The Traveling Man

I had a great cruise. As I said, I rarely drink Guinness, so its absence didn't impact me. Actually, the entertainment level of the cruise was quite enhanced by observing the antics of the hundreds of other passengers who were so distraught about missing out on their Guinness.

I rarely drink Guinness myself, only a couple of times when we were in Ireland. As they say, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." My point was that almost 1000 persons on a 2000 passenger ship were ardent consumers of a particular brand of spirits. Not only did the ship run out of their beverage of choice, they did so a day or two prior to the annual day set aside to celebrate the creation of their brew. Now, if you've ever had a Guinness, you know that Coors Light doesn't even come close to taking its place. Maybe a California Cabernet will do in a pinch when what you really wanted was an Argentinian Malbec, but those folks were royally P.O.ed about not having a Guinness beer on Guinness Day!

We have done that as well. Once or twice we even ended up taking the bottle with us when we disembarked, and enjoyed the wine later during our travels or once we returned home.

For every cruise of sufficient duration. As I recall, the break point is five days or longer.

How about being on a cruise on the NCL Star in the Med where almost half the passengers were from Ireland, Scotland, or England and the ship's bars ran out of Guinness beer on the fourth day of an 11 day cruise. And that was two days before "Guinness Day", an annual celebration honoring the creation of that golden elixir.

Or chair hogs?

Or like Flat Stanley?

And yet @OrcaGirl seemed to have a great time on the same cruise, at least according to her posts on another thread.

Is glamping when you stay at the Marriott instead of the Radisson?

Your information is out of date. NCL changed the policy regarding Cruise Next Certificates some time ago. They no longer have an expiration date.

Yes, but there still are plenty of things that you can purchase with the shareholder OBC. These include shore excursions that you book while on board, wine tastings, specialty dining beyond what is covered by any coupons you may have, laundry services, photos, and purchases from any of the shops on board the ship.

NCL has done that on a couple of cruises we have taken where things went South.

Yes, but you get what you pay for. We have taken several trips with the WW II Museum travel department. You might be able to save a little money on some other tour, but you can savor the wonderful memories from the WW II tours.

Okay, I'll nudge it up to a nine😄

We traveled with the WWII Museum tour group for the 75th Anniversary. Possibly the best trip of my life! It's a bit pricey, but absolutely worth every penny.

No reservations needed, but we just paid straight up, usually at lunch time.

Well, it seems that the OP has left the building and this thread already has been hijacked a dozen different ways, so here goes: Your story concerns getting back to port in time for debarkation and travel to the airport for your trip home. Not a bad story, lots of intrigue, dramatic plot twists and turns, I give it an eight. If we include all manner of travails which might befall a cruise passenger, though, I'll put my Star story up for contention for "worst ever." In December 2016, the NCL Star was less than halfway through a 270 day "around the world" voyage. They really didn't sail around the globe, just from Denmark, through the Suez Canal, to China, down to Australia, and finally back to the Star's next home port of Athens. Leaving Singapore, one of the two Azipod propulsion units gave up the ghost. Travel for the next month was slowed to half speed, meaning lots of missed ports, shortened times in port, etc. Lots and lots of unhappy campers posted frequently on CC about their woes. It took a month of limping along before the itinerary brought the Star back to Singapore, where an unplanned couple of extra days in port resulted in the Azipod being repaired. YAY! Back to normal speed and the originally published itinerary. That lasted barely 24 hours before the OTHER Azipod broke down. Back to slow speed and missed ports throughout Southeast Asia. We were following along, voraciously reading every post on the several CC roll calls for the various segments of the cruise. We were booked to join the Star in Sydney in early February 2017. By that time, NCL already had all but given up all hope. They offered anyone on our cruise and the ones following ours a full refund, without penalty, to anyone who chose to cancel up to and including the very day prior to their scheduled embarkation. Well, we decided to stick to our plans. NCL was offering some FCC, so even missing a few ports, it seemed like the thing to do. We departed Sydney on time, but were unable to get to Melbourne as scheduled. NCL gave us an unscheduled overnight stop in Melbourne, and another whole day to tour the city before we departed early in the evening of 9 February 2017. We limped out of Melbourne on one propeller, bound for New Zealand, where almost half of our port stops already had been cancelled due to our slow speed. About 1:00 AM on 10 February, I was awakened by an eerie stillness. Yep, now both propellers were out of service and we were adrift in the Tasman Sea. It took a couple of days before the tugboats that came to our rescue were able to get us back into Melbourne, where we enjoyed a lovely extended vacation in Australia. They finally did get both Azipods repaired, and by the evening of Valentine's Day we were underway at full speed for Auckland, missing all of our intermediate ports in New Zealand (eight stops were planned, as I recall), making it into Auckland just in time to disembark our passengers and take on the next group, bound for Singapore. We were B2B, so we were able to spend a day in Auckland before rejoining our ship. So, we missed all those ports in New Zealand, but we received a ton of FCC, enough to afford another B2B to Australia and New Zealand the following year. At the time, though, we thought this was the epitome of ship happens.

