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2 hours ago, jimsig said:

 

Always good to have a game plan!

My two cents.

I think it is OK to jump in and out of the line as you see what you want. I do not butt in if people are waiting for sliced meat, omelets, crepes, stuff like that. Many buffet lines seem to be multi-directional. I am tall. so I can see what I want, am able to walk fast etc. Some people seem to have trouble making food choice decisions and then slowly stroll to the next section. Enter the buffet on a mission, get what you want, sit down, eat, repeat!

Most of my cruises have been with NCL, one with CCL, and one with RCL.

I have always thought they were mostly the same. NCL  does not seat you with others and you eat whenever you want. My CCL cruise was a 7day to Canada in September, and was not a wild booze cruise. I have to admit that the cruises and ships run together in my mind and I can't really recall too many specifics.

Calli50, I agree with what everyone says about taxes in US ports. Just want to make sure you understand about the mandatory gratuity charge on the free at sea beverage package. You mention you are new to NCL. You will pay $277 bar gratuities (7 day cruise) for two people to have the free drink package. Pretty easy to get your value out of that, just wanted to make sure you were aware.

On 5/19/2022 at 3:19 PM, mthayer295 said:

We are due platinum meals on our upcoming cruise and we also have meal package. How do the rules differ?  One thing it seems is we can't book the platinum meals in advance - that doesn't feel like platinum treatment 🙂

Just make the reservation when and where you want. No body cares if you are paying, using FAS, or using Platinum meals until you get there.

Food and Dining opinions are very subjective. Asking for advice on what you should do is going to get you many opinions and confused. I usually get two free and 2 for latitude status, so I am fine eating in the MDR 3 nights.

Is the MDR good ? Well that depends what you are used to. What is your budget? What are they serving that night? the skill of the chefs?  No one can say the meals in the MDR are all good or all bad. Try the MDR, if you don't like it, buy more Specialty Dining on the next cruise.

The beverage package: You are paying around $20 per person for estimated tips. It entitles you to drinks up to $15. If you go top shelf and exceed $15, then you pay the difference and extra tips.  In most cases if you each will drink 2-3 drinks per day it is worth it. If not, you can decline the package. If you search this forum there have been many threads about this subject. I always take the package and am happy with it, others decline, it is all about how many drinks you anticipate enjoying on your vacation.

The dining package is usually for two meals for both passengers. It would be nice to get seven, but not with this package. You can certainly buy additional nights if you wish. $35 bucks is worth 2 nights specialty dining in my opinion.

I try to disconnect on a cruise so I don't have much to say about wifi, wifey uses it to check in with our son, but that is about it.

I would never use the free airfare, as I like to control when we fly and on which airlines, so can't help much there.

$50 shore excursion for one person per port, can't save them up, must use or lose each port. It is free and if you plan on taking an excursion it is a good deal.

If you don't want any of these options you can book sail away prices, but we enjoy the perks and don't do that. When you see the cost difference between the sail away and a room booked with the free at sea options you will see the true cost of the "free" at sea promotion.

No such thing as a free lunch, but in my opinion, we accept the promotion and enjoy the perks.

Hope this helps.

I am booked on the Getaway, for a July cruise. When they cancelled the Baltic cruises we jumped on the cruises out of port Canaveral. Wifey saw a post on FB that made it look like they were cancelling the 2022 season. I am glad they are not, as we are looking forward to returning to the Getaway.

Has anyone heard anything about NCL Getaway cancelling cruises from June 14th to October 9th?

We have eaten at Moderno a few times. I really like the salad bar, and have also eaten too much and not taken full advantage of the meat courses. We are actually skipping it on our July cruise.  Always a great meal and plenty of food at the hibachi place. We usually rotate through the specialty restaurants. We get two free and 2 more for our Latitude status. I don't recall ever getting a bad meal at the MDR. We use the buffet for breakfast and lunches usually. We rarely eat dinner at O'Sheehans, often we use it for snacks of 4th meals. We will be doing the Italian, French, Hibachi, and Cagney's on this trip.

