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mking8288

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Everything posted by mking8288

  1. Haha, you know the drills if and when you see the gift bags. First & foremost, need to burn calories after your tapas-feast so boggie down, they are waiting for you in the club.
  2. The Street reported on this yesterday, quoting dirty Harry (as some of us that's been fond of NCL over the decades referring to ... since FDR has left, laughing all the way with stock options exercised ***) - https://www.thestreet.com/travel/norwegian-cruise-line-ceo-shares-surprising-take-on-entertainment IMHO, it's not just that some RC passengers disagree with, some of us that (used to) sail mostly NCL strongly disagree with - a highly contested topic debated with dead horses beaten & piling up. Not bothering to mention it over there unless someone decided to toss another M80 or flash grenade into the forum's cheering circles. We just had lunch with 2 good CC friends that just sailed the Getaway TA (Latitudes Diamond) & they too, decided it's time to spread their wings like us - status matched & just booked a bargain 7 nights MSC Merv weekly run out of Brooklyn, NY for a fraction of what NCL would be charging, just to kick the cans & see what else besides pizza are worthy of eating onboard (outside of YC) ... enlisting the expertise of their TA. One of our nieces just got back last Sunday on the Merv, also got a price steal - last minute Inside for 2 & got a free U/G to a balcony at no charge, no bidding whatsoever and had a blast, according to her group of dancing ladies that're onboard. Preview ahead: there is going to be an Odyssey 2.0 after the January 11 nights, 4 ports Caribbean as we decided to cancel 2 balconies on the Escape, diverted away from a planned visit to Nassau over to Bimini, Nassau with the announced changed (thankfully, huh) 10 days before final payment in full or penalty deadline ... And, will be doing a 5 nights Pacific Coastal from Long Beach to Vancouver in early May - the start of the Alaska cruise season, maybe we'll grab a last minute one again, maybe go Cunard ?? Not fully abandoning (NCL) ship - still has the Breakaway in the distance ... months away from making that call (plus, we have a pile of CruiseNext Certs - nowadays, they never expire, used to be 4 years and yet to use 1 of our 2 one-time Diamond stateroom upgrade) To make matters worst, since we are too lazy to fly to/from other airports to embark/disembark these days, unless it is an "extraordinary" cruise itinerary to ports, cities & places that we haven't been to over the decades - NCL is really dropping the ball for their once strong NYC market in 2025-26, not just winter sailings. Case in point - 1 ship to Canada/New England, plus the newest Aqua doing shorter Bermuda loop at obscene prices, and sailing Caribbean ports in August thru October at the height of peak hurricane season. Well, FWIW, got that feeling that we are going to be transiting via Cape Liberty a lot more often than years past, and maybe even Red Hook, Brooklyn.
  3. Nice 🙂 and how's that Observation Lounge day camping scene like on this sailing ? Checking out the scones 😁 Well, our grand nephew is a master cookie monster and baking these for our afternoon gathering You aren't visiting Monseratt today ? I noticed that NCL raises the Palma port shuttle bus to $20, it was $15 a year ago 😳 Whatever you've decided, enjoy your time in town - Happy Sunday 😸
  4. Relax and just chill out, mate! This is the holiday weekend and NCL, including its infamous I.T. Dept is not going to address micro, minor problems like having multiple Latitudes account number. Trust some of us that's been around for a long time, far too long dealing with NCL on these matters ... whether she's Bronze or another Prospect isn't going to matter all that much. Your ship isn't sailing anytime soon and your are months away from final payment in full, give them AI powered computer system to catch up with the errors and merge the multiple account numbers into deciding which one they like to use. Then, get that 5% savings applied. Actually, strategically speaking ... you should price watch on a regular basis for a price drop, call in to get it re-priced and then get the 5% applied on top for the "lowest" discount. Be sure to request an updated Confirmation be emailed showing all the amenities & coded savings, discounts, etc. For your convenience, feel free to request a supervisor but you aren't likely to get them to go into their system to override and fix the errors outside of sales ... good luck getting live support from the Latitudes Help Desk, especially on the weekend and day after a holiday. Patience. Remember, 2025 is More At Sea ... $$$$$
  5. This is what true authentic Shanghaiese cooking cuisine look like - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto & Vancouver, BC, Canada.
