Maddysdaddy

No breakfast - cheeseburger... cheeseburger... cheeseburger... cheeseburger... cheeseburger.

No Coke, Pepsi...no fry, chips. SNL skit, back in the day...

Sailed in an M6 on the Escape last spring. It was fantastic.

The balcony came with a table, 2 chairs and 2 loungers, and we asked our room host if it was possible to obtain a 3rd lounger, and he happily complied (gave him a nice tip as a thank you). It was nice not to have to fight for loungers by the pool, since we had enough for the three of us.

My daughter (only child) is 12 (and was when we sailed on the Escape last year).

Over the past year, we have given her the freedom to walk to and from the school bus stop by herself, to come home to an empty house for a few hours every day (I installed a Nest cam, so I can see when she gets home/make sure no one else is in the house), and to stroll around the mall with friends and no parents. That being said, she carries an iPhone and I have the "Find my Friends" app activated, so I can see where she is.

Would I feel comfortable letting her stroll around the ship by herself at this age? No, I wouldn't - nor would I see a need for her to. If there is somewhere in particular she wanted to go/something she wanted to see, either or both of my wife and I would go with her.

Would I be ok with it, if she were with a friend who we knew (and not a friend she just met on board), yes - with some well defined limitations wrt staying in public areas/not going in or around cabins/checking in regularly.

I've always equated Palo to a better than average Italian restaurant. A good meal, but nothing to write home about.

Remy is amazing, and since you say that you appreciate fine dining, I don't know why you would skip it. If the guys are being babies about packing a jacket and tie, then just go without them - problem solved.

Seems super fussy to me and honestly the guys in our group don't really want to pack sports coats. We are total foodies and appreciate fine dining, just wondering if Palo fits the bill just fine since we are booked there as well? Do we fight the good fight with the guys, or pick another battle? Thanks all!

My family and I sailed on the Escape this spring, and I had no success trying to log into my desktop using Citrix.

I was able to access email via the computer and my work cell (although depending on location and time of day, it was often slow), and had to have my assistant locate and email me the documents I needed to keep working.

I found that I had the best success maintaining a reasonable/reasonably 'not slow' connection to the net after 11 pm and before 7 am - which was ok, since those are my work hours when I'm on vacay with my family.

I need it so I can have remote access to my desktop at work. I need to be able to review a few documents from my job in real time.

 

 

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I too am righteously indignant about special fares being offered to Canadians!

Next thing you know, they'll be offering special fares to people in the military, people who live in Florida, or even worse, members of the AARP. It's almost like they're trying to retain a market segment that may choose to spend their vacation dollars elsewhere.

Is it wrong that my favorite part of the review so far is the throwaway comment that the OP was wearing a Casio watch?

Once a day absolutely works for me, provided that additional towels are left so that my family and I aren't stuck trying to dry off after evening showers with towels that are still wet from our morning showers.

My family and I did in March. Since the day itself is so short, it was nice to be able to walk out of the port, hang a right, and be there in 10 minutes - as opposed to spending far too much time travelling to one of the major beaches or Atlantis.

The beach itself was fine, and the pool area looked quite nice.

The food/beverage credit doesn't go nearly as far as you think it would - the three of us had a total of 3 entrees, 4 'adult' drinks and 2 'kids' drinks, and I did end up having to pay out of pocket for part of it.

If we went back to Nassau, we'd probably do it again.

Not loving the response you received when you tried to have the issue rectified, but in terms of the honesty/dishonesty question, my gut is telling me that it's an honest mistake.

Given how uncommon it is for $1.00 to be written as 1.00$, my hunch is that in processing the slip, they saw the number 1 with two zeros and another character (who knows how legible) after that, and assumed that it was intended to be 10.00.

Sailed on the Escape back in April, and found no difference in speed or connectivity between using my laptop and phone in my cabin, or using one of the ship's computers in the internet lounge.

Straight email was reasonable, downloading attachments was like watching paint dry, and trying to connect to my office through Citrix was virtually impossible - and I was trying to work late at night and early in the morning, when presumably fewer people would be trying to connect.

Saw more than one fellow passenger in tears in the lounge because they needed to connect for work and couldn't. One individual who I took to be a realtor (based on her yelling/crying/hyperventilation), apparently lost a significant sale because of an inability to get the proper paperwork dealt with online.

Most of the anger that I saw from people was from those who appeared to be sitting at the computers watching their minutes tick down while staring at the little blue circle of death on the screen.