Picking the best dining venues, is very subjective. It pretty much depends on your tastes. You have to remember that the chef and culinary team are a big part of your dining experience. Each employee of the cruise line from the Captain to the chef to the waiter , work a contract, the lengths vary. They don't rotate entire crews all at once.So every time you go to any of the specialty dining locations, you need to be aware that the team will most likely be somewhat different than the last time. Your experience this week could be different than a fellow CC member had 3 months ago. There are certain policies, procedures and methods which should be constant, but things happen. I would suggest becoming a frequent NCL cruiser and rotating through the various choices. We have been to Moderno a few times, we are skipping it this time. We get two free and two from our Latitude status. So this time we  are doing Cagney's, La Cuchina, Teppanyaki, and Le Bistro. Next year we will most like change a couple out and try something else. The most important thing is to keep a positive attitude, try new things, and enjoy your vacation.

As to your question about weak nights in the MDR. My belief is that NCL has something like 14 different MDR menus they rotate through, in no predictable order. I have never found a way to know which nights will feature which menus. I often book our specialty dining 3-4 months in advance, so I just have to live with my choices. If one of the more savvy cruisers, knows how to predict the menus months in advance, I would gladly listen, but I don't believe it is possible. Some people might wait until the menu is posted daily to decide of they want to go to a specialty venue, but I thing getting a last minute reservation at your preferred time, would be very iffy.

Before the free at sea beverage package, the parties were very popular. They gave away free drinks. Now that everyone has the opportunity to get the beverage package, fewer people attend the parties. Being sponsored by the cruise next staff, tells you what the party is all about.

We were on the Breakaway for the first Bermuda cruise on 9/26/21. It was a fiasco.We never left NYC til about 9:30 PM. We did get to see the city all lit up. Hundreds of people did not do the TA or did not test properly. Bermuda was completely overwhelmed, people on hold for hours. Lots of pages on the roll call, with great advice, so many people do not follow cruise critic and had no idea.I think NCL could have been more assertive about giving better instructions.The critical day where they were supposed to send a link to update the TA with test data, Bermuda sent a bad link. I ended up with 2 TAs, that they charged me for. After the cruise I tried to dispute the charge and Bermuda just supplied the two TAs and I had to pay. I tried to point I am only one person, and only went once, to no avail. TAs were  $75 back then.Sounds like there were no lessons learned.

I believe the quality of the food is more dependent on the skill of the chefs than the age of the ships. I have sailed on the Dawn a few times and liked the food, as well as the Escape, Getaway or Breakaway (they were fairly new when I sailed them).

I used to bring a suit to dress nice for one night, no more. Not gonna buy any more pictures.I do bring a couple of dress slacks and a bunch of collared shirts for dinner.  I used a specialty dining night to go to ocean blue and then spent $25 for the lobster upgrade, lobster was small and kind of dry. Wont be doing that anymore either. I miss the lobster in the MDR, but still enjoy the NCL cruises. Finally made platinum, so we get two extra specialty meals. Next cruise in July.

The advise everyone above has cited is right on. If you are not going to drink or enjoy the specialty dining, just uncheck the boxes, and you will know what you are paying. One thing to check is what time you need to be back on board, you may find you will be back on board each night for dinner and want to keep the specialty dining perk and just pay the extra gratuity. I drink very little at home, but do get my moneys worth, and happily pay the Beverage package gratuity while on board. As others have pointed out 2 tropical drinks a day and you come out ahead. If your wifey cant drink and you both have to have the package, it might be not worthwhile for you.

We are going in July, prices seemed reasonable. By the time we fly from NY, pay for transfers from Orlando to Cape Canaveral, get a hotel room the night before, it is adding up higher than we would like. I think there is a lot of demand right now and predict lots of high prices for some time. I usually try to avoid Hurricane season (June to November) but saw the low prices and jumped on it. It will be interesting to see the occupancy level, and if the prices fluctuate.

