TrumpyNor

5 minutes ago, DMP609 said:

We were on the 6/25 sailing of the Prima (had a fabulous time) and the Captain was part of a Q&A towards the end. He was asked about Isafjordur and said they are waiting for the dock work to be completed. They don't know when that will be. They get updates every week or so from the dock and I think that's why they don't cancel too far in advance because as soon as it's ready, they will be docking there. He also addressed the tender issue. They do not have tenders on the ship. I think he said the size of the tenders didn't work well with a ship that size or something to that effect. He said if they have to tender at a port, the port must be the one to provide the tenders and Isafjordur does not. So if the dock is ready by the time you cruise, you should be able to visit, otherwise the port will be cancelled. 

The below quote is part of an e-mail a friend of mine received from the Isafjordur port authorities in June 2023, regarding the Star and if we would be docked or anchored on our cruise next month:

Another thing to consider: There were NCL cruises that were supposed to have Greenland on their itinerary for the summer of 2023, where the Greenland ports were removed from the itinerary without any explanation other than an e-mail a few months ago (but before final payment date) that just said "Due to newly imposed vessel restrictions in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland, the itinerary has been revised as follows" - and then instead of 4 ports in Iceland and 2 ports in Greenland listed on the itinerary, we now have a total of 6 ports in Iceland. We chose to not cancel the cruise as we also appreciate to truely explore Iceland through all of those six ports.

It is the port authorities in each port who decides if a ship can dock or need to anchor with tender, and sometimes this information is released to the cruise lines rather late (it all depends on size of the pier, size of the ship, how many ships the same day, etc). I am booked on a cruise from Southampton to Iceland on the Star next month, and we have a total of 5 tender ports on our itinerary and Lerwick in the Shetland is actually one of them. The other 4 are very small ports in Iceland where (allthough only confirmed as tender ports 3 weeks before sailing) in my opinion it should have been expected that a large cruise ship would not be able to dock in those specific ports.

5 hours ago, DZ77 said:

Does one have to Check In before making the Entertainment Reservation at the 21 day mark? 

What does Online Check in entail?  Sounds like we enter in passport information.  

Are photos required?  If so, do you take a picture with the camera or can you upload a photo that you take beforehand?   

I am trying to figure out if I can check in for my child who will not be present.  

 

Is there any benefit between checking in right at the 21 day mark vs any other time before the cruise?

 

Thank you

For doing the online check-in you need headshot photos in colour with a "calm back-ground", no glasses on, plus passport information, credit card for onboard expenses and name/tel. for emergency contacts. The benefit of checking in early is that you normally have to choose an arrival time at the pier, and the later you wait to do the online check-in the later will the arrival times to choose from be.

15 hours ago, mjkacmom said:

I’ve never seen a 50% off coupon, just the $30 bag.

I believe that it is among the "Latitude Welcome Back pack" that Latitude Gold members get, similar to Platinum and above getting a "free laundry" coupon amongst the other coupons in their "Welcome Back pack".

2 hours ago, boltnut55 said:

At home I hang dry my tops so that they don't shrink, so I always have to remember not to include them in the laundry bags.  

PLUS many of the "light, modern fabric" fashion clothing would not "survive" in a tumble dryer, not even on a "mild cycle". 

2 hours ago, DMP609 said:

Hello! We're looking at a British Isles cruise on the Dawn departing 6/26/2024. When I go through a booking, all that is available in the balcony and club balcony categories are guaranteed balconies and the cost is very high compared to similar cruises with Celebrity and Carnival. Do you think this indicates the cruise is partially chartered?

 

I haven't called NCL since I recall from prior discussions they aren't forthcoming with that kind of information. Thanks!

It is strange that you only get gty cabins available in those two categories.

I just tried to do a mock booking through an American cruise website (as I am in Europe I can not access the US version of ncl.com), and for balcony cabins it showed in addition to ONE GTY cabin PLUS 14 balcony cabins available in category BA (4 cabins on deck 9 and 11 on deck 10). Yes, the rates are veeeery high - could be because the ship is close to fully booked already. When it comes to Club balcony cabins, the same webpage shows 39 category MA available on deck 11 and 1 category MB on deck 11. So not GTY categories.... But yes - also very expensive (actually price for a regular balcony is almost the same as for a club balcony).

