trivimp

Hallux is absolutely correct. It is also true that if you sign up for the zipline, and then decide that you don't want to do it & hand the ticket to your daughter, they won't check the name on the ticket. I'll leave it up to you to sort out the ethics on that.

I was recently on a B2B that had two M&Gs, naturally. The first week (which was not cross-promoted on other social media platforms) had a couple dozen people who were actively engaged, cheerfully participated in an icebreaker game, chatted enthusiastically with officers, &c. The second week (which was heavily cross promoted) had nearly a hundred people who sat on their behinds & didn't really mingle outside of their seating groups. Guess which was more enjoyable? I have always thought that NCL valued the CC groups as being composed of (mostly) knowledgeable cruisers who are interested in giving interaction & feedback. They know many of us write reviews. They don't promote the event as a "****book Meet & Greet," do they?

^^^ THIS ^^^ No pockets, or else a stupidly shallow pocket on the side seam if you're really lucky, but will cause the card to drop out every time you sit down 😠 I have a jewelry-style lanyard that doesn't quite have such an industrial-chic vibe, I get a lot of compliments on it. https://www.amazon.com/LUXIANDA-Elegance-Lanyards-Necklaces-Stainless/dp/B06XCTLHG9?ref_=ast_sto_dp

You may have better luck with getting the expiration date of the FCC extended, as a courtesy, because you misunderstood the terms & didn't use them on your last cruise. It's not likely that NCL will convert the FCC to cash, for reasons that have already been explained clearly above. But if you can get the expiration date pushed out, you could possibly use it next year without worrying about how many vacation days are left before the end of the year, &c.

Epic has Posh, which is similar to Vibe (but no hot tubs, IIRC.)

Download the Norwegian app; in the My Vacations section, you'll be able to review your reservation, book excursions & dining reservations, and so forth.

We're looking for something to do for a few hours in QC at the midpoint of our B2B in October. Looking at the hop-on hop-off bus... can we catch that near the port? How far is the walk to the bus stop? (One in our party is mildly mobility-impaired, so I'm looking for something that isn't heavy-duty hiking.) Also, is it running normally now (can get on & off as we please) or is it still restricted to only boarding at stop 1 as a covid-related protocol? Web searches are giving me some conflicting info. We like to get off the ship for a little while at the B2B midpoint & maybe see a little bit of the city, especially if it's somewhere that we haven't been before. We have to be back on board around 3:00 or 4:00, something like that. But all the available excursions are designed to end at the airport. If you have any suggestions other than the HO/HO, I will gladly entertain those as well. Thanks very much 🙂

It'll show on the My Vacation Summary tab as "Onboard Spending Money: $100" in the top left area of the screen. It'll also show on the Payments tab -- "Your booking includes a $100 onboard credit."

This is awesome. I just booked a Vibe cabana through my regular PCC for our April 23 cruise on the Encore, a 15-day Panama Canal transit. The Guy is disabled, so we have never been able to do the Running For the Passes thing. Thanks for the heads-up!!

Depends on your tolerance for random noise, I guess. We had an under-pool cabin once for a B2B. We heard some early morning chair scraping, but it didn't bother me too much, as we were generally up & getting dressed for breakfast at that point. I kind of liked the music filtering through, it added to the happy vacation vibe in my experience. The Guy, on the other hand, was grumpy about it & told me never to book that deck again.

two words: Tableside Guacamole 😋

Yes, that's true. To clarify, I was saying that the risk is that no balcony cabins are left except the less-optimal ones. In these days of not-full sailings, that's unlikely, but might happen when the ships start sailing full again.

That seems like a pretty typical price variation to me. Pro tip, If you book the OV & make final payment, and then the price of the balcony drops after final (which is also very typical,) you can no longer CANCEL without penalty, but you can purchase an UPGRADE & pay only the difference between the two fares. You will be locked into whatever perks you had before & won't get any new ones they might be offering, but it's a good way to get into the balcony if you don't mind risking that the balconies could sell out or you might get a less-than-optimal location. This is different from the bidding upgrade process. Call your PCC or TA to request the upgrade. You also cannot get any cash refund, so if the balcony drops below the price you originally paid for the OV, you're out of luck.

