TrumpyNor

It is important to remember that allthough Hurtigruten have numerous stops along the Norwegian coast, many of the stops are only 20-30 minutes long and also several stops in the middle of the night. And the longest stops are in Tromso and Trondheim - but still no longer than max. 3-4 hours. After all the Hurtigruten is mainly "public transportation along the coast" - and it is also important to note what you is pointed out by kitkat343: Not a cruise ship and no entertainment on board. Even though Hurtigruten sails close to the coast most of the way, offering amazing views of stunning nature "everywhere" - it can get a bit "boring" after a few days...? I believe the OP is better off with the Norway cruise they have already booked. 🙂 Greetings from a native Norwegian, living in Norway.

We were on the Escape last August, and found this sign in our club balcony cabin. Didn't ask to have it delivered, so unfortunately don't know the type - but I am assuming it is the same they had earlier...

I believe that OP is talking about giving it to the porters like they would do with a larger suitcase, before they reach the scanning machine...

I am sorry, but I must have misunderstood what OP originally was asking about. I must admit that I did not read all 17 replies that was posted before my post, so sorry if what I wrote was information that everybody knew.....

IF YOU DO A MOCK BOOKING FOR A CERTAIN CABIN NUMBER, THEN YOU ACTUALLY PUT THAT PARTICULAR CABIN "ON HOLD" IN THE BOOKING SYSTEM YOURSELF, AND IT REMAINS BLOCKED FOR 30 MINUTES - this is to give you enough time to complete the reservation online. I experienced this on a couple of different occasions a few years ago when close to sailing date for cruises where I had booked regular balcony cabins. I was doing "mock bookings" on ncl.com hoping to see a "bargain" and there were suddenly ONE suite or Haven suite available for a reasonably good price. I contacted my PCC at NCL right away and asked her to upgrade me to that particular suite. And when she tried to book it for me, it came up as "not available". Then about an hour later I saw it being available again, and contacted my PCC again, and the same happened again - "not available to book in the system". After 3 times of this happening over the course of a few hours, I suspected that it was my own "mock booking" that somehow blocked the cabin number for other reservations. So I asked my PCC to please wait about 30 minutes more, and see if the suite was then available. And it was! A couple of years later the situation was similar - 3 days before sailing dat I saw an owner suite available for a price that I found to be very good, by doing a mock booking. But I remembered what happened last time we tried to do the same thing, so this time I contacted my PCC and asked her to please check to see if the upgrade was available in her system, and it was not. I then asked her to please try again 1/2 hour later, and it was indeed available.

A schengen visa is only valid for 90 days per stay without leaving Schengen - so the extension he is talking about is ONLY for Portugal. (As all extenstions of a Schengen visa beyond the 90 days limitation has to be for a specific country, according to the "EU/Schengen rules".

Why the need to start a new thread when you started another one with the same topic/question about a month ago? You could just have "bumped" your old thread to the front page with a short comment. 😏 https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2898818-porugal-visa-extension-question/#comment-64430884 Maybe the Canadian embassy in Lisbon would know the answer to this, as it is a so special topic that is is highly unlikely that there would be anyone on the NCL forum who would know about it.....

To me, 100% FCC instead of 25% OBC (percentage of course of the actual price drop) is a better deal - no question about that! I am very happy with the change!

It is "OK", but not great (of course depending on hairtype). So with thick hair I would use the conditioning shampoo as shampoo PLUS bring a conditioner from home as well.

To answer your question: The body wash is the green one, the conditioning shampoo is the non-transparent "white" one. At least that has been the case on my many NCL cruises. I have a type of hair that would "protest strongly" and be impossible to comb, if I tried to use the body wash on my hair instead of the conditioning shampoo, so I would definitely note the difference if they were switched....

