Jetlagged787

From post #124 on this thread, it seems most of the Asian decor has already gone.

I cannot help with Livorno, since we cruised out of Barcelona, and took a ship's tour the day we docked in Livorno.

 

I did not find our cabin dated looking at all. Like I said, the carpet, curtains, and upholstery looked brand new. Great cabin, and I highly recommend 4570 for price and convenience. You are 5 cabins down the hallway from the gangway in most ports. Great midship cabin.

Thanks pcur.

I just got off the Spirit on 4/12/17. She's beautiful! Elegant ship, and they cleared out much of the Asian decorations, but left a few. Very uncluttered look now.

 

It appears all the carpets are new: not faded, stained, or worn from traffic. Our cabin, 4570, had new drapes, upholstery, and bed skirts. Immaculate bathroom. No smells at all.

 

Food snd service was excellent in the main dining room, buffet, Cagney's, and Le Bistro. We had none of the very long dinner times mentioned before.

 

Our cruise was very port-intensive, so we were too tired to check out the entertainment.

 

I loved this ship, crew, and the cruise was one of my best in 43 years of cruising!

Thanks for the report. We're only 31 days away now and really looking forward to it.

Can I ask if you used the NCL shuttle in Livorno or if you have the Daily for that day? I was wondering what time the service started to the station and what the cost was.

Thanks for the reports Keith. How old is your son? Whatever, he is a lucky lad to have this opportunity. You are right and I for one readily admit to not having any knowledge of Acre. To be honest, when you first mentioned it, I thought perhaps it was a typo!

So with no balconies apparently being available, presumably they would have to allocate a suite?

Thanks Aliceln. That makes sense.

I was under the impression that the category 'Guarantee' meant that you would be allocated a stateroom at the discretion of NCL. I am looking at the availability of balconies on a sailing and all are showing 'Sold Out' yet the category of 'Guarantee' is still available. How can that be?

I'm glad that you are enjoying your cruise and thanks for the updates Keith. I'm looking forward to our cruise even more now.

Have a great trip Robin. Do come back and let us know how you got on.

If you cannot change your flights you should at least cancel that tour. You're never going to make it in time and will probably sleep all the way round anyway.

I hope the rest of your trip goes well.

Enjoying your reports so far Keith. I hope your boarding goes well tomorrow and that you enjoy what must be a spectacular view of Venice at sail away.

Be prepared to pay for anything near St Marks though. Not from personal experience, but I understand that even a cup of coffee can cost a huge amount there.

Oh yes! We were there four years ago and they were asking 13 euro for a cup of coffee as the price included an "Orchestra supplement!" And you thought NCL nickel and dimed. We left the square, walked less than 50 metres and paid 90 euro cents.

Not all, only three out of five standard speciality restaurants (on bigger ships there are some additional ship specific restaurants).

 

Moderno and Teppanyaki are fixed fee, La Cucina, Cagney's and Le Bistro are a la carte.

Thanks for the explanation. There were some contradictions slipping in that had me confused. I'll take a look at Cagney's menu when we board and make a decision then.

Does anyone have a recent Daily that they could share for the Livorno port day please?

You make a valuable contribution to the board Keith by sharing your experiences, so it's good that you are getting to enjoy the life at sea again and we're looking forward to your reports. Only 37 days and I'll get to see for myself what life is like on Spirit.

Have a great cruise. :cool:

The MDR's are now offering upcharge steaks and lobster for a fee, this might be something for you without having to deal with a dining package!

That's great news thanks Sauer-kraut. I'm not bothered for the lobster but will give the steak a try for sure. I live in Portugal and, to put it as kindly as possible, beef is not exactly my go to dish here.

Thanks everyone. MDR it is then. :)

On Celebrity last year, guests were able to use the speciality dining restaurants at less than the normal asking price. There were always offers available and it was even possible to haggle the price down. The best deal folk were getting was 2 for 1 apparently.

