TrumpyNor

I believe that the "live ugrade bidding" is only for Haven suites and that bidding from eg. inside to oceanview, balcony or club balcony is still "the old way" with the "old" upgrade advantage program.....?

Thank you for the link. This means that I learned something new today as well! 😊 To the OP: I am sorry if my first post caused any confusion, that was not my intention.

I have been on the Epic a few times in the past, and I have NEVER heard about any "solo balconies" on the ship. For solo travellers they have the studio cabins, that are all located "inside" the ship. They have only "regular" balcony cabins, that are of course possible to book also if you are only one person travelling. Depending on whenever you book the cruise, you could be lucky and "score" a balcony cabin at a very good rate for one person - but that is it. There are no "solo balcony cabins" on the Epic that I know of.....

Regarding being allowed to bring a drone on a cruise or not: It is important to note that in some countries it is not allowed to fly a drone in some areas. I live in Norway myself, and in all of Norway It is not permitted to fly closer than 5 km from an airport without permission from the air traffic service, ie. the tower at the airport. And even the entire Oslo city centre is a "no-drone-zone" because of Almost every day there are tourists with drones who are stopped by the police, fined and the drone often confiscated. I am pretty certain Norway is not the only country that have these restrictions. And a "no-drone-zone" five km (3 miles) in all directions from an airport, is a larger area than most people would think...

It seems like what I first wrote, still is current - that you can cancel up to 48 hours before arriving in the port where the shore excursion is booked for....? I cancelled a tour on board on my last cruise in August 2023, and received the money as OBC. It is my understanding that when cancelling before the cruise starts, then the refund would go back to your original credit card. https://www.ncl.com/fr/en/cruise-faq/what-cancellation-policy-tours-and-where-do-i-cancel

I have a cruise booked for next year, that I am thinking about cancelling because of the high price I currently have on the booked inside cabin. And instead wait until 1-2 months after the final payment date (currently 120 days before sailing date) to re-book it. I have almost $2000 in FCC from a price-drop on a cruise we did this year, that I plan on using to pay at least parts of the 2024 cruise. Lets say I cancel the 2024 cruise now and re-book it about 2 months before the sailing date (so 2 months after the official final payment date), at a price that is probably more "acceptable" to my wallet at the time (😊), and there happens to be a price-drop after I have booked and paid for the cruise but before the "16-day-FCC-deadline". Would I then be able to receive a new "price-drop-FCC" even though the cruise is already paid mainly with price-drop-FCC from last year? 🤞🤞 Hoping to hear from someone who has done (or tried to do) just that. 🙂🙃

It will cost you more to order it through room service, as you then would have to pay 20% gratuity AND the fixed room service fee of $9,95 on top of the drink price. If you get it from one of the bars yourself, you would "only" be charged the 20% gratuity on top of the drink price.

Could the explanation be that your assigned cabin is a "HC type" cabin, and therefore not yet guaranteed from NCL just in case someone with special needs decides to book the same cabin category?

I have been on many NCL cruises, and have never experienced them to announce cabins ready "deck by deck" - it has always been the entire ship announced "ready" at the same time.

I just print ours and put them in these that I purchased from CruiseCritic a looooong time ago (the wide type fits the NCL "DIY" printed luggage tags: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/ccstore/luggage-tag/ PS: I don't attach them to our suitcases until we are ready to go to the pier.

If I remember correctly from our cruise on the Escape in August, it was $25. Didn't try it myself.

I may be wrong, but I believe that when they say "third and fourth person free" (as you would pay the same base price for three or four persons as for two persons during that promotion), the total price is actually divided by three in the NCL system. Meaning that when you want to cancel the third person, then the base price for the remaining two persons on the reservation goes up (so in your case $1800+ divided by two instead of three = $900 p.p. instead of $600 p.p.). I agree with others - go for the "no-show" option instead.

My walk was actually from Kirkjufell and back in to town... 😉 Btw, a great and wide walking path the whole way... Definitely nice surroundings for a walk - if you look closely you can probably spot me in the photo below (photo taken by my "lazy" husband as his busride back to town passed by me on the road below). 😄 And yes, that walking path goes right by the towns stables. 😍 Luckily this beauty was very happy to pose as my "model of the day". But some of his "friends" really couldn't care less about me trying to get some good photos...

Grundarfjordur, Iceland. We had originally plans on just walking towards the Kirkjufell mountain and Kirkjufellfoss waterfalls as it is less than 3 km (about 2 miles), but when we stepped off the tenderboat, we saw a small yellow bus that had «Kirkjufell Express» written on the side. It had departures every 30 minutes and we catched the first departure of the day, so it was not as crowded at the Kirkjufell lookout-point as it probably was later in the day. Ticket was 10 Euros per person, and included return – but I chose to walk back to town instead, as the weather was beautiful that day. I will just leave out photos from that walk, as @YVRteacher walked along the same route and has already posted beautiful photos. Kirkjufell mountain seen from the seaside: And then seen from the other, more famous side: Kirkjufellfoss waterfalls: And «all -in-one»….