Maybe you have to do it "twice" - first use one of the FCCs listed, and when that is registered as payment you choose your payment type again, and this time choose the remaining one? If that doesn't work, then the easiest is to call NCL and have one of their PCCs help you with this. My husband and I had some FCC from a couple of cruises that were cancelled because of covid in 2020 and 2021, and in both cases the FCC was "divided" with 50% FCC to my own NCL account and 50% to my husbands NCL account (even though everything was booked and paid through my NCL account in initially).

As others have replied earlier, the answer is yes to your question. It is also worth noticing that most of the dishes on the menu are quite large, so just using one voucher at the time to and share the 4 dishes amongst you is both allowed and recommended in most cases. That way you can have TWO dinners (or lunches) at Food Republic, and using one of the vouchers each time.

It is also a fact that the large majority of passengers on any cruise have never even heard about CruiseCritic....

On a NYE cruise with the Norwegian Spirit (smaller ship) some years ago, all new years parties were held indoors, there were a balloon release in the atrium at midnight instead of fireworks. Main Dining Rooms had an "upgraded" menu for New Year's Eve and all speciality restaurants just had their regular menu (I actually found that to be a little dissappointing). About 90% of the people on board dressed up for the evening - ranging from "smart casual" to "formal". There were free "champagne" for everyone in the bars surrounding the Atrium at midnight.

We did an NCL cruise from Copenhagen to Iceland (incl stops in Norway and Scotland along the way9 a few years ago, and honestly - it did NOT matter if your cabin was located on the starboard or portside of the ship. When "out at sea" there is "nothing to see but sea". And sailing in/out of ports, then the views were the same level of interesting and/or nice on boths sides of the ship - and when not, then you would have the "nice side" either when arriving at a port or when leaving the same port.

It is a fact that pre-covid I was able to book cruises for my husband and myself in type balcony- or club balcony cabins without any sale going on just by booking early, often a year in advance - at "reasonable" rates. And post-covid, with all the "sales" going on, I pay significantly higher rates for category inside cabins than I just a few years ago paid for balcony cabins (balcony cabins seems to be "out of reach" for my wallet at the moment, ecept if I get "lucky" through the upgrade program before the cruise actually sails).

I just read the initial post from the OP, and I have not read the replies - as my first reaction to that post was "why would this be on CruiseCritic"....??? Maybe someone fell and broke their hip, or had a heart attack or became ill due to one of "a thousand possible reasons" - with literally thousands of people on each cruise at any given time, there are persons who get seriously ill on board like there would be anywhere else.... Why this "need to know" about the health situation for someone you do not know personally?

If I understand you correctly and you are booked on a cruise that starts in Pireus, and want to do a half-day-tour before embarking the ship, then why not just stay in Athens the night before? You will then have much more choices for your half-day tour. And taxi from downtown Athens to Pireus cruise port (literally next to the ship) have a fixed price of €25.

At this time (2022, soon to be 2023) more and more people do "everything" in connection with their booking with NCL online themselves - so I am actually not surprised if NCL is "downsizing" their staff at their Miami office. What surprises me is that this didn't happen earlier....

If NCL "promotes" a cabin as only having occupancy for 2 persons, then there would only be room for 2 persons. Otherwise they would of course sell it as "optional" 3-4 person occupancy. So there must be some kind of limitations of space in the balcony cabins you see listed with only occupancy for 2 persons.

From the Gem in July 2022, and I saw similar "signs" also on the Escape in August 2022:

It depends on when the ship arrives in Trieste from the previous cruise. If it arrives early in the morning, then my guess would be that boarding starts at the "usual time" - between 11.00 Am and noon. Even if the sailaway isn't until 10.00 PM.

No, this is where you are wrong. I have two screenshots in my reply (one for sailaway rate and one for regular rate) - there is a difference in rates - sailaway shows as €10 less than the "just cruise" rate in my example.....

Based on past experience I would say this: 9 out of 10 times what is listed on your cruise confirmation will be correct regarding tendering or not tendering.

Follow this link to start a CruiseCritic roll call for that particular cruise: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/307-norwegian-gem-roll-calls/