chrisdar1

1 hour ago, spenecer said:

The captain just came on the tannoy(sp?) to announce that the Chief Engineer and his staff have changed out a pipe for the steam system and now ‘everything is in excellent working order’. We are preparing to sail!

Glad you’re on your way!  
 

What time did you actually end up leaving Bonaire?  I’m curious if it will be full steam ahead to St. Lucia and if you’ll be able to feel any increases in speed?

10 minutes ago, spenecer said:

 I did a quick pass through Spice H2O on my way to a massage at Mandara Spa. The wind is currently blowing the smoke from the stacks sideways and Spice H20 is 50% (?) occupied. 

Awesome!  Thanks so much.  I didn't see Spice H2O listed as a venue in the Dailies for the 80's party tonight so I didn't know if it was shut down or closed again.  

Glad to hear it's open!  (And not too packed on your only sea day!)

Thanks so much for sharing the dailies!  

Loving your review, not sure if you’ll be hanging at Spice H2O, but would love to know how bad the smoke stack debris is… and how crowded it is on the sea day.

We'll be boarding on April 2nd as you are disembarking the ship...  Will definitely be following your adventures this week!  

Hope you and your daughter have a blast!

This was posted today from someone who just boarded, so it looks like Beatles are back.  

Thanks, was hoping maybe someone who is on the ship this week could provide input.

On 2/7/2023 at 3:23 PM, AlfSlug said:

I’ve stayed in Aruba, so this is from my experience staying there. You can walk from the Super Foods to Eagle Beach, but it is a bit of a distance and you cross a busy road and then walk down a weird road without a sidewalk (at the time there was serious construction on the right due to a new condo, that might be better now). So technically yes, but would i do it again, no. 

Thanks for the reply!  Appreciate the info.

Looking for anyone who’s currently aboard the Epic to find out what’s on the entertainment schedule.

Specifically, is This One’s For You (Elton John tribute) performing?  If yes, are they in the Epic Theater?

Also, are the Beatles performing? 
 

Wondering if the Elton John tribute was brought on board to take the place of the Priscilla or are they replacing the Beatles while the band member recovers from the previously rumored injury…?

Thanks for responding.

Will be stopping in Aruba in early April.  For those of you who have done Eagle Beach on your own (bus/taxi), can you grab food and drinks (soft drinks/beers) from the Super Food Plaza and bring on the beach?   Not sure what the policy is, but it looks like it may be cheaper than one of the bars/restaurants located on the beach.

Thanks,

Chris

46 minutes ago, lizzyshoes1 said:

Hi can anyone tell me how long before your cruise can you download your edocs, check in 21 days before, but when you press download edocs says not ready, check in says completed and have all green ticks, thanks

This happened to me a couple of weeks ago before my 4/10 sailing.

I called the NCL helpline and they transferred me to the online help desk and they were able to fix it for me.  Something had to be reset, it worked fine after that.

26 minutes ago, Homosassa said:

I suggest all you wind/wave experts look at a map to learn about the position of Roatan.

 

Currents and tides in combination with wind speed /direction would also be a factor in the decision to dock or tender.

Yeah, well I’m not a wind/wave expert but it looks like Roatan was skipped again today if the Marine Traffic app is correct.  Looks like Breakaway is at Harvest Caye today (maybe swapping HC with Roatan…?)

57 minutes ago, julig22 said:

I believe I got the confirmation almost immediately.  I was planning to use as a back-up as well, so made an appointment.  Didn't use, so rescheduled something farther out for now because I couldn't find a way to just cancel without asking for a refund.  But the refund policy says you have 6 months to either use or apply for a refund if you don't need it.

I used the iHealth service for our 4/10 Breakaway cruise.  Confirmation email came immediately after buying the proctored service.

The actual process was simple, easy and fast.  In all it took about 25 minutes from start to finish and they stay on the line with you to make sure you receive the email with your result just to make sure everything was accurate and correct on the report.

When we were at the port we had to show our report once along with our passports and vaccine cards.  Went quickly and smoothly.

34 minutes ago, romalley99 said:

 

It is not "100% clear a Captain's issue". The Captain of the Breakaway has been at sea for MANY years. I can promise you, he is not "afraid" -- however, it is about safety, and there is no room for error when it comes to thousands of souls.

 

And, if you haven't gotten port taxes back (which usually automatically go back to your onboard account) I would inquire with NCL about getting them back, because you should have for missing a port. 

Word on the ship (again take that for what it's worth) was that the entire crew was preparing to dock and at the last minute the captain changed the plan.  The wind and waves were consistent all morning, it wasn't like there was a sudden swell...  

And there were no port fees returned because (as explained) the port didn't stop us from docking, the captain did.  In that case, the port doesn't need to return the fees.

