salty dingo

We did not use our credit in Bermuda. It is too small and even with it the excursions cost $$$. The island is so easy to see on your own, and very cheap if you use buses and ferries, which can get you anywhere.

I just had a great experience on Escape. Booked a balcony guarantee one month from sailing and got a great location, perks and a dirt cheap fare.

In the past I would book a lot further out, but I am now converted to a last minute deal person!

On Escape a week ago, Cagney's was the least memorable meal. Bayamo was good and Le Bistro was outstanding, but Cagney's was just Ok. I had some good steak but it just was not a special meal.

17 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

In that case, you both have a package. 

 

The problem comes when giving drinks to those who do not have a package. 

Just decide how much soda the kids will drink. They are kids and they will do what you say, so if you limit them to a soda at dinner then pay a la carte, and if you want them to enjoy it all day long get the package.

You can also just bring them sodas to the cabin with your package... nobody will know or care. The problem with that is 1) they have to consume in the cabin and 2) you could be bringing yourself alcohol so why waste time and energy with soda? Not worth the effort most likely.

12 hours ago, myslakkie said:

I did not like the MDR food at all.  We did Specialty Dining or the buffet.  We are probably pickier than average LOL.  It’s really a personal choice - on our next cruise we will do 50/50 Specialty and buffet is my guess and not set foot in the MDR

We were just the opposite. MDR had plenty of variety but the key was the service. You sit down at a table covered in white cloth and they take care of you.

At the buffer I felt like a lion prowling among a huge herd of water buffalo. Lots of food but I have to work for it.

You can get two drinks per trip to the bar, or per request from the waiter. They do NOT care if it is your card or not. Several times I mixed up the card and went out with my wife's card, and they just called me by my wife's name.

Every time at a meal when I ordered drinks for two they asked for a card but they could not care less which card was handed to them. Nor could I. It is a great policy.

4 minutes ago, yearsofcruising said:

Going thru customs is easy now. They just use face recognition

Yep, that works great. Machine verifies who you are and that is that. It is not like there is anything in Bermuda they worry about getting into the US.

To me a cruise is all about relaxing. The whole episode got me out of my vacation zone. I got back into it soon enough but it should never have happened.

To those who say you cannot get from Spice H2O to a cabin forward, change, and get back in 20 minutes, I beg to differ. We are in good shape, no physical disability (it is a cognitive one) so we move pretty fast and use the stairs most of the time. If you rely on an elevator to get around on Escape, it can be a long wait!

1 hour ago, bones774 said:

Those times are not anywhere near guarantees.

Not guarantees, but they are published. The times tracked pretty close... There was a 5 to 10 minute delay due to a broken escalator in the terminal. When we exited there was a person at the top of the escalator metering the people onto it so it did not break again. Kudos to the folks at the terminal for that.

6 hours ago, bones774 said:

getting off early/first is no bargain(big crowds). I put my bags out at night with the earliest disembarkation color, wake in AM have a long leisurely breakfast and walk off unencumbered, fast with no bags, crowds are thinned out and my bags are standing there all by themselves for easy Ident and p/u. grab them , walk to customs(which is the longest wait) never been more than 30 minutes for me.

Yep, right there with you. That last leisurely breakfast is something you paid for, may as well enjoy It! I may not be the last person off but I was within a half hour of it.

Not free at all, is it? However if you are going with two perks the drink package and specialty dining are the two to get. No other perk even comes close. Yes, it is totally worth it. I had one meal alone in Le Bistro where they brought me the a la carte receipt, and the total was $150 ... but zero with the package. That one meal made it all worthwhile. You don't even have to tip (but it was so good we tipped extra anyway.)

5 hours ago, purpleally said:

I just read a post on a roll call that someone was on Joy a few weeks ago and ordered a bottle of Veuve at breakfast and/or lunch, not just at dinner.

The bars which service the restaurants don't open until noon, at least on Escape, so I would think you need to get the bottle yourself from a bar which is open if you go eat before noon. I doubt the restaurant can help you - they are only set up to go to the nearby bar. Unless you have a butler, they are not going to run across the ship for you. They are way too busy serving people.

2 minutes ago, Newleno said:

Two weeks ago on escape we intentionally got up late, ate breakfast at 8:45, relaxed a bit and got off the ship at final call to get Off, so it took ten minutes at about 10am 

We opted for 9:30 group, and there was a bit of a line but nothing too terrible. Process from getting called on the ship to hitting the street was maybe 30 minutes.

We had three bags to claim and two were right next to each other and I had to hunt for 10 minutes to find the third one which was nowhere close. It ended well enough.

One word of wisdom - if you are getting a taxi there is a stand right across the street from Pier 88 and there are cops directing traffic and handling the taxis. However, there are hustlers everywhere trying to steer you to a private car. I was approached at least 5 times in the few minutes I was outside. I have read these guys can charge whatever they want unlike the taxis which are metered.

It was not really obvious to me at first how to use it, but after I figured out to use login.com and logout.com to turn it on and off, it was easy at that point. There is an internet cafe where someone can help you set up a device if you need any help. I think times for the help are listed in Freestyle Daily.

If you are OK with taking your luggage off the ship (not claiming it in the terminal) then you can be among the first groups off the ship. Escape last week got to the dock about 5:40 AM. The first group (GREEN) was set to disembark at 7:45 AM. You can choose which group you are in during the cruise - there is a kiosk next to guest services explaining everything.

