deefer

I believe that Ruby status gives you free drinks anywhere on the ship (not just the casino). But it does look like free drinks casino invited guests used to receive in the casino is no longer happening......?

Hello almost a year later! The advantage of doing a review is when you want to reminisce about your amazing vacation you just have to scroll through your posts. That is what I was doing today when I realized I never finished. My plan was to finish up when we got home but I guess after our 30hr travel time (to the west coast of the USA) and life/work getting in the way it slipped my mind. So here is the finish ..... better late than never. Our return flight out of Cape Town was on United - it departed around 8pm. The ticket counter opened for check in around 4pm so we decided to do a shore excursion with airport drop off. Our visit was going to be to table mountain, The cost of this tour to Table Mountain was $109pp. Total cost for the 2 of us after our 15% discount and $50 shore excursion credit was $135.30. Our meeting time was 9am. Although organzed there were 3 buses doing this tour and with all the other excursions meeting in the theatre, it was a bit chaotic. We finally left around 1030am and arrived at Table Mountain at 1115am. The lines were very long - we finally got to the top of the mountain around 1240pm. Almost a 90 minute wait in line. If you do this on your own - your wait time would probably be shorter as you would have gotten there before all the buses arrived (If I recall there were about 7-8 buses in total). Here were the ticket prices for 2023 if you were to do it on your own, You get on the the gondola to get to the top (and same of the return) There is no bad spot on the gondola as it slowly spins so everybody has good views. I have never inserted a video before .... hopefullly it works. This is from the gondola... I am standing still. IMG_2886.MOV We get to the top and we have about 40 minutes to walk around. If you have a lot a time you can grab a bite There is a gift shop where we did some browsing We only had about 30-40 minutes on the top of the mountain - we just wanted to see the views so for us that was okay. But if you want more leisurely time/have some lunch I would book this on your own and not as a shore excursion. Some views from the top ..... really beautiful. We get back on the bus around 115pm and get a quick tour of Cape Town on route to the Airport. The guide points out some buildings that have historic significance. We arrive at the airport just before 3pm so we have about an hour wait until the ticket counter opens for us to check in. Would I recommend this shore excursion? I'm torn. There was a lot of just sitting around & waiting. 90 minutes to initially get on the bus, 90 minutes to get to the top of the mountain and we were dropped off 5 hours before our flight. If you only have your disembarkation day to explore Cape Town I would not recommend this tour. I would book something on your own. You can see a lot in the 5 hours we just sat around. It was okay for us as we had seen a lot of the Capetown area prior to the cruise. Loved visiting South Africa - would highly recommend visiting this part of the world. I believe NCL is there again in Jan of 2024 and wish all on those cruises a fantastic time! Happy to answer any questions!

Following.....we will be on the infinity out of Athens in June. But visiting Lisbon a few months later. What is the name of the hotel? Looks perfect. Looking forward unto the rest of your review. Thank you for posting!

So this was the email we got from MGM..... And here is the certificate we picked up..... Not sure how we qualified for a balcony as we are only at the gold level (and did not elevate to platinum during the stay when we picked up the certificate). Like def0715 mentioned in a previous post you have to either pick celebrity or Royal Caribbean on the spot when you pick up the certificate. We did some research ahead of time and decided on a 7 day from Athens in the Spring of 2024 on celebrity. It's by dumb luck that the cruise we picked is offered by this certificate. It would be nice if the actual limitations of the certificate were in the initial email so that people can make an informed decision on wether the trip to pick up this certificate will work for them. I saw another persons certificate and their Europe ports were only valid for 2023. This would not have worked for us with getting vacation from work. The day we picked up the certificate there was only one balcony cabin left on the date we want to sail. We immediately phoned to book - unfortunately the cerificates had not been uploaded yet so we couldn't apply the certificate. We got around this by booking a refundable cabin with a credit card and it will be converted to the "free cruise" once Celebrity can see the certificate "uploaded". We picked up the certificate on Aug 3rd and as of Aug 8th we still could not apply the certificate. The hold times at Celbrity are over an hour and the are only open M-F. My next mid week day off is the 15th - will try again then. I did phone the MGM to ask when the certificates will be uploaded ..... they said they would look into it and let me know - nothing yet. Not worried about it as we have secured the cabin ..... just an fyi! Let me know if you have any other questions!

I still think you should give Urcomped a try .... your pearl status on NCL may get you free/highly discounted cruise. Might save you some $$.

It seems that Urcomped has been used successfully by others (no personal experience). There is a thread here that may be helpful. If you frequent Vegas at all - the MGM group of hotels is affiliated with Celebrity/Royal Carribean and usually offer a yearly cruise certificate. If you reach platinum status with MGM you automatically get a free yearly cruise (I think it's for an inside) We have gold status (one level below platinum) - and have just received a certificate for a 7 day balcony cruise - we are picking it up next week and going to give it a try.

