dolita22

On 4/30/2023 at 2:14 PM, justhappy said:

   I’m not sure if someone from NCL is reading along on this live review, but so far in the past hour there have been a few crew up here checking the sundeck, 

 then sweeping the sundeck and then checking the sundeck again.

 Either way they are being very responsive to issues that come up.

I hadn’t said anything about the paint flakes to anyone on the ship.

  Sadly all too soon we have to do some packing up before tonight’s dinner at Le Bistro and our plan to the see the comedians in the theater tonight.

We noticed the paint chips, too! They were on our balcony, and when we were in the kids' pool area, a pretty good sized piece landed in there. I grabbed it and tossed it so no one would put in their mouth.

Thanks for your review! Was fun reading after we got home. We were bummed to not get to GSC; my hubs has not been there yet, but I am 2/3 for visits. Guess we'll have to plan another cruise!

On 4/28/2023 at 2:55 PM, amygutman said:

Night-and-day for ship crowding and rudeness today. 75% of pax are off-ship, and everyone left on-board are smiling, happy and gracious. No wait for the slides and main pool deck chair-hoggers were absent. The only issue was the temporary closing of the kiddie pool-play area due to a "diaper incident". Apparently a kiddo removed his "fully-loaded" diaper into the pool in a "PPI" ("public poop incident"). Parents were mortified - I was on the jogging track and witnessed the "poop explosion". Impressive to say the least. 

 

 

(I didn't quote your entire post...sorry!) But that's why the kids' pool area was closed?! We were also on that cruise and came back from time in Cozumel and my 3-year old wanted to go to the "splash pad" so badly, so we went by to make sure it was opened and couldn't figure out why it wasn't. Makes so much sense!!

And also, my husband was laughing hysterically reading your description of the incident. 😂

We are on that sailing, too! We have not cruised since 2018 due to pregnancies (and COVID, of course) and will be bringing our two toddlers -- one of whom turns 3 the day we are in Cozumel. 🙂 We live in Fort Myers and are heading to Disney this Saturday, then driving to Port Canaveral on Wednesday morning.

Enjoy the Haven! We looked at upgrading (just sold our house, so figured we'd use some of the profits towards a Haven suite), but it was too late on that front. So we'll enjoy our club balcony suite, also on deck 13!

Safe travels! Looking forward to your live report -- probably after we return because my kiddos will keep us busy! 

The Signia Hilton Bonnet Creek has a lazy river. Nice pool area, too, and a great hotel!

I'm leaving on the Getaway April 26, and in the app right now I can make reservations for Taste and Savor. Not sure if you can do it on their website, but in the app, yes!

Didn't realize you could do that, but we're traveling with toddlers, so having a reservation for dinner is kind of nice!

We are cruising with our two toddlers next week and will be bringing bubbles to use on our balcony! We've gotten some small tubes from daycare parties in the last few months that will be perfect. Not tons of bubble liquid, but enough that they will capture my toddlers' attention spans for maybe 5 minutes. And we'll sip some bubbly using the open bar package! 

Thanks for the thread, OP. I had wondered about bubbles.

We just added two CruiseNext certificates to an existing reservation a few weeks ago. So, it is happening "for a limited time" now.

https://www.ncl.com/cruisenext

We are the opposite in that we really disliked the food on Royal and very much enjoy the food on NCL (as well as Carnival). To each their own. And yeah, food is subjective.

Contrary to what many on here say, there is a possibility that reservations at a restaurant or two may be sold out and will be the entire sailing, no matter what time you want to eat.

We booked the Getaway 44 days out in 2018 and were able to reserve La Cucina, but that was it. (This was a late October sailing.) After reading on here that there's only certain percentage of reservations that can be booked ahead, I figured we'd be fine booking onboard. The day we boarded, we tried to do that first thing for Cagney's (after getting Vibe passes) and it was sold out. We didn't care what time or day of the week we ate there either. We checked multiple times throughout the cruise and Cagney's was sold out the entire time. May have been an anomaly, but the way it's explained on here is not always the case, so something to be aware of if you have your heart set on a particular restaurant.

We did end up going to La Cucina twice and had a fantastic experience and wonderful service the second time (and a good experience our first visit that cruise), so all was not lost. 🙂

Enjoy your cruise!

Because final payment has passed, I do believe you loose the Cruise Next deposit. Someone else could probably confirm.

More importantly, I wanted to say how awesome it is that your husband is getting a kidney. Wishing you both the best!

I have family on that cruise. They arrived into Costa Rica tonight at 6 p.m. instead of tomorrow morning and are docked there for the night.

If you are staying at the Hilton Airport at Blue Lagoon, there is no grocery store within walking distance, though there may be a liquor store. (I know you you didn't ask about walking distance, but sometimes, especially after a long flight, people like to get out and walk.) We have stayed there and the Homewood Suites a few times in the last two years and it's isolated in the sense that those, along with one or two other hotels, are about the only thing around.

The idea of buying a bottle from the hotel bar is a good one, though you may be paying comparable prices to the ship.

We have flown with champagne a number of times, however - including back to the U.S. from the U.K. a few months ago (I'm pregnant and couldn't drink it, but our hotel sent it to us for our anniversary, and we'll have it after our baby arrives). Wrapped carefully in towels/bubble wrap/a plastic bag and placed in checked luggage surrounded by clothing...no issues each and every time we've flown with it. So, I think you would be fine. (It never dawned on us as something we'd need to declare in the U.S., and we were not asked, but something to look into.)

Happy early anniversary!

3 hours ago, rockfsh said:

Which itinerary /cruise were you on?

It's a 16-day Panama Canal cruise from LA to Miami. I have family on the same cruise.

