The Traveling Man

I've only sailed twice so far with X, once on the Edge in the Retreat and once on the Apex in an Infinite Veranda (i.e. Balcony), but more than 30 times with NCL, so my knowledge is no where near as great as @JamieLogical who also has taken lots of cruises with NCL and several with X. That said, my favorite restaurant on the Edge class ships is Blu. We ate there for breakfast and dinner most days when we sailed in the Retreat (similar to the Haven on NCL). Blu is reserved for Aqua class passengers, but those traveling in a higher class, such as Retreat, also can eat there. I think the menu and atmosphere there are far superior to Luminae, the dedicated restaurant for the Retreat. We only ate in Luminae for lunch on embarkation day, once for breakfast, and once for dinner. As others have stated, the MDRs (there are four on Edge class ships) are available to all, while Blu and Luminae are free but only open to passengers in the appropriate cabin category. I think you'll find X a real treat when compared to NCL.

The opposite of raining on someone's parade is blowing sunshine up their rear end. The Prima is a nice ship. It could have been much nicer. I'm simply trying to give a fair account of what I saw on board. With so many other ships to choose, both from NCL and other cruise lines, I'm just saying that one and done on the Prima will probably do it for me. YMMV.

My experience on the Prima a couple of weeks ago was that when trying to access Cruise Critic, the NCL website, or other "free" sites the connection speed was interminably slow. If I shifted to "pay to play," however, the connection usually ran at NCL's regular snail's pace.

As some others have noted, the space available in the observation lounge is quite limited compared to some of the Breakaway + class ships. The Galaxy Pavilion takes up the center of the space, with the lounge forming a rather narrow strip around the outside. Also, unlike the observation lounge on some other NCL ships, the buffet in the Prima lounge is tiny, offers few choices, and is open only very limited hours.

We were on the Copenhagen to Southampton voyage on the Prima. We arrived at the cruise terminal about 11:00 and went straight to the head of the priority line, bypassing about 500 or 600 others waiting in line (being a Diamond Latitudes member does have its rewards). After check-in, we walked straight onto the ship. I would estimate that no more than a couple of hundred other passengers had managed to get on board before us. We went straight to our muster station, where the check-in process took all of 15 seconds, then directly to Syd Norman's and the comedy club to make reservations. Again, even though there were about 1700 passengers on this cruise, I don't think that more than a couple of hundred people in total could have gotten there ahead of us. We were told that every seat in every comedy club show for the entire ten day cruise was fully booked. Thinking that this simply was not possible, we asked to speak to a supervisor. After some hemming and hawing, they agreed that there might just still be a little more room in some of the shows, so they marked us up for one show on each of two nights. We were not able to reserve any show in Syd Norman's, but there was no problem getting seats in the main auditorium for each of the main stage shows. Normally, of course, we should have been able to book most entertainment online months in advance of the sailing date, but for some reason that was not possible on this cruise. Things may have improved on the following cruises, and may get even better in the future, but that was our experience a couple of weeks ago.

I haven't double checked the stateroom count, but your numbers don't seem to add up. Most rooms are rated for double occupancy, and some Haven suites are rated for four or more. The total rated capacity of the ship is 3099, so that would mean that there are something like 1300 Studio rooms for single passengers and only a bit more than 800 total Inside, OV, and Balcony for double occupancy.

I just booked a February cruise on the Sky. We paid for an O5, then used 30,000 points to upgrade to a BA. I was quite surprised that they allowed that, but I'm sure not complaining! We saved almost $3000 total by using the points. Full disclosure, we only were able to use one Cruise Next Deposit since we paid for an OV. Balcony staterooms can be reserved using up to two CNDs, so that wiped out $125 of our savings. Also, this will be an 11 day cruise, so booking a Balcony with Free at Sea would have meant that we each would get two free dinners in a specialty restaurant. Since we only paid for an OV, though, we only get one FAS specialty dining credit each. Figure that to be about another $125 or so, leaving our net savings at about $2750. Those 30,000 points cost just $10,000 spent with NCL, so that gives a net return of more than 27% on the money spent on the NCL Mastercard.

