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Seems it is a California law coming into effect from 1 July. I got an email from Carnival today to my travel agency explaining that this change would be coming. I live in NL and so I usually book things in Euros, so it has always been like this for me and I always hated trying to compare US prices because you never really know the true price until you get to the end of the booking process. I usually use booking.com to book hotels and last time I was using it in the US, I had to use a VPN just to be able to use the site, since it kept saying that hotels were 100 USD per night, but then you would click through and then discover that they added taxes and resort fees and other charges and it ended up around 200 USD per night. Made price comparison so difficult...

So, helping a friend book a cruise, and one of the options is with Costa. However, one thing we can't get past is that the few photos that we can see of the ship on the website make it look... well, much older than a 15 year old ship. Costa doesn't seem to want to show off the ship on their website the way other cruise lines do, so we are a bit curious if it actually looks old in person or if it is more a stylistic choice and still feels nice. Basically it is a surprise gift for his mum and he wants to ensure she has a good experience. Does the ship look better in person than in the photos? Cheers.

I wonder if the food perception is a cultural difference. Looking at the Mexican and Italian and Korean menus, I would not be surprised if this was a menu if I walked into an Italian or Mexican or Korean restaurant in London. Obviously the US and UK have quite different food cultures, but I certainly wouldn't consider the menus at these to be particularly froufrou or avant-garde. While I have not yet sailed with Virgin, I definitely think that the clear desire to be different for the sake of being different permeates through Virgin's brands with varying success. However, the fact that VV has been so open to feedback and already been making changes is a very positive sign to me. I think that watching which things they adjust, like their menus and the music volume, etc. will be a very good indication of what sort of clients they are looking for as they mature and truly cement their brand positioning.

I think that the 95s are 95% and the FFP2 is 94%. So anywhere FFP2 is required, k/n95 should be fine, but it is possible (though rare) that place that requires N95 would not accept FFP2. But since 94 and 95 are so close, many masks are certified as both FFP2 and N95, and usually requirements will see them as equivalent. In OP's case, the FFP2 is fine.

200 extra means it is about 10ish day cruise? Do you drink fizzy drinks? The fizzy drink package is about 10 USD per day, so about 100 USD. If you reject the free at sea, you can either take a dining package or skip the dining. If you want the dining, the 2 meal package would cost approximately 107 USD. So just with the specialty meals and the fizzy drinks, you are already at £164. If you would take wifi, that costs around 100 quid. Though the quickest way to make that money worthwhile is if you plan on taking excursions. So if it is 10 day, let's say there are 7 ports. And if you take the full advantage of the 50 USD at all 7 ports, then that is 350 USD off. That is about £280. So for the 400 you pay, you are already getting 280 if you use these credits. So I would say consider which of these benefits you would or wouldn't take advantage of if you didn't take the package. And if your light drinking partner even has maybe 1 10 USD drink every 2 days, that is another 50 USD. (40 quid) Now, most of the threads on this topic focus on the US free at sea option, where they can pick and choose and have only the wifi and 50 USD credit and not pay any extra. Since UK bookings don't have that choice, you need to weigh the value of the entire package, so even if the US formula would not make sense for you to pay for the drinks package, in the UK formula, it might make sense for you to take the Free At Sea as a whole, and personally, I think that in most cases, it would.

Actually, in the Netherlands, where OP is from, the national basic health insurance plan is obliged to cover treatment worldwide up to the Dutch rate. So if you receive treatment for something which would cost, say 100 EUR in Netherlands, the insurer must cover at least 100 EUR wherever you get this treatment. And healthcare in Netherlands is not so cheap, so this is usually enough, however, obviously nothing can compare to healthcare prices for North American market, so this would not be enough. But that is why the plans in NL offer to cover the full international rate for a small charge. So I wouldn't say that national plans are out the window because every country has its own system, and plenty of them offer some level of coverage internationally.

Delta allows free same day standby, no? So if the flight at noon has seats available, you could get on them on the day with no fee. Alternatively, 24 hours before the flight, when you check in, Delta will have control over your booking, and you should be able to pay to change to the earlier flight if you want without going through NCL.

Just some advice for the future, pretty much every health insurance plan in NL has the option to add coverage up to the full local rate for small amount each month. I don't know any insurer which doesn't offer this. Normally like 50 cents to 2 EUR per month. It was great when I was in Thailand and made the mistake of going to a private hospital instead of a public hospital and after only few hours and very little treatment, gave me a bill of like 2500 EUR. But the health insurance's international department called them directly to arrange payment, so I didn't have to pay anything directly, just my eigen risico later. That was with VGZ or Zilveren Kruis, can't remember, but works pretty much the same with all of them. I highly recommend it for next year, it is well worth it for the peace of mind.