I've never seen any mention on the NCL boards of a similar market operating so guess it doesn't happen. I'm not one for using these paid for restaurants being quite happy with the MDR. I do enjoy a good steak though and, as Cagneys gets good reviews, thought we might give it a try.

We were with Celebrity in San Juan last year and were the best part of 4 hours leaving the ship with a fixed time (not self-disembark). Despite plenty of signs saying, "No photography or video" in the customs hall, some clever so and so thought it did not apply to them. There were only three staff of whatever agency on duty and it took all three the best part of two hours to deal with the 'incident'. Meanwhile, the rest of us just sat and waited. When the line was reopened they seemed to be working particularly slowly as though to punish us all. Queues wound around the shed and only moved slowly, so another person thought it would make a good photo opportunity, no doubt to Twit or post on Farcebook.

Not saying it will happen to you but you should be prepared. One thing that we did notice was that those who used a porter went straight to the front of the queue and we're dealt with before the rest of us, causing further delays for the general population.

Have a great cruise and hopefully, a trouble-free exit.

Working OK for me.

Thanks very much Keith. That sounds perfect and I'm sure now that we will be fine.

Re San Juan. Yes, it was definitely a problem with Customs, or whoever was checking us as we left, and no fault at all of Celebrity.

Despite all the warning signs of 'NO PHOTOGRAPHY', some stupid idiot thought that it could not possibly apply to him and proceeded to video the interior of the Customs Shed. Consequently, it went into lock down and nothing moved for a couple of hours while they dealt with him. Once they reopened, we were allowed to disembark only to join a very lengthy queue in the shed that moved very slowly indeed. Why on earth there were only two personnel on duty (+1 for VIPs) for over 2000 guests is beyond me. Clearly, those two were not chosen for their sense of humour or customer handling skills, as after that we all felt we were being treated as criminals.

I guess that can happen anywhere so we'll have to keep everything crossed that it runs more smoothly this year.

Thanks again.

Disembarkation in Europe is usually pretty painless, as you shouldn't need to go through any customs (I assume you are on a round trip, or will have travelled from Barcelona or Venice).

 

I haven't disembarked there before, but if you are due to arrive at 6am then disembarkation should start reasonably soon afterwards. Worst case, you should be able to leave by about 7am, but probably before then. I think you will be OK, but there is obviously the travel time to the station. I assume you will be booking a taxi, rather than relying on the shuttle buses etc.

 

Unless you are in a suite or high latitudes level then you will need to carry your luggage off to save time.

Keith - Just an overnight thought. Please forgive what may be a daft question but I only have last year's experience to go by. On that occasion we had to give prior notice of the time we wished to disembark and were then directed to lounges, bars and restaurants according to departure time, Do NCL operate a similar disembarkation policy or will we be free to leave whenever we decide?

That's fantastic thanks Keith. Yes we are round trip and both EU citizens, so any formalities should be pretty painless I would hope. Now I just need to change our train and bus bookings from Civi to CIA. Thankfully both will be without charge to amend.

Thanks again for your invaluable help.

We dock in Civi at 6 a.m. and we were looking forward to a nice, relaxing journey to the airport for our flight at 5.05 pm. Now it seems that it will be a mad dash, as our airline have brought the departure forward to 12.45!

I think that now we need to catch a train at 8.01 from Civi and wonder what disembarkation is like at Civi. We had a nightmare time in San Juan last year when it took four hours to get off the ship and queue in a blisteringly hot hangar-like building to pass a checkpoint manned by only two staff for a ship of over 2,000 pax. Please tell me that it will be quicker this year.

Hi Jetlagged - We're just going to get to the station as soon as we can. We dock at 7, so are hoping to make the 8.12 train, but not prepurchasing tickets in case we don't.

Would have definitely shared a cab with you, but we're on the cruise 2 before yours (23rd April) :D

I wanted to go to Lucca for the day, but we're cruising with another couple and they really want to go to Florence, so am not too fussed. We're going back to Tuscany for a week after the cruise, so will go to Lucca then. :)

No problem. Have a great cruise.