gpb11

OMG. After so many negative posts I am now really worried.

We are past last payment on Star for Christmas. This would be our first Christmas cruise and even suite guests are complaining. YIKES!

Whether you should worry or not really depends on your own personality. While this was by no means our first cruise, it was our first experience with NCL. While I won't claim to know the validity of others perceptions, remember first that the unhappy tend to complain publicly while the satisfied tend to go on about their business quietly. My thoughts below:

Going into this I expected some hiccups. As mentioned, you get substantial staff turnover after a transatlantic, so I figured a bunch would be new. First full day was scheduled to be a sea-day, one of the more difficult days to deal with since everyone stays aboard all day long. Then add in the so very common UBP and you have a recipe for a mess.

We saw our room steward frequently, and usually our room was serviced before we'd returned from breakfast. He wasn't perfect, but he did a decent job. The bar lines the first day were very long at times and the pool servers were few. Other days were substantially better.

Apart from that first day of pool bar chaos, we seldom had any lines to contend with, no more so than we've seen on other lines of this tier. I saw long lines at peak times at some places such as guest services, shore-ex, or future cruise, but most times there were two or three folks ahead of us. We did all the complimentary dining options and the only time we had any notable wait was embarkation day lunch at O'Sheehans when it took a while (and a polite request to the hostess) for someone to take our order.

Self-disembarkation was typical. Go to a room and wait, move a bit and wait a bit more. We were off the ship, through customs, and standing at the curb outside calling our park-and-ride hotel shuttle at 8:33am, then in our car and rolling by just past 9am.

Was it perfect? No. There were definite areas where they could improve. We'll certainly sail NCL again though.

BTW, back to the thread topic, the same trailer and divers seemed to be set up near the stern again when we disembarked. I didn't see any activity, and perhaps they were just there to check the status of the repairs.

CD announced 10pm departure and the swapped itinerary a little while ago. His announcement suggested he'd said same at 4:30pm but we were in cabin then and didn't hear him.

Shrug. I'm on ship with UBP. :D

BTW looking at pier and crew there are two air hosed into water right now so they're working on something still. The various parts are gone now, presumably reattached.

Looks like two divers still in the water. Having a great time anyway!:)

Yep, info channel on cabin TV says we're leaving at midnight. Also they've quietly listed that Costa Maya is the next port, with the planned track showing Roatan as 2nd port. Swapping the two effectively. No announcements about this yet, just on the info tv channel.

Port balcony near the aft. Still working, diver just went in. I'm guessing the plan on leaving tonight though I'll be surprised if it's 4pm.

Tug could be a precaution, or it could be the harbor pilot's ride (if one needed), or it could be to assist with docking since there is a propulsion problem since they need the azipods to be able to rotate to maneuver tightly.

I really wouldn't get worked up unless you see the ship tip over.

EDIT: saw PropulsionGuru's post after I posted. Precaution it is then.

All I know is that for my upcoming cruise I compared NCL.com and two TAs. One TA basically just quoted the NCL.com pricing. The other TA provided prices at $40pp less than NCL.com and threw in a $125OBC that NCL.com didn't offer while still getting me the normal offered promos. Using the 2nd TA saved me $200 and he's provided excellent service.

BTW the charge showed up as "NCL RESERVATIONS USD MIAMI FL" and not the TA's company.

I've only cruised Carnival, DW has sailed RCI as well. When we were recently looking for a late Oct/early Nov cruise the promos made NCL a better overall value for us and we'll be doing our first NCL cruise in a couple weeks.

I just notified our TA and will report back with how we made out.

Smart move. We booked a last minute BX on Star for a great price and just got a B3 assigned. I'm very happy with the choice.