Norwegian Sun Transatlantic April26, 2010

[jpa34]

Hi All,

 

Just booked this cruise on the weekend (Fabulous deal at $492 for a JJ inside cabin) and started to look for a thread to join. None were present so thought I would begin one in the hopes that other gay/lesbian friends would find it and join in.

 

My partner and I, 47 and 45(he looks younger but don't tell him that!), will be travelling with another gay couple/friends of ours, 53 and 37 (I think...God they're going to shoot me if I have that wrong!). We're hoping to meet up with other gay/lesbian couples (or gay friendlies) to socialize with during our 15 day adventure to Europe.

 

This will be our 8th cruise, 2nd Transatlantic crossing, and our friends will be on their 2nd cruise.

 

We've discovered that cruising (On a ship...sheesh!) is one of the best styles of vacationing there is! Where else can you pay under 50 bucks a day and get all you can eat, a nicy cosy place to sleep at night, and passage to Europe!! It's insane!

 

Hoping others will join in soon and we can begin to strike up some friendships before sailing date!

[DallasSteve]

Hi ! read your post and wish I could come along! I did a Norwegian cruise last January and was blown away with how gay-friendly it was. Met an amazing bunch of guys from around the world and had a great time. Wishing you the same experience !

 

DallasSteve

[jpa34]

Thanks DallasSteve,

 

We were on another Transatlantic cruise aboard RCI in 2008 and also met a great bunch of guys. Seems like the repositioning cruise attracts alot of us!

[jpa34]

Still hoping other FOD's will find this post and join in. Looking forward to a large group of us being able to enjoy some social times on the ship and hopefully arranging some shore excursions together!

[collie6570]

We are a gay couple of 20 years. We are about to book the Transatlantic cruise with NCL Sun. We are 40 and 44 and would love to meet another gay couple or other gay friendly guys on the cruise. Please email us and let's get in touch. dscollie1990@gmail.com Thanks

[juliotom]

Couple of 38 years will be aboard the Sun on the 4/26 sailing. Let's get together.

[jpa34]

Welcome to the board JulioTom. With the two of you we're now up to 8 family members! Hopefully our small group will continue to expand over the next 4 plus months!

[juliotom]

Thanks for the welcome. We are so looking forward to the cruise and even more so to know that some "family" will be aboard as well. We are taking the cruise as the first leg of our trip to Sweden for the summer. Then we will take the Sun back to Port Canaveral in early October. What a relaxing way to travel!

[jpa34]

juliotom.................I can't think of a better way to get over to Europe. Wish we could also spend the summer there but for us we'll be lucky if we can squeek in 2 or 3 nights in London after the cruise...then it's on a flight back home! Sounds like a wonderful summer you have planned!

[jpa34]

We can now say we're travelling THIS year!! Only 4 months to go! Hoping other FOD's will find this post and join in. We'd like to see a good group start to form!

[lambs2]

We have started a roll call for this cruise over on the link below. If you are interested in attending a Meet & Greet with some of the ship's officers and more fellow passengers, please come and chat over on the official Roll call Board too! :)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1090095&page=4

[jpa34]

If anyone is interested in doing Bruges on your own, here is a good link for transportation to get you there from the pier!

boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=729070

Copy and paste it into your browser.

I sure hope some other family members find this post soon and join us! we are at 6 confirmed on this cruise....surely there has to be more of us!!!

[jpa34]

Hey guys and gals,

There's a pretty active roll call going on the regular site and was hoping to get one rolling on here as well. Any other family going to be joining us on this TA? Would love to hear from you!

Allen

[Moobaby214]

My partner and I of coming on four years will on board for this TA. :-) I will be 30 by then and he will be 43. (btw he is giving me dirty looks for posting his real age lol). this is our second TA, we did the crown princess to Lisbon last year, and it is our seventh cruise since we have been together.

 

We were booked on the Gem for its TA, but we saw for the same price ($999 balcony) we could move to this one on the Sun, get an extra day onboard, end in London rather than Venice (more convenient for flights back home), and they gave us a nice on-board credit for switching. We are also still keeping our fingers crossed for an upgrade.

 

We haven't travelled on NCL before but are hopeful that it will be a great trip. Our only real worry is about the "freestyle cruising." We are both structured sorts of people and enjoy formal nights. Has anyone been on NCL before? how does it all work? is there still formal nights?

[jpa34]

My partner and I of coming on four years will on board for this TA. :-) I will be 30 by then and he will be 43. (btw he is giving me dirty looks for posting his real age lol). this is our second TA, we did the crown princess to Lisbon last year, and it is our seventh cruise since we have been together.

 

We were booked on the Gem for its TA, but we saw for the same price ($999 balcony) we could move to this one on the Sun, get an extra day onboard, end in London rather than Venice (more convenient for flights back home), and they gave us a nice on-board credit for switching. We are also still keeping our fingers crossed for an upgrade.

 

We haven't travelled on NCL before but are hopeful that it will be a great trip. Our only real worry is about the "freestyle cruising." We are both structured sorts of people and enjoy formal nights. Has anyone been on NCL before? how does it all work? is there still formal nights?

 

Hey Guys!! Welcome on board and to this thread!! My partner and I (47 and 45, 10 years together in FEB) along with our friends (53 and 37, 5 years together) were started to wonder where all the guys were!! 2 others that were coming had to cancel out and there hasn't been any activity on this board for some time!! Nice to know that there will be others onboard!

We've been on 7 cruises now and only once on NCL. It was Freestyle dining then as well but it was only a 4 nighter so didn't really get the full feel of it. Our last TA cruise was with RCCL and we too enjoyed the formal nights and the dressing up for dinners. We're not too sure about the Freestyle way of cruising but we're going to keep an open attitude about it.

