NCL Sky Dailies (4 nights) - Havana, Cuba & Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas - May 27, 2019

[chicagomike87]

Day 1 - Miami, Florida Embarkation 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by chicagomike87

[chicagomike87]

Edited June 1, 2019 by chicagomike87

[chicagomike87]

Day 2 - Havana, Cuba

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by chicagomike87

[chicagomike87]

Day 3 - Day at Sea

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by chicagomike87

[chicagomike87]

Day 4 - Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas

 

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by chicagomike87

[chicagomike87]

Day 5 - Disembarkation Information in Miami, Florida

 

Edited June 1, 2019 by chicagomike87

[S&DMOM]

THANK YOU!!!

 

[RupanIII]

Question that you may or may not know. How strict were they about the one liter per person for the rum? That's basically three bottles for two people. 

 

My wife and I were hoping to bring back more than that for some gifts. Can we bring back more if we pay the duty tax?

Edited June 2, 2019 by RupanIII
Punctuation

[Sherrica]

Thank you so much --  One question -- I thought the drinks were all included on the Sky, but I see the drink of the day printed at the bottom of the page with a price -- are they charging for drinks?

 

Thank you!

Edited June 2, 2019 by Sherrica

[chicagomike87]

1 hour ago, RupanIII said:

Question that you may or may not know. How strict were they about the one liter per person for the rum? That's basically three bottles for two people. 

 

My wife and I were hoping to bring back more than that for some gifts. Can we bring back more if we pay the duty tax?

 

I am not sure how it works for Cuban cruises arriving back in PortMiami.

 

I know back on my first cruise to Mexico in 2009 when I drove to the port and bought additional alcohol on the ship (above the exempt 1 liter), we paid additional duty to the customs cashier after immigration clearance when we declared our amount to the federal officer and then directed us to the cashier to pay the additional duty (I forget how much it was) but it was a pretty quick process in Port of Mobile. 

[chicagomike87]

1 hour ago, Sherrica said:

Thank you so much --  One question -- I thought the drinks were all included on the Sky, but I see the drink of the day printed at the bottom of the page with a price -- are they charging for drinks?

 

Thank you!

 

As long as you ordered a drink under $15 then there is no charge, they do not even swipe your key card. With them not swiping the key cards, it makes for a very fast process at the bar.

 

Pretty much most of the alcohol is included except if you want a high end whiskey/scotch or wine. In those cases you just pay the difference above the $15 limit.

The drink menus on the ship only list the price you pay which with most alcohol brands included in the normal unlimited drink package.

 

Those "specials" at the bottom of the dailies are for special souvenir cups, I did not see anyone buying any of them. 

[Sherrica]

1 hour ago, chicagomike87 said:

 

As long as you ordered a drink under $15 then there is no charge, they do not even swipe your key card. With them not swiping the key cards, it makes for a very fast process at the bar.

Super, thank you so much!

Another question -- Did you take a ship organized tour?  And if so, did you have time to exchange money at the terminal before boarding the bus for your tour?  And then, did you have to change it back to US dollars afterwards?

 

We're scheduled for the August 31 sailing (crossing our fingers we'll still be able to get off the ship in Havana).

Thank you!

[chicagomike87]

19 hours ago, Sherrica said:

Super, thank you so much!

Another question -- Did you take a ship organized tour?  And if so, did you have time to exchange money at the terminal before boarding the bus for your tour?  And then, did you have to change it back to US dollars afterwards?

 

We're scheduled for the August 31 sailing (crossing our fingers we'll still be able to get off the ship in Havana).

Thank you!

 

The ship shore excursions and passengers doing non-ship excursions all went through Immigration, Customs, and Money Exchange together. The process to go through Immigration, Customs, and Money Exchange was pretty quick. There are plenty of ship shore excursion staff standing between all of those steps to guide passengers with the shore excursion stickers. You have time to exchange money.

 

You have to change CUC back to USD before leaving since CUC cannot be exchanged outside Cuba. Please note that the Money Exchange Office closes at 10pm.

 

[aynt79]

On 6/2/2019 at 3:55 PM, RupanIII said:

Question that you may or may not know. How strict were they about the one liter per person for the rum? That's basically three bottles for two people. 

 

My wife and I were hoping to bring back more than that for some gifts. Can we bring back more if we pay the duty tax?

 

We just got off the May 27th sailing as well and brought back about 3 liters between the 2 of us. From what I had read before, only those that are bringing more than the limits would need to fill out the paper customs declaration in the terminal. But, they were doing the facial recognition thing as mentioned in the posted paperwork above, and before we knew it we were outside and never talked to a customs officer. Officially you can pretty much bring back as much as you want, but you may be subject to the duty fee (we usually bring about 2-3 liters each home from our cruises/other vacations, and have yet to have a customs officer bother to do the fee paperwork).

[Sherrica]

Thank you Mike!  

So -- did you have a great time?  Was it what you expected?  Anything you would do differently?

 

How about the ship?  Was the food as good as they say?