rabidstoat

2 hours ago, Host Jacquelyn said:

Who writes their copy anyway? Their email reads, as a consolation prize,  "And, you'll still be able to enjoy incredible views of our distinct neighborhood from your stateroom. "

 

Really? They will not take those away too?

Somewhat related story: I work for a very large 100,000+ person company and there are rules for everything, including who is allowed to have a window in their cube or office. You have to have a certain level of seniority in employee rank to get one.

There was one location that had a lot of cubicles with windows, and not enough employees who were senior enough in rank to be 'allowed' to have one. So what they did, to be 'fair', was put those employees in the window cubicles and then covered the windows so that they didn't let any light in and you couldn't see out, effectively 'removing' the window!

Now don't tell Royal about that....

On 8/18/2019 at 7:44 PM, lovelife said:

 

I'll be on the first sailing after refurb - 11/24.  A little scary!

I'm on that sailing too! I'm honestly a little worried that it'll be delayed and we'll lose a cruise day or two, or worse! But I suppose worse case I stay in Miami a few days, visit friends there, visit family for Thanksgiving, and get some cruise credits and refund from Royal.

I'm really hoping the cruise leaves on time with no half-finished items detracting from the experience, though!

5 minutes ago, Kingkonig said:

If I’m reading that right, it’s pretty much a full refund?  50% cash refund and 50% to a future cruise?

 That's not a full refund. That's half a refund, and you want the other half you can't have it now you can only have it later if you go on another cruise somewhere else.

People who don't plan to go on another cruise before the 50% credit expires only get half refund for a canceled cruise.

Given what RCI and Carnival are offering I wouldn't be surprised if NCL ended up giving full refunds in the end. I have to imagine people won't be happy.

Edited to add: I may have misunderstood. Those cruising through September still get to go on a cruise, just somewhere else, with a 50% refund and 50% credit to future cruise? That's not a bad deal if so.

It seems strange that they can cancel a cruise and not give a refund.

Imagine if you booked a flight to France and the airline told you sorry, they were canceling your flight, but no you can't get your money back, here's half and to get the other half you have to fly with us again, but not to France.

I'm On Epic on a 15 day transatlantic cruise. I found the bed exceedingly uncomfortable, like sleeping on a rock. The next day I asked for a mattress topper and it made all the difference in the world, bed is great now. Whew.

The beds do strike me as bizarre on the Epic. I swear they are notably shorter than average. I'm short so it's fine for me but I don't understand how anyone over six feet can stand them. 

When it's not the $20 laundry bag special day, is the only option paying per individual piece? And if so is the Latitude Gold 50 percent off perk just applying to the per piece total of a single bag? 

I never realized that the last cruise before the dry dock might be affected. I'm not on this cruise, I'm on the TA out of Orlando on the Epic. But for Thanksgiving I'm on a RCI cruise right after its dry dock. I realized that when I booked and assume there's a fair chance the cruise will be affected. Still seems weird that going into dry dock would be affected, and at the last minute.

I wonder if there are any refugees from the canceled Royal Caribbean TA where the crane hit the ship. That would suck, you would start to feel like you're cruise cursed! 

15 hours ago, valleyvillage said:

We really enjoyed Margaritaville on the Bliss, but your mileage may vary! We were in Vancouver, it was raining and we had a perk for the first day for Haven passengers. So we thought, let's check it out. It was so dreary outside, but when we walked into the restaurant (it's not that big) the sunny decor really made us happy! And they have something there that I have not seen on the land based menus: Pretzel Sticks with queso and mustard dipping sauces! It remains  a nice memory for us!

I also had a 'first day free for lunch' deal as a Haven guest. I think I might've been on the Getaway, but I forget specifically.

I've never been to a Margaritaville on land but I wasn't impressed. Their Cheeseburger in Paradise was, I thought, merely okay. The pretzel sticks were, well, pretzel sticks. The most impressive item was the key lime pie, which I admit was pretty good. The service was atrocious, it took forever to get anything like a straw for my soda or the pie for dessert, it was just hard to get anyone's attention. Or find anyone.

I definitely wouldn't pay $14.95 for it. I don't think I'd even go again if it was offered free. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad just not good, and heck I was on a cruise so I was all easy-going, but it really did not interest me.

I'm pretty sure I've done remote desktop in the last year or two on an NCL ship, but in the Caribbean, not on a TA. And with the premium unlimited internet plan in early morning.

Not NCL but I have for sure done it on Royal Caribbean and their streaming voom with pretty good results. 

1 hour ago, Hanoj said:

The earth is flat. 

The earth can't be flat, or cats would have knocked everything off it by now.

4 minutes ago, Hanoj said:

The med is further north. 🙂

Well, uh, I guess eventually, the earth is round and all... 🙂

Glad to hear from the British couple interviewed on how excellent the staff has been. That is surely a huge help.

The two 'abandon ship' disasters I've heard about, the Costa Concordia and then one in the 60s in the Caribbean where the ship caught fire, had captains that abandoned ship and left the passengers to fend for themselves. I believe in both cases -- certainly in Costa Concordia -- it led to prison sentences for the captain. And then the staff was left leaderless and ineffective in both cases. And it was kind of frightening, making me assume that if there is ever a disaster at sea it'll be every man (or woman or child) for themselves.