Port: Bangkok (nudged other ports out bc we had an overnight) Ship: Any medium sized ship (I think bc they have more exotic itineraries) Cabin: Any one that gives us priority disembarkation to explore the ports sooner!

Thanks for your quick answers .... looks like we will book the retreat if we go with this itinerary!

Our last several cruises have been on NCL. We usually book private tours for just the two of us and want to be off the ship first (or close to first!) to start enjoying the port. For this reason, on NCL we tend to book suites on the more exotic itineraries. This gives us priority disembarkation not only at the end of the cruise but for all the ports as well. To us this is the most valuable perk of a suite on NCL. Does the concierge class cabin give us priority disembarkation for every port? Or only at the end of the cruise. I did a search on these boards but just couldn't find the information. I'm sure it's there somewhere! We are ready to sample another cruise line - have found an interesting cruise out of Athens on Celebrity- it has 3 tender ports. We have no status (yet) with Celebrity so would be "last" in line getting off - have no desire to wait in line for 1-2 hours to get off the ship. Thanks in advance for your knowledge!

Yes. I requested that all my shirts/skirts not be tumbled dried. They were returned individually hung on hangers and I just hung them in the closet to dry. We were staying in a suite cabin ....not sure if that helped in getting the request. This was on the Jewel, a smaller ship may also be a contributing factor.

We did a 12 day cruise out of Cape Town this past Jan - I did a live review here's the link if you want to take a look: Live from Cape Town: Jan 14-26, 2023. NCL Jade We did a precruise safari and I would absolutely recommend that. We used Discover Africa to coordinate this and I highly recommend them. We worked with Megan Warrington - excellent experience - her email is megan@discoverafrica.com. She also coordinated our stay and tours in Cape Town prior to the cruise. Although I found the entire trip amazing - the cruise portion just a bit disappointing, When we booked this cruise there was only 3 sea days. We didn't stop in Durban and on day 2 of Richards Bay (it was an overnight port) we could not leave the ship because we had to do some immigration stuff for entry into Namibia - so really, it's a sea day. For me 5 sea days on a 12 day cruise when you have to fly 30 hours to get there is too many. We cruise for the ports - not the ship experience. We did mostly do our own excursions when in port - but had nothing planned for Port Elizabeth and incorrectly assumed we could book something last minute on the ship. ALL ship excursions were sold out for all ports prior to us getting on the ship - if you plan on using ship excursions make sure you book them in advance. I just realized that I still have one more entry to do add to my live review - we did table mountain ship tour as an airport excursion that I did not put in yet! Will do that in the next few days.

Freestyle Daily - Day 12

Day 12 - Sea Day My plans to catch up on my live review were thwarted by ROUGH seas. Vomit bags were out but fortunately I did not need them. Just laid around the room! (That is why I am in the airport lounge doing day 11 & 12s updates!) We did get information on how to disembark for the next day As our flight was not leaving until 8pm we decided to do an NCL excursion with airport drop off ( I will review in another post), this was our disembark instruction

Freestyle Daily - Day 11

Day 11 - Walvis Bay (and mandatory face to face exit with Namibia immigration) Today we did a private tour (just the 2 of us) of Walvis Bay & Swakopmund. We used Awesome Chapters and work with Every Vorster to coordinate this tour. Cost was 3600 Rand total for the 2 of us - paid by credit card at the end of the tour but they said they would also take US dollars. They have other tours available. Would recommend this company. The port itself is again industrial - and smelled funky. Apparently it is near a fish cannery. We started by driving around Walvis Bay. Saw lots of flamingos in the Meersing Lagoon Some beautiful homes in this area We went all around Walvis Bay and got a good sense of the town/it's history. We then drove to their salt mines (where they mine the salt from the sea). Explained how we get sea salt.- pretty cool. In this area the have some smaller sand dunes (still quite big) and we had some fun driving over them - quite steep going down! We then head to Swakopmund - about 30km away. Swakopmund & Walvis Bay were both very clean (and seemed like very safe) towns. Walvis Bay reminded me of Pheonix (but not land locked) - and Swakopmund of Fullerton, Orange County CA. Swakopmund We stopped and did some shopping - bought a handmade small area rug! We stopped to learn a bit about the steam engine car that used to pull goods in the 1890s And then walked around the crystal gallery We ended our 5 hour tour by stopping by Dune #7 - the biggest dune in the area. We could have hiked up .....but passed. We got back to the ship and met with face to face with Namibia Immigration. I'm guessing the line around 2p was about a 30 minute wait. The form that needs to be filled out All and all an enjoyable day!