MeHeartCruising

Honestly, I would not recommend the night tour for your first night in Rome. Unless you think you will get enough sleep on the plane over. I don’t sleep much. So I’m usually cratering by 6pm or so.

Royal Caribbean has a history of allowing these type of changes to a Guarantee assignment. NCL does not have that history.

What "case" are you hoping to plead while on board? You got your cabin that you bought. Please don't bother the crew about what you happened to get because you chose to buy the cheaper guarantee cabin. You got what you paid for. They have bigger issues to deal with.

Generally, they say to keep active upon arrival as long as you can and then try to sleep near normal bed time. However, one option might be to ride the Hop-on-Hop-Off bus (perhaps without even getting off) so that you can get a feel for the city as a whole. I would consider that low key. Of course, you might risk falling asleep on the upper deck and end up riding the loop 5 times. A more active activity, which maybe you already have scheduled, would be to ride the cable cars up Mont Juic and enjoy the views and walk around the fort. Then walk back down.

I’ve seen it. I prefer to focus on the thousands of people who successfully book and get guarantee cabin assignments. You and I have booked weeks prior to the cruise. Not hours. And they got their cabin..

I’m also awaiting balcony cabin assignment for my cruise departing Southampton on September 5th. My edocs also indicate cabin 99999. Im pretty sure this is standard until they do the assignments. As I alluded to above, I’m not concerned. Once I see my assignment, I will print edocs. I have looked at mine, but not printed them yet. They will be making final assignments somewhere during the time they are also deciding on who gets the paid upgrades. Lots will happen in these final 2 weeks. If I have to wait until I get to the pier, so be it. They will have a cabin for me. Concerning what you wrote in your other post, I have never heard of anyone showing up at the port and having a say in what cabin they want. Usually its already assigned so the porters can look it up when you drop off luggage. They then put a handwritten room tag on it so the luggage can be delivered.

Relaaaaaaaax. Plenty of time. I’d bet $500 that your cabin is assigned before you fly. edocs get updated as time goes on. Once they assign a cabin, download a new copy.

The last time I was there it was a hot July day — 98 degrees. The Vatican and St. Peter’s was only part of the plans for the day. I wore pants that had removable leg sections, converting them into shorts. They just zip on and off. I think they were some form of camping pants. Khaki color. They were perfect for my church visits. And then cooler in other places.

I'm not the one you asked, but I would think that using tender boats in this manner in Venice would be one reason you should feel totally free to not do a ship excursion unless you might want to visit one of the other islands in the area. Once the tender drops you off most of what you want to do in Venice is accomplished by walking to it. There may be a few places you want to go where it might be quicker (or required) to hop on their boat "bus" network (called vaporettas), but there is so much to see without doing that. Assuming the tenders drop you off at St. Marks Square as the articles seem to say, you could visit the Basilica, Doge's Palace, the Square with only a few feet of walking. You can visit Rialto bridge by walking a short distance (5-10 minutes or so). You will immediately see gondolas for hire in the area. As long as you know when the last tender is and you keep track of where you are and know how long it will take you to walk back to the tender, I see no need for a ship excursion here. If you want to visit Murano or Burano islands, then perhaps an excursion makes sense. But even these can be reached via the vaporetta network.

Royal Caribbean prefers you to purchase passage on the cruise first. If you just show up, they may not let you on. Har Har Har. Sorry. I couldn't pass up on this one.

Here are a few more articles that I found on the topic. None of them seem to be updated to include anything more than the testing of the program using the NCL Gem earlier in the year, but it would seem they were granted additional approvals for upcoming cruises given the OP's cruise. Or NCL is being optimistic at this time. The articles indicate the ship docks off the cost of Lido. Not the shortest of tender rides. https://maritime-executive.com/article/venice-tests-tendering-cruise-passengers-to-permit-large-ships-in-port https://www.cruisemapper.com/news/10665-ncl-norwegian-gem-passengers-ferried-into-venice https://www.corfubarbati.com/2022/07/26/venice-tests-cruise-passenger-tender-to-allow-large-ships-into-port/

I'm pretty certain you can buy CruiseNexts while on ANY NCL cruise. They are NOT usable on the current cruise, so there'd be no reason to not sell them to you. There will be flyers in your cabin and they will be happy to sell them to you at the Latitudes desk.

As you may know, there is currently an FCC Kicker promotion which offers $100 OBC if you use up a Future Cruise Credit (FCC) at the time of booking a new cruise. I successfully received this when I booked a Mediterranean cruise for May 2023. I booked online and was able to link the FCC at the time of booking. At the time of booking, the FCC didn't show up in the amount paid for the cruise, but it showed up shortly after. Maybe a day or two later. Per the terms of the Promotion, it took about one more week for the OBC to show up on the cruise. Perfect. However, when I booked a second cruise a few days later to make this a B2B, there was an error when I booked the cruise when I tried to link to another FCC. It told me to try applying the FCC after finishing the booking. I finished the booking and then used the regular page that Royal provides to request an FCC credit to a cruise. This time, it said the FCC certificate ID I entered was acceptable and I assumed it was linked to the cruise. But, So far, it has been one week and the FCC is still not reflected on my cruise -- the amount due has not been reduced. I'm now a little concerned that 1) have they actually received my request to apply the FCC to the cruise and 2) if they do, will they recognize it as being requested at the time of booking so that I would qualify for the $100 OBC? Does anyone know if I call an agent and ask them to cancel/rebook the cruise (the price hasn't changed and I have booked a refundable deposit and it's way outside final payment dates), would they be able to apply the FCC at time of booking? or do they still make you submit an online request to do this after the fact? Thoughts?

