deducts the Excursion $50 credit (or equivalent in UK£), I don't do Spa’s and there's little or nothing I need from the onboard shops so I leave the ship with a zero (or close to zero ) onboard balance

Enjoy your cruise

@GLYNAGP Slightly off topic, on the app there is mention of the service charges, do you pay these upfront so they don’t appear on your onboard account and therefore you have zero balance?

Thank you @GLYNAGP for your helpful explanation.
i was starting to go mad thinking we would be paying $$$ extra.

All makes sense now, I checked back to original invoice and there is a charge for all at sea, £249 each for 12 nights.
Still seems like a good deal.

Thank you @Ken the cruiser confused me at first, but as in UK what we see is different.
There is no mention of the gratuities on the perks in the price breakdown that we see.
I just did a pretend booking. 

Hopefully someone in UK can confirm.

I can see the service charges payable when I log into the booking and can pay these upfront.