Seas2mountains

I’m not sure who had the great idea to select the 6am flight?!? This meant we had to leave the house by 3am. 
 

We each have one bag checked and both are under 50 pounds. That is an accomplishment for me as my bag is typically slightly heavier. We each have a backpack, too. 
 

We will be gone for 2 full weeks. We will have access to laundry machines at the hotel. We’ve had great success using NCL laundry with our Latitude perks but we are reluctant to trust sending it to the laundry on POA. We may take a risk - will let you all know if we do and the outcome. 

1 hour ago, Ellis1138 said:

I hope you enjoy the PoA! And I hope you don't get one of the Sewer Smell cabins. I stopped updating the document in February 2024, because we finished our cruise. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/177PtRV7gu31oHHax3Cb2-SY2SRbs4NQ1vfJG9iYCGFc/edit?usp=sharing

 

My PoA tips:

Just eat breakfast on the PoA on the overnights. The restaurants on the islands are very good. 

The Huli Huli chicken in the buffet on Hawaiian theme night looked awful but tasted exactly as it should.

For Kona, go down to the vestibule on Deck 3 around 6:45 am, because you can get on the Early Bird Tenders without a ticket from 7 to 7:30 am. (Assuming they didn't change that.) 

Thank you for the suggestions! 

Wow, that is quite the detailed document that you updated! Fortunately, our assigned cabin is not on the list and there don't appear to be other smelly cabins in the area.

We are a little reluctant about POA but knew that when we booked the cruise but knew the scenery and weather outweighed our concerns. Thanks for your previous comments on POA as I found those to be helpful in other POA postings.

This will be a big change from the Prima. 

23 minutes ago, dizzlepop said:

Well hello! We're on this same one, leaving tomorrow (Thursday) from SLC.

 

Curious: are you familiar with any luggage holding service for disembarkation day? Our nonstop flight home doesn't depart until 9 pm.

 

We have a Pearl Harbor tour Friday morning and besides that we have Thursday afternoon/evening and Friday afternoon/evening to find things to do and EAT! Looking forward to our first visit to HI since 1991!

Hello! That's wonderful!  Would you be willing to share your experience on this review either during the cruise or after? I love the live reviews that get contributions for multiple people as it is great to hear different perspectives from the same ship.

I am sorry I don't know about any luggage holding services but hopefully someone else can provide recommendations.

I hope you have safe travels! We appreciated visiting Pearl Harbor in the past and it can be so sad at the same time to consider all the lives that were lost. 

We are getting ready to wake up at 4am feeling hungry for breakfast and having to wait until things open up to get food until we adjust to the time changes.

26 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

I'm sure you have researched, know where you're going, but I'll still throw in a most fabulous breakfast place in Honolulu! Cafe Kaila (2919 Kapiolani Blvd). It's amongst my favorite breakfast places in the world, along with Snow City Cafe in Anchorage. I can't wait until I'm back in Hawai'i to sample some more of their fare. 

 

Thank you for the kind words and I'll do my best.  Thank you also for the recommendation. We will keep this in mind and I did map it out from our hotel and it would be a bit of a walk but would be doable as we like to get in long walks each day.

We have some plans made but others may be made or changed last minute so I am open to recommendations from others who are reading this who have been to these islands.

We have rental cars in Maui, Hilo, and Kaua'i. We do have a rental car reserved in Kona but have a food tour booked in the middle of the day so we probably won't use it.

Here is a photo taken last September at Waimea Canyon on beautiful Kaua’i. 

And the views before arriving at the canyon. 

Last September, we took advantage of an opportunity to take a similar itinerary to the same Hawaiian islands but it was a cruise on one of my favorite ships, NCL Spirit, that continued on to Papeete, Tahiti.  We enjoyed that cruise so much with the near perfect weather, we decided to do it again this September and thought we would try POA despite the mixed reviews. We wish we were able to find one that followed the similar itinerary as last year.

Here is the itinerary from last September on NCL Spirit. Since we will be repeating the islands, we will not return to some of the locations we visited last September and have plans to see other sights. I may post some photos of the visits we did last year.

I highly recommend a cruise between Hawaii and Tahiti. The weather was so gorgeous and the scenery was beautiful.

I'm excited to share a live review from the Pride of America! 😎  We will embark on Saturday with two nights at an area hotel before beginning the cruise. Since we have been blessed to be able to travel to Oahu multiple times in the past for land vacations, we have gone to most of the places to visit on that island. We will spend the time relaxing by the pool before the cruise and we have the same hotel booked for several days after the cruise.

I loved reading these live reviews from other CC members so will do my best to post photos and share our experience. 

My husband and I should be on a flight to Hawaii tomorrow at this time. We have not started packing yet but have time to do that this afternoon and evening.  We are in our late 50's, are empty nesters, and have jobs that allow us to travel frequently throughout the year. 

