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Is the NCL Joy really that bad for Americans??


TravelingSmurf
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We are considering on cruising on the Joy at the end of December. We booked airline tickets back in July with the intention of cruising but after reading posts saying Americans probably wouldn't like it we decided not to. Now we are considering it again since the price is still the same (we are a family of 4. My husband and I are in our early 40's and we have a 14 & 16 year old). What exactly is so different cruising on a ship intended for Asian passengers versus one for American passengers? I have seen mention that it is very different but how? I watched a video that someone mentioned and at the very end of the video they guy mentioned crowds, line jumping, people rushing around, and throwing trash around but is that it? How bad is it? If we go with that mindset I think that is something I can deal with as we tend to keep to ourselves. My main concern is that we do not speak any Chinese (we have apps on our phones but haven't been very good at using them). I know the ship is a Mandarin speaking crew but I imagine that some of them will know English especially if they have worked on any other NCL cruises. Anyone have tangible information about what it is like to sail on a cruise intended for Chinese passengers?

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Considering that the native Hong Kong Chinese have problems with mainland Chinese and their manners (or lack thereof) you might really need to immerse yourself in a quick course of cross-culturalism. Are the menus in English? Will you have a hard time ordering? Will you enjoy the entertainment? Is it skewed to a Chinese audience? These are just a few things that you should investigate.

 

Since you have the plane tickets you might as well go and try it. You might find several younger Chinese who would love practicing their English skills as well.

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Hi Sauer-kraut, thanks for replying. The video I watched was onboard the Joy and yes everything was in English (menus and things like that not shows). It does "warn" on the NCL website that it is a "Fully immersive Chinese experience Mandarin-speaking crew and Chinese Cuisines". I understand all of that but I don't understand why on other threads people have said that Americans would likely not enjoy a cruise where the majority of people would be Chinese. I just haven't seen anything concrete. Why? I'm looking for details. We have traveled though out the US and Europe but never to Asia. I think we are pretty open minded people and can deal with people of different cultures. I am just looking for details on why people say most Americans wouldn't like it.

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We sailed on the Jade this summer in Europe and there was a Chinese tour group onboard (likely 300+ Chinese passengers).

 

I travel globally for work and consider myself fairly open minded to new cultures and new experiences, but even I found it challenging at times.

 

Personal space is very different from what Americans might consider comfortable. On elevators, in particular, we found that these passengers would push their way in, even if others on the elevators complained that it was already too crowded. Many would push their way forward in the buffets or other common areas, ignoring any queues that had already formed.

 

This is not to say that everyone from China behaves this way, but our observation was that we had to expend a lot of energy navigating public areas and “defending” personal space. In doing so, we were not as relaxed as we normally would be on vacation.

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Thank you so much for your response Pitzel. I appreciate you giving me details of your experience. I can see how that could be overwhelming. I do really like having my own personal space and I can get frustrated when it’s not given to me. That is definitely something we will take in the consideration. Thank you so much!

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Thank you so much for your response Pitzel. I appreciate you giving me details of your experience. I can see how that could be overwhelming. I do really like having my own personal space and I can get frustrated when it’s not given to me. That is definitely something we will take in the consideration. Thank you so much!

 

 

 

There were quite a few Chinese passengers on our recent Baltic cruise. We usually enjoy other cultures and meeting people from different countries. Many of the Chinese passengers were the absolutely rudest people I ever met. They berated the crew in loud voices, they pushed and shoved into elevators. In the buffet line they literally just got in line in front of you, and ignored any protest. At first, I just thought they were bumping into me accidentally and would say excuse me to be polite, then I soon realized they just didn't care if they slammed into me, whether I was carrying a hot coffee, a plate of food, etc. soon I just started throwing an elbow to protect my personal space.

 

 

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Hi 300dtc! Thank you for your response. It seems that what I am hearing is all kind of the same thing. It’s not necessarily something I look forward to but I think if we are aware of it going into it it might be something we can tolerate. I don’t know though… We will see how it goes. Thanks again!

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Sounds like a completely different cruise experience on the Joy since it caters specifically to that market. The pushing and rush running style scares me.

 

On a recent NCL cruise with mostly Americans there was a large group of Chinese who I believe lived in the US. I had several nice conversations as this group spoke perfect English.

 

But the large group dinners in the MDR where each person orders multiple entrees and all are shared really slowed down service for our meal.

 

Also the buffet and poolside eating tables were occupied all day by large groups playing tile games which is very loud when the tiles are reshuffled. An entire ship of this would be deafening.