On 1/7/2020 at 6:05 PM, kpjb said:

Upon embarking, we went directly to reservations to change our La Cucina res to Ocean Blue and it was totally sold out for the week.  That was disappointing, I thought there was a percentage of tables that they did not book ahead of time.

Thanks for your review! The same happened to us on the Getaway in 2018. We booked 44 days out, so restaurant selection was limited and I took what was available. Tried to change to Cagney's the day we embarked, thinking of what I'd read here that said NCL holds a percentage of restaurant reservations, and it was sold out all week. This was a late October sailing, so not as busy as holiday or summer sailings.

Will be on the Breakaway in 2021, and have been reading some less-than-stellar reviews, so thanks for providing a balanced one!

13 minutes ago, Rob32 said:

We booked a cruise a few weeks back, how do I know if we will get the double latitudes points?

On the confirmation PDF that NCL sends, there are a bunch of codes in the upper right corner. I believe the extra Latitudes points code is LATVIP, so if that's there, you'll get the double points. (And someone will correct me if I'm wrong on the code that gives you the points. 🙂 )

Enjoying your review!

We LOVE Garrett Popcorn. Get that cheesy, caramel-y Chicago Mix every time!

4 minutes ago, Love.NCL said:

Any recent experience on getting the corkage fee refund at the end for unopened bottles?  We usually only bring couple so never had to deal with a possible refund. We're bringing at least 7 on our next cruise.  

Thank you,

From a few years ago, I think we were on the Escape with the drink package but brought along a couple bottles of our favorite sparkling wine and didn't drink one. On the last night, we just took the unopened bottle to Guest Services and said we'd paid the corkage (they saw the sticker that NCL attaches), and there was a $15 credit to our onboard account the morning we disembarked.

7 hours ago, weedc said:

We are in the same predicament out of DTW for our Nov. 17 cruise. I'm not sure how NCL/Delta are expecting us to get on the connecting flight in ATL in less than an hour in between flights. Is it do-able?

Highly recommend downloading Delta's app. That way, you can know which gate you need to be at before deplaning from your first flight. And yes, an hour is enough time to get from one gate to another in ATL, even if you need to switch terminals. The underground train runs frequently from terminal to terminal.

If the site said "Prices FROM $170," it doesn't mean that the night you're staying is $170. It could be $300. Hotel rates vary, so it could just be that the night you need is on the higher end. Or, as others have mentioned, it could be the per person rate that NCL charges for hotel stays.

With cruising, when you're past final payment, it's considered a cancellation because NCL now has to sell that room for that itinerary. Unless you're willing to take the 50% penalty then pay whatever the rate is to move to a different ship or sailing, there's really nothing you can do except wait for reviews and learn about the things you think you'll enjoy about the ship. We are not into race tracks or ropes courses, but still manage to find lots to do on a cruise ship. Hope it all works out for you, OP, and that you have an enjoyable cruise!

I'm female, so I use a wristlet for the entire cruise. I leave my purse in the room and lock my wallet, passports, etc. in the safe. The wristlet is small, and I can also put my phone and ID in there. Fits easily in the beach bag I use in ports.

This is what I use:

https://www.verabradley.com/us/product/Iconic-RFID-Front-Zip-Wristlet/22899-22899N13?cm_mmc=pla-_-gs-_-180201-_-shopping-accessories&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxd22tt7O5AIVB4TICh1HygWhEAQYBCABEgLHIfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Yay! I've been following your story since the 9/1 debacle and am excited to see that you picked another cruise. That'll come up quickly!

We sailed on the Getaway over Halloween last year. There were a number of people dressed up that night and some small decorations throughout the ship, but that was about it.

It was our first and only time trying to get Vibe passes, and we were successful. We were on the Getaway last October and got to the port around 9:30 a.m. Security wasn't even open at that point. We ended up with boarding group 2. We were in a balcony and we're both Gold members. Agree with the others who said they went straight to wherever they were selling passes to buy them. On the Getaway, it was in Headliners on deck 6, and we walked onto the ship on deck 7, so a quick walk down the stairs to Headliners to stand in line.

Every person who wanted Vibe passes had to be present, if I recall. They scanned each of our cards. 

Our experience was before the price increase, so it may be different now with that.

On 6/30/2019 at 12:52 PM, roger001 said:

I was wondering the same thing.  We've only flown SWA since all this extra fees stuff began with the airlines.   (And even SWA is slowly increasing their 'early bird" fee.) We normally have three checked bags when we cruise.  What would the average other airlines charge now for a checked bag?   What is this seat assignment fee and how much is it?  Can anyone give me something like  AAL , DAL, or maybe a UAL pricing idea?   If I've got to pay all of that, free isn't looking so good, especially since the Free wasn't even close to free to begin with.   Thanks.  

We, too, typically fly SWA as our primary, but also fly Delta and American, so I can speak to those two. Delta and AA each charge $30 for the first checked bag and $40 for the second checked bag. Carry-ons are still free on both airlines, though they do seem to be cracking down more on sizes of those and will request that you gate check if the bag is too large to fit in the overhead bins. Not sure if they charge to gate check; they didn't use to, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do now. We usually check bags, so I don't pay attention to any gate check charging, if it's happening.

As for seat assignments, Delta Comfort will have a fee, but I'm not sure if their Main cabin choice comes with a fee. For AA, Main Cabin Extra and Preferred have fees. Seat fees can start at $30 and go up to whatever First and Business class charges. When you know your flights, check out seat maps on the airlines' websites. Free seats will be listed as such if you hover over the seat choice, or if you click on one, the fee will be indicated on the page.

Hope that helps!