I have booked a similar cruise on the Dawn for August 2024, but have only booked an inside cabin because of the high rates for balcony cabins. Plan on bidding on a balcony cabin when the "upgrade advantage program" opens closer to sailing date, but I am fine with staying where I am as well.

Summer 2022 both on the Gem and the Escape this sign was outside restaurants on board:

On 1/27/2023 at 5:00 PM, TrumpyNor said:

I just noticed that when  I am logged on to my NCL account through ncl.com (not the app), and "click" on "My account" on the upper right side, the wording JADE shows on the top of the "box" - please see a screenshot of it below. Does anyone know what JADE stands for? I have no cruises booked for the Jade, and there is no Latitude level called "Jade" as far as I know (I currently have Diamond status). Of course this is not the most important question to find an answer to when it comes to cruising with NCL - I am just a little curious about what that could mean... ☺️

 

 

 

Hello everyone.

I am the OP who started this thread about this "curious" (and according to all replies that were posted a seemingly very "random") coding on the top of the online NCL-profile when logged in to MyNCL.

Today I just noticed that the information in question has changed, it now simply says "Latitudes" instead of "Jade" - which is more "understanding" to me... 😊

22 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

how long ago was this? there have been sea changes (pun intended) in the cruise industry in the last thirty years or so and what may have been true back then is almost certainly not true now. 

15-20 years ago. 

The auto-gratuity to bar staff goes in to a "tips pool" that is divided by number of barwaiters on board - the more passengers on board the higher amount of daily gratuity they receive. They receive a certain amount per day in addition to their base salary, and that daily amount may vary from cruise to cruise, depending on how many passengers on board and how many crew members to serve them.

It is just as simple as that. It is similar with the distribution of the daily service charge that every passenger pay, allthough that is divided in to a certain percentage to cabin stewards, a certain percentage to restaurant staff who work at complimentary restaurants on board, and a certain percentage to behind-the-scene-crew. 

How do I know? Well, the tip-distribution is similar on most cruise lines - and both my husband and I worked on cruise ships when we were younger and the majority of our monthly pay came from those tips pools - and the total income was not as bad as many here may believe that it is..... After all, you do have "room and board" paid. BUT you do have looooong working hours - it is not unusual to work 10-12 hours per day, 7 days a week for 6-9 months (length of regular crew contracts vary depending on the cruise line). So in short - the monthly income for a bar waiter or restaurant waiter on a cruise ship is not bad, but when you divide it in to the hours they work per day/week/month - then it is not that good after all... 

Yes, they are.

I must have misunderstood OP as I thought he/she was asking about adult only pools on the Viva available for "regular balcony cabins" and not for suites....

From a website called cruisespotlight:

8 minutes ago, electro said:

Wow, that seems pretty pricey. My local restaurant that has a wood burning pizza oven and makes the best Italian style pizza charges about that in Canadian and I have't already paid for a meal elsewhere.

When did La Cucina go a la carte?

How does this affect the free dinner for free at sea or the free loyalty member dinner?

All the "regular" speciality restaurants on NCL are a-la-carte, only exceptions are Moderno and Teppanyaki. 

Up until 16 days before the cruise was the "deadline" my PCC at NCL gave me when I wanted to apply for the FCC because of a significant price drop on my August 2023 cruise.

I actually have that in writing (in an e-mail).

For various reasons I prefer to always book my cruises through my American based NCL cruise consultant, and since I always get automatically rerouted to ncl.com/EU with the rates in Euro and the European promotions, I have found a very large American webpage (cruise dot com) where I can modify searches to only show NCL cruises/NCL ships/NCL itineraries. That way I can always do "mock bookings" and check what is available on my own before I contact my PCC in the US by e-mail and ask her to book it for me. 

I am automatically rerouted  the NCL webpage in Europe that is in English, on the very bottom of that webpage on the right hand side, there is a "scroll menu" where I can change language from English to French. Maybe while you are in Bermuda, you have the possibility to change from Spanish to English instead?

See screenshot below - I have no idea if that would even be an option for you right now, but it is worth a try...

There is also the possibility of getting a take-away-pizza from the Italian speciality restaurant, cost $$$ but is in my opinion a much better pizza than the room service pizza or the buffet pizza.