 

Again just a completely different experience. Why not look into mass market lines that offer Asia cruises for the traditional mix of cruisers?

 

 

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What you've read & heard so far is the negative aspect of dealing with mainland China passengers on a mega-ship.

 

In addition, you need to read & research further, about the design, plans, and activities onboard the Joy, built with the Chinese market in mind ... high-end onboard duty-free shopping (think Rolex, Gucci, LV & Tiffany's), super smoky casino & gaming for high rollers, buffet & dining catered to fusion Chinese & Westernized meals, roof-top greens in shades vs. pool deck space & sun loungers, chair-hogs relocated to the buffet & lots of water bottles & tea cups, shorex geared toward shopping, onboard communications mostly/all in Mandarin, staff or crew members that mostly speak their native tongue (you will be the minority and feel like a tiny minority)

 

Getting into shows challenged by the rest of them not forming queues or lines, pushing & shoveling becoming the norm - cutting & getting push around, horror with port of calls & disembarkation.

 

Onboard TV channels for news/info are said to be CCTV and not even BBC or CNBC & MSNBC News - other channels mostly dedicated to the Chinese audience ... English subtitles possibly an option.

 

There is not a single review written by members of CC on the Joy since it began sailing, except one by the CC editors - virtually no Roll Call, whatsoever for upcoming sailings.

 

You will become a pilot & pioneering the first review, post-cruise, to tell it all.

 

Are you curious or interested in sailing the Joy as the destination, or the Joy's ports of call as the focus, or both ... in addition to dealing with the rude & loud passengers ignorant of rules and courteous behavior on and off the ship.

 

With airline tickets brought - have you checked on & obtained visitors visa to China, as you are responsible to check & obtain them on your own. They are expensive to some, roughly $140+ USD per person. Shanghai's cruise terminal is an hour from the city's downtown /.the "Bund" as mega ships cannot docked along the riverbank close in.

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I have never sailed on this ship or done an organised tour in China. For work I have been a consultant to a customer in Shanghai and traveled to Shanghai (and two other parts of China several times). I have wondered around the street a few times. I have had to ordered dinner on my own. I have even managed to go on the Shainghai metro the odd time. I do not speak the language.

 

I would say taking your kids to China and doing this cruise sounds like a fantastic opportunity. Going in to it your have to appreciate there will be some language barriers, you will figure it out. Worse case you go to the buffet. Chinese food in Canada and the US is their weird north American variant that is not as good as real Chinese food in China.

 

You have to realise when the EPIC bounces around Europe there are Germans, Italians, Russians, Brazilians, Chinese as well as Americans on the ship. The non-English speaking passengers manage to figure it out.

 

Do the Chinese more densely populate elevators than by western standards. Yes. They do the same for subway cars.

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What you've read & heard so far is the negative aspect of dealing with mainland China passengers on a mega-ship.

 

In addition, you need to read & research further, about the design, plans, and activities onboard the Joy, built with the Chinese market in mind ... high-end onboard duty-free shopping (think Rolex, Gucci, LV & Tiffany's), super smoky casino & gaming for high rollers, buffet & dining catered to fusion Chinese & Westernized meals, roof-top greens in shades vs. pool deck space & sun loungers, chair-hogs relocated to the buffet & lots of water bottles & tea cups, shorex geared toward shopping, onboard communications mostly/all in Mandarin, staff or crew members that mostly speak their native tongue (you will be the minority and feel like a tiny minority)

 

Getting into shows challenged by the rest of them not forming queues or lines, pushing & shoveling becoming the norm - cutting & getting push around, horror with port of calls & disembarkation.

 

Onboard TV channels for news/info are said to be CCTV and not even BBC or CNBC & MSNBC News - other channels mostly dedicated to the Chinese audience ... English subtitles possibly an option.

 

There is not a single review written by members of CC on the Joy since it began sailing, except one by the CC editors - virtually no Roll Call, whatsoever for upcoming sailings.

 

You will become a pilot & pioneering the first review, post-cruise, to tell it all.

 

Are you curious or interested in sailing the Joy as the destination, or the Joy's ports of call as the focus, or both ... in addition to dealing with the rude & loud passengers ignorant of rules and courteous behavior on and off the ship.

 

With airline tickets brought - have you checked on & obtained visitors visa to China, as you are responsible to check & obtain them on your own. They are expensive to some, roughly $140+ USD per person. Shanghai's cruise terminal is an hour from the city's downtown /.the "Bund" as mega ships cannot docked along the riverbank close in.

