Cpw221

13 minutes ago, Pyxie said:

I've been under lido (area with tables) and had no issues at all. 

Thank you!

On 6/1/2022 at 8:57 PM, ray98 said:

You sure you cannot select a different cabin?  My last offer pulled up a specific cabin but if you clicked around there were a few different options.

Thanks everyone! I tried multiple times. The only options on deck 7 were all the way at the back of the boat (couldn’t do that bc Daughter gets terrible sea sickness in Aft areas). Since we have 2 cabins with kids, we needed to be close together. Under the dining area of Lido were the only choices. I even called in and spoke with someone, they verified those were our only options for the upgrade. 🥴 We still took the offer, and I guess I’ll be bringing Ambien to sleep! 🤞

Thanks for the advice! We have two staterooms to upgrade, as we’re bringing our 18 year old and her friend. I don’t feel comfortable leaving them 6 decks below us. This area on deck 8 has the only midship balcony rooms available. Looking at the deck plans,  it appears we’d be directly under the lido restaurant, where there are only tables, but I am afraid of the carts and nightclub noise traveling. Ugh, decisions, decisions!

We received an upgrade offer today to move from Deck 2 ocean view to Deck 8 Balcony on Sunshine for $150! Great, right? My only concern is I am a ridiculously light sleeper, and it appears room 8271 is under the lido restaurant, and close to the Havannah Bar nightclub. Anyone in or near that room that could put my mind at ease about noise? TIA

Please don’t get upset by what I’ll say.

 

To OP , I like NCL and we cruised with them 7 times with one upcoming, but if cruising from NY area in colder season I’d look at Anthem if the Seas vs Breakaway which we also cruised on. Anthem has indoor pool and a Solarium, and other inclosed areas (Seaplex)

Thanks, we're actually porting out of NOLA, so I'm hopeful for good weather!

cpw......once you have a cabin, call NCL (1-800-625-1167) and make a reservation for excursions. If you use the website, you will have to pay at that point. If you call, you don't have to pay until you are on the ship and have taken the excursion, and it will give you the opportunity to change, or cancel any reservation.

My wife is a light sleeper, so I make sure I have a cabin above us, and below us.

You won't be able to set up restaurant reservations until you are 90 days out, although that might change because NCL is going to change the final payment date from 90 to 120 days out.

Thanks, very helpful!

This assumes the TA is in the upgrade program. Some of the big box store TAs are not. In that case, you will not get a chance to bid.

 

So, assuming I'm using one that starts with Travel and ends with City, I wouldn't be eligible for price drops? Sorry, on NCL do we "bid" to get price drops? On Carnival you just watch the website and call to get the difference in price. :confused:

Yes, you will have to go through them for everything except excursions and scheduling things like dining.

Thanks! Just to be clear, I can schedule my dining and excursions through NCL's website myself, right?

1) Go third party. They're effectively splitting NCL's commission fee with you.

2) Up til final payment date

3) If you're a truly light sleeper the 'white noise' from an open balcony could help you.

Thanks! I've had one balcony prior, and slept like a baby!

The only problem I see with going third party is that they own the booking you don't. Then if you approach NCL over something they may well tell you to go through your TA. If NCL send out any information about a change it will not go to you it will go to your TA.

Thanks for your reply. I'm looking to book through a discount travel website, not a TA, so would this still apply?

Hi everyone-

My family and I are new to NCL, but not cruising. Our first 6 cruises have been with Carnival, and now we're ready to try something new! We're looking at a Thanksgiving Cruise on the Breakway.

Questions: I've tried researching as much as I can on the boards, but I'm confused about booking with a third-party site. ( I know we're not suppose to name them here)

1.)If I were to book with a third party site, I will receive $400 OBC and two Free at Sea options. Through NCL, I'll get only $100 OBC, and two Free at Sea options. The deposit and final price of is virtually the same. Has anyone booked third party, and if so, have you had any problems? Can you still book dinner reservations through the NCL website?

2.)Will NCL honor price drops if there were to be any?

3.) Any problems with booking a balcony 8th or 9th deck on Breakaway? I'm a super light sleeper, and can't really tell from the deck plans what's in the center of each of those decks. Trying to decide between ocean view and balcony, thoughts?

Thanks so much for any help!! :D

Just off the Valor on Friday...I had 5 gift cards. All were applied during embarkation at Port Canaveral with no issues! No need to go to Guest Services or the kiosk.

Thanks, everyone. I did ask to be added to a waiting list if a midship balcony comes open. There was not one available yesterday. Fingers crossed!

Super excited to have gotten an upsell from deck 2 ocean view to deck 6 balcony...but, now I'm worried about two things!

This will be the first time in a balcony cabin, and first time in the forward of the ship. We are above the very back of the theater. Wondering about motion (DD and myself are motion sickness prone), and noise from the atrium and theater below. They offered a deck 8 balcony, but it was all the way forward.

Anyone familiar with this general location on the valor that could give me some insight? Thanks!

Thanks for all the suggestions!!

Hi everyone-

We are sailing the Valor in 53 days!! A few questions...this cruise is to celebrate my Husband's 40th bday. As a surprise, his family will be joining us! He and our kids have NO idea. Two questions...his family has a suite(so freaking lucky, the upsell fairy called and offered an ocean suite from an ocean view for $500 more-total! This is their first cruise with carnival, and our 5th, but who's jealous? :cool:). We are trying to come up with a good way to surprise him once onboard. Any ideas?

Also, since they have priority boarding, what time should we plan to arrive at the port? I don't want to ruin the surprise by running into them during check in, but we do want to be on the ship ASAP. Thoughts? Thanks!!

Thanks to everyone who responded!