Maybe that is because they still do so often? Every cruise I have taken since 2015 I have booked after US final payment because that is when it finally becomes affordable for me. When I look out a year or more in the future, there is not a single cruise that is within the budget I am comfortable with. Especially if you are a solo traveller, up to now at least, the best prices have always been after US final payment, as that is when they finally tend to drop the solo supplement. And while we all have our preferences, for me I prefer not to spend more than about 80 USD per night including FAS and taxes, etc. as a solo traveller and the only time I can find these prices are last minute. To me, I have not seen any evidence that NCL does not discount to fill, other than the claims they have made in the media, and the fact that so many people here are always talking about the latest policies of price drops after final payment dates tells me that I am not the only one who finds that this happens relatively frequently. I am sure that they would love to fully adopt a market to fill strategy and they might have been moving in that direction for years, however, I am not convinced that they are there yet and would still advocate the price watching as it continues paying off for me...

Is 'Club Balcony Suite' really that much different? If anything, it sounds like an upgrade to me. 'We have mini-suites or we have club balcony suites, which would you prefer?' To me it just sounds like a type of suite, and 'club' sounds like you get access to some club or something, the way in a hotel, 'club' rooms generally include access to the lounge. But on our sailing, they were cheaper than balconies, so we happily booked 3 of them and won't turn down the free bag of laundry!

That is annoying. On the travel agent portal it was still possible as of last week, so maybe it is a good excuse to use a travel agent.

With NCL I have always booked within a couple of months of sailing because otherwise the prices are too high for me personally. I find that about 1 to 2 months before is often a pretty good time price wise. Still plenty of time to book flights and hotels and since it is past the final payment for the US based reservations, if there is space on board, the prices go down a lot. And you can get a courtesy hold from NCL for a day, so take the one day courtesy hold and see if you can make all of your other arrangements work with flights and hotels and everything and then can confirm it.

I also find this on the EU customer facing site, but then, when I do it through the travel agent portal, it lets me choose the cabin without a fee. So Idk if it is a glitch or just an attempt to get more money from people.

Is this a parody account? There are dozens of ships sailing in Greece and there is only a problem on one. Seems pretty clear where the problem lies...

I have a boarding time question myself. Our boarding docs says 'arrival time 09:00-09:30' But then it says 'Guests check-in begins at 12:00 PM' So if you can not check in before noon, is there any benefit of arriving earlier?

I would say that it depends on how long they give you in port, and which city. Some cities you can see pretty much everything in the day and on others, it will give you just a good taster of what you would want to see when you plan a longer trip. But yes, it is much different from the stops in Caribbean, in part because cruising in Europe is a MUCH smaller share of tourism, so you don't really have much built around it the way you do there. Also the Caribbean caters more to Americans and Europe more to Europeans so that also impacts what's on offer.

I quite like the club balcony on the older ships much more than the newer ships because they have that curtain that can separate the bed area from the sofa area and it is nice to have a bit of privacy when travelling with others. And now they give you a free bag of laundry which is nice I guess. Enjoy your cruise!

That was the impression I got from looking at the menu. To be honest, when I saw the photos with the car booths, I thought that it was just the new 24 hour restaurant and maybe they were moving from the Irish pub theme back to American diner theme like when it was blue lagoon. (I also thought the name was a placeholder, as it is pretty generic)

Interesting they don't accept Visa.

To be fair, they also have a 'club balcony suite'. So suite is not exactly a precious term for them.

Would love to hear the things they could improve. We are on Getaway in June and always good to hear the negatives in advance!

If you go to internet cafe, normally they would sort that for you and replace the unused minutes. At least that is how it was in the before days. Worth a check.

Nice. There are 3 of us that decided to go in the end. And we are looking forward to it. (We plan to drink to get our money's worth)

I have seen last minute Royal Caribbean deals, but when I check up on them, the anytime dining option is always sold out, so I have to choose the set meals. So it seems this 'choice' is quite limited. Maybe the other lines offer unlimited anytime dining, but at least some of them do not, and if you are not booking 1+ year in advance, you won't get it. So I think it is quite absurd to compare this to NCL's freestyle concept where 100% of the passengers can take advantage of the freestyle dining or ask to be seated with others if they like. I have taken a couple of solo cruises, and always felt that it was possible to hang out and have meals with the other solo diners onboard, and actually have made several long term friends on NCL with that. And when I am solo, I appreciate meeting other solo travellers. But when I am on holiday with a friend or a partner, I want to spend my time with my friend or partner, not random strangers whom I may or may not hit it off with. And perhaps NCL could do more to highlight the option of asking to be seated with other people. But honestly, I tend to think that most people aren't that interested most of the time because we are on holiday with the people we intend to spend our time with, if we want to meet new people, we can do so of our own free will rather than being forced to eat with them. (And if some days we are running late to our dinner, we don't feel guilt for forcing a large group of people to sit hungry waiting to order their meals) I realise that many cruisers like that traditional eating with others thing, but I am definitely amongst those who find it to be a reason to avoid cruising, as I don't want to be forced to eat at the same time with the same people at the same table every single day of my holiday. That just doesn't scream fun to me.

The problem that I have with the go karts on the current ships are that they take up very valuable deck space. The worst is the ones that also have the laser tag, as it leaves such little top deck space. (Also, so dumb to put laser tag outside in the first place, as it requires darkness, and there are plenty of interior places on the ship that are in far less desirable areas) At least the prima seems designed more with the go-kart track in mind rather than just throwing it on top of an existing design, which I think makes a massive difference personally.