Live Cruise Reports

Join The Bird on the inaugural voyage of NCL’s newest ship, the Norwegian Viva. The Norwegian Viva is the second of six Prima Class ships delivering from 2022 to 2027. This 4-day short break from Miami features port calls in Nassau and Great Stirrup Cay, Bahamas. The Viva is the second NCL ship to be built at the Fincantieri shipyard near Venice, Italy. NCL took delivery of the Viva on August 9, 2023, and she was christened in Miami earlier this week on November 28, 2023 by Grammy nominated, and five-time Latin Grammy winning singer, songwriter, musician and producer, Luis Fonsi,

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I am back on silhouette, which has been my favorite ship but the vote isn’t out yet for this cruise.  
 
I just found out that decoy, a wine which has been on the premium package, is now a two dollar up charge. They have re-price mini mini wines. I don’t know all the details, but that one was a shocker.
 
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I mislabeled the last topic.
We are getting ready to sail from Miami, and I bought the Premium internet package, so we will be able to post regularly, I hope.  We were able to get on very early to do videos about the accessible cabins.  We got to tour an accessible balcony cabin, accessible ocean view cabin, and an accessible inside cabin..  We will publish videos from those tours in the next few days.  We had lunch in Hudson's, which was basically empty, and I am sure the buffet was swamped.  I will never understand why everyone runs to the buffet.  Lunch was very good, and pictures coming.

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Quick background on us - we’re Azamara long termers and long time cruisers of other lines. We are just going to be honest based on our views on what we’re experiencing onboard here and now. This is our 3rd cruise since lockdown, but first back in the USA. We were on one of the last flights back to the UK in March 2020 as lockdown was happening. 
 
Questions are welcome and we will give our options based on what we see.

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We are boarding our first cruise with MSC today on the Seashore for a 4-night Bahamas cruise out of Port Canaveral.  This is also our first cruise in an interior cabin.  We booked a guaranteed interior cabin with the bella experience back in April and were assigned an interior cabin about a month ago.  While we heard others got cabin upgrades, we are happy to stay in an interior to “test the waters” without a window.  We did add the drink package and WiFi on a promotion of $30 per person per day.

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Few thoughts.
 
At first I wasn't a fan of the now-in-place digital Conpass. I'm all in now. We constantly check the app because we msy not think to carry paper around but I always have my phone.
 
I posted few days ago that we had a cabin issue night one.  I imagine no one cares about the actual issue, but we feel RCCL handled it very well....  better than I expected.  

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Hi from aboard the Rotterdam! We boarded yesterday and are sailing for 19 days. 
Thought I would post a few things each day for those of you who might have a Rotterdam sailing on the horizon and need a "fix"!!
 
We have Club Orange for the cruise and embarkation was painless. The CO dining room was extremely slow last night. We arrived at the dining room about 6 pm and waited 45 minutes. Always slower on embarkation day but that is the longest we have ever waited. Will see what happens tonight!  Breakfast this morning was fine. We are in Half Moon Cay today though so pretty quiet. Staying on board. 

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We are excited to be in our sailing week for a B2B on the NCL Escape, December 9-16 & December 16-23 out of Port Canaveral.
 
Special thanks to @CAKEisgood for their live review from the Escape last week and posting of the dailys, which has been incredibly helpful in planning this B2B.  This week before boarding I'll post some background information, packages we have purchased, pre-cruise planning, and hopefully start collecting questions from people looking for information on board.  

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My wife and I leave soon for our cruise. I thought I would get the post started. I hope to add to it as the cruise progresses.
We are in our early 70s and have done many cruises, mainly Princess recently. We will fly to SFO on Thursday and fly to PPT on Friday, arriving early Saturday morning. We are flying Delta/Air France in Premium Economy. We have booked day passes at the InterContinental with the breakfast option. We will board Saturday pm. We are booked in Cabin 306, a porthole cabin. All of our excursions are booked through PG. When we debark, we have scheduled a day long tour of the island with Tahiti Eden Tours. We will spend Saturday night at the Tahiti Airport Motel and fly to SFO on Sunday. We will fly home to South Florida on Monday, 12/18.
This is our 1st trip to Tahiti and excited that it's finally here.

