Live Cruise Reports

This is my first cruise on NCL, my second cruise to Alaska, and my 23rd cruise overall. My first 22 cruises have all been on Carnival. I'm crossing over with NCL now and Princess in November. There will definitely be some comparisons in this thread. Hopefully that doesn't bother anyone. I'll probably have some questions along the way. 

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I’ve never done a ‘live from’ on CC, although I have kept live journals on other cruise forums.  Keeping a journal helps me to remember, distinguish one cruise from another.
   A bit about me.  My non-username is Carolyn, when there are multiple Carolyn’s I can be Carolyn Jane, or CJ.  I am a little old lady, turned 79 earlier this year.  I have over 50 cruises, the earliest in 1972/73.  Then there was a gap until 1999.  I am a retired registered nurse, specialized in maternal child health.  Also retired military.  I mixed sailing solo with sailing with my sister, and after she retired we always sailed together.  I lost her early last year, so I am slowly easing back into sailing solo.

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We are currently on board Iona. I can’t promise anything like the level of blog that I did on our last cruise for two reasons. Firstly we are only on board for a week and secondly we are with a family group so will have less free time, but I will do my best!

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Hello, my MSC Cruise family!
 
Brand new MSC cruiser here, and although I am not new to cruising (I have 25 Carnival cruises under my belt), I feel like a newbie. I have so much to learn about this line, but it has revived my excitement about cruising, which is a great thing! I love Carnival, and I will continue to sail with them, but I am hopeful that MSC will be a line I can sprinkle in sailings with to keep things “fresh” and exciting.

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The journey I am about to document is one my husband and I had planned before the pandemic brought a halt to cruising.  It is a journey to our “heritage” countries: mine being England, his being Norway.
 
My husband did not know his ancestors’ locations in Norway, but he wanted to go, mainly to experience the country; to get a feel for where his roots were.  So we planned a cruise on Sky Princess. 

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It's our first back-to-back cruise and it feels really strange to not be putting out luggage out tonight - though I'll admit, it's a pretty nice feeling and one I could get used to 😎.   Whilst I'm looking forward to meeting new friends, we will miss the lovely people from this one for sure.  Anyway, in similar vein to my previous thread, I hope everyone will feel free to chip in here with their thoughts as we sail towards Greenland.

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Hi everyone, greetings from the Enchanted Princess.  After all the planning, I am finally here.
I flew into Rome just over a fortnight ago, using EZ Air to book a great business fare on Emirates.  That whole flight was seamless; the Emirates Chauffeur picked me up on time, the lounges in Melbourne and Dubai were great, the service on both flights was awesome, and 24 hours later, the Chauffeur dropped me off at my hotel in Trastevere, where there was a heatwave fully under way.  It was 48 degrees, with 86% humidity. 

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We are onboard, unpacked & fed 😊 
Our arrival time was 3:30 but we arrived an hour early. It took a while to queue & sort the car with CPS, we dropped off the cases then waited in the early arrivals queue briefly before checking in & security. We embarked around 3:40, went to our muster station then straight to our cabin. Our cabin steward was waiting for us, she’s lovely, very friendly & helpful. 

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So I actually got myself an Internet package, I should I a Live, I guess? Will internet work well enough? If I disappear, wifi isn't working. Or I'm too busy drinking mojitos. 
 
WHO AM I?
Just a middle aged mom, leaving her husband and kids at home, and escaping with my Aunt, who I frequently travel with. This will be my 8 th(?) NCL cruise in addition to 9(?) other cruises. I don't drink enough to justify a drink package. And I'm a vegetarian, which usually isn't a big problem. I have found previous posts from vegetarians helpful so I figured I'd return the favor.

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Well, time to head out to sea again. This time on the first big lady, out of Bayonne. This is our annual family cruise with the 8 of us, ages 64 to 5. 
 
I’ll try not to compare it to last years on Harmony in the 4-bedroom Villa Suite …. Prices have gone through the proverbial roof so we have 4 adjacent balconies this time. 
 
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It’s A Crystal Family Affair – Return To Crystal & Crystal Serenity


 
Later this week I will begin posting about our upcoming adventure on Crystal Serenity as we sail the first two voyages from Marseille, France to Lisbon and Lisbon to Southampton.  We visit places we have been to before while also visiting seven ports of call for the very first time.


 
I am excited that we will know most of the crew and several guests. I look forward to sailing with members of this board, including those familiar to us and those who we haven’t sailed with before.


 
I will be happy to answer questions “but” please remember I want to enjoy this experience so I may choose not to run down every question.  For those of you on this cruise if you would like to post here, you are very welcome to do so but if you don’t and prefer your own thread that is terrific.  For those of you on one or both cruises travel safely and enjoy every minute.  Everyone, remember we all see things differently because we are human, and many things are subjective. In the end the only opinion that matter is our very own.

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Today is travel day!!!! I'm back, by popular demand for another LIVE thread after many have followed me recently along my adventures through Norway. This cruise I will be cruising my 9th season to Alaska, in a B2B 7-day sailing (identical itinerary) onboard the Discovery Princess. The cruise will be starting tomorrow, Sunday July 30th, RT from Seattle.

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Well here we go.
 
This is my first attempt at a live cruise review/update/word-TikTok ever….so obviously it has to start with the obligatory statement of a writer‘s insecurity that I may be terrible at this and you should forgive me. So…
 
I may be terrible at this.
 
Please forgive me. 
 