We booked this cruise in March of this year after we reached the Diamond level for Latitudes rewards. Immediately after booking the cruise, we contacted the phone number listed to request one of the cabin upgrades offered to Diamond members. We booked an obstructed outside view cabin and were upgraded to a balcony cabin within two days of the phone call. I believe the upgrade saved us about $2,000-$3,000 based on the cost of the balcony cabins when we booked it. Our cruise has been sold out for several weeks. 

We are both military veterans so we also were able to use the 10% off military discount which we greatly appreciated. We sent in our NCL shareholder info to get an additional $100 OBC.

We just booked another cruise for next September and booked a balcony cabin and used the new process to request our other Diamond upgrade to a club balcony suite but it has been more than a week and we have heard......nothing. 

Our last NCL cruise was in June/July on the Prima and we had a wonderful time and absolutely love that ship with our favorite features being the Vibe and the thermal spa area. Our most recent cruise was on Celebrity Reflection this summer and we loved it but did miss a few things about NCL.

Here is our itinerary for the week.

Thank you for your wonderful as usual live review!

As we have been loyal NCL cruisers, we are also checking out the competition and have enjoyed two short cruises on Celebrity this year. It was interesting to read about how NCL compares to Cunard. My husband and I enjoy dressing up a little for dinner so Cunard could be an option for us especially with their longer cruises in Alaska.

I hope you have a wonderful cruise on RC and I hope you will do a review of some sort as we may book one for the next cruise with our 9 year old granddaughter.  Thank you again for taking the time to share your experience and the excellent photos! 

If you want to upgrade to Haven on your cruise, do a mock booking to see if any Haven cabins are still available. If they are available, you can check the price difference between what you paid for your balcony cabin and what they are charging for a Haven suite. If the price is reasonable, you can go through your TA or NCL to check on the cost to upgrade.  I have done this myself a few times within a few weeks of the cruise when a Haven or suite cabin became available and the price had dropped.

Be cautious about this as if you had a special promotion through a TA like OBC or pre-paid gratuities, these may be lost when you upgrade.

If the price seems too high and the Haven is available, you may try for an upgrade using the Upgrade Advantage program but you are bidding with many other people.

With the ships sailing at or near full capacity, the upgrade opportunities aren't as often as they used to be during the Covid restart.

46 minutes ago, s57126 said:

In the 2 bedroom, does the master bed have a door or just curtains off of the living area?

There is a sliding wooden pocket door to separate the master bed from the living area. 

Splash Academy is typically open for the supervised program during these hours:

Embarkation Day - 8-11pm

Be sure to register your kid after embarkation to avoid the lines and delays. 
 

Sea Days: 

9:00am-12:00 Noon

2:00pm-5:00pm

7:00pm-11:00pm

After 11pm, typically available by paying an hourly fee. 

Port Days

Morning and afternoon hours vary based on port arrival and departure times.

If you are arriving in port at 1pm, it will likely be open for the morning hours.  When the port departure time was at 2pm, it was open in the afternoon.  
 

7:00pm-11:00pm

Plan to arrive before 7pm to ensure there is space available if traveling during peak travel times for kids such as summer and holiday breaks. 
 

We have been on Prima but not with our granddaughter. However, I found the dailies with published times from this summer. 
 

It looks like they were open 2:00-4:00pm and 7:00pm-10:00pm. This was for a port intensive cruise. Times may change for the sailings from US ports this winter. 

On 9/3/2024 at 9:28 PM, mking8288 said:

All are most welcomed & feel free to comment, post, ask and bring fun & humor along to share. If you are loving the photos, that's enough already ... ignore my "biased" commentary, we all carried our liabilities & perceived expectations of sailing Cunard.  

I wish I had the skills and talent to bring fun and humor but I must have been busy when those gifts were being handed out before birth.  It’s a good thing my husband has those humor skills and talents as I get to observe him make the crew laugh with his silly jokes.  In the meantime, I’ll admire the photos and the witty comments from @cruiseny4life and @Sugar Magnolia. 
 

I am having an “intense” week and not only appreciate your fantastic live review but also the questions from @cruiseny4life when he rejoined as he asked questions or made comments that I was wondering but didn’t have the time to ask. 
 

Here are my questions. What do the nieces think of Cunard? We have adult kids who are a little younger in mid 20’s to early 30’s. 
 

What are you and Susan missing about NCL if anything? 
 

What do you love so far about Cunard? Or, what are you disappointed about? 
 

And do the food items look better than how they are described in the menu or is that just me? Thank you! 
 

I’m sorry for all the unfortunate things that happened on this cruise and in May.
 

If you could state the compensation you and your Dad thought NCL owed you for the issues that occurred on this cruise, what would be the appropriate amount of compensation?  If it was FCC, would you cruise on NCL again?

I hope you have a great school year. 

Pssst… @cruiseny4life, please keep adding your comments and asking questions. 
 

