The Traveling Man

We have stayed at both the Holiday Inn Express as well as the Comfort Inn, located next door to each other on 48th Street at 11th Avenue. It's a short walk, on a slight downhill slope, to the pier, and just a few blocks from Times Square and dozens of excellent restaurants.

Many countries require that your passport be valid for weeks or even months beyond your expected travel dates. I am not certain of the requirements for the countries you mentioned. You may want to consult U.S. State Department travel advisories for each of the countries you intend to visit to make certain that you have enough time left on your son's passport to meet the requirements of each of these countries. I am sailing in February to several Caribbean destinations. My passport was set to expire in late March. I applied through regular channels in early December to have my passport renewed. My new passport arrived today, just over a month after I applied. In the event that your son's passport does not meet the requirements of some country you intend to visit, you should still have time to renew your son's passport prior to your trip if you submit the application this week. It should not require expedited handling. To be on the safe side, however, I would recommend making a photocopy of his current passport before you submit it for renewal. In the event that the U.S. Passport Office does not get a new one to you before the trip, you may be able to get by with the photocopy and a convincingly sad story about the new passport being delayed. YMMV.

@Charles4515You may be right, I may have missed your point. Also, I may not have stated my point very clearly. Several people posting on this thread seemed to be saying that a driver license with Real ID was required to fly. That is not an accurate statement. Although a driver license which does not qualify for Real ID status may be rejected by TSA, either now or at some future date, there are other alternatives besides Real ID. In the case to which I responded, the passenger stated that his non-Real ID license was not accepted, but that he was able to fly because he had a passport. Ipso facto, Real ID was not required to fly, as a passport was acceptable. When flying, either foreign or domestic, I always present my passport first, rather than my driver license. For this reason, I have no personal experience with what form of driver license is acceptable to TSA and have not kept up with the rules regarding Real ID. Whether any form of driver license is acceptable, or whether only those with Real ID are acceptable, the fact remains that Real ID is not the only means of identification acceptable to TSA. Even if a person has no other form of photo ID other than a passport, that passport alone is sufficient to fly. I'm sorry if this post is overly long or pedantic, but I wanted to be sure to state my position clearly.

Yes, but the two bus tickets that we woulda, coulda, shoulda used were only about $20 each.

We were on the Prima's second revenue cruise, from Copenhagen to Southampton. It was a royal mess trying to get off the ship. We likewise had never had a similar problem in Southampton, having sailed there on several previous occasions. YMMV.

As I said, it only has happened a couple of times out of the hundred or more phone calls I have made to NCL. Rather than being insistent, it always seemed much easier to simply say "Thanks anyway" then hang up and redial. I never have failed to hit a home run, I simply have had to take a couple of swings of the bat sometimes.

So what do they call the 528 now, if not the Bee Line?

On a couple of occasions we called the main number because we were unable to get through to our PCC. When the person who answered looked up our info, they noticed that we had been assigned a PCC. They refused to work with us and insisted on transferring our call to our PCC. Naturally, we got the same answering machine message we already had been getting when we called our PCC directly. It sometimes took several calls to NCL to find someone who would answer our questions, amend our reservation, etc. without trying to hand us off to our assigned PCC. YMMV.

Having been to Southampton several times prior to our September 2022 cruise on the Prima, we made that same assumption. Please see my previous post to see how that turned out.

We had a similar situation this past September on the Prima. The ship docked on time in Southampton and we had reservations on the National Coach bus departing at 9:00 AM. Our flight was after 3:00, so we might have booked the 11:00 AM bus, but that seemed like we might be cutting it too close, so we opted for 9:00. We had an early breakfast on the ship, then gathered our luggage and joined the line to disembark a bit before 7:30 AM. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get off the ship, which had only about 2700 passengers on board a 3000 pax ship. The delay seemed to be caused by British Customs agents processing passengers very slowly. Once we were off the ship, we ran to catch a taxi, which got us to the bus terminal at 9:01 AM, just as the bus was pulling out. Apparently they have a company rule, or perhaps a traffic law, that prevents them from boarding additional passengers once they have pulled away from the curb. As it turns out, our flight departure was slightly delayed, so the 11:00 AM bus would have worked for us. Unfortunately, that bus was fully booked and the next departure was not until 1:00 PM, which would have been too late for us. We ended up having to take a taxi all the way to Heathrow, about $175 if I remember correctly. The bus ticket was nonrefundable, so we had to eat that cost, as well. The moral of the story is to get in line to exit the ship as soon as possible. Having been to Southampton several times before, we had assumed that an hour and a half would be plenty of time to exit the ship, taxi to the bus station, handle our luggage, and still have time for a rest stop before boarding the bus. Don't count on it.