So have we, several times at several different ports. Ship happens.

What about kilts? Do you consider those to be the same as pants?

I think AT&T also offers a month-long package for about $30. You do get charged for individual calls, but they come at a discounted rate, so the overall cost may be better for you depending on your usage pattern.

Like many other cities in Europe, Paris has several train stations. Trains for most destinations depart from only one or two of those stations, but for other destinations "you can't get there from here." I hope you checked that carefully when you booked your hotel.

If the restaurant is busy and there is a bit of a line waiting to be seated, they may ask you if you would be willing to share a table with another couple. If you agree to share, they may seat you ahead of others who have been waiting longer than you. The option is yours, though. They will not refuse to allow you to be seated as a couple, even if that means placing the two of you at a four top table. OTOH, if you decline to join others, but two couples behind you in line agree to be seated together, the hostess will seat them at an available four top or larger table while leaving you waiting in line.

If you choose to dine in one of the specialty restaurants, then reservations are recommended. In the main dining rooms (MDRs), it really is not necessary. You may encounter a brief delay to be seated at peak times, but otherwise you usually will be seated within a few minutes of the time you arrive at the restaurant. Whereas many cruise lines feature mostly tables for six, eight, or more guests in their restaurants. NCL restaurants are dominated by two top and four top tables. The overwhelming majority of passengers on NCL prefer to dine as couples or perhaps in groups of four. There are a few larger tables, but frequently they go unused. You may request a particular table or to be served by a certain member of the wait staff, but doing so likely will result in a delay. Usually they will seat you at the next available table, regardless of which waiter's area that may be.

We have sailed in the Eastern Mediterranean several times. On many more occasions we looked into cruises there before deciding to travel somewhere else. There have been many times when Kusadasi and/or Istanbul have been removed from the itinerary on short notice. There could be any of a wide variety of reasons. The time that we were on a cruise for which they were removed, there had been some political unrest in Turkey just prior to our cruise. We assumed that the itinerary change was for passenger safety. Roughly half of the 40 or so cruises we have taken with NCL have undergone some itinerary change, rarely prior to final payment, frequently after final payment but weeks before sailing, and sometimes after embarkation. As someone else on this board has said, ship happens. NCL probably could do a better job in promoting transparency in their communication on matters such as this, but the bottom line is that the cruise contract gives them great latitude to make changes without requiring them to offer any explanation. Unfortunately, that's just part of cruising.

As I understand it, all the tenders aboard NCL ships are also rated for use as lifeboats, but not all lifeboats are rated for use as tenders. If you take a look at photos of most NCL ships you may notice that there appear to be two different sizes and/or shapes of boats hanging from davits on the side of the ship. On the Pr1ma and V!va, all of the boats seem to be of the same size. They are rated as lifeboats but not as tenders.