I am writing this from the Hilton Long Beach in Cali (a nice hotel super close to the cruise port with a pool!), where the only thing that can stop the vision of my perfect upcoming cruise is the dense smog covering this massive city within a city within a city. 

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Kicking off my own live thread for this nine day sailing taking us from Rotterdam and ending in Amsterdam. This is basically a Norwegian fjord cruise. This is my third time on the Apex, but first time with a European itinerary. My previous two cruises on the Apex were both Caribbean island cruises.  The Apex has also been the only E class ship I’ve been on. I’m a fan of the ship and all its stylish glam.  I’ve never been on a ship of this size for a European cruise, so I’m going to be interested to see what it’s like for our stops in some of the smaller Norwegian ports.

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ABOUT US, THE "NOT GOING ON MSC AGAIN" CRUISERS
T-Minus 21 hours 30 minutes to our 4 night, 5 day Seaside out of Port Canaveral. Have never tried a Live Review, so will aim for a Semi-Live with a nod of appreciation to @mica178 who is currently on the ship. I'm punch-drunk from night shift and staying awake to switch to "normal human schedule" so will ramble a bit about cruise prep et al. But first...coffee ☕

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Viking Jupiter

Finally time to start a trip we booked almost 2 years ago while onboard Orion in Bermuda!
 
Setting off for O’Hare starts with confronting the difference between the weather we’re leaving, and what awaits us.

It’s nice to start in some comfort, with a driver we’ve used before. 

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It’s FINALLY time to cruise again and this time the Celebrity APEX will take us to the marvellous fjords of Norway.
 
The sailing will leave on July 31, 2023 from Rotterdam and return to Amsterdam on the 9th of August.
 
It will be my first time on the APEX, although I’ve taken the EDGE numerous times already.
 
This trip will be in an Aqua Class cabin on Deck 9 so we’ll be able to once more put BLU through the paces and also enjoy the Thermal Spa.

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Life is a little chaotic here so having five minutes to spare, I thought I'd kick off a new thread for our upcoming cruise which starts in Copenhagen on Wednesday 26th.  As always, I'll blog on my personal "Elegant Sufficiency" page for my own records, because there's nothing better on a cold Winter's evening than to revisit all those wonderful Regent cruises once again from the comfort of home (all our cruise pages are here btw)   Here's hoping for reasonable internet connections then and a bucketload of patience delivered by room service from time to time 😉

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Once again I'll try to bring as many of you that are interested along with us as we head out tomorrow to start our first Alaskan cruise, to which we've added a 6 day land tour at the beginning.  We'll be on Celebrity tour 10B sailing on the Millennium in Aqua class.  The last time I did a live from thread it worked well for us, I won't be on all the time, and I'll throw some photos in and share some thoughts as I can without this becoming the focus of our trip.  Back in March I was able to make at least one or two posts each day so I hope to do that again but I don't know what to expect since this is our first trip to Alaska.

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We're headed back to Alaska to repeat (sort of) a southbound cruise we did last year on the Noordam with our granddaughter who absolutely loved the cruise and land tour.  The changes this year are we are taking her 10 year old brother (he was quite jealous that she got to go and enjoyed it so much) and we're doing it Northbound out of Vancouver. 

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First attempt at a live review… so please be indulgent.
Premise:
36 yo here who was lovingly invited by his sister to “join” (read: organize, plan & book) her, her husband and their 5 (yes 5!) kids aged 11-15 (yep.) on the July 30 2023 Meraviglia sailing.
 
I typically split my vacations between active cultural immersive EU/Asia, and what I call a “brainless” trip each year, with the cruise in the latter bucket. Travel addition is funded by a rewarding but demanding job in finance which makes me appreciative of my time off. I don’t mind paying for the better things, but always seek to extract as much value from each of my trip. I’m fairly go with the flow and easy going otherwise.

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I've had a great time following along as others posted live about their adventures so I've decided to give it a try myself. My parents and I are flying out this evening and will be arriving at Heathrow Tuesday morning. We plan on taking the Heathrow express to Paddington and spending the night at a Premiere Inn. We hope to squeeze in a visit to the Imperial War museum. We have a private transfer to the ship Wednesday morning.
 
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I first off have to thank George Michael for helping with my review title. 
 
It’s go time.  We are off to celebrate our 19th Anniversary on a B2B cruise on Freedom.  We booked this cruise a couple months ago, and thanks to OurUsual TA we have the same cabin for both sailings. That was a must, and the mission was accomplished. Somehow, we were able to fit this in between our work/sports schedule and everything else. 

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I broke down and purchased the internet package this time to keep in touch with the cat nanny so I figured I’d try my first ever LIVE cruise report.
 
This cruise is extra special because it’s “doctor’s orders” that I get some peace and rest. I recently had some abnormal scans and am in the midst of ruling things out with more scans.  So, peace and rest is my RX for the next week.  One day at a time…

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I booked this solo cruise as part of the NCL Memorial Day sale.  We don’t have Memorial Day in Canada but we still received the deals.  What was initially a very inexpensive cruise began to look like a very expensive cruise when I started to research shore excursions. This started my deep dive exploring private excursions and self-guided walking tours then prioritizing which thermal baths, mountaintop gondolas and wildlife tours to take. I set myself a budget then unexpectedly received a big tax refund from an audit Canada Revenue did of my 2021 taxes. That increased my shore excursion budget and a walrus safari was scheduled!
 
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