Middleager

We're booked on the 2023.1.14 Jade, 12 days Cape Town roundtrip. So we're looking for tour ideas for Cape Town, Mossel Bay, (got Abdo park for Port Elizabeth), Richards Bay, Durban, Luderitz, and Walvis Bay.

We're on Epic 2022.11.26-12.7 Rome to Lisbon cruise. We were to go to Malaga 12/5 and Cadiz 12/6, and Lisbon 12/7. But due to Lisbon harbor Pilot strike on 12/6-7, Epic cancels port calls to Malaga and Cadiz, and will get to Lisbon 12/5 at 10pm -- just before the strike. Epic is also leaving Lisbon on 12/8 at 2am instead of 12/7 night, and will also miss Ponta Delgada, so it can make New York 6 days later. At our Meet & Greet meeting this morning, the GM explained that if Lisbon is not a turn-around port, they can just skip Lisbon. But because it is a turn-around port, they need to get to Lisbon to let people off, and people on. So they had to take this change, in order to get to Lisbon. There is also a separate issue of Tap airlines strike on Dec. 8-9. So a lot of people who had flights 12.8 or 12.9, are scrambling (some with NCL as they bought flights through NCL).

They are open. We're on b2b from 2022.11.15 Haifa, then 2022.11.26-12.7 Rome to Lisbon. The shops are open. There's no way these shops are "permanently" closed. It's an important money maker for NCL.

My full name is on my DL, and on my Canadian citizenship certificate. On my passport, most credit cards, and NCL reservations, it is a short form of my first-name. For airlines, when they see the name matching my passport, they are fine. No problem.

Ok, good to know. We don't have a National bank account. National bank has a small presence, so hopefully that can be expanded to many other financial institutions.

Ok, I'll look into that next time. Xoom and TD Global Bank transfer work the same way. Show you how much it'll cost to transfer X amount in Y currency to the recipient, and the fees. Only works in Canada. Not to any foreign accounts, not even US. There are many countries/people who don't use CC much, including Jordan and Egypt. I Xoom paid deposit to a dive op in Mexico for earlier this year, and we ended up with a very nice diving/snorkeling boat charter excursion for a group. Yes there are some that do take CC with x% added for the charge, but there are still risks with those ops. These guides/drivers we'll be going with in Jordan and Egypt have good reviews and word of mouth recommendations, and are much cheaper than the ops that take CC.

We'll be going to Egypt, and had hired a guide (and driver) for a few days. The guide asked for a deposit to be paid to her bank account. A few months ago I used Xoom to pay to for a dive trip in Mexico. Cad to pesos. I could pay with my bank account or credit card, and Xoom's exchange rate is about in the middle between bank's retail rate and the whole sale rate (whee people trade large amounts). This time the lady is asking to receive in US $. So I tried TD Global transfer, and I could take money out of my TD US$ account, to pay to the lady's bank in Cairo. TD charged USD $7 fee for this. TD's exchange rate if paying with Cad $ is not very good. The fee is also different depending on how you pay, and/or how the recipient receives. (Oh, during the set up, I had to enter a BIC (or SWIFT) number for the bank in Egypt. I then remembered when Russia invaded Ukraine, the sanctions including shutting Russia out of the SWIFT banking system. That was the first time hearing about SWIFT.) Just wondering what other ways people have paid to foreign bank accounts.

We're all waiting from that poster to tell us which airline(s) charged them for using washroom. It's one thing to complain. It's another thing to not be credible (airline charging for washroom?!?) or just plain ignorant. The complain about having to pay for checked baggage, or seat assignment, just showed he didn't do homework. Most people know the cheaper economy airfare doesn't include seat assignment (we just did a payment to choose seats), or checked bags (we did pay for checked in bag earlier this year), and these are extra costs we'd pay either we buy air through NCL or ourselves.

What about using ATMs to withdraw cash (the topic in this thread)

We don't buy the drink packages ourselves. But the breakeven point is not 10 drinks a day. Check the price of buying individual drinks. I have never ever had to pay for bathroom privileges. Which airline did you fly that you had to pay? Most economy fares I buy these days do not include seat assignment. Most don't include free checked luggage if flying domestic and often includes one piece checked luggage if flying across the pond. Also depending on the routes you fly, if flying from west coast to east coast, often the cheapest is red-eye flight -- we did get one of those and we were prepared and satisfied with it because we did save hundreds on airfare. The OBC/discount on NCL excursions are NOT always a ripoff. There have been short port stays, and the NCL excursions offered plus the U$50 discount worked out cheaper and we had taken those (we almost always go for 3rd party excursions). There were also situations where only ship-excursions can be taken (e.g. in Italy last year) so it's either NCL excursion or no excursion (no get off the ship) and the U$50 discount is better than nothing. You don't want to play games. Suggest you learn about the T&Cs. The grass is not necessarily greener on other sides.