+1 to those who noted that Turkey Bacon is not bacon...

Every time I see it on the shelf, I am reminded of a pleather biker jacket that I recently purchased for my daughter. Except now, they no longer call the material pleather, it's marketed as 'Vegan Leather'. :confused:

My understanding...

 

Anything ordered from the Atrium Cafe (coffee bar) incurs a fee. Nothing is free here. If you order a Coffee with Bailey's, assuming they'll fulfill this - they'll charge you for the coffee and walk over to the Atrium bar to drop in your shot.

 

Alternatively you can order the "house coffee" from many restaurants and bars (or cocktail waitresses), and this will be free. This is not the same coffee brewed in the cafe. If you order a "Coffee with Bailey's", this would come from the Atrium Bar, not the Cafe.

 

Due to the close proximity between the bar and cafe, it's entirely possible that the cafe brews the house coffee.

 

What do I know for sure? Very little.

I watched the bartender walk the 10 steps over to the coffee bar to get the coffee for my drink and I had no additional charges on my account for this, as it was considered an alcoholic drink under the UBP and not a coffee beverage. Perhaps something has changed in the four months since I sailed on the Escape and they're now charging for this, but I can confirm that I had no additional costs on my account.

This really has nothing to do with UBP or the Lavazza coffee available at the atrium bar. Coffee is complimentary, and available at many (all?) restaurants & bars.

Not sure I'm fully understanding your response to my post - it had everything to do with the UBP and how it was/wasn't applied.

While sitting in the Atrium with my family and wanting a cup of coffee instead of an expensive alcoholic beverage, my choices were to either: 1 - walk up to the coffee bar, order a cup, and pay for it, or 2 - I could order a coffee and Baileys from the bar/server, ask them to hold the Baileys, and not be charged a thing as the drink was rung in under the UBP.

The two or three times over the cruise when this situation arose, I was given the same cup of coffee from the coffee bar that I would have received had I ordered it from them directly, and saved NCL the cost of a couple of shots of Baileys and some whipping cream.

The point that I was trying to make - and perhaps it's just more humorous to me than it is to anyone else - is that under the UBP, a decent cup of coffee on its own was not covered, but that same cup with all of the trimmings, was.

I know that I've told this story before, but there were multiple occasions where my family and I were in the Atrium for quizzes or other activities and all I wanted was a cup of plain black coffee.

Could I get one under the UBP? Nope - coffee was not included, and if I wanted a cup, I would have to pay for it out of pocket.

Could I order a coffee and Baileys from the bar under the UBP and ask them to hold the Baileys? Yup, not a problem and no charge.

Sailed with my wife and daughter on the Escape back in March and ate at three specialties, Moderno, Le Bistro and Teppanyaki. In hindsight, the meals at all three were 'fine' but the quality of food was not better than what we were served in the MDR's - which we found to be perfectly acceptable "banquet" dining.

Teppanyaki was on par with similar venues at home, and our local churrascarias (I'm a meatatarian) and French restaurants serve significantly better meals than we received at Moderno and Le Bistro.

Were we to sail on the Escape again, I wouldn't feel any pressing need to dine anywhere other than the MDR's - except for Food Republic, which we quite enjoyed, but isn't part of the SDP.

This will definitely not buff out! lol!

 

ex techie

Aaargh - you beat me to the punch. Every fiber of my smartassedness was pushing me to post "That'll buff right out..."

Oh geez. This thread throws my internal obsessive planner into panic.

 

We cruise in the winter and come in from Canada where the weather can be unpredictable. We fly in two, sometimes three, days in advance. So much can go wrong at the last minute, regardless of time of year, that I would never consider NOT flying in a day early.

 

I know there are some people who do it regularly, but that's waaaaaay outside my comfort zone. I hate starting my vacation against a tight deadline. There are enough of those at work. :(

It's like I could have written this exact post myself. As a fellow Cdn. winter cruiser and compulsive planner/worrywart, I agree with everything you said.

I have a difficult time envisioning that NCL cares at all about the four days of bad publicity that is essentially limited to one forum that the overwhelming majority of cruisers have likely never even heard of (and if they have heard of it, don't obsessively read and post to it on a regular basis).