The responses (and your comments) are very informative and entertaining.  😀 Good thing you are back at work so you can resume with CC. 

I thought the same as you did about the dinner menu. But the appearance of the food looked more appealing to me than the written description. I thought, why didn’t they explain it better?

Thank you, @mking8288  I’ll go back to just reading and enjoying this review. 

Viva for the ship and itinerary. If you can do a shore excursion to Pompeii when in Naples, I highly recommend it as I thought it was a fascinating but sad historical site.

So sorry to hear this. Thank you for all you contributed to this community. May you and your wife have the best care and find peace as you transition through these health challenges. Praying for you and your wife. 

1 hour ago, KeithJenner said:

You could still get Veuve at Le Bistro last time we were there (in April).

And you could in July on Prima, too.

Sorry to hear this happened to you. it sounds really frustrating. 
 

When we added our granddaughter to a cruise in February as a third person, the price we were quoted to add her to the reservation was only about $300 when I knew it should have been closer to $1000. But once I printed the new reservation confirmation with codes, I could see that the FAS + package had been erroneously removed for my husband and I and those funds were credited towards her fare which was why we were asked to pay about $300 instead of $1000. I had to call back to get FAS + added back to the reservation.  The NCL agent I spoke with to correct it said that it sometimes happens when a person is added to the reservation after final payment with P+ falling off and the $ paid for FAS + is applied toward the fare of the person added to the reservation. 
 

I don’t know what happened with your reservation but with the second person being added within 48 hours, your card could have been printed before the second person was added. 

23 minutes ago, Travelicious said:

Do you know if FAS plus can be purchased onboard?  I want it, but want to use OBC to get it.  

Sorry. I don’t know. 

4 hours ago, TGfromTX said:

Does anyone know how much the upcharge is on average over the standard package for a 7 day cruise?

If it isn't to great a difference, I like doing the premium for doing some taste test flights - usually lots cheaper than trying to do this at local bars or buying lots of tiny booze bottles at home.

If you get FAS Plus, it is $343 per person for a 7 day cruise. 
 

That includes the P+ beverage package 

Basic WiFi which is $209.93 if purchased separately for the entire cruise.

Two specialty dinning meals which is $118.80 if purchased separately - there is usually a $79 special to add two meals per person. I think gratuity is added, too, so really $94.80 with the special. 

The second person in the cabin gets the $50 shore excursion with P+

For us, we were adding at least two specialty meals per cruise and adding basic WiFi for each of us as we like to stay in touch with our kids and grandkids. Plus, I run a small side business and need to stay in touch with clients occasionally via email.  I know some people completely disconnect and can live off the 150 free minutes or none at all. 
 

We typically choose two or more NCL excursions per cruise so we’d save about $100 per cruise.  
 

To answer the OP’s original question, I tend to stick with wine but my husband enjoys the whiskey, bourbon and cognac choices.  I do like the NCL Gin ‘66. 

The wines we typically drink with P+ are : 

Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio

Decoy Cab - favorite ***

Duckhorn Merlot

Leonardo Davinci Brunello 

Silverado 

Doglioti Barolo

All are still on the P+ wine list. Some have not changed since we started getting P+ a few years ago. We also like the Norwegian ‘66 Prosecco and Gin.  
 

When we were on Prima in June, they did not have all of the typical P+ wines due to supply issues getting the wines to Southampton and Amsterdam. 
 

We have learned which bars carry the P+ wines. Sometimes the bar servers will get the wine from the bars that carry it and will keep it stocked for us for the cruise as we do tip them. 

1 hour ago, MarkusToe said:

The most important change: by the glass only. Everything

I'll do pictures today, maybe someone has a picture of the old one....

Are you saying when you go to dinner, they won’t let you keep the bottle after ordering a wine on P+? We found they were reluctant to do this in some restaurants and more willing in others.  
 

Thank you for posting it when you have time. 

20 hours ago, MarkusToe said:

Just on Getaway, there is a signifikant change in the wine list, plus package.

Not botteled wine included 

 

What are the changes? Do you have any photos of any new wine list? 

18 hours ago, YVRteacher said:

After reading your post I realized that this visit to Seward could not be my last! Like you, I love Seward. Have you been to Exit glacier? I haven’t been there.

No, this can't be your last visit to Seward! 

Yes, we went to Exit glacier in June 2015 before our first NCL cruise ever on the Sun. We love staying in Seward as it such a beautiful area and so much to do. Whittier does not sound like it is a great port.  

Thank you for the amazing and spectacular Hubbard Glacier photos! You have convinced me to pay the $350/person for the excursion as the cruise ship cannot get as close as the excursion boat.

Enjoy your final day at sea with your Dad! 😀 Thank you for bringing us along!

Thank you! That was helpful and interesting. I’m glad you had a wonderful cruise. We love NCL for many reasons but we are also impressed when we are trying other cruise lines. I’ll add Azamara to the list.