  6. Restored for your convenience, the 2 decades old "Bamboo" menu equivalent from the Dawn, around 2005 from the digital NAS archive. Teppanyaki - beef filet mignon, black tiger shrimp (prawn-sized jumbos) and whole lobster. Chicken egg drop soup is an Americanized popularized in fast food/takeout places (chicken bones not wasted, add MSG & powdered seasoning to taste ... and corn starch to thicken the "broth") - yet to see that done right onboard NCL, too watery & best garnished with chopped green onions. Chicken egg drop soup with corn, and tiny bits of tofu, etc. another Westernized variation ... looks better & appealing with finely chopped/minced chicken, cilantro, mushrooms, and wispy egg whites only in a thicken soup base ... similar to West Lake minced beef soup, these heavily influenced adapted to non-Chinese taste buds (supposed to be Glutten-free) Once upon a time, fish and other chowders served on NCL use sweet corn, peas & other finely chopped vegetables and greens ... not anymore. Personally, as a matter of bias, I hate seeing the soup in puree form ... sorry, my background & time working in healthcare settings ... not just seeing what's offered in the visitors cafeteria daily. Nope ! Not going to make it a gourmet dining experience to sail or sustain. I am pretty sure those vegetable spring rolls and dumplings are bulk factory made and never freshly made ... an evil necessity to keep the (labor & material) costs down, shipped & stored frozen in ready-to-cook format. As for Cunard, nope - they do not serve these onboard, AFAIW - their selections are more upscale ... We cruise to sample their British colonial heritage and afternoon tea service - their smoked duck breast was very good, not from Beijing (Peking) - perhaps sourced from US or Canada farm. Hey, NCL - here's the memo ... take a look at these old ones. Let's see if you can ... Beat It !!
  7. It's a cooler, Fall morning & Saturday ... and we're about to meet 2 of our CC friends/neighbors for brunch in a little while ... and having a possible consultation to recruit them for Odyssey - Part 2 (hint, hint) next year, should they wish to consider joining the forces. I got a question for NCL's I.T. with fish bones to pick 😁 😁 😉 Glancing at this new FSD tri-fold format, where it mentioned "How To Connect" maybe I'm colorblind b/c I don't see the QR code to scan on any of the Daily posted ?? I'm all for DIY or self-help but ... how can one sail and sustain ? Not really sure that we like this new format, not polished and in poor taste, as if a 13 years old cut-n-paste the content together. IMHO of course. Regardless, Starlink via NCL onboard is working out for you on the crossing (or, waiting to upgrade & save a few bucks) and any luck with getting GigSky eSim to connect to Cellular At Sea onboard and work, how about SMS or messaging ? Prima on the move, have a great time partying & dancing tonight, going to be a little bit of rocking & rolling, as you probably knew already - another early pre-dawn arrival into Barcelona.
  8. IMHO, for Jewel and other ships with the mid-ship sit-down Asian restaurant onboard, NCL will have to cough up a different and far more upscale dining menu to justify bringing them as equal vs. other established specialty restaurants, warranting a cover charge. Shanghai Noodles' menu on the BA and GA has been extremely simplified and chopped, and it is not worth paying any upgrade, despite its apparent popularity and standing in line to get seated, as they also do not take reservations. We've watched the multiple transformations and transitions of these venues, including Chin and Chin back in the early 2000's - when it was mostly empty despite a better menu with just a $10 upcharge to dine there. I looked at the latest menus posted and nothing has changed ... where are the sea brass, grouper, etc. Hopefully, NCL is going to try harder and do better, and come up with an appropriate menu. And, where is that Thai dining option being considered ?? A 1/3 sized bowl of udon noodles with 3 or 4 thinly sliced Cha Siu (BBQ Roast Pork ... everywhere else) and frozen dumplings, aren't exactly fine dining ... here in cities and town, they are just plain comfort food, similar to eating at The Local or O'Sheehan's. Of course, to each her/his own.