HSBC's website mentioned ATM "convenience" fee, which some others may call transaction fee. https://www.hsbc.ca/more-ways-to-bank/atm-banking/ If using a Canadian CC to make payment in foreign currency, most CC's would charge foreign currency conversion fee of about 2.5%. Some CC's don't, such as HSBC WE MC, Scotia Passport visa, Brim, etc.

Thanks Milhouse. You've done more research than the HSBC WE MC lady who answered the phone to say there is no fee. Seems like not only there can be ATM convenience fees, there are foreign currency conversions fees 2.5%, first to USD, then to CAD -- I wonder if that conversion applies to HSBC WE MC which doesn't have foreign conversion fee, and if the conversion fee applies to other CCs or money accounts.

Agree this poster lost credibility with the description. The BOGO airfare does give you free airfare for the 2nd person, which is great. You don't choose the flights/connections, doesn't mean they are always terrible. We used it twice, and had pretty good flight/connections. Will I use it again? Yes, and I know the risk, we could get bad time/connections next time. But at least we get the 2nd fare free. If NCL is "pricing WAY TOO high after all their add-ons and mandatory gratuities on products you are not even using" that means the poster is not buying smartly, i.e. buying things "you are not even using". I think most buyers don't behave like that, and that's why this poster lost credibility. As has already been said, if you don't like drinks package you don't have to buy it, just like you have a choice not to buy NCL insurance, or pay/buy NCL ground transportation, etc.

In the last few years we booked with the TA affiliated with TD First Class Visa card. We get 4.5% back in TD rewards.

I just found out if withdrawing from my HSBC accounts from HSBC or Cirrus ATMS abroad, there is no ATM fee. There are lots more Cirrus ATMs than HSBC ATMs, so it's good to know. On my HSBC WE MC, there is no foreign currency conversion fee (usually 2.5% on other CCs). I was planning to put cash into that CC, then do cash advance withdraws. It's good to know there's no fee from those ATMs. We'll may payments using my wife's HSBC WE MC (which she just got, first year fee waived too)

I did call HSBC to try to extend the 31days coverage they have on the World Elite card. They said no, cannot extend. Someone else also confirmed HSBC won't extend. For Some other credit cards they would extend the coverage.

I called HSBC, but they said they don't extend the 31 days. But sometimes I don't get the feeling the phone agents know all the correct answers.

Most of us have limited wifi access on ships. The NCL's "free" wifi promo gives 150 minutes of very slow and sometimes unstable wifi. But yes people can use web text to send/receive texts. Can buy physical SIM or eSIM, but these are limited to when you are at port. When you're at sea, your SIM or eSIM won't connect to the wifi, you'll still need to use the ship's slow expensive wifi. Anyway, for an upcoming trip, I'm looking into Airolo eSIM for some places, and have bought this Vodaphone SIM which also covers Turkey in addition to other EU countries.

How did you know, do women all pack like that, or just my wife?

BIL and SIL, and all their friends caught Covid from a Princess Alaska cruise in Sept.

I tell my wife to wear little and pack little. (guess what she does)

Last year before going on the 2022.12.5 NCL Getaway transatlantic cruise, we bought an annual Blue Cross medical insurance, that covers multiple trips of up to 31 days each. An annual plan is only a few dollars more than one single trip plan, so it was worth it for an annual plan. We'll be going on a longer trip later this month October, for 48days, and this would go beyond the end of the existing plan (which ends 2022.12.1). I checked for more annual plans but with first trip for 50d coverage (and other trips up to 31 days), and Blue Cross has much better pricing than ManuLife or other banks. But I thought maybe I can check with Blue Cross, and extending my existing plan, and yes they can. So I just bought a single trip plan for 50days, for which they gave discount for the 31 days from existing plan, for about $45/p for my wife and I. Later when we come back, we can buy new plans when we are ready to travel for future trips. If we decided to stay longer than 50 days, we can call Blue Cross to extend a few days, so that's also good to know. Just thought to share this with people who are looking for travel medical insurance.

I catch cold easily. So I don't risk not having a down jacket with me coming back from warm weather to cold/freezing weather. It's an inconvenience to bring a winter jacket, but a minor inconvenience. The light thin down jacket that you can roll up into a small bag works really well.

I'm a downclass passenger. I can't afford to fly First Class on planes, or stay top class on cruises. I usually book insides, and feel pampered on cruises. I'm content if we are not successful in our bids for upgrades. We'll still enjoy our cruises. Lower decks may get to lifeboats faster though. If the boat flips over, the higher decks will hit the water harder. But my cruiseships won't hit an iceberg.

Unless ship gets in late, there should be no problem. FLL port is close to FLL airport. Do a self-disembarkation to get off ship early, often can get off shortly after 7am. Lots of cabs waiting and can take you to airport in less than 15 min.