13 minutes ago, gatorchinsky said:

Sorry your cruise experience was not what you wanted it to be, but in these times, having patience and going with the flow is all we can do.  I definitely would not be wanting to cruise with children now because their activities are so limited.

 

OP, you said ropes course was closed.  The entire cruise?  I wonder has any of the ropes courses on any ship been open?

The ropes course was definitely open.  My kids did it early in the week and I did it on Saturday (our last sea day).

On 4/17/2022 at 10:16 AM, bigrednole said:

 

Shows: Howl at the Moon was mediocre. For it to be good, the crowd has to be involved. The problem with this show for us was a certain person the ruined it for many. People put $10 up, they start to play the song, and this person would pay them to not play it. I am sorry, the players should give the money back to the people they took it from. So many people just walked out because of it. Sad sight where a few can have their fun but ruin it for 100 others.

I saw this happen at Howl at the Moon as well - person in front paying extra for them NOT to play a song that was requested (and paid for).   Not something I expected, I actually thought it was a joke at first, but then they didn't actually play the requested song...  I think this is why they didn't play to a packed house/room all week.

We were on this sailing as well.

@bigrednole I agree with almost all of your points about the cruise (good and bad).  

My two cents: 

New Orleans
We loved getting to visit New Orleans (flew in Thursday night before the cruise), and enjoyed sailing down the Mississippi, but would probably not book another cruise out of NOLA again.  1) we racked up $30 in drink taxes while we were still navigating the river from New Orleans to the Gulf - Not a big deal but it adds up.  2) I'm not sure if that was why our Costa Maya port day was so short.  I assumed it was because it took so long to return back to NOLA, but we spent most of Saturday (sea day) slowly meandering.  Again, I'm not a ship captain and we knew we'd have a short port day in Costa Maya when we booked.  There were itineraries from February that swapped Costa Maya with Cozumel so you could spend a "normal" day in both ports (8:00-5:00), we would have preferred that to what we had on our sailing.  

Ports:
We had planned our trip with the expectation of our "big" excursion in Roatan (private tour - monkey/sloth and Infinity Bay day-pass) and to not be able to dock was a big disappointment.  When you add on the fact that Costa Maya was shortened and Harvest Caye (beautiful, but I agree with your assessment for the most part about being held captive), the cruise felt cut short.

Entertainment:
Like mentioned above we didn't get to see Burn the Floor.  When we were returning to the ship in Cozumel there were three guys walking in front of us who told us that the show was going to be canceled because a few of the cast members tested positive for covid and had to quarantine for the rest of the cruise.  They said they were stage managers for the show.  I'm not sure if that's what Technical Difficulties is code for, so take it with a grain of salt.

We did see Six on Saturday and thought it was great.  Also saw the Fleetwood Mac Rumours show and thought it was great as well.

As for the entertainment on the rest of the ship because of the extended time on the ship due to skipping Roatan and such a short visit to Costa Maya, it all ran together and lost some of the luster.

The shows in the atrium were good - some better than others, and as for the musical acts, how many times can you hear Wasted Away in Margaritaville, Sweet Caroline, and Toes in the Sand before it gets repetitive?   

Ship:
Overall the ship was immaculate the entire trip.  Very rarely did I NOT see someone cleaning (stairwells, bathrooms, etc.) almost at all times during the day.   We had a balcony room (with the extended balcony) and there was plenty of storage for our family of four.

The pool deck was crowded (even with only 2400 people on board) especially with the extra sea day from skipping Roatan, so my wife and I spent a lot of time in the Waterfall in Spice H20...   

Our kids (teens) did register for Entourage but by the third day just spent time with a small group that they met earlier in the week and hardly spent time in the actual Entourage club area.  (OP - My daughter did get to keep her wristband on going down the drop slide, so not sure if it was just the person manning the slide that day or not....)

Thought food was really good, and bar service never had a wait time longer than 5 minutes or so (even on crowded pool sea days).  Vlad at Maltings was awesome all week as well.

Disembarkation: 
A quick note about our disembarkation process.  When we got to the luggage storage area, we were missing one of our bags.  I saw a bag that looked a little similar to ours (our bags are black with a neon green trim) and figured out that someone mistakenly took our bag and thought it was theirs.  Carol in the terminal was awesome as she called and texted the person (info was on bag tag).  Our bag was returned to the terminal and then NCL put it on a bus to the airport.  We were able to get the bag before our flight left.  I was really impressed with the communication and effort put into getting us our bag before we left New Orleans - so thank you Carol!