They certainly didn't care (or even respond) when I registered my complaint earlier this year about their decision to not honor my purchase of OBC in excess of $1000, notwithstanding that they had use of my money for well over a year. And they certainly didn't care when I told them that rather than me spending $2500 in their shops and losing it in their casino, that I wouldn't be doing either, since I would have had to spend an extra $750 to purchase the equivalent amount of USD to what they cancelled, since the CDN dollar had dropped 30% since I first made my purchase. And to be clear, I stayed firm to that and other than a packet of Bonine, I didn't spend a penny in the shops or in the casino - so thank you NCL for actually saving me money.

NCL's only response to my complaints was that they have the right to change their policies, and sorry Maddysdaddy, you're past your PIF date.

And to be clear, this forum had very little in the way of sympathy either. I would estimate that 90% of the posts were in the nature of "NCL has to do what's best for business" and/or "Read your cruise contract. They can make whatever changes they want to, when they want to. All they guarantee you is a room and meals."

And for those posters talking about disputing charges with your credit card company, I tried that, and was told that they investigated the matter and because it was a policy change that NCL was entitled to make, they could do nothing.

Sorry I can't give you any advice as to current cost, but I can say that my family and I did the TreeLimin' excursion while on a Disney cruise a couple of years ago and had a blast.

The operators and their staff were very professional, and could not stress enough the importance of safety and safety redundancies.

Even if it's not an excursion offered through NCL, it's a short enough experience and is located close enough to port, that you could arrange it yourself and not worry about missing the ship at the end of the day.

You certainly don't have to, but it's fun (especially if you're sailing after Oct 31 and have gone into the Halloween pop-up stores that seem to be everywhere the last few years, and can purchase pirate costumes at 50-75% off).

On my family's first Disney cruise, I packed my tuxedo for Formal Night, and just wore the bandana that they hand out at dinner for Pirate Night.

On our second cruise, having seen on our earlier sailing how few tuxedos were worn and how many pirate costumes were, and having finite luggage space, I decided to swap being James Bond for being Captain Jack. Both my wife and daughter wore pirate costumes as well.

On my recent cruise on the Escape, I did tip a few people over and above the DSC.

Upon embarking, our Steward was still in the process of finishing up our room. He was very pleasant and my family and I had a quick conversation with him (didn't want to take too much of his time). We had an M6 and I knew from CC that if I asked nicely, he might possibly get us a third lounger for our balcony. I asked. He said no problem, and I thanked him and slipped him a $20. To me, it was a small price to pay to acknowledge how hard he was working and that he did something that he didn't have to do, with a smile on his face.

Given how close we were to 5 o'clock Somewhere, that was our first stop for drinks after dropping off our carry-ons. The two bartenders were extremely friendly and took an immediate interest in me and my family. Given the proximity to our cabin, I knew that this would be our go-to bar for the week, so I had no issue in slipping each of them a $20 that first afternoon. I guess I could have kept giving them $1 every time we had a drink, but this seemed easier.

Did I buy "better service" than someone who didn't tip? Yeah, I probably did, and I think I'm ok with that. I'm a middle aged dude and not a hot 21 year old blonde, so I have to play the cards I'm dealt.

That being said, over the course of the cruise, they proved themselves to be great bartenders and alot of fun to talk with - and my 12 year old daughter loved that they made her a different "special" drink every time we stopped by. I appreciated their service and how well they treated my family, so had no problem giving each of them another $20 our last night.

Did I tip other bartenders and servers? A few over the course of the cruise, but it required more than a disinterested "What do you want?" from them. For those individuals, I felt fine with the 18% that was already included in the package.

Tanzanite reminds me of an episode of Newhart (the series where Bob owned the B&B, not the original where he was the psychiatrist).

Bob somehow ended up hosting the local home shopping channel, and the item for sale was some sort of faux diamond jewelry. He was struggling to say something nice about the piece, and eventually came up with, "Selendric Diamacron................. almost as rare as glass".

We were there about a month ago, and with two adults and a child, we had two orders of the ribs, one fish sandwich, four cocktails and two pops, and I ended up having to pay about $20 out of pocket to settle up the final bill and gratuity.

As I've posted in other threads, there were times in the morning or afternoon where I was with my family in the Atrium for trivia or balloon animal making, etc. and all I wanted was a cup of plain black coffee.

I was repeatedly told that I could either buy a cup of coffee at the Latte Bar (or whatever they call it on the Escape), or they could bring me a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey's on the side that I didn't have to drink. "Ummm ok, can you just pretend that you poured me a shot, so you don't waste alcohol?" "Sorry sir, we can't do that."