We also were quite disappointed at the small size of some of the venues like the comedy club and Syd Norman's. Some have compared this ship to Celebrity's Edge class. They're about the same tonnage with similar passenger capacity, but Celebrity hit one out of the park with their design. NCL, not so much. While we really loved the Food Hall and the MDR, the architecture and decor of much of the rest of the Prima just seemed to miss the mark. On future NCL cruises we probably will focus on the Breakaway + class as well as some of the smaller ships.

We've done the same thing a couple of times. The most memorable was when we were booked in an Inside on the Breakaway. When the price dropped, we paid about $200 pp to upgrade to a Balcony at the newly reduced price. When prices dropped again, it was just $75 each to go from Balcony to the Haven on a 14 NYC to Caribbean cruise. Unlike the process of bidding for an upgrade, we were able to select our cabin number and we received all the perks of the upgraded stateroom category.

@BirdTravels Please let us know how many are on board and how crowded the ship seems. We were on the Prima from Copenhagen to Southampton. It sailed at about half capacity, but many of the shows were SRO and some of the lounges and other areas felt quite crowded.

On one cruise years ago I booked an OV and paid in full for it. I didn't have quite enough points for an upgrade, so I needed to wait until the payment cleared to get the additional points to have at least 30,000 in my account. Once the payment cleared on my card and the points were credited, I called back to use the points for an upgrade to a balcony. I was told that the prices for OV cabins had gone up since the time I had booked (just a couple of weeks earlier) so I first had to re-book my OV at the new, higher price before they would allow a meta upgrade. I balked at that and asked to speak to a supervisor. After a lengthy discussion, they relented and allowed me to upgrade without charging extra, but it was a hassle.

In the past I have been told that I had to book at least as high a subcategory of Ocean View as the Balcony that I wanted. Thus an OA could be upgraded to a BA, BB, BC, etc., but an OB could not be used to get into a BA. In a few cases I wanted a BB and was told I need to pay for an OA to be able to upgrade.

Yes, I did. I took them with a grain of salt. This thread is pure speculation, anyway, so I chose to speculate. I think that the hard evidence of the scheme by which NCL has chosen to name their first two ships in this series trumps any "throw it against a wall and see what sticks" list of possible names.

It's usually only required on the larger ships such as Epic, Breakaway class and Breakaway Plus class, but we have reserved in advance on several occasions.

Prior to the suspension of sailing due to COVID it was customary that any passenger booked on a cruise could make reservations for dinner and / or shows 120 days prior to sailing. Those who were Platinum (or maybe it was Platinum Plus) could book five days before that and those traveling in the Haven could book 130 days before sailing. Since the return to sailing, however, many cruises have not provided for any advance reservations, or in some cases reservations only for dinner only. Sometimes the reservations only became available a few weeks before embarkation instead of 120 days.

I think it's likely the names will either be derivatives of Italian words or at least sound vaguely Italian. Also, it seems likely that that each will be a single word of about four or five (maybe six) letters in length. Since the graphics which NCL has been using for both the Prima and Viva use a stylized letter "i" it probably means that the rest of the ships will have an "i" near the middle of the name and it also will be stylized. (The Prima is shown as Pr1ma while the Viva is shown as V!va).