Been to Bermuda three times, one from Boston and two from NYC. I don't recall any issues with rough seas.Some people are more sensitive to motion than others. As long as my drinks don't spill I'm good. Always wise to have some meds with you just in case.

We usually receive them in less than a week. We always take the time to fill them out. I try to give positive comments when earned, but do give comments intended to improve the experience when necessary. Never received any follow up that I can remember.

I was on the Breakaway for the 9/26 sailing to Bermuda. The Breakaway has sinks by one of the buffet entrances. Staff tried to funnel people through that area, and encouraged everyone to wash hands with soap and water. As usual some folks don't listen. Buffet operations seemed the same as before with one exception. I did see staff with a cart full of freshly washed utensils, swapping out the used items. I have no idea of the frequency, but I saw them several times.

49 minutes ago, seemoreroyals said:

Thank you for taking us along and sharing your experiences on your b2b Breakaway cruise.  The City of New York must have been raking it in from all the drink tax collected due to the delay in embarkation.  Or did they figure out a way to waive this due to the delay?

 

We are going to be on the Breakaway first part of December.  Normally we plan our dinners ahead of time but due to fact that the ship will be sailing at less than full capacity we are thinking we may be better off just showing up for our dinners like we do for both breakfast and lunch.  We only have two specialty dinners and plan on using one of them to book the dinner show Velvet if they allow us to.  Leaning towards Moderno for the other SD.  

 

You picked a bad time to get mad at NCL,  especially since you just reached platinum.  We are still one cruise away and can't wait to get there with the added perks of extra specialty dinners, free laundry, behind the scene tours etc.  In the past we have sailed other cruise lines but the entertainment on them was just not the same as it is on NCL.  It has been about 5 years since we has sailed anyone else but Norwegian.  Maybe the others have improved their entertainment.  

 

In regards to food.  I have heard that some of the cruise lines don't have bacon due to shortages.  But I noticed that you had a burger at O'Sheehans with plenty of bacon on it.  No mention of bacon for breakfast either MDR or buffet.  If possible,  I have to have some bacon with my eggs.  I agree with you about the huevos rancheros.   I remember a couple of cruises ago I ordered them and that may have very well been the best breakfast I have ever had on a cruise.  

 

Glad you had overall a very enjoyable cruise.

The behind the scenes tours have been postponed,  I just made Platinum, and was looking forward to participating. I was on the Breakaway 9/26 and had bacon every morning.  There were taxes charged on the drinks while in NYC. Possibly a bit irritating, but the small amount of money is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost.

Nothing on the Breakaway out of NYC on 9/26.

I went to the buffet the first day just in case, but No.

On 9/28/2021 at 6:35 PM, mking8288 said:

 

Per their Roll Call - one of the CC regulars posted the headcount, per ship's captain ... about 1,300 souls on the Sept 26th sailing.  That's about 30% of its typical occupancy (4,300 to 4,600 but could be higher/closer to 4,900+ for peak/holiday cruises that's fully booked & sold out)

 

Assuming that crew counts are near normal, it's better than 1:1 ratio ... nice & mucho personal attention everywhere ... and, they are still posting live & blogging, nice to have the unlimited satellite WiFi package

P.S.  interesting that results from the Upgrade Advantage bidding success were not seen/read or reported here. as there should be plenty of vacant & unsold cabins and easy to maintain social distancing 😆

 

 

I asked Alvin the cruise director, he said 1815 passengers. During the Captains Q and A he said a little over 1800. The Captain said they were 40 persons short of a full crew. That is a lot of crew for less than 50% occupancy. Walking through the Garden Cafe last Sunday, lots of servers and chefs just waiting to say hi and welcome aboard. Many people cleaning and saying "washy washy". Crew members happy to be back to work.

On 9/28/2021 at 2:11 PM, Sunshine3601 said:

Curious, anyone know how many passengers onboard this week?

Breakaway had 1815 passengers for the initial sailing.