Overall:

Like @bigrednole said, we're glad we cruised out of NOLA to experience it, but probably won't do it again.  And we will also make sure that port times aren't shortened down (where possible) for future cruises as well, would have loved to be able to actually do an excursion in Costa Maya but the timeframe was so short. 

We had a good week (weather was incredible) and made some great memories and quite a few new friends, so all in all it was a good vacation, just not a great one due to the missed Roatan stop and the short time in Costa Maya... 
 

I think that this is three out of the last four weeks that the Breakaway is not docking.

Captain just announced it is too windy…

18 hours ago, RunBikeCruiseDC said:

Chrisdar - can u keep. us posted ?  Where are you traveling?  We're going to Bermuda on NCL Joy on 4/26.  Still trying to figure this all out.  This is 2 days prior to BOARDING, correct?  Because the only way to do it on arrival is the morning that we board the ship and arrive in Bermuda 2 days later.  Was thinking about the timing for a PCR test, too.

I’m on the Breakaway sailing tomorrow - Western Caribbean out of New Orleans.  WooHoo!!!

Used the iHealth tests ($20 proctored service - think it’s $24 per person now) for our 48 hour pre-boarding test.   Each person had to book a 30 minute session and use a laptop with a front facing camera.  They ask you to change the view (from being able to watch you open up the tests, conducting the swabbing, and then placing the swab into the solution and into the test card (thing that shows whether you’re negative or positive).

Was an easy process to follow, looking forward to sailing tomorrow!

1 hour ago, egurbi said:

So it would appear that i health proctored will not work for the current Bermuda protocols because it does not display lab name and physical address on the generated report.  Anyone with recent experience on the Pearl to the contrary?  Would someone be willing to post a copy of their ihealth report (redacting all sensitive and personal information) in the event they can confirm it does contain the lab and physical address information?

 

Thank you.

It does have address.  Here’s my report.

3 hours ago, NCLGirl2013 said:

My husband and I have done multiple NCL cruises and have no complaints. We always have a fabulous time! Recently we have thought about branching out and trying a new cruise line just out of curiosity of differences. Specifically we have been looking at Royal Caribbean. When I price check, they seem to be pretty similar but what is a breaking point for us is the alcohol package. We always get the free beverage package on NCL and we use it to the full 😅 I usually have a couple Irish Coffees before my husband even wakes up for the day then we probably have 5/6 by the pool for hours then a cocktail or 2 before dinner. Then depending on how we feel, we go out after dinner too. So let's say 10 drinks per person per day. On NCL, we never have any problems and it's all included. On RCL or any other line we would be stuck by their package (TA says that is about $75/pp per day so that's pushing an extra $1,050 😳) or paying per drink which at let's say an average of $10/per drink and we drink probably 10 drinks a day..... that's even more. 

 

So my question is, any other couples that like to drink regularly and are well acquainted with the NCL beverage package, how do other cruise lines compare for your bar bill at the end of the cruise? 

I am by no means an expert.  We have friends that sail RCL often and love it.  

Every time I’ve done a similar itinerary  (based off of sail date and port), NCL comes out cheaper with the drink package promo.  Again, this is for similar cabin category, ship location (forward, mid, aft) and ship size. And I have never booked Haven, so not including that price point.

Now, I may be missing a loyalty promo (never sailed RCL) but the NCL price always looks more affordable than RCL.

If you have had a different experience, let me know…

@nolatravelgirl  Incredible!  Thanks so much for sharing those and for your "nerd-ness!"

On 3/23/2022 at 11:17 PM, kctwinmommy said:

Thanks for this review! Looking for something to do there, and seriously considering this. And I apologize, is Rony the name of the company? Just trying to figure out which tour company to use, there seem to be several of them. LOL!

Yes, you can google RonysTours (dotcom) for information on their tours.   We're using them for our trip in April to do Daniel Johnson and Infinity Bay.  I can report back afterwards.

18 minutes ago, julig22 said:

When is your cruise - somewhere I've seen that eDocs won't be available 72hrs prior to your cruise.

Otherwise, you probably need to call NCL if it's been awhile - it does seem like it often takes a day for eDocs to populate.

Thanks, we sail on 4/10. (13 more days.)  It's been about 4 days now since I've been getting the error message (right after we updated/corrected my wife's latitudes number).

Long story short, I have already accessed and printed out our eDocs after checking in.  I noticed that my wife's latitude number was missing on the eDoc, so after calling customer service, we ironed everything out.  Now when I try to re-access my eDocs to print out the correct cover page I am getting an error message? (See below.)

Can you only access the eDocs once before the trip?  I have everything I need (printed out luggage tags), but would like to have the correct version (with her updated latitudes number just in case...)

Just made my appointment reservations for our 4/10 cruise using iHealth Proctored Service.

Happy Cruising everyone!