I booked a guarantee minisuite and ended up with one with a bathtub, for which I have a few questions.

1. Is there still a nice shower head in there? I love really nice showers with good pressure for relaxing.

2. What size bathtub is this? It sounds like the sides are higher than what you would find in a hotel room, but otherwise is it the same size as a regular hotel type bathtub? Are the sides ridiculously high for someone with average mobility?

See, in the old days, when people didn't book all the balconies, say, they would upgrade some of their loyal cruisers for free, moving them from their booked inside cabin into a balcony as a happy little bonus for them cruising with NCL.

Then someone realized hey, we can get people to give us more money to upgrade to those rooms! If it's going to go empty, the cost of servicing a balcony versus an inside is negligible. So they see if they can suck a couple hundred bucks out of someone to upgrade now, typically waiting until a week or less before the cruise to announce upgrade winners to give maximum time for some new customer to book the room.

19 hours ago, CRG7 said:

When I mentioned how we had the package at dinner, we were told the charge would be reversed. It was not. A couple of sodas aren't worth complaining about to Guest Services but definitely be aware. I saw cans being brought to guests on server trays in the theater as well.

I had the soda package and got charged for a non-can fountain soda at the Atrium Bar, which is how I know it's $4.14 with the gratuities. The weird thing is I didn't sign anything, I guess they just billed the card. Actually, I think I was in O'Sheehan's and it just got rang up at the Atrium Bar, now that I think about it.

I was going to ask them to take it off but the line at Guest Services was long, this happened the last day of the cruise and I didn't notice until the next morning when reviewing my bill, so I decided to just eat the price.

Heard there were a number of Code Alphas called, hopefully just minor injuries from falls.

I bet the ship is a mess to clean.

On 2/24/2019 at 3:00 PM, Jasonmom said:

On Grandure of the Seas last year there was a $3 blackjack table from 10am-11am.

 

I was on Navigator of the Sea over Thanksgiving 2017 and they did a $3 table too, first hour tables were open in the morning on sea days. 

11 hours ago, Misself said:

I'm sorely tempted!   I'm talking myself into booking it .   

I read your earlier post in this thread and was going to play devil-on-your-shoulder to urge you to book, but looks like you've already taken care of that! 🙂

Hooray, great news! Thanks for the response, here's to hoping my machine doesn't have lingering coffee flavor.

When I was last on the Epic I know that someone was discussing how their room steward said they weren't allowed to open the balcony divider between connecting rooms. Then someone else mentioned how they could go down and help them open it with some tool they had.

So I guess the rules could vary from ship to ship or even steward to steward, and that there are ways around it, but they might just close them up again if they don't want them open.

I have no knowledge of the ship itineraries but wanted to mention -- and presumably you know this if you have school-aged kids and have vacationed before -- the flight costs out of Boston during winter and spring breaks are pretty nuts. There are probably tips on how to get cheaper airfare but I remember being shocked when looking for flights to fly my sister's family down to Florida that week as a Christmas present.

I'm booked in the Haven on the Breakway next week. Now, I know there's a fancy coffee maker or espresso thingie in the room, but I don't drink coffee. Can it be used to make hot chocolate, are there pods for that? Or hot tea?

I know I've seen K-cups for hot chocolate and hot teas, but: a) do they stock them for whatever type of machines are in the Haven suites; and, b) even if so, would everything just end up tasting like coffee anyway because of all the past guests using it to make their coffee?

8 hours ago, graphicguy said:

Butlers on NCL will guide you to checkin, but you're on your own from there to get to your cabin

I was in a Haven Spa room once and when I checked into the haven area, they had someone escorting us to the boarding area. Now, I had a problem with my key card so I was stuck, but she took the other people further on and I assumed she was taking them personally to the Haven lounge, at the least. And I thought that maybe the butlers would then help you with the room, I know someone was talking about how their butler explained the room amenities and coffee maker and such.

Is this not the case?

6 hours ago, Two Wheels Only said:

 

NCL is just dropping prices because of the low demand. Don't let it bother you. If there was a high demand and prices increased over what you paid, would you want NCL to charge you the difference?

 

Just enjoy your cruise. You were happy with the price when you booked and you're getting what you paid for. 

It's definitely true that there will (just about always) be people on the ship with the same general cabin type as you who paid less -- but also generally true that there are some who have paid more.

I've seen people find out about big price drops after final payment get really upset about it, to the point where it ruined their vacation. It's hard not to be disappointed learning that you could have saved money if you had waited so that's natural. But as pointed out here, you could've spent more. Plus the biggest drops are often last-minute and most people with jobs and kids and stuff can't travel at last minute, so you pay more for having a scheduled cruise in advance.

9 hours ago, romalley99 said:

 

Wow, within a few hours of bidding? When is your sailing? 

Congrats! 

My cruise leaves Sunday, February 24th and I bid on Wednesday, February 20th.

The Haven cabin must have just become available because they'd been sold out for a while. They'd also already done the balcony upgrades earlier in the week. So it could be that someone just canceled and they picked the upgrade bid soon afterward and I timed it right.

Looking at timestamps I made my request at 10:56 am, or at least that's when I got my confirmation email of my bid being made. And the award email came at 11:28 am the same day, so I actually got notified less than an hour after bidding! Didn't realize it was so fast, wow.