  9. And, at those prices ... mama mia 😁 It's a good thing that gallery served up scallion pancake & eggs for breakfast this morning or else, the hunger will set off a riot while Susan is watching the morning news as I show her those pictures. Just to give you a quick heads up, weather-wise. Prepare for wind & wet weather ahead for your brief return to Barcelona as per forecast, maybe a poncho 😬 to dance in the rain. In other maritime cruising news, RC's Explorer OTS (sailed her in 2004, just as SARS was easing up) on her TA to Miami earlier this week had to skip their stop in the Azores due to weather, sailing thru the Canary Islands - a full sea day west of Tenerife, going 23 kts and smacked by a rogue squall, 80 mph hurricane force wind. Damages minor but apparently everywhere & passengers injured, nothing serious but shaken, along with crew members accounted for - large # of Pinnacle members (top tier NCL Diamond/Ambassador equivalent). Updated onboard hours ago that ship is turning around for Las Palmas to get medical care for the injured and maybe additional supplies loaded (lots of restaurant & bar inventory losses) ... still looking at 11/17 Miami arrival. Too early to see the Windy forecast ahead for next week but that North Atlantic is surely not in a happy mode and the reds moving easterly across. Now that Jim is back from their CAS cruise, surely he's going to chime in. Following the gossips & news over RC board since we are less than 3 weeks from OLCI and there is a real (unlike NCL) early Black Friday Sale, Voom's Surf-n-Stream is 30% off or $19 a day for our 11 days voyage, not a "steal" but reasonable & happy spouse is key. Will probably still get a smaller GigSky cruise ship eSim package, just in case.
  10. These faces look familiar ? Most were also on the westbound last November. One of the Hudson's Asst Manager from 2023 also in charge of Teppanyaki next door, we called her Ms. Happy.
  11. That's an impressive seating time for 2, the same hostess group ? To sail and sustain, maybe they place you on the "Eating Light" dining track 😁 😆 ☺️ on this healthier path to escort the ship on the crossing to NY.
  12. Life at sea has been good, it appeared, to him for the past decade ... too busy keeping up. He seemed to lose a bit of midline compared to this April-May. Wait, you attended the Welcome Abroad show or just to take photos for us ... how nice.
  13. Let's see how "priority restaurant reservation and/or seating" works (or not) on the TA" LOL with 1,100 plus onboard ... I imagine several hundred are Sapphire and probably a large # of Diamond - typically, a handful of Ambassadors too. On her last TA with comrade Sugar onboard, I recalled the Latitudes "sales" reception to welcome us back again were spread out over 3 days, excluding the VIP cocktail hours hosted by the captain. Happy cruising ... and, how many solo cruisers ?? Prima is close to sailing at full double occupancies.
  14. Hmmm, since you are still docked ... can you reach GigSky tech support for help or message them. I assumed you've managed to updated your iOS to 18.1 while staying at H10 or otherwise over faster WiFi somewhere (can be done over NCL's unlimited WiFi overnight, slower but doable) and reconfirmed that the settings within for GS are correct ?? One other issues that I can think of is to switch manually to choose from an available APN. Since you are still docked ... ops, looked like Prima is now on the move. Woohoo !! It was (is) one of the reason that I prefer to stay with and use my Google Pixel 7 Pro instead of Samsung Galaxy S22+ and/or S24+ ... all factory unlocked & not carrier locked !! - didn't think I had issues using the iPhone SE 2022, but it was tethering on Pixel's enable MiFi/hotspot connection. Got my BIL to switch over from T-Mobile/Ultra Mobile to Google Fi unlimited/Plus plan about 2 weeks ago, just message me yesterday that he's having issues w MMS uploading, SMS works fine ... Station Zebra now got a newly opened "support ticket" to look into. Inbound pix into his iPhone 13 works fine (eSim also)
  15. Sorry to hear about that but as you might know, borrowing another CC'ers tagline, some of us on CC have empathy instead of ... shielding NCL management for what . We're fortunate to received notifications (130 days out) that Escape's late winter 8 nighters out of NY was no longer going to Nassau but Bimini ... we could've flown to Miami and taken a 2 hour ferry to easily & quickly get to Bimini (56 miles east of Florida mainland). Our Sapphire friends already cancelled out, had their 2 CN deposits returned and going instead to Royal's Odyssey OTS, balconies for 2, and for less.