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Hello again everyone, and welcome to another of  my Live Froms. 
 
This year it’s a true 14 day circle Caribbean, with ports of St. Kitts, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Aruba. I’ll be looking forward to the sea days at the end to relax!
 
The port was a zoo this morning. The security checkpoint was only five minutes, but then it too 20 minutes in traffic to get to Terminal 21. Security inside wasn’t bad, and there was zero wait in the green lane. The blue lane, however, had quite a queue. 
 
In the elite lounge now waiting to board, at 10:30. 

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Hello everyone!
 
I'm getting ready to sail out for another adventure on Sunday and I plan to do a live review of my time on board.
 
This time I will be sailing on the Carnival Magic for 26 days from November 26 until December 22. I am not sure where I am going, nowhere too terribly exciting just around the Caribbean but I am excited to be on a ship for the Holidays and seeing the wonderful decorations and being around the festive cheer. Magic is also one of my favorite ships in the Carnival fleet.
 
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Jim_Iain -  2nd Half World Cruise -  B2B Singapore to Down Under 11/25 – 12/21
  
Welcome!    Come along and join us for another adventure.  
 
As an introduction we are Jim (who writes these Live Posts) and Iain, who ends up in most of the pictures.   We have been together 34 years -  or as Iain just said “34 long hard years”  LOL.
 
Are were  among of the first to be Gay Couples to be married in California.  We were legally married June 2008 days after the California Supreme Court ruled the restriction of Gay Marriage was illegal.   5 Months later California had a referendum to change the constitution and make it illegal again.   Luckily the State Supreme court ruled a small group of 4,000 marriage were grandfathered and would remain legal.  It was another 7 years before the Supreme Court Legalized Gay Marriage Nation Wide. 
We have 3 kids and 5 Grand Children.  

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Yes! She’s back! After a jaunt over to Royal Caribbean for Wonder of the Seas last month, I’m back on Carnival, this time taking the Celebration out of Miami!  This is my 7th LIVE! Blog here on Cruise Critic, and I just love taking y’all along with me.
 
For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Dee, traveling with my dear hubby Russ. I adore cruising, have done a ton of it.  I’m particularly excited about this cruise since I LOVE Carnival, and also the Mardi Gras—been on her twice!  This is my first time on her sister ship the Celebration, and my second time cruising out of Miami since the pandemic.

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It has been a year since sailing with Cunard, our last in November/December ‘22 to the same destination on this ship. Since then we have sailed with 2 other lines in the Pacific and Europe and enjoyed long distance travel. How pleasant to be back in familiar surroundings of QV.
From reading CC over the past few days, it appears that there are quite a few active members seeking some sun joining me on this voyage. 
I have written blogs before and always try to convey the atmosphere on the ship to anyone interested enough to read this.

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Here we go again! Hop aboard and join me as I sail solo for the first time ever on the beautiful Valiant Lady!

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Hello from deck eleven on Symphony of the Seas!
 
We are about to sail away from Port Everglades, heading toward the Southern Caribbean.
 

TIP:  If I can help find any information for you while I am onboard, please post your request. I will do my best to follow through on requests.
 
I will likely fall a day or two behind, depending on Wi-Fi and our busy schedule. However, I will try to keep the report as “live“ as possible. 
 
Gratitude:
 
Since this is a Thanksgiving cruise, it will be great to hear what you are thankful for, if you would like to share.
 
We are extra thankful to be on this trip today, as we had to cancel Odyssey of the Seas in January due to illness.  At that time, we could not with good conscience say “no” to a couple of the health questions due to our son having a cough and sore throat.  

