The Traveling Man

What ship? Do you recall the names of the two officers?

I realize we're getting off topic here. The Star may be an oldie, but I'd be hard pressed to call her a goodie. The Star still holds the NCL record for the most cruises cancelled and the most days of cruising missed or ports of call skipped/delayed/rescheduled due to mechanical problems. In fact, the Star has amassed more out-of-service days or days delayed by propulsion problems than the whole rest of the current NCL fleet combined. Fortunately, most all of those delays occurred prior to February 2017 when her Azipods were finally repaired, but still...

We got on board the Star a couple of weeks after you. The propulsion problem that hobbled the ship to about half speed had been a fact of life on the Star for about two months by the time we boarded in Sydney. NCL had offered varying amounts of compensation to passengers on each of the several cruises affected. That led to some carping about "They got X but we only got Y." By the time they got to us, NCL had pretty much rolled over and realized that the problem wasn't going to be fixed anytime soon, so they started notifying passengers weeks in advance of the problems and NCL's compensation offers. That led lots of folks to take the money and run. We decided to stick with it, and were on board when BOTH propellers stopped turning in the middle of the Tasman Sea. The long and the short of it is that, in effect, NCL paid us to take our B2B cruise. We got a 100% refund on one leg of the trip, 50% refund on the other, plus future cruise credit of about 50% of the total. While we were in Melbourne for our extended stay as they finally repaired the Azipods, the Cruise Director found a Broadway style show performing in Melbourne that had a night off. He hired them to come on board for an unexpected extra show in the Star theater. Overall, it was our best and worst experience with NCL. They really knocked themselves out trying to make things right.

Thanks. That's a good catch. Too bad NCL's rules and regs are so confusing and contradictory. If you simply search for "prohibited items" you get an absolute rule, but if you look further like you did, you find exceptions which say exactly the opposite. Thanks for digging further.

Passengers have reported taking many things on board which are on the prohibited list. They may or may not be stopped and the items may or may not be confiscated. That does not alter the fact that the items are on the list of prohibited items, it just means that some people have managed to slip them past the security checkpoint.

Prohibited Items List The safety and security of our guests and crew is our number one priority. The following items are prohibited on-board vessels. These items will be confiscated and not transported aboard. When an item is determined to be illegal the appropriate authorities will be informed. 21. Items brought on board the vessel and not supplied by the Company containing any kind of heating element, such as but not limited to: immersion heaters, heating blankets, clothing irons, water heaters, coffee machines with heating/hot plates, etc. 31. All types of fans including handheld, battery operated, electric etc.

As others have said, you need to register at the Cruise Next desk on embarkation day. We have had dinner with more than 30 officers, including two Captains, five GMs, a dozen other three or four stripe officers, plus a dozen or more junior officers. Sometimes it was one officer and a half dozen or so passengers. Other times there were two officers and as many as ten passengers. The smaller groups were more enjoyable, as they allowed more free flowing conversations. Most were in the MDR, but three were in Le Bistro and one was in Cagney’s. The wine flows freely regardless of your beverage package status and there is no charge, even when the meal is in a specialty restaurant.

Anything with an electric heating element that is not furnished by NCL is prohibited.

My rechargeable beard trimmer also uses an electric motor which is powered by a battery. I’m not sure how different that is from the power profile of a portable fan.

We also were on that Getaway TA cruise. We had dinner at the Captain's table one evening. He invited us for a tour of the bridge the following day. We also sailed with Captain Roger again last year on a TA. He is a very personable, outgoing individual.

True story? A sea creature devoured everyone on board a catamaran? Really?

NCL only lists the info for the northbound train as a shore excursion on their website. I would recommend calling NCL or using the chat feature on the website for info about the pre-cruise train.

I'm fairly certain that the schedule on the NCL chartered train is to leave Seward around 7:00 or 7:30, shortly after the ship docks in Seward, then takes about four hours to get to the Anchorage airport. After an hour or so for folks to exit the train, get their bags off, allow the afternoon passengers to board and get their luggage on the train, the return departure from the airport is scheduled for some time after noon, probably about 1:00. The four hour (or so) return trip gets you to Seward just in time to complete you check-in and get on board before the ship departs. NCL is not the only cruise line that docks in Seward, so some days the train runs roughly the same schedule for Holland America, Princess, etc.