Isafjordur, Iceland After walking through town we went towards the Urdarvegur viewpoint and the Utsynisstadur observation deck that offered some great views of both the town and the surrounding area. On our way back to town, we passed by the beach (note, only one way in/out to the beach – and that was through some narrow stairs at one end of the beach).

Seydisfjordur, Iceland GPS map showing our walk first through the town towards the blue church and after that heading for the Tvisöngur sound sculpture for some great views and good photo opportunities. Parts of town: Wide walking path towards Tvisöngur: The Norwegian Star seen fromTvisöngur:

Djupivogur, Iceland I had originally plans of visiting both the Black Sands beach and the 34 egg sculptures called Eggs of Merry Bay (Eggin in Gledivik in Icelandic), without really having a look at the map in advance. Turned out those two "destinations" were in opposite directions of eachother, so then we decided on a "nature experience instead of an art experience". The Black Sands beach is loated by the local airport (small airport strip) – only about 30 min walk from the village. Followed the small road there and took a slightly different path through some "wetlands" back to the village, where we passed the Bondavarda viewpoint that is located very close to the harbour – that was actually a brilliant place to make photos of the ship anchoring in the fjord.

Yes, you do. I remember you saying that Olden was one of the few places that you didn't enjoy - and that I suspect was mainly because of the bad weather...

Torshavn, Faroe Islands In Torshavn the only thing we had planned in advance, was to walk up to an Obelisk that was located at 19, Hoyviksvegurat to get a nice view over parts of the town. Other than that we just walked through various residential neighbourshoods – a nice walk with lots to see along the way, and just outside of the towncenter there were many properties that actually kept beautiful "viking type" sheep in their backyard. When we came back to the harbour, we turned right instead of going back to the ship. And we are very happy that we did just that, because that led us to Torshavn old town – and it was definitely our favorite part of town, with old very colourful houses that were all well kept.

Olden, Norway. The weather was not very good (lots of rain and wind), but since we had prepaid/booked tickets with the Loen Skylift we just decided to make the best of it. The Skylift was located just a short busride from the cruise pier, and the transport was included in the ticket. We were brought 1000 (!) meters up to the top and the views were spectacular even in bad weather. And then we decided to have some lunch with a view....!

Harstad, Norway. I had done some research and new that from the old TV-tower there would be nice views of the town. We originally planned on walking up there, but to save some time we decided to take a taxi up and walk down - very happy we did that, because parts of the way towards the top was rather steep... Taxi stop was located close to where we docked, and the trip up to the TV-tower only cost NOK 170, so it was absolutely worth it...

My husband and I joined @YVRteacher on the last leg of her cruise - from Tromsø, Norway to Reykjavik, Iceland (August 4-15). Because we mostly hiked on our own in each of the ports on the itinerary instead of joining organized excursions, I've agreed with her to post some photos and tips about where we went. All the walks are what I would call "easy" walks - some of them in a bit steep terrain, but by taking regular breaks we managed it without any problems. Our experience is that there were very good walking paths pretty much «everywhere», especially in Iceland. Perhaps the following posts can provide some helpful tips for others who are going to one of these ports in the autumn or in 2024. To avoid too long posts because of added photos, I will post information about each port separately. Weather was as unstable as only the Norwegian Sea and the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean can be – we had temperatures ranging from around 5°C to 18°C/39°F to 64°F and many of the days also offered icy winds from the north and rain. So my suggestion when cruising in these waters during the months of May-June-July-August-September to bring clothing for «all weather types except snow». We were also very happy that we had brought with us some light gloves – on those windy, rainy days they were very good to be wearing… Shoes with a waterproof goretex membran is also a good idea – especially if you plan on doing some walking or hiking tours when in the ports. In some of the ports I activated the GPS on an app on my mobile phone, to track our movement, and I will add screenshots of those as well.

This was the taxi line when we joined the que that same morning around 08.50 to get in to our hotel in Reykjavik. We waited until that time as we actually believed that at such a "late" time there wouldn't be much of a line waiting for taxis.... Luckily the rain stopped after just a couple of minutes, but it took us a good 30 minutes to get to the front of the line (well, 30 minutes is a much better waiting time than the 3 hours the guide told @YVRteacher on her bus excursion). PS: We also found the LOUD and EARLY announcements for disembarkment to be extremely frustrating as we originally had planned to have a good rest until around 07.00 AM that morning.

I was on a NCL cruise earlier this month, and as we were very content with both the meal and the waiter we had in Le Bistro, we booked a table there for a couple of other nights and asked to be seated at that waiters station. We like to pay extra tip in speciality restaurants if the service has been very good - and this time (because of all the threads on the topic here on CruiseCritic) I asked who would get the extra gratuities if I added them on the 0,00 bill at the end of the meal - I actually asked specifically if he would get it all or if it went in to some kind of "tipping pool" and shared with his collegues. And the smiling response was the same as I have received when asked a different waiter the same question on a different NCL ship some years ago: "It all goes to me, ma'am".

Dear newfound friend! And at difficult and troubled incidents like that , after taken care of the problem, it is important to again turn your focus to the amazing memories you have been making over the last few weeks. And scroll through all these amazing photos and only remeber the good times! 🩷 I am already looking forward to hopefully meeting you again on a cruise in a not too distant future!