I don't believe there will be any "Formal night" but there may be a few evenings where "better wear" might be suggested.

I do know that packing for 15 nights, plus an additional 2 in London after the cruise, and one on MIA pre-cruise, will be a little easier without having to pack formal attire!

It's going to be a chore just to get the essentials into our luggage!

We hope to get to know you guys a little bit before boarding and possibly share a cocktail or 2 during the cruise!

Allen and Darrell

[Moobaby214]

that is very true about the packing. no tuxes, no suits...we will probably still bring some business casual stuff in case there is a "better wear" night or two :-) packing will definitely not be easy though. i pack three suitcases for a one week cruise...what am i to do for a 15 nighter? especially since we learned that NCL does not offer self-service laundry.

 

we will probably have to fly in the day of the cruise, my partner has to work the night before. I would love to get to spend some time in London but because of my work schedule i will have to be back here the next day for work.

 

i saw you had cruised on the Pride as well, that is probably our favorite or second favorite ship. it is a fairly close tie with the Grand Princess (although she is aging now and starting to show it).

 

we are excited and ready to go tomorrow...we might try and get a trip to vegas or mexico before the cruise comes up :D

[jpa34]

WOW....flying in the day of the cruise!! That would be so risky for us coming down from Canada, but I guess with you being in TX you don't have to worry to much about late season snowstorms or anything.

Normally we travel on a standby basis as I work for Air Canada, but when we do cruises we tend to purchase one way tickets to get us there, and standby going back home. There is no way I want to be stranded at home because there are no seats for us out of here! So we'll be going down to Miami the morning before the cruise allowing us to enjoy the afternoon and evening in the sunny tropical south! Pre warm our bones and allowing the chill of winter to wash away!

Too bad your work schedule requires you to return right after we disembark! It's a shame to go all the way over to London and not have the chance to visit her for a few days! Thankfully we were all able to book 3 weeks vacation and have the time for a nice long trip!

And I know what you mean about packing! How the heck do we pack for almost 3 weeks away! Not very thoughful of NCL to not have washing facilities available. I do see though that they have a "bag full" laundry promotion half way through the cruise...at least that's something!

 

We did Vegas 2 weeks ago and have one or two more weekend away trips planned before the cruise. Trying to keep busy so we don't burst with anticipation for this cruise!! Can it come soon enough??

[jpa34]

i saw you had cruised on the Pride as well, that is probably our favorite or second favorite ship. it is a fairly close tie with the Grand Princess (although she is aging now and starting to show it).

 

 

We were on The Pride for a Mexican cruise. Beautiful ship but it was the only one of the other 7 cruises that we have been on that we had one day of feeling qeuzzy! We were warned before going on that itinerary that the second last day, on the return to LA, that it would get rough. That morning we saw in all the public spaces, seasick bags for passengers to use! No other day were they put out, just that one. Must be how the waters converge as you're going around Cabo.

So far our favourite ship and itinerary was the last TA we did in April of 2008, aboard RCCL Navigator of the Seas!

We're anxious to see how this one will compare!

[jpa34]

Hey guys............ hope you're reading the other Roll call for our "straight" friends. It's found under;

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showt...1090095&page=4

There's a lot of information on shore excursions and plenty of discussions going on.

Also, I have put some basic information together on our ports of call, maps, public transportation options, things to do, in to word documents. If anyone would like a copy of them to help in your planning or to add to what you may already have just fire me an email at

jpa34@shaw.ca and I'll forward it to you!

Would be nice to get some discussions going on this board as well. Nice to get to know each other a little before getting onto the ship in April!

Allen

[jpa34]

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

[jpa34]

Just over 2 months to go.....any other family members joining us? Remembering our last TA cruise there was a good group of guys that we met on board....hoping for the same on this one.

If you're out there and reading these posts, chime in, will be great to hear from you!

Interested to see what others have planned for shore excursions and such.

Allen and Darrell

[juliotom]

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

 

Winter has been too long in Florida. Finally have a few days in a row over 70 degrees. Is anyone organizing an FOD group meting to kick things off on board? Surely there must be lots of others on this cruise. Can't wait!

[jpa34]

JulioTom......nothing arranged yet as there hasn't been much activity on this thread so far. Hopefully there will be some others joining us soon. I'm hopeful that NCL will have something organized for a FOD meeting(s), but if not I'm sure we can get something organized once on board. On our last TA cruise some guys just posted a memo on the bulletine board giving a time and a place for nightly get-togethers and had a good many show up. Here's hoping that can happen again!

[juliotom]

Packing?!? We are going to be away for 6 months from the beginning of this cruise until the end of the return cruise in mid-October. We are managing to take no more than the allotted number of bags and will have plenty of clothing to last. We are not the type of people that cannot bear to be seen in the same outfit more than once. Freestyle is the only way to go! Some may miss the formality once in a while, but remember that you can dress as you please. No one says you can't go dressy. We took NCL on a Baltic cruise with Freestyle dining and found that even with business dress we felt overdressed for the group on that particular cruise. The ship allows only two bags of 50 lbs each per passenger. So plan accordingly. It will all work out.

[juliotom]

You're worried about packing for a 15 day cruise? What about the 6 months vacation we are taking? Be advised, the ship only allows two bags per passenger with a max wgt of 50 lbs/bag. This is not the challenge you imagine it to be. A little creative wardrobing can solve the need to take the whole closet from home. Freestyle is not that bad. You will see a mix of dress in the dining room. We went business on our last NCL cruise and felt overdressed sometimes. You can, however, still be structured without dressing up.