Captain-John

Crikey, I did not think a mass-market cruise ship would be favoured by a centimillionaire. Makes me feel even better about my choice to sail Discovery next year. Thanks everyone for relaying your experience on the ship, great insight. Interesting O'Malley's is being installed. Also keen to try the UBD.

Quite annoyed. Reset my password and was able to log in. Get halfway through the check in process at the photo upload stage and the website does not let me progress. Tried multiple times, on multiple browsers. Hope I can still get my pick of check-in time when it's resolved.

I do have a slight prejudice against older ships myself, but find myself booked for 12 nights on Millenium and 10 on Summit in the next 18 months, so hope my preconceptions and some comments on this thread do not come to fruition. I was on a 13 year old NCL ship that was maintained appallingly, rust, dirty decks, battered cabin, mouldy grouting etc. The Revolution of Millenium and Summit is welcome, but I am expecting if I look in the corners the age and condition of the ships will be more evident.

Sorry to hijack the original question, but I have a cruise-only booking (it was a great price), and will want to add a drinks package between now and sailing (11/25). Does an outright purchase of a package also go into the sale, or is it only the upgrade? I too caught the $6.99 upgrade for a different cruise but wasn't looking at buying the package outright at the time. Don't think I can justify it at full cost, but if it ever goes into a flash sale I'll keep an eye out.

Hi Bea! Hope all is well. Perhaps like you, we are branching out from MSC and our mainstay NCL. We are sailing X twice and Princess once in the next 18 months, both new lines to us. On drinks packages, we secured an upgrade from Classic to Premium for c. £6.50 pp. p.d for our upcoming Millenium cruise . We booked through a US agent initially so pricing was in USD. We got a 53% discount during a flash sale last year (also upgraded to Premium WiFi, got a dining package and rebooked multiple tours at the same time). Hoping they repeat the sale sometime this year so we can add packages to our Summit cruise booked for late next year, as we got a cruise only fare for a steal in a Concierge veranda.

Thank you and agreed! Hopefully, there are a few sales between now and sailing to secure a drinks and/or dining package to complete the cruise. We upgraded to Premium on our upcoming Millenium sailing during a flash sale last year for a great price. Should we be so lucky again, this cruise will be by far the best value for money seen for a long time. Plenty of time to plan!

Thank you for posting, have secured 8054 at the lower rate. I had a hold on 8084 (both just randomly selected). Nothing to grouse about for the price paid but I see a few references to 8054 possibly having an obstructed view - my invoice states 0% obstruction but think the window washign equipment is parked near there. Obviously no chance of switching now!

Very glad to hear it!

I'd factor in more time for that journey - at least 30 mins, assuming you can get a taxi straight away. Cruising another line recently I originally booked an 11am flight out of BCN but chickened out and ended going later. I have cruised out of Barcelona dozens of times and I would not say the journey is 15 mins at all.

We were thinking of arriving earlier when we join the 5/27 sailing. We are coming in from Tokyo so thought we would arrive 11-11:30 ish. I think I had read about people checking in on the early side then getting back off the ship to explore Yokohoma but not sure if that is a common thing. It's hard to plan an arrival time and hope they have a bit of leeway if we can't time it exactly. I've not had to worry about specifiying an arrival time for many, many years given status on other lines etc.

Oh dear, we've booked a 5 night package for Millenium (during the last sale). I admit this was in the height of all the complaints about the MDR food so thought I'd be assured of a good steak at least at Tuscan for 4/5 of the nights (whilst not my thing, I would consider LPC once for variety). Hadn't been aware of the 'Taj X' dinner referenced above, I assume, this would not be covered by a dining package?

Pardon my ignorance but I thought the Diamond upgrade was only a fractional benefit (e.g. BB to BA) rather than a change in category altogether (from balcony to mini-suite). Seems it is actually a slightly better benefit than I thought?

I wonder what the 'wastage' figure is for towels. The ship starts the week with 10,000 towels - how many end up in suitcases, left on the beach, blown overboard leaving what number at the end? Is it worth going through the list facade, staffing that function etc? Many lines, hotels, resorts are not so precious about towels - it just cheapens the experience for me standing in line to sign out something basic and simple like a towel. Do they inventory the towels in the cabins too? Steward put 6 in but only scooped 5 up off the floor so you get charged for the 'missing' one?

Glad your request has been honoured. 🙂 I assume the 'controls' are hidden and inaccesible to guests? E.g. the inlet to fill and the temperature settings?

It's a poor show. I upgraded to premium before the changes (as did many, I know), on the strength of what was offered at the time. Pulling the rug etc. Cheap, tacky tactics by a supposedly more premium line.

I see the cheerleader is out in force to defend NCL yet again. Tiring.

Why not just operate it like a bathtub - except outdoors? A hot tap, a cold tap, some jets and a drain. Then you can fill it yourself, soak to your heart's content, drain when you are done, top up from the hot tap if it gets cool... The current situation seems massively overcomplicated. There are jetted tubs in the staterooms that don't require a call in advance for someone else to fill it, what's different about the placement on the balcony?

We are going at the end of May/return on 8th June. I had considered the mid-May sailing but wanted to let it 'warm up a bit' - which I may regret!

True! 🍷 Still, not a good move from X. Sometimes the line raises the package limit in line with indvidual drink price increases but can't see this has happened here (yet)?

Recently upgraded to the premium package during the flash sale - 53% off - should have known it was too good to be true.

If it isn't a big deal, why are they doing it? 🙂

Glad to hear it! Hope you have had and continue to have a fantastic cruise. 20+ days in the YC sounds fantastic, especially as we are sitting in the airport waiting on our flight home after only a week. :)

I personally dislike a butler escort to anything but on MSC they are rather insistent. On Divina the restaurant is not located within the YC complex and the butlers ask about your dining plans and then turn up to escort you, each evening. We had this on Preziosa and despite several attempts to decline the service, our butler said 'Let me do my job' and we had to actively avoid him and just head out for dinner ourselves. In my opinion the butler should pick up on whether a guest wants this level of interaction or not. May have changed since as this was a few years ago but just for your awareness. I'd say early on if you want to decline the escorts. On World Europa they insist on taking you to La Brasserie and anything else they know you have reserved (they insist on reservations for La Brasserie). We just went with it this time. As the main restaurant is within the complex there is no nightly escort thankfully.

Yes, I was welcomed by the Aurea deck crew after explaining I was coming from YC. There is a push button at the bottle of the staircase to gain access from the YC areas to Aurea sun deck. To return, theoretically you can scan your room card and it should pop the gate open but this didn't work for me. Instead of the crew opening it for me, they asked me to go back inside via the 'public' way and I had to re-enter the YC myself. If we had more time I'd ask for the key to be re-programmed. Having this access does make a difference when the YC hot tub is full. You do need to sign towels in and out so I'd suggest bringing plenty from the YC deck upfront. We have never been to Japan before and thoroughly looking forward to it. It would be great to read your thoughts which will be well timed for our trip.

Sorry for the delay in reply. I just asked the concierge and he confirmed there is no need to reserve a time for a show. Just show up at the concierge desk 10-15 minutes before show time and there will be a butler escort down to the theatre where you can 'choose any seat.' So not entirely clear if there is a a reserved seating area but sounds like there is. He definitely said you don't need to pre-book any show, hope that helps.