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Hello. I’m fairly a newby to cruise critic, but not to cruising. I really enjoy the live posts from other cruise critics folks, so I’m going to give this a good ol’ fashion try. 

We (me and the husband) are embarking from Port Canaveral on Saturday, Nov 25th, on the NCL Escape. This is our 4th cruise on the Escape. We absolutely LOVE the Escape. The staff have been so attentive and they bend over backwards. It will be interesting to see if it is the same on this cruise (our last Escape cruise was in Feb 2023). 

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Know the fashion is to start cruise lives early, but I am starting cruise day sitting in the cruise terminal. I love reading them so much I figured I would do one on my cruise. Plus I haven’t heard much on the board about Breakaway recently. If anyone on the sailing wants to chime it with their experiences, that is super welcome!

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I thought that I would start this.  However I probably won't be as faithful as St Greg and TxTeach. First time on Princess. Did Holland America last year and others pre-covid. Hubbie and I traveling.  We are recent empty nester. We live near Dallas.  I stumbled upon this trip in Sept 2023 while researching for 2024 cruises in the Mediterranean. The price was very reasonable and we had the time available. We have a balcony near the Aft. We love being in the aft.

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Most of the time, what the industry calls a "Cruise Vacation" is called for.  I did a search for long cruises, 11/23, and then by price.  In my experience, the lines are pretty similar.  The frequent guest programs are useless, so once you get invited to the basic loyalty party, the rest of the perks are pretty boring.  The Constellation is a lovely ship, and we had fond memories of an amazing trip to the Med years ago.  

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Greetings from the Ruby.
 
It was very busy day in port at Fort Lauderdale.  There were 6 ships leaving for the week.
We were blue lane because we had to pick up our Medallions.  Total time from drop off to onboard less than 20 minutes.  
Cabins were not ready until 1pm.  
There is a sanctuary onboard.  $40 a d

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Here we go again! Although similar to other reports I’ve done, (as the Virtuosa is almost identical), I’ll comment on the differences Euribia. 
The aim of the report is to help others about to sail and, those considering whether or not to book. 
Also, it’s great for me to be able to scroll back and remember happy times when I’m at home and in between cruises! It’s surprising what one forgets, and how good it is when the pictures and text bring it all back to life!

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Thanksgiving with ninjacat123 AND family!  I am ready for a vacation from my vacation (if you didn’t read my LIVE in Italy, etc here’s the link)
 
And now you know why I’m still recovering from that whirlwind trip.  Sooooo much fun and sooooo many places to see, it was awesome.  Now ninjacat123 aka Bethany needs some chilling time and we have that on Elation as we cruise to Freeport and Nassau!  Freeport is a new port for all of us and I have booked a cabana at a beach club.  Now, when I say “all of us” I mean my mom, my two DDs, me and Craig.  We are all getting excited about our 6 hour drive with potty stops to Jacksonville starting at 5am (NOT) but this is the way.

I decided to write a bit as I watch the birds skimming the wave tops in the Caribbean.  We are Elite on Celebrity, 3* on HAL, Elite on Princess, and have sailed a few of the other lines in everything from OVs to Penthouse suites.  This sailing is our first on Celebrity (X) in nearly a year (Apex 12/2022), and it’s 18 months since we have been on the Reflection.  We sailed 3 times on X in 2022 in suites.  Due the the new pricing structure (yikes!) we are in Aqua on this cruise.  My brother and SIL are along in Concierge as well.

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Hello, my Cruise Critic  family!
 
I am here yet again to do my Community Service and help you all deal with either your post-cruise blues, or your “my cruise isn’t approaching fast enough” blues. How do I plan to help with those problems, you ask? By letting you live vicariously through MY cruise in this live review, of course! Sure, you have to mix up your own DOD’s, cook your own meals, and make your own bed, but seeing my crazy adventures will make you feel like you’re on vaca….right?

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