I think we'll go with the Magic! Studying the deck plans, it seems like a deluxe ocean view is our best bet to be midship. That's of course unless I can convince myself that I can do an interior. It seems like there is so much to do on the Magic, and since we'll have four ports, I don't think we'll be spending that much time in our room.

How does it work with early saver if you book a lower cabin originally, and then decide to upgrade to a deluxe ocean view or balcony? :confused:

Thanks for everyone's input on the ports. It seems like Amber Cove is kinda a waste of a port day.

Magic is 11/25/17, Sunshine is the next day, 11/26/17. :D

When are you looking to sail? Very surprised that for a cruise next year there are no mid-ship ocean views. Have you called to confirm that? From what I understand they only show you 10 cabins at a time. I would say to call to confirm first.

 

We are booked on the Magic (first time for this ship) in October with the same itinerary. I would prefer 7 days over 5 anytime.

Thanks for the quick responses! It looks like from the Magic deck plans, the only ocean view cabins that are midship are deluxe ocean view. I guess that still would be cheaper than a balcony! I'll call to check for sure.

You need to call Carnival or a TA. Remember that the website only shows you a very limited number of cabins. Going on the website may be practical, but this is one of those times when picking up the phone with a very specific request will be a small sacrifice to make in order to get what you really want.

 

And I would pick the Magic 7 night over the Sunshine 5 day ANY DAY. Amber Cove and Grand Turk may be new ports of call, but they are also Carnival manufactured destinations. If you do go on the Sunshine, explore beyond the immediate vicinity of the port facilities.

I am addicted to planning cruises :eek:!

Looking ahead to 2017, we're trying to decide between a 7 day cruise on Magic, with four ports: Cozumel, Belize, Mahagony Bay, and Costa Maya. We've been to Cozumel several times, the other three ports would be new to us. The Sunshine cruise is 5 days, visiting Grand Turk and Amber Cove. Both ports are new to us. Both ships port out of Cape Canaveral.

On the Magic, we would have to pick either an interior, which I've always been nervous about because I'm afraid I would be claustrophobic not having a window, or a balcony, due to the fact that being midship is very important to me because of the motion. It appears there are no midship OV on the Magic available on the website. On Sunshine, we could pick a midship OV. Price-wise, the OV on the Sunshine is approximately he same price as the interior on Magic. The balcony on Magic is almost $600 more! :eek: Having a balcony has never been important to me, especially with such a port heavy inteniery. That $600 seems like it could be better spent, but I know those who love balconies would say it was worth it. The two extra days and extra ports are something to consider as well. Are interiors really so bad? :confused:

Magic has great food options, and the new BBQ place that my husband would love. Sunshine has the shake spot, and JJ's which I would like! We are not drinkers, so bars don't matter at all

Please help me decide which is our best bet. Thanks!

You will enjoy the cenote trip. Is this private? You will enjoy it even more. Just do it. The kids will thank you for it later.

Thanks for your response. We decided against the Cenote excursion, because we were afraid we wouldn't have enough time to get back for a work event for my Husband's company. We did have fun touring Progreso on the double decker bus, and shopping. If we go back again, we're definitely doing the Cenotes!

I was so worried about this before we cruised with our kids two weeks ago. My Ex-Husband and I share custody of our daughter. My last name is different from my DD. My stepson's Mother is in rehab, and is out of his life completely, although she and my DH share legal custody (for now). We moved heaven and earth to get her to notarize a letter for him. We eventually got letter from both of the Ex's.

We were never asked for the letter, at the Port or when we were in Mexico. I'm glad we had the letters, because I'm a "better safe than sorry" person, but it seems like custody papers would suffice, and the OP's 17 year old is certainly old enough to explain his situation to anyone who asks.

I just read that starting on March 1 they upgraded the Cheers program to include sodas, upgrade in liquor (costs of drinks over $10), water, vitamin water, coconut water and specialty coffee's...my questions are I also read if we prepay this drink package we save $5.00 per day...do we still have to get the sticker for our card to show we have this package at a bar location or do they automatically upon check in give you the sticker, secondly, does this mean they changed the bar menu and raised the costs to some drinks?

The drink prices for smoothies and frozen cocktails were higher on our 2/15/16 sailing. Smoothies were $5.25 and frozen cocktails were $8.25. Not sure about other alcohol prices though.

I know I'm in good company when I say I'd love it if Carnival would offer a middle package for those of us that aren't big drinkers! The enhanced Cheers program still won't make sense for us. On our cruise last week, we only spent about $175 total for drinks. The bottomless bubbles package and about 7 virgin frozen drinks for DH, as he is a transplant receipient and cannot drink any alcohol, and for me, only 5 alcoholic drinks total, and a handful of frozen virgin drinks. Maybe a package that includes everything non-alcoholic, and a package for us lightweight drinkers? :o

Btw, I haven't seen this mentioned on cc, nor on any of the online images of the drink menus, but the drink prices have gone up! For the virgin drinks, the new price is $5.25 plus gratuity, and for the alcoholic frozen drinks, the price has increased to $8.25 plus gratuity. I didn't notice the price of any other drinks, since we only bought the previously mentioned. Has anyone else seen this? Maybe they were testing it out last week?

That's probably a better plan than we had. We had the same checkin and arrived at 10:10 or so. We totally underestimated the time it took to load up the shuttle and then drive into the port. It does take about 45-60 minutes to get from their garage to walking into the port.

For others that have parked at Fulton, would you say that's an average time to get from the garage to the port? My understanding is the Fulton parking garage is across the street from the port. Can't you park and just walk across the street? Not sure we'll want to park there if you have to wait almost an hour to drive one block! Sailing out on Monday...