Gentgeen

Add me to the list who say it varies. My first cruise on the Sky, there was a scheduled meet at the piano bar on each night, but the cruise staff member who showed up changed daily, and didn't show at all on a day or two. On the Jem, the singles coordinator came to most of the meetings in Maltings, but did little else. On the Getaway, Alberto came to each gathering at Sugarcane, had a dinner reservation for the group at one of the three MDR each night, scheduled ropes course, mini golf, etc events during the days, and handled getting us group reservations to any of the shows.

What I didn't enjoy last week on the Getaway:

Beef Chow Fun at the Noodle Bar. Noodles were the wrong texture, flavor was bland.

Fish and Chips at O'Sheehan's. I liked them on the Gem, but was disappointed on the Getaway.

Orange Chocolate Mousse in the MDR. I imagined a chocolate mousse that incorporated orange flavor into the mousse somehow. I got a chocolate mousse and orange jello parfait.

Boston Cream Pie in the MDR. Just not special.

We had a Prime Rib night at O'Sheehan's last week.

We were pointing the other way when we departed on the 3rd. My view was of the port for embarkation and of the MacArthur Causeway on disembarking.

Planned entertainment would be Million Dollar Quartet, followed by Howl at the Moon, both on the Getaway this week. Unplanned entertainment would be last night when the cast of Million Dollar Quartet showed up to Howl at the Moon and got coaxed up on stage, with passenger NAME-REDACTED from Albuquerque brought up from the audience on Drums.

John

Six days until I'm on the boat. Four days until I'm on the plane.

There is no formal night on NCL. There will be a White Hot Night, where you're encouraged, but not required, the dress all in white for the various evening parties.

33.

That's an itinerary I would like to try. Unfortunately, I don't have the vacation days.

You can find the layouts here. https://www.ncl.com/cruise-ship/ Pick your ship, scroll down to the staterooms section, and click "deck plans".

For reviews, you can use CruiseCritic for that. The escape's cabin reviews are here: https://www.cruisecritic.com/norwegian-escape-deck-plans/dp/cabin-reviews/ You should also be able to find the deck plans there, and navigate over to the Getaway as well.

So, this person visited the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, saw that there were mountains to the west (Santa Cruz Mountains), other mountains a little further away to the east (Diablo Range), so therefore they were between two mountain ranges and thus in a valley, and then started the article with the statement "California's Silicon Valley isn't a valley"? I'm not impressed.

Where are you flying out of? LAX? Bob Hope? Long Beach? John Wayne?, Ontario (Unlikely)?

The Breakaway has a 1-day cruise from Copenhagen to Berlin on May 11-12, 2018. If you were going to be in Europe anyway, you could take that one at less than $100 pp for an inside cabin just to get the point.

Tell your friend to get a passport or passport card (or both) if they like cruising in the Caribbean. While the ID and birth cert will be OK normally, if for some reason they have to fly home before the cruise ends, only a passport will work (not even the passport card will). Also, it makes life easier if you get diverted to a country that won't accept a birth cert and government ID.

78, meaning I'm now stressing over upgrade bids.

I was on the Gem last year for the Dec 11 repositioning cruise from San Juan to NYC. Holiday decorations were up in many parts of the ship when we boarded, and a gingerbread city suddenly appeared in the Atrium on one of the evenings of the sea days at the end of the voyage.

The first paragraph on the British Crown's advisory for Mexico reads:

There’s currently an increased police presence in Los Cabos following a shooting on Palmilla Beach on 6 August 2017. This follows shooting incidents earlier this year in Playa del Carmen and Cancun. You should follow the advice of the local authorities and your tour operator. See Safety and Security

You can read it yourself here: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/mexico That does sound fairly similar to (though less specific than) the statement from the US State Department. Perhaps the US government is more specific on Mexico travel warnings because orders of magnitude more Americans visit Mexico each year than do Brits (Over 27 million in 2016 vs 514k).

I sailed the Gem from San Juan to NYC last December. Even with that total debacle of an embarkation (lines to drop off luggage were over 90+ minutes), we completed the drill well in advance of sail away during the sunset over San Juan Bay.

103.