Our second-favorite thing to do on sea days is to find a couple of shaded loungers on the pool deck, set up a backgammon board, and play endless games while the pool attendants bring us rum&cokes. I've never heard anyone object to it before, but so be it.

Plenty of sound advice here. I'll just add that I've found Carnival & NCL to be more alike than different. Minor differences in amenities don't change the overall experience that much. Yes, you pay gratuities on the beverage package, which seems to always bring out one of two possible responses: a) They said it's FREE but I have to pay! It's a ripoff! Also, they don't include bottled water/fancy coffees/milkshakes/ultra-top-shelf liquors, that's a ripoff too! b) I can have unlimited drinks for around $20 a day? No brainer! (I'm not as much of an imbiber as I used to be, but a couple of drinks by the pool & then a glass with dinner puts me ahead.) Also, NCL's freestyle dining is so much easier than having to plan around set-time dining, especially if kids are busy/cranky/off their schedule or whatever.

We've had the M&G with officers on our last three cruises (Oct 2021, Dec 2021, and May 2022) -- wasn't much interest in the other events, so nothing was organized. I know I wouldn't want people in my cabin for a crawl in these post-shutdown times. Dinner with officers was still not happening, but the meet & greets certainly are.

in glass bottles, like 16 oz or .5 l? Those can't come aboard. I was thinking it was something like KoolAid sticks.

Translation: Hello, I would like to take a drink package for my children but they do not drink soft drinks, instead they serve ICE TEA, Oasis, syrup with water. Thank you for your answers Water and iced tea is available in the buffet & some other areas (Observation Lounge, &c) without a beverage package. I'm not sure what Oasis is, I assume it's a brand of water flavoring. Perhaps they could bring some aboard to use. Is it a powder or crystal? Americans have a brand of liquid drink flavoring called MIO, I imagine it would be pretty easy to get that aboard in your luggage. It looks like eye drops.

Theater shows are generally 2x night at 7:00 and 10:00, or maybe on the half hour, but somewhere around there. Comedy shows in the Social, the same. If you want to see the Beatles shows in the Cavern, resign yourself to eating early. They do only one show a night & it always seemed to be around 8:00 or 8:30. Plus you have to get there way early to get a seat. An hour early is best; half an hour is cutting it close. We ended up making our dinner reservations as close to 5:00 as we could all week just so we wouldn't have to worry about conflicts. We felt like seniors doing the early-bird special, and then we were generally starving & had to get a second dinner at the Local before bed, but that's cruising [shrug]

Taxes for all Alaska ports were in the 8-10% range last month. It varies by municipality. We had some different ports (Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan) but it'll be about the same for Sitka & ISP, I'm sure.

Thank you for your kind words, Steve!! It was a real pleasure to meet you.

Just a warning, I was on a B2B & the schedule varied a lot between the two weeks. First week, Kinky Boots was on Saturday; second week it was Thursday. Just one example. Maybe it will settle down later in the season, but right now stuff seems to be moving around a lot; don't rely on a previous sailing's dailies to set your schedule.

Hey! We looked for you last night at the hotel lounge, but we may have given up early & gone to bed 💤 it had been a long day of travel. We're taking advantage of late checkout & are just having a lazy morning at the hotel, and will cross the street once the lines thin out a bit. See you aboard!

October 2021, Gem December 2021, Bliss

They definitely had Captain Morgan at the pool bar on my last two cruises. They also had Kraken Dark (which is my preferred spiced rum) at some bars, like Maltings. They used to have Margaritaville-branded spiced rum in the Five O'clock Somewhere bars, but it tasted like it was just relabeled Capt.