callmehalia

5 bids on various categories, and only heard the morning of the cruise at around 2am that they were all turned down.

18 minutes ago, ziggyuk said:

Nice discount if that's 20% 🙂

It is!

I've booked Qured too.

BATRAVEL20 discount code.

It's on the official NCL website so it's true as of this moment in time! 

https://www.ncl.com/uk/en/travel-requirements-by-country

All you can do is watch that page and be flexible, considering things still can change on a dime.

Trying to keep calm! Tangier was, erm, yeah. And right now we’re sailing past Funchal, where we’re meant to be, because another ship is in our berth and can’t leave as it is too windy for them. So two days at sea and we’re done. Luckily I have a couple of days in Malaga before real life beckons.

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Meet and greet was no help - the NCL people were in and out in five minutes. We’ve had a strong headwind all night so maybe that’s it? We switched captains in Barcelona, and the cruise director switched tonight, with Dave leaving the ship tomorrow. I’m on a cruise so life could be worse!

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If it's not too much trouble I'd be interested to know the answer. Thanks much, and enjoy your cruise.

I won’t have internet for a few days but I’ll report back!

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If it was me, out of curiosity I would ask one of the ship's officers for an explanation.

Meet and greet tomorrow might be interesting...

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Looks like a great itinerary otherwise. Tangier is 300 miles north, so there isn't enough time to visit Casablanca via bus or rental car, unfortunately.

Yep, no time for Casablanca, but we’ll make the most of Tangier. There’s not much there so it’ll be an easy day at least, instead of all the running around Casablanca and Rabat that we planned.

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Perhaps, October. But it’s looking to be quite nice all along and we’re not really travelling very far. Especially as we’re not going around Morocco. Looking at it further, they’ve switched this port the last two or three cruises. 🤷🏼*♂️

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It is not always the weather conditions where you are now that matters. Often it is the forecast conditions of your destination. Time to take your tin foil hat off.

Thanks for that insight. I never would thought to check the forecast for Casablanca. I thought looking out the window here in Barcelona would be enough. [emoji849]

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I understand things happen and ports change - but this still seems odd. We’ve had a letter to our stateroom saying we aren’t going to Casablanca on Friday and are going to Tangier instead because of adverse weather conditions. I can’t see any evidence that there’s a weather issue; does NCL just use weather as a catch-all when they don’t want to say what the real issue is?

For me, Naples is a total armpit.

We went to 'the' pizza place - the one from Eat, Pray, Love - http://damichele.net/index.php?lang=uk

We had to queue up for like an hour outside, in a dirty street (I saw nothing in Naples that wasn't dirty) and finally went in and had our pizza. We didn't even like it.

Last time we docked in Naples we did a small group tour (a van of 8) and visited the Amalfi Coast, which was very lovely.

We were recently in an aft on the Epic and deck 10 (10313) we couldn't hear anything from Spice.

We normally love afts but my goodness, the vibrations were way worse than we've experienced on smaller ships. It was a port intensive cruise so we were woken up very early (and kept awake) every day. There wasn't any soot though, like we've had on other ships, and only once (the last night) were we unable to sit on the balcony as the smell of fuel was very strong.

I believe it's $40 for bingo, but like the PP said, they do $20 bargain bingo sometimes.

I think you mean April 23rd. We are booked on this cruise. I have called NCL about this twice and both times been told it's definitely sold out. It's been sold out for the past few weeks, and I am amazed as I've never seen a cruise sold out so long in advance. I think it's such a popular one as there are no other cruises longer than 7 days sailing out of Venice from spring through summer, and the cruise after ours has had their itinerary completely changed so possibly many people on that cruise may have changed to this one. Also after the May 4 cruise the Spirit will no longer be leaving from Venice.

 

For awhile there I was concerned this cruise was removed due to a drydock that we have yet to be informed about, but it seems to be confirmed that there will just be a short drydock from 16 - 21 Jan.