@Cakers74@Travelling2Some@ontheweb@mscdivina2016@njhorseman There are at least two different sets of circumstances under discussion on this thread. My original question regards simply departing from a cruise early and not continuing further. Others have asked about getting off at one port, skipping one or more intermediate ports, then rejoining the cruise at a subsequent port. The rules governing these two actions may be different, and may vary between travel in the USA, the EU, or other regions. I can only speak from experience regarding my original question. We directed our request by email to NCL Senior Vice President for Guest Services Katty Byrd. She coordinated with other NCL departments to make our request happen. She was quite helpful and professional in all our dealings with her. I am sorry to hear that others have met with denials of their requests, and I truly am disappointed to learn that some have encountered rudeness and negativity. Our dealings with NCL were all very positive. We were able to travel just the first three days of a 10 day cruise scheduled to sail from Southampton to Copenhagen. We were on board for port stops in Le Havre and Zeebrugge before disembarking in Amsterdam. We were quoted a discounted fare rate for this cruise, roughly equal to half the cost for the full 10 day cruise. As it happened, our cost for the fare, port taxes, gratuities, beverages, etc. was actually a bit less than we would have paid for three nights in hotels plus meals and transportation either by rail, air, or ferry. Plus, staying on the Getaway for those three days was far and away more convenient than making all those transfers from taxi to train to hotel, etc. We were not able to use a Cruise Next Deposit in partial payment for the cruise, we were only allowed to book a Sail Away rate, and we received no free specialty meals even though we were Diamond Latitudes members. All alcoholic beverages and sodas were billed separately, as we did not have a beverage package for the three days. All in all, though, it was a very satisfactory and pleasant experience. I would suggest to anyone who wishes to make similar arrangements for their cruise that they also contact Ms. Byrd. She was very helpful for us and I hope she also will be able to assist you with your plans.

Agreed. As I said, bunches and bunches of green eye shade types buried down in the cost accounting basement, all crunching numbers ad nauseum.

It's a case of supply, demand, and which items the seller thinks they can sell at a premium because of perceived value. It's like the price of lobster in Le Bistro. At one time the a la carte price for lobster was $38 while the price of halibut was $35. If you used your dining package credit to pay for your dinner, however, the halibut was covered by the package credit but the lobster incurred a $25 surcharge. Makes no sense, right? But some number-crunching green eye shade type buried in NCL's cost accounting department figured out that they could get by with it, that people actually would use their credit plus pay an extra $25 because, by golly, they wanted lobster!

We have had Limoncello when dining in La Cucina or Onda. It was listed with the dessert menu. It may not be available at other bars, restaurants, or lounges.

The box office is next to the theater entrance, starboard side if I remember correctly. On embarkation day, though, they set up temporary quarters for show and dinner reservations across the hall from each other in Syd Norman's Pour House and the comedy club. They may use some different venues on other cruises.

The best steak I've ever had on NCL, and one of the best I've ever had anywhere, was in La Cucina on the Epic this past May. The second best, at least on NCL, was in Le Bistro a few years ago. I've never been favorably impressed with the steaks in Cagney's, so I usually order fish or lamb when we dine there.

Sorry to hear about your disappointments in Cagney's and Teppanyaki. I've also had some bad luck with Cagney's, so for the last several years I usually have ordered the grilled fisherman's platter when dining there. It may seem odd to order fish at a steak house, but the fish was very good and the portions were quite large. Lately, though, I've been ordering the rack of lamb and have been very pleased with the meal. I used to get lamb at Le Bistro, but they dropped the lamb chops in favor of lamb shank and it just hasn't been as good since then. In my view Teppanyaki has always been more about the show, the entertainment, than the food. That said, however, you can't beat the freshness factor with the elapsed time from grill to table being faster by a mile in Teppanyaki than it is anywhere else on board. The calamari is much better there than any other NCL restaurant, the shrimp and scallops are superb, and the steak, depending on how talented you chef is, can be some of the best on board. Sorry to hear you found it to be "ho hum."

Also somewhat under done, especially near the bone on the ribs. That's the result of trying to cook it too fast at high heat instead of low and slow.

On those rare occasions when Food Republic is open at lunch, we almost always stop in there and pay a la carte. We also try to have a light dinner there at least once per cruise, again usually paying out-of-pocket. Sometimes we'll have some sushi or other light fare as an appetizer, then head for the Local or MDR for a main course and dessert.