schmoopie17

It's very easy to get the lower fare before final payment. Just call whoever made your reservation and ask to get the lower fare. Have done it many times...sometimes more than once on the same cruise.

Our TA last November was about 60% capacity. Most were retirees and/or solo travelers. Hard for kids or working people to miss three weeks of school and/or work. It was great...no lines anywhere.

Another vote for the chocolate lava cake in the MDR. A close second is the apple tart ala mode in Palomar.

Closest I could find was 12172. Should be pretty much the same... https://www.cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/slideshow-cabin.php?ship=Norwegian-Epic&cabin=12172

Your son must be a miracle worker. He magically got the ship to change the departure time from 4:00 to 5:30...

I thought someone named Daniel Price made a comment about the Prima and the OP was agreeing with him.

I wouldn't count on 150 minutes of actually "using" the internet. The clock starts ticking as soon as you try to log in, and if your experience is anything like ours, it took a couple of minutes to log in...and the clock was ticking the whole time. Then, if you manage to get in, the response time is SLOW...and again, the clock is ticking. We made several trips to the Internet Service desk to try to resolve our issues. They did put a few minutes back into our "bank" but not enough to make up for what we had lost. And I was never able to log into CC (which is supposedly free...but I wouldn't know since neither I nor the Internet guy could get me in).

We did a TA on Escape last November and because it was a northern route we barely went out on the balcony due to high winds and low temps. Most days the upper decks were closed for the same reasons. We were also on the Prima in January, and as others have said, the Prima is an outdoor oriented ship. The inside seemed quite cramped, especially on sea days...and on a TA, there are plenty of those. Good luck finding a seat at the tiny buffet or getting drinks at most bars without long waits. The southern route may be better temp-wise, but I don't know that I would count on it. It's still November, after all...

Yep. The Chocolate Cowboy was on the Prima for our sailing and he told us he'll be moving to Viva.

The closest we came to health questions were the allergy questions in the dining rooms. I said I'm allergic to bad food...

I see this is your first post on CC. Your chances of getting meaningful responses would increase if you post this on the Port of Call board for Italy. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/464-italy-ports/

Everyone talks about the codes. However, we booked with a TA last week for the first time and neither our confirmation email. nor our reservation on our NCL account show any codes. Every other time we booked directly with NCL and were able to see the code. Thoughts?

"She Said No Sea Shells on Ship" Say that three times really fast...

Either that, or NCL assumes everyone has a time machine and can go back in time to book.

The topic of this post is regarding how much actual cash to bring. In my experience, I've found that actual cash works better than Monopoly money...😁

Surprisingly, I've made it almost 70 years and haven't missed it a bit.

We did the same tour with Eating Europe. It was the highlight of our stay in Rome.

We shared a ride with two other couples from Rome to the port with Rome Cabs. We were staying at three different hotels and we were the last to be picked up at 9:45. So yes, early pick-ups are doable.

I know I'm late to the party, but I would recommend having a minimum 50 euro in your pocket at all times. We were on a cruise in Europe last year and were thoroughly enjoying our meal. That was until my wife spotted the "Cash Only" sign on the wall. Most of our cash was locked up in the ship's safe (about a two miles away) and we started to panic. We asked for the nearest ATM but there were none in the immediate area. Luckily, we spotted a couple from our ship walking by (we were eating outside) and sheepishly asked to borrow 50 euro. That experience taught us to be prepared euro-wise.

There are hundreds of reviews of Rome Cabs on this site. They are great. We used them twice on our recent trip to Rome (once for a night tour of Rome and the other for transport from our hotel to the port. We shared the ride to the port with two other couples, in case you're interested in that option.)

I'm not allergic, I just can't get into eating a fungus. I'm a fun guy, but I don't do fungi...

There used to be a phrase called "going postal". Kudos to you for not "going airline" 😁

We did the Prima in January and we're not fans. At all. Too many issues to mention, but I did submit a review on the Reviews page in case you're bored and want to peruse it. Having said that, we just booked the Epic for end of September, 2024 out of Rome. Great itinerary. We'll see how it goes on the Epic, but we would be hard pressed to go back on the Prima, regardless of the itinerary.

Clamshells were not an option to be pre-booked on our January Prima cruise. Our price was $59. Also, be careful when choosing your clamshell. If you want shade, do not get one with the mesh on the top. While it does allow for air to get in, it also allows the sun to come in. Not optimal if you wanted the clamshell to provide shade. We tried dodging the sun for about a half hour and eventually gave up. We tried to get our money back, but you can probably guess how that went.

If you do a TA on the Prima, be prepared for a set menu every night in the dining rooms.