I would think part of the problem is this http://singleslovetravel.com/Page/GrandMediterraneanSinglesCruise

That charter might have earmarked a huge allocation of cabins, and then they'll be released after January 16.

Priscilla is a definite no. Not only is it way too adult, I don't think kids would enjoy it anyway.

I don't have children but even as the cool auntie, I wouldn't take my 7 year old niece to Burn the Floor. As someone else said, the schoolgirl section was raunchy (unnecessarily so, in my opinion!), and not in a Britney Spears kind of way, and it goes on for quite a while.

I travel and stay at a good # of hotels to know many hospitality TV system, in addition to the ones on cruise ships ... some USB ports are accessible while others are not, it is often firmware locked. If the Epic used a HDMI connection and you can safely reach it, disconnect & plug in your own HDMI cable (like we did ... with a 10' one & cast from the laptop - it will work) to play whatever.

 

 

 

Typically, it will play MP3 audio only but you cannot edit/configure your "playlist" but MP4 (video) being pretty much out of the questions due to different codec or hardware/software recorded standards from different media sources.

 

 

 

We are leaving tomorrow for a 7 nights trip and advantage of my Nexus tablet vs. DW's iPad, I am downloading about 5 movies for offline playback, easy & not having to worry to about not having WiFi access. Optionally, with a nano travel router, setup my own hotspot to Chromecast it on bigger HDTV screen (providing that I can access & tweak the input source & settings, etc.) On NCL ships, pretty much NOT to be expected, however.

I can confirm that there's an empty hdmi port on the Epic TVs, and the remote has the switch button. All types of files played without problem. The port was easily accessible from the right of the screen, and in our balcony the telly was mounted above a counter directly above the power point. I just moved the coffee tray and put my laptop right beneath the tv and it was very convenient.

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Here's what I had in Taste on 02 October after we boarded at about 1pm, so definitely open!

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We watched things stored on my laptop on the Epic a few weeks ago by using the HDMI connection. I didn't check for a USB.

There is a gap from February 19th until early March 17. Maybe the dry dock is then.

 

There is also the 5 days that others have mentioned too Jan 16th until 21st.

I don't see a gap in Feb - 2 Canaries cruises cover that time?

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NCL actually significantly increased the length and amount of money they will spend on the Spirit drydock after a visit by FDR.

 

Most of the current Norwegian Edge dry docks involve stripping all of the public areas down to the deck plates and rebuilding with a more contemporary look and feel. This includes places like the theater.

 

Rooms usually get new carpet, furniture, flooring, tiling. In our room on the Epic, they left the wall paper and wood paneling.

 

The hull and external decks are repainted.

 

I suspect that all of the decorations selected by the Chinese priemere and his wife will be in a dumpster. Along with the Roman decore from the pool.

 

Here's what they did on the Dawn

 

We just got off the Epic today, and I spoke to a future cruise consultant about the Spirit drydock. We had been in port a few days before with the Spirit and she said she talked to her colleagues and the dry dock had been shortened to 5 or 6 days. She was a bit reticent and wouldn't talk about it further.

Personally, I speculated that they're just going to limp it through a bit longer and then offload the ship. But only FDR knows!

We just got off the Epic today and had a lovely time - she's a lovely ship and while there are of course pros and cons, there is absolutely no reason to avoid a cruise on the Epic.

Pedro was the cruise director. He's always around and I'm pretty sure he never sleeps, but he's always very friendly :)

Bumping this thread up for info on if this balcony is sheltered as mentioned in this thread. Pics in thread no longer available.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1932235&highlight=10722

I think it is.

Look at this image - http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki/78/Norwegian_Star_in_Ketchikan,_Alaska.jpg

Zoom in and have a look - your balcony is the last one under the grey smoke windows. I imagine your balcony is a standard size, but you will have a bit of extra wall. You still have the glass under the railing, which is the most important. I can't imagine it'll make hardly any difference, but I do hope you report back after your cruise for posterity :)