8:45 was the first opportunity to disembark without carrying all your luggage, and was for Latitude Gold and above only.

9:00, 9:15, 9:30, 9:45 and 10:00 are the other times you can choose.

2 minutes ago, ThxMomnDad said:

We asked at guest services and they told us only 1 device per room. I had thought it was only one at a time could be using the wife, but not according to the woman I spoke with. We also left around 100 minutes unused. 

That was not correct info. I used both my phone and tablet on the same plan. Both devices showed up on the login page. It's probably true only 1 at a time, we never tried both at the same time.

The only reason for the tablet being online was to make Netflix happy... we had downloaded many seasons of TV shows to watch and at some point it needed to renew a license for some reason. It's great to use the offline viewing feature of Netflix so you can download your entertainment at home to watch on the ship.

There is virtually no TV worth watching in the room. We only turned on the TV to check the restaurant menus or look at our account balance.

Why not just let guest 3 be a no-show? Cruise line does not care if you cancel or not at this point.

14 hours ago, Two Wheels Only said:

They were wrong but what I don't understand is...

 

 

...why would someone move items from a lounger when there were plenty of empty loungers around?

I don't know, but ours were on the end of a row, and overlooking the stern wake, so kind of nice location. There was a little wall to the right where there was an equipment box that can serve as a nice spot to put a drink. Those loungers are really packed together and there were no tables to be found over in Spice H2O. If you wanted a table you needed to go get one from somwhere else on the ship.

8 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Tap water is available at all restaurants, bars and buffet.

And in your stateroom.

We filled up big plastic bottles with water before venturing out in port, so we never were thirsty. Ship's tap water just cannot be beaten with any bottled water.

3 minutes ago, Two Wheels Only said:

How long were you gone? What you did and where you went doesn't matter. The time gone is what matters.

I was not timing us, so just a guess but I would say 20 minutes.

In order to know if a person is gone for X minutes, you would have to be hanging around for that long... I am pretty sure the poachers just wandered up, asked the guy next to our chairs (he was not there when we left, so he would not know) and they just took a chance.

Cruisers sometimes take chances I know but sometimes when you take a chance you lose.

Don't go in summer! You will pay dearly. 

Last week the weather was absolutely perfect. 75 degrees, sunny, no rain.  Water still nice for swimming. Few kids. Paradise.

We had the 250 minute package and were pretty happy with it. Here are some observations.

1. I tried to log in while we were waiting in the terminal. Had a strong signal but the new cruise was not yet activated so I could not make dinner reservations as I hoped.
2. After activating the package (did that after sailaway since could use cell signal while in range) it was easy to use login.com and logout.com to sign on and off.
3. I would open my apps first that needed Wi-Fi, log in,  then refresh the apps and let them all consume data at once. I would download news articles for reading offline (never read while connected) and after a couple of minutes I would disconnect and read email and news offline. I think the longest I was ever online was 6 minutes. Typically just 2 minutes per session.
4. In Bermuda there was excellent Wi-Fi for purchase... 3 days for $20, and it allowed fast upload of photos to the cloud, something that did not work so well with the ship Wi-Fi. Also great Wi-Fi calling back home, something else the ship blocks.
5. Important - when you are in port and on the ship but want to connect to shoreside Wi-Fi it can be difficult because the ship signal is so strong and they do not turn it off when the ship is in port. It was frustrating to connect to shoreside Wi-Fi and quickly the ship Wi-Fi would reconnect, even if you "forget" the ship.
6. I was finally able to defeat the ship by setting a phony IP address in the NCL connection... this is not something everyone will want to try but if you are a geek like me, please know this will render the ship Wi-Fi connection unable to kick you out of the shoreside connection, and you can happily use shore Wi-Fi from the ship while in port, provided you are facing the dock. To reset the ship Wi-Fi back to normal, just forget the connection and it will re connect as normal.
7. The Wi-Fi in Bermuda would not ever connect at Clearwater beach even though the signal was strong. No issues in Hamilton or Dockyard.
8. I only used about 150 of my 250 minutes on the cruise. Just did not need any more.

3 minutes ago, bones774 said:

since you asked,

you're on the other end of the ship, you admit you are not that fast to change clothes and then add that your wife is disabled, just maybe you took longer than you think.

kinda like standing in the batters box taking the pitch and telling the ump, "yeah that might a been a strike"

I guess I am just saying, those towels being tossed may belong to someone who is coming right back. If you don't wait a while to see, you may end up with an irritable neighbor!

I should add, there were plenty of other empty loungers around, we just had a prime spot and someone else wanted it.

On 10/28/2019 at 10:24 PM, Named-Tawny said:

I've never had a problem. A few years ago, on the Pearl, the Dark and Stormy that they had on their menu was above the $15 threshold, so I kept asking for a Moscow Mule with dark rum instead, and I never had a problem.

Hmmm, last week on Escape a Dark and Stormy was $11 on the menu. Since we were sailing to Bermuda, they had to highlight the National Drink!

Hard to believe it would be valued over $15, since it is just Gosling's rum and ginger beer.

We were on deck 13 forward on Escape and the brew house was below on deck 8. I would run down and get a couple of pints of draft and carry them back up the stairs. I learned 5 flights is just the right amount of exercise!

It was awesome to sit on the balcony in the perfect Bermuda weather and sip  fresh draft beer. So awesome!