Below a screenshot of the current pizza menu at La Cucina. 

1 hour ago, KeithJenner said:

From what I can tell the system defaults you to a market based on your location, but if you have ever booked using another country then that may change your default booking location, as in your case. If you were to ask to book a European rate then that would possibly change the default for the future.

That is definitely not the status in my case. The webpage ncl.com automatically redirects me to the Eurpean webpage with all prices listed in Euros (all though I live in Norway, we don't have Euros but we also don't have a specific branch of NCL for the Norwegian or Scandinavian market, as we are simply not enough customers). 

I have had the "automatic default to NCL Europe" ever since they divided NCL Europe in to a separate NCL "branch" - and the first year this happened both my PCC at NCL, and her supervisor, and even with assistance from the IT department at NCL (based in the US), they all tried to add special settings to my account so that I could have access to the American version of ncl.com - but unfortunately it didn't work. 

So my way of working around this and have access to up-to-date US prices for NCL cruises, is that I have found an American online cruise travel agency that shows the exact same rates, promotions and fees as NCL has in US dollars. There I do "mock" reservations whenever I am ready to book a cruise, and when I have found what I want, I just send my PCC an e-mail and ask her to book it for me. It works for me, it just takes me a few minutes extra to search for cruises at that online cruise TA site first.

I did actually book a couple of cruises myself online through the European webpage a few years ago (after booking through NCL in the US for about 10-15 years) - the cruises were great, the rates at that time were also good, but the "local" cruise consultants I then automatically received were NOT any good - at least not compared to my American based PCC who has been working with NCL for about 20 years, so after that experience I went back to booking all my cruises through NCL through her. 

So at least for me, it works well enough the way I have chosen to do it. All though a tiny bit more complicated than booking directly on the webpage. 😊

7 hours ago, dbrown84 said:

this is nice.  I checked on my upcoming cruise, and it's doesn't qualify for the OBC.  but now I'm curious.  What qualifies you for which sets of promos you can take advantage of (Europe vs US)?  Is it simply your home address?  Whenever I need to change my address, it's a simple phone call with no actual proof that you live at the new address.  Would it also be that easy if you actually relocated to another country????

I live in Europe but my regular cruise consultant at the NCL is based in the US; hence I book and pay all my cruises according to the American booking conditions and promotions (for various reasons, but mainly because I often find the cruises when priced in USD to be a better deal than when priced in EUR). I have however had the same PCC at NCL since 2008 (so before they decided to split their "customer markets" based on where the customers live). I don't know it that is why they (NCL) has let me "keep her"....

6 hours ago, ColdCruise said:

 

 

Point is … if NCL knows there are 400 people with platinum or higher status on board who can sign up for a “benny “, they should have enough space to accommodate most of that number. Eg wine tasting - if you can only accommodate 100 people at the wine tasting, plan for at least 2 with a 3rd on standby IF the other two fill up.

Absolutely agree on this!!!

I yesterday asked my PCC to book an inside category IB on deck 9 on the Dawn for us, for a 2024 cruise. I specifically chose cabin no. 9027, as that cabin is one of the few IB inside cabins that according to the deck plans only holds 2 persons and still was available (meaning no extra bed attached to the walls on either side). However, I just googled photos of that particular cabin number, and the photo I found clearly shows a bed on at least one of the walls.... 🤔

That photo however seemed to be from 2014, could it have been removed during a drydock renovation at a later time? 🤞

Or could it simply be that the deck plan is incorrect about this?

I simply hope that some of you maybe have been in that particular cabin on the Dawn after 2014, and have the up-to-date information.

I would certainly appreciate it, as I twice in the past have banged my head and shoulder in to such a "bed on the wall" when getting out of bed on a cruise, and I can confirm that it is a painful thing to do! 😟

I believe that ou can bring them ON the ship without any problems, but that you are not allowed to take them off again, assuming they last throughout the cruise. 

You can not bring box wine - as it is not allowed. You would have to bring bottles, and probably carry them on board as hand luggage unless you have room in your suitcase (and thereby also risk that they could break when inside the suitcase)...... 

https://www.ncl.com/fr/en/cruise-faq/can-i-bring-alcohol-board