Haha. I didn't even read the article that far. Can you imagine ships parking and unloading right at the Square. My goodness what a mess that would be. And how much it would destroy the views at that location. Lordy.

Tendering into Venice is a controversial move that NCL is trying out with the blessing of Venice port officials, but not the blessing of local politicians. Details can be found in the article linked below. https://www.cruisehive.com/norwegian-cruise-ship-tenders-guests-into-venice-to-dodge-ban/77385 According to the article, the tenders are dropping passengers off right at St. Marks Square. Here is the Basilica's website with visit (and worship details) http://www.basilicasanmarco.it/informazioni-per-i-turisti/orari-di-apertura/?lang=en

I also agree with the above that generally you just want to get the foreign currency you need from an ATM upon arrival in that country. Notify your bank in advance where you will be traveling to ensure they don't think it is a fraudulent attempt. ATMs offer the ability to view the screens in English. You may need to make a selection on the screen to make it use English language. IF you will need foreign currency before you can access an ATM, your home bank can also usually get them for you prior to your trip. Most of the time, you will need to order it in advance and then go pick it up a few days or a week later. You may choose to do this if you have booked tour(s) that require cash payment and it is a large amount. Some ATMs (or your own bank) may limit how much cash you can withdraw at a time (or per day). If possible, use a credit card (one with no international transaction fees) for purchases. If the credit card machine or merchant asks if you wish the transaction to be processed in the foreign currency or US dollars, pick the foreign currency. The other way means the merchant will use their own conversion rate first, which will be higher than the credit card company. It is a way for merchants to make more money from you. There are ATMs in the airports, so you can get the currency there, but the exchange rates may be higher than ATMs found in the towns/cities.

One time, on a ship and cruise line I really don’t recall, they had taken on some supplies for the upcoming dry dock. There were some covered up piles of “stuff” on the exterior decks in areas that were out of the way. There were also more obvious maintenance type crew wandering about in public spaces more often. You’d see them doing measurements and digging into electric/wiring boxes/etc. more often than you usually see. That was the only impact I saw. No venues were closed on that cruise. But they were clearly doing prep where they could in advance.

Thank you Ine. I appreciate the fast response. Hopefully the weather is good on the day I want to do my walk.

After my cruise ends in Amsterdam, I plan on walking to Central Station to catch the EuroStar to London. Years ago, I walked the reverse direction from the station to the ship and was able to exit the station at the rear entrance by the water and use a nice sidewalk to the cruise ship. Is that walking route still in place so that I can walk along the water and enter the station on there back side?

I hate to start a new thread for this simple confirmation, so I will post here and see if anyone sees it. A question for the UK train savvy travelers.... I've booked a South Western Railway train from London Waterloo to Southampton Central on the morning of my cruise. I tried booking directly on the South Western web site, but it wasn't pleased that I live in the US, so I booked it via thetrainline.com per the advice of the Man in Seat 61. No issues with the booking. Great price of just over $12 total. On the South Western website, it let me partially do the booking before it found out I lived in the US. During that partial booking, it first said "A seat reservation is required for this journey" and allowed me to specify my seat preferences (aisle, forward facing, etc.). The when I clicked on the Confirm Seat button, it came back and said "A seat reservation is not required for this journey, sit in any open seat". And it appears to show that I had finished the seat reservation process. On the trainline.com website, it also asked for seating preferences but when the ticket was paid and confirmed, it says "sit in any open seat" on the screen and "no specific seat" on the ticket. I assume this is normal? and I'm ok for the trip? I was just thrown off by first being told a seat reservation was required, then told it was not required after requesting it.

I love to tell this story, so here it goes again... In 2009 in Barcelona, I attempted to give a taxi driver an American-sized tip at the end of a ride. He refused to take most of the tip. I think I was attempting to give him €3 in coins on top of the €15 in bills I had given him for a €14.75 trip. Something like that. He would not take the added €3. You won't see that happen in the US.

Not entirely true. Yes, That is true on the aft portion of the ship. But the front half of the ship has a mixture of insides and balconies. Even if you exclude the studios. Look at the deck plan for deck 14, for example. Many inside cabins that are not studios. Yet not as many as you would typically see in older ships.

I don't follow you. The studio cabin area is quite obvious as there is an obvious cluster of studio cabins there, which is the opposite of what I pointed out to look at. Look at the deck plans for multiple decks that have the majority of the cabins. Compare the number of inside cabins to the number of outside cabins. Notice long stretches of hallway with no inside cabins.

Very, very hot (we had 98 degrees every day and that was 10 years ago). Many outdoor sites have no shade. Many indoor sites have little to no working air conditioning. My Mom developed a bad heat rash that she had to deal with most of the trip. Large crowds everywhere. Lines everywhere unless you take advantage of pre-ordered tickets. Even with those tickets, you will likely wait in some lines for security checks. All the sites you will be wanting to visit will be open. All the support things you might want (restaurants, etc.) will also be open for your business. Fall trips are more enjoyable as are May/June trips.

Looking at the posted deck plans, I found it interesting how few inside cabins there are on some of the decks that would traditionally have them. There are many places where there are balcony cabins on the outside and no inside cabins across from them in the hallway. You don't see that very often on other ships. The insides are sporadically placed on several of the decks. Nothing wrong with it. Just thought it was noticeably different from other ships I've seen.