Absolutely go with the grilled platter.

We were on the Sun in Alaska several years ago and really enjoyed the ship on that cruise. The only significant shortcoming or inconvenience that we noted was in the path from the auditorium to the atrium and other venues near the middle of the ship. When the evening shows in the theater let out, there is a huge wave of passengers trying to get from the auditorium to the atrium, casino, and other public areas of the ship. You can exit the theater and immediately step out on deck, walking 100 yards or so on the jogging track outside before reentering near the atrium, or you can walk right through the middle of the Photo Gallery, Windjammer Lounge, Bliss Ultra Lounge, across the dance floor, disturbing the entertainers as you and a wave of other passengers pour through en masse. In Alaska, even in the Summer, it's probably too chilly to go for an outdoor stroll in the evening, so guess where the crowd goes? It pretty much shuts down the entertainment for several minutes until the crowd passes by.

We have never had a problem booking Platinum dinners on line, either before the COVID shutdown or since. There is a trick to booking the restaurants in the correct sequence. Always book the fixed-price specialty restaurants first, then book the a la carte ones. You should be able to book both your FAS and Platinum meals that way.

We have grown accustomed to that minor inconvenience, unfortunately. It seems that no matter how we book a shore excursion we have to stop by the desk to have someone reissue our tickets to get the discount applied correctly. This has been a problem for years.

As noted by some other responses to your question, some of these benefits are on hold fleet-wide, while others may be available on some cruises but not on others. You definitely should receive coupons for your free meals in specialty dining venues, your discounts on tours and on certain merchandise in the shops on board, and your free laundry service. Some of the other perks are either capacity controlled or simply not being offered on some cruises. Since the restart after the COVID shutdown we have had dinner with officers on one of five cruises, wine tasting on two cruises, and no BTS tours on any of them. They skipped the Latitudes party on one cruise, but had it on four others. On the first couple of cruises after the restart they offered an OBC of $10 to $25 per person as compensation for the missed events. No compensation for cancelled events or for missed ports-of-call was offered to us on any of the cruises we have taken since January of 2022.

We were on the Prima cruise just before yours. There were about 8 or 10 Ambassadors, and we were among the Diamond members with the greatest number of Latitude points, so we were able to attend both the wine and spirits tastings. Cruise Next Manager Carolina did not say anything about us being automatically enrolled for these events, however, so we stopped by the desk to sign up. I assumed that if we had not signed up that our spots would have been available to some other Diamond, Sapphire, or Platinum members.

We had a similar experience on the Prima in September. We had hoped for a knowledgeable sommelier to be available at each of the several wine stations to offer some advice and counsel on the wines being offered. Instead, there was only one "wine steward" for the entire room, meaning that at most stations we poured our own wine. About 30 minutes into the scheduled hour-long event they started to give us the bum's rush, saying that they needed to clear and reset the venue for the next event.

We did that several times pre-COVID, but haven't had the opportunity to try it recently.

We did not dine at Hasuki when we were on the Prima in October, but we did look inside the restaurant and checked out the menu. It seemed very much like what we have experienced in Teppanyaki on other ships.

We really enjoyed Onda on a couple of different NCL ships. The food was great, and the portions were huge. On the Prima this past October, though, we found the decor and layout of the restaurant to be a bit off-putting. as @Karaboudjandescribed, the design of some of the restaurants on the Prima just seems a bit odd.

It depends on the country of embarkation and whether your cruise is entirely within the EU or if you also visit a non-EU port. We were on the Star several years ago when we were charged Barcelona taxes for the entire cruise. The original itinerary was mostly within the EU, but with a couple of planned stops in Turkey. Because of political unrest in the area at that time, NCL changed the routing to skip Turkey, adding a couple of additional port days in Greece. As the Captain explained it, since we never left the EU, we were liable for the sales taxes that were due to the country of origin, in this case Spain.

Actually his screen name is BorgerBoy, so I assumed he was from Borger, Texas.

I assumed that it was about the wonderful products from the ship's bakery.

The upper limit is a one-category upgrade from Balcony to Club Balcony. It otherwise could be used to upgrade Ocean View to Balcony or Inside to Ocean View, but only one upgrade per Diamond member. Also, it must be used within one year after becoming a Diamond Latitudes member.

Heartily concur. Deepak is one of the best.