 

I've paid so little attention to the Joy I didn't realize it was sailing yet. Any idea why the cruises are 4, 5, 6 days and not 7? Also, the dates are only until early Jan 2018 on the US site - that seems odd.

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There are ships that sail similar itineraries that are geared towards Western passengers. I'm not sure why you would choose this one over one of those. Pictures I've seen of signs and things do not show English, but you've seen a video that shows otherwise, so maybe there are both? I don't know.

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Sounds like a completely different cruise experience on the Joy since it caters specifically to that market. The pushing and rush running style scares me.

 

On a recent NCL cruise with mostly Americans there was a large group of Chinese who I believe lived in the US. I had several nice conversations as this group spoke perfect English.

 

But the large group dinners in the MDR where each person orders multiple entrees and all are shared really slowed down service for our meal.

 

Also the buffet and poolside eating tables were occupied all day by large groups playing tile games which is very loud when the tiles are reshuffled. An entire ship of this would be deafening.

 

Again just a completely different experience. Why not look into mass market lines that offer Asia cruises for the traditional mix of cruisers?

 

 

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Hi Herdingdogmom- Thank you for your reply. We have checked into other cruise lines but we were interested in trying out the Joy. It looks like the ship itself and the food options are AWESOME!! Also, we are going to be in Shanghai so we were looking for something that sailed out of there on the dates we are in China.

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Just want to point out that this doesn't just apply to NCL or Joy, but any ship sailing in Asia, particularly the ones that starts or ends in Shanghai. You're going to experience some people with this type of behaviour regardless if it's on a cruise or land. So if you're going to be in Shanghai regardless, I don't think these bad behaviour should deter you from booking the Joy.

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What you've read & heard so far is the negative aspect of dealing with mainland China passengers on a mega-ship.

 

In addition, you need to read & research further, about the design, plans, and activities onboard the Joy, built with the Chinese market in mind ... high-end onboard duty-free shopping (think Rolex, Gucci, LV & Tiffany's), super smoky casino & gaming for high rollers, buffet & dining catered to fusion Chinese & Westernized meals, roof-top greens in shades vs. pool deck space & sun loungers, chair-hogs relocated to the buffet & lots of water bottles & tea cups, shorex geared toward shopping, onboard communications mostly/all in Mandarin, staff or crew members that mostly speak their native tongue (you will be the minority and feel like a tiny minority)

 

Getting into shows challenged by the rest of them not forming queues or lines, pushing & shoveling becoming the norm - cutting & getting push around, horror with port of calls & disembarkation.

 

Onboard TV channels for news/info are said to be CCTV and not even BBC or CNBC & MSNBC News - other channels mostly dedicated to the Chinese audience ... English subtitles possibly an option.

 

There is not a single review written by members of CC on the Joy since it began sailing, except one by the CC editors - virtually no Roll Call, whatsoever for upcoming sailings.

 

You will become a pilot & pioneering the first review, post-cruise, to tell it all.

 

Are you curious or interested in sailing the Joy as the destination, or the Joy's ports of call as the focus, or both ... in addition to dealing with the rude & loud passengers ignorant of rules and courteous behavior on and off the ship.

 

With airline tickets brought - have you checked on & obtained visitors visa to China, as you are responsible to check & obtain them on your own. They are expensive to some, roughly $140+ USD per person. Shanghai's cruise terminal is an hour from the city's downtown /.the "Bund" as mega ships cannot docked along the riverbank close in.

 

Hi mking8288. You have some good suggestions. We have researched the ship quite a bit which is why we are interested in going. The ship looks beutiful and the food looks amazing. It also seems like there will be plenty of things for us to do. We are also interested in going to Nagasaki. I was curious to hear what people meant when they said it would be a different experience so we can decide for ourselves what we were willing to deal with.

 

As for the visas, yes we have them. We originally bought the plane tickets with the intention of going on the cruise. After reading about peoples opinions we decided not to cruise and to visit a couple different areas in China. Now that we are nearing our vacation and we have not made any concrete plans we are considering cruising again. I think we are still leaning in that direction. All I know is we have to make a decision soon!!

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We sailed on the Jade this summer in Europe and there was a Chinese tour group onboard (likely 300+ Chinese passengers).

 

I travel globally for work and consider myself fairly open minded to new cultures and new experiences, but even I found it challenging at times.