  16. We are Diamonds these days and still, it's like playing the dice game as we are mostly in steerage, depending on who is the hoste/ess at the podium on a given ship, and who we know/don't known onboard, on a full sailing. We tend to do early dining, without the ability to do MDR reservations since late 2023 for parties of 5 or less. A matter of Deal or No Deal ... as our good friends like @dexddd mentioned. NCL continues to mislead (noticed that I am not using the term "false advertising" since this isn't a paid privilege, just an "entitled benefits" that corporate promised and never once delivered ... with the pre/cruise concierge assistance w reservations help for dining & "shows" - only receive a written email/letter once in 2022 (we're still Sapphire then under the "new" scheme) about contacting NCL to request help. It was subsequently acknowledge as "best efforts" and your dining preference/requests had been forwarded to the ship's team, and they will handle from there on ... suffice to say, once onboard - CN/concierge person designated had our time/dates all mixed up and/or no record of other reservations made, no apology and/or zero effort to help - directed us to go over / contact the restaurant reservation station ... duh !!! Specialty restaurants are somewhat easier to deal with, using the NCL App on embarkation day - do it quick, yourself, and book it. And, if those things aren't working out due to revised "shows" scheduling during the cruise - go back and see what they can. First world problem, we recognize, and never once bothered to go ask for the F&B Manager and/or escalate to the GM or his exec asst or secretary for such trivial matter since it is, according to some, not against the spirit of freestyle dining. Now, take your "pager" and join the queue, step off to the side ... and with a bit of luck, instead of waiting 30+ minutes, you might get "beeped" in 10 to 15, 20 minutes at the next available table that can sit everyone in one's party. P.S. Do not be surprised that you are seated steps away from the gallery doors and not a nicer table elsewhere. (Oh, make sure they still have you in their paging "queue" after 30+ minutes, happened to us on the Prima in 2023)
  17. Indeed, very cozy solo room - highly functional, well-designed and compact, and with touches of luxury, hinting at that exclusive "club" tier accommodations and that expresso maker. Elevator is a classic,. brings back childhood memories from the 1960's British colonial era. We had those digital scale in our rooms during both stays before, along with the robes & slippers, etc. - classy, ... nothing personal, LOL. Is there a rooftop garden/garden/pool ? As for the Prima TA, looks like it's almost full but Insides available at solo rate, dirt cheap for $922 USD only - all inclusive with the MAS (dining, shorex, open bar & WiFi) - that's a steal for 16 day crossing. Quick check - she's inbound doing 13 kts, about 35 nm from porting, should be at the pier in about 2 hours from now. Looking forward to your lively & high energy report at sea.
  18. How's your day ☺️ or afternoon thus far 😎. Just FYI, it's not you but CC again, Error Code 500 again ... in case your pics aren't uploading to post.
  19. Another CC friend PM'd me and joked, you see. this is what happened when NCL began messing around with onboard entertainment and cutbacks, guests resorting to ... Not to mention, I.T. knew exactly by virture of the mac address/i.p. who was attempting to access those restricted & blocked portals.
  20. Are these based on passenger feedback to optimize or is it to sail & sustain, or for more fuel savings 😉 since other lines aren't sinking with managing expenses, which the executive leadership are paid handsomely to do ... asking for Sapphire friends.
  21. We're on the Prima's Spring TA this April, ship was repo and arriving later than planned for whatever reasons (Right Whales protection zone being one of them) notified within days of embarkation (and, some said they're never notified or received the SMS or email alert) to NOT show up until the check-in time. That security & embarkation would NOT open up any earlier than xx:00 hours, anyone showing up early risked being turned away and asked to come back later. Of course, folks arrived overnight on red eyes were waiting, and airport shuttles dropped them off and by 11 AM, the terminal was beginning to fill out, pre-security. Some folks spend 2 to 3, some said 4+ hours and were not onboard until 3 to 4 PM ... there're issues with the contracted shore-based NCL "agents" doing the check-in, etc. Visa issues ?? Anyway, it was the usual round-trip home-port sailing. Some folks were hungry and didn't make it to the buffet until the late afternoon. Ship sailed a little later than the revised/updated 6 PM sail time. The running joke was that they didn't load all the provisionings and left the hash browns and dough for the cookies behind for the 15 days crossing. Keep your eyes on ship's location & ETA on CruiseMapper and/or MarineTraffic, and shipcam to see where she is on the morning of and the overnight hour. Safe & happy traffic.
  22. Welcome to CC in posting your question - URL pinging via the server triggered FortiGuard, guarding against known & suspicious portals associated with stealthy network-level threats. Nothing personal against any end user and common for hospitality network servers (i.e. hotels & lodging with "free" WiFi access for guests) to block certain sites associated with suspected or known contents and/or as protection against infecting other devices, etc. OP using his own laptop (Windows 11) should know better, not a matter for one's First Amendment rights at sea. Sorry. Not to mention his "public" name/account on Gmail is now seen ... hopefully 2FA and appropriate safeguards in place against being cyber-hijacked.
  23. Safe & sound in Barcelona. We worry 🥶 here on CC. Looks like a seafood feast in the works 😋 🤤 😛 Enjoy
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