I took the NCL chartered train between Seward and Anchorage, so I know that food and beverages were available on board. Others have reported on this thread of having access to food and beverages on the regular Alaska Railroad train. When I rode the train several years ago the luggage was stored on a baggage car on the train, not transported by truck, and NCL took care of all baggage handling for us from the ship to our drop off point in downtown Anchorage. I don't know what the procedure is now. We went from ship to train, not train to ship as you will be doing, so I'm not sure whether you will need to reclaim your luggage in route or if it will be handled for you from start to finish.

Plus if you book your trip as an NCL shore excursion or charter, NCL also provides bus transit between downtown Anchorage and the airport as well as baggage handling.

I would say that the West side gives you a better view in either direction. It would be on the left side when traveling North from Seward to Anchorage, and on the right side when traveling South from Anchorage to Seward.

No, it was simply a matter of knowing the seating arrangements and asking for a particular seat. We wanted forward facing seats on the West side of the train. The railroad station agent had a large stack of tickets. It only took them a second or two to thumb through the stack to find suitable tickets for us. For anyone who did not ask for a particular seat, they simply pulled the next tickets off the top of the stack.

The Prima is a lovely ship and there are good reasons why some have praised her. There also are valid reasons why some have expressed reservations. You mentioned one specific area of concern which I can confirm. We took the Prima on a Norway cruise last September. The cold, rainy, inclement weather that we encountered on most of the trip limited the use of the outdoor areas of the ship. The Prima relies heavily on outdoor seating areas for some of its restaurants. This was most noticeable in the Indulge Food Hall. It was quite crowded at most meal times, and the outdoor seating was not only unusable because of the weather, but the crew had actually stacked it out of the way. Even though our cruise was far from full capacity, there were long lines to access some of the other venues, as well, particularly Syd Norman's and the comedy club. If you approach your cruise with a positive spirit and roll with the punches regarding overcrowding, though, you should have a wonderful time on the Prima.

It's only $50 off for the person listed first on the room reservation. On a recent cruise, my name was first on the reservation, but there were several ports where my wife wanted to take a shore excursion but I just wanted to stroll the town on my own. She would not have been entitled to the $50 discount, so on the first day onboard we stopped by the Guest Service Desk and asked that our names be reversed on the reservation. Presto Change-o, they did it on the spot, no questions asked. We walked across the atrium to the Shorex Desk and booked her tours. The name change had already taken effect and she got the $50 discounts. Also, it's $50 per tour, not per port. If you're in port all day and can squeeze in both a morning and an afternoon tour, the person listed first in the room gets the $50 off each tour. The same is true if you have an overnight stay in a port. You can take a tour (or tours) one day as well as on any subsequent days and get $50 off each tour. The only limit is the number of tours you can squeeze in per port stop.

Bingo.

Like most politicians, when asked a specific question, they somehow manage to turn it toward one of their rehearsed talking points.

I wonder what percentage of US citizens have ever traveled outside of the US.

We were on a similar itinerary on the Sky in February. Once on board the ship, an announcement was made that we must have a passport if we wanted to go ashore in Panama. We took a tour there, but no one in Panama, either going or coming back to the ship, asked to see our passports. Once we returned to Miami, however, everyone on board, whether they went ashore in Panama or not, were required to show their passports and go through a CBP checkpoint. It took us about an hour and a half from the time we got off the ship until we got to the Customs officer.

You can't specifically reserve the Waterfront outdoor seating, but there usually is no difficulty in having the hostess seat you there. As some have noted, when the ship is moving there is a fairly stiff breeze, so many passengers don't want outdoor seating. Most of the specialty restaurants have wind screens around the outdoor tables, but it still can be a bit windy. It can get quite cool in the evenings while at sea, but most of the outdoor seating areas have heating units in the ceiling. We always choose the outdoors if the temperature and wind are tolerable, even if not ideal. It's all about the ambiance of al fresco dining.

I guess it varies from one ship to another. We have been on the Encore, Epic, Getaway, Prima, and Sky since the restart. None of them used activity cards. We now have almost a dozen decks of NCL cards and eight or nine NCL T shirts.