 

Personal space is very different from what Americans might consider comfortable. On elevators, in particular, we found that these passengers would push their way in, even if others on the elevators complained that it was already too crowded. Many would push their way forward in the buffets or other common areas, ignoring any queues that had already formed.

 

This is not to say that everyone from China behaves this way, but our observation was that we had to expend a lot of energy navigating public areas and “defending” personal space. In doing so, we were not as relaxed as we normally would be on vacation.

 

 

:') You must have had the same 300 we did on our Alaska cruise. They weren't really rude, they just did not have any manners most Americans would consider normal....if that makes any sense. The spitting on the floor was just gross

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I have never sailed on this ship or done an organised tour in China. For work I have been a consultant to a customer in Shanghai and traveled to Shanghai (and two other parts of China several times). I have wondered around the street a few times. I have had to ordered dinner on my own. I have even managed to go on the Shainghai metro the odd time. I do not speak the language.

 

I would say taking your kids to China and doing this cruise sounds like a fantastic opportunity. Going in to it your have to appreciate there will be some language barriers, you will figure it out. Worse case you go to the buffet. Chinese food in Canada and the US is their weird north American variant that is not as good as real Chinese food in China.

 

You have to realise when the EPIC bounces around Europe there are Germans, Italians, Russians, Brazilians, Chinese as well as Americans on the ship. The non-English speaking passengers manage to figure it out.

 

Do the Chinese more densely populate elevators than by western standards. Yes. They do the same for subway cars.

 

Hi em-sk! Thanks for reminding me why we chose to go to China in the first place. We are looking to experience a different culture good or bad. I know things may be different and not what we may think is polite behavior but either way once we are in China there is not much we can do. I do wish we would have put more effort into learning the language though (for the record we did try but since it is SO completely different from English we didn't get very far)! I am not going to expect people to speak english. We are in their country so we have to try and communicate in their language. I am hoping that we will be able to find someone that speaks english most places we go but if not we'll depend on hand gestures and our smartphones! :-)

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There are ships that sail similar itineraries that are geared towards Western passengers. I'm not sure why you would choose this one over one of those. Pictures I've seen of signs and things do not show English, but you've seen a video that shows otherwise, so maybe there are both? I don't know.

 

Hey LrgPizza! We choose this ship because it looks like it would be fun to sail on. The ship itself has a lot to do and the food looks amazing. On the video I watched most of the signs and menus were in english. Here is the link if you are interested:

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Just want to point out that this doesn't just apply to NCL or Joy, but any ship sailing in Asia, particularly the ones that starts or ends in Shanghai. You're going to experience some people with this type of behaviour regardless if it's on a cruise or land. So if you're going to be in Shanghai regardless, I don't think these bad behaviour should deter you from booking the Joy.

 

Good point GateGuardian. We are flying in and out of Shanghai. If we don't cruise we are planning on going to Beijing and either Tokyo or Hong Kong (actually we going to Beijing even if we cruise).

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I've paid so little attention to the Joy I didn't realize it was sailing yet. Any idea why the cruises are 4, 5, 6 days and not 7? Also, the dates are only until early Jan 2018 on the US site - that seems odd.
Changes had been made since the announcement of the ship, the Korean port stop has been eliminated per PRC government authorities. I recalled that it was supposed to varied home port with Beijing's nearby TJ port. It's difficult to find info details even on oversea language sites. It looked like NCL Asia only released excess unsold cabins in select categories to the rest of the cruise market to fill up the ship. The bundling and package pricing are more like semi all-inclusive with escorted Port tours by Mandarin guides in Japan, and bus transfers to it's home port for it's nationals, only.

 

I will try and see if I can come up with any recent reviews from abroad to share.

 

via Nexus 5X Oreo 8.0 w Tapatalk, VPN secured.

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Mom2CrazyKids, it sounds like you've done your research. Yes, different societal norms -- not "bad," just different. Might it be stressful? Sure. It's not what we in the West are used to. It'll probably be very different than any other cruise you've ever done. But the great part about being a traveler -- as opposed to a tourist -- is opening yourself up to new experiences. You seem to have a lovely, open mind. If you do this, I hope you have a grand time, and come back and tell us all about it!

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Good point GateGuardian. We are flying in and out of Shanghai. If we don't cruise we are planning on going to Beijing and either Tokyo or Hong Kong (actually we going to Beijing even if we cruise).

 

Tokyo would be my pick, but probably be the most expensive.

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