Chanman76

5 hours ago, jeeper2 said:

 

We’re booked on it, too.  I agree that the chance of it happening is slightly less than 0, and really hope they cancel before the May 4th final payment due date.  We won’t be getting any additional credit because all the money we have on the cruise so far is credit from a previously cancelled cruise, but I don’t want to be the one to do the canceling! 😄

We are booked on 21/8 to Alaska and just had to make our final payment over the weekend. We are fully expecting the cruise to be cancelled as we are currently holding out for this as we are now really wanting out cash back rather than taking more cruise credits. Just wish Princess would make a decision.  

We were on our honeymoon in the Caribbean on a sea day when we got a message to call home, The mobile signal was patchy to say the least but we heard enough to discover my wife's grandmother had suddenly passed away. We gave up on the mobile option and attempted to call home from the cabin but the cabin phone was unable to make a call either! So we headed to guest services and explained the situation, Guest services was really busy and noisy but the girl who we were dealing with took us straight through to the back office, sat us down and said she would make the call on there own lines. She really went the extra step to make sure we were OK and asked if we needed to leave the cruise to head home. In this case the funeral was not until we were back and the rest of the family stated we should stay as granny would want it that way. The customer services girl then sat down with us and brought my wife tissues and a cup of tea and sat with us making sure we were both OK. She handed us her card with direct line and said if we needed anything at anytime night or day to call her and she would help us in anyway we can. It was later in the day we discovered a bunch of flowers and card had been left in our room from guest services saying they were sorry for the passing of the wife's grandmother. 

As the day went on and the shock had worn off a little bit the wife and I got talking about the other guest we heard while we were waiting at guest services and how awful some of them were treating the staff. We decided to do what we could and the next day proceeded to buy a few little things - a card, sweets, biscuits and other little items to give to the guest services team. We also had a little teddy bear who was at our wedding  who was travelling with us which the wife decided to donate to the gift pile. We wrote a long thank you on the card and how much we appreciated their support and how much of a great job they were doing and we left the goodie hamper with the guest services. 

The next time we walked past guest services the girl who helped us ran over and gave us both a hug and was in tears that we had thought of her and the team she was really appreciative of our gesture, In fact anytime she spotted us over the next week she always stopped and chatted to us, not as a staff member but as a friend. In fact all the guest services team always stopped and chatted to us and made a point in saying thank you, I am guessing other guest must have wondered how on earth we were on such good terms with them.  It was the last evening of the cruise we got back to our cabin late afternoon to a bottle of champagne on ice, snacks a reservation to one of the restaurant's on board along with the wife's wedding teddy with a note from our girl and the guest services team saying they would  love to look after the bear but he was missing home and sadly wanted to go back home with us.

We felt the original help we received was wonderful when we needed to contact home,  The hamper we made up was a simple thank you to the team for helping us (I know it is there job, but to give a sign of appreciation was the least my wife and I could do ). We had no idea that it would actually have that much impact on the guest services team.  We did not expect anything in return nor wanted thanks for the hamper but to simply to say thank you to them in anyway we could for there help that morning. 

I have stepped in to defend staff from passengers. One of whom accused a girl at customer services of swearing at him and demanded her sacked. I told the manager who appeared to defuse the argument the only person whom I heard swearing was the bloke at the poor girl. I also added that I thought the girls professionalism in face of this abuse was a credit to the cruise line and should be rewarded. 

Outcome was the bloke was asked to leave customer services, and the wife and I received a lovely bottle of wine sent to our room from the hotel director thanking us for our kind words about his team. 

I really feel some cruisers treat the staff very rudely, Just because you are on a cruise does not entitle you to treat the crew or anyone else for that matter as rubbish. 

Hi All,

I am looking for a email contact address for the Hotel Director or Guest Service Manager currently on the NCL Epic (If such a thing is possible) and wonder if anyone has such a thing or be able to point me in the correct direction on where or whom to contact?

I should maybe add this is not to complain about anything but rather to help arrange something for an upcoming cruise on the Epic which they may be able to assist with. 

Thanks in advance.

We are sailing on the Epic at the end of October, and looking for a list of officers to see if there is anyone we have met on past cruises. 

Thanks in advance. 

I made the killer mistake of buying my wife a bride and groom tatty teddy and gave it to her on our wedding day. Now every single holiday these bears make the trip with us. Luckily they dont follow us around the entire trip but they MUST get a photo at the airport, on deck,in the room with the towel animals and at least on a beach/pool. We are heading to New York in a weeks time and I noticed they are already sitting next to our tickets and passports.

We have just started packing for your cruise. Here is the breakdown of shoes

Me :

Walking shoes (brown)

Comfy slip on deck shoes (blue)

Black leather shoes for evening meals out

All these shoes can go with any combo of trousers I am packing

So far my wife has put aside to pack.

Blue heels

Red heels

Purple Sparkly heels

Brown sandels

brown wedges

Red Skethcers

Flip flops

Trainers

Leather purple heel boots

brown walking shoes

Every cruise is the same she packs a pair of shoes to individual match her outfits...she is never one to pack shoes to match several outfits.

And for the love of god dont get me started on her handbag/clutches she is looking at bringing as well for the outfits.

At the bar Maltings we hardly saw any college kids and Alan was an amazing bartender!!!

 

 

JennaMae

Maltings was my go-to bad on the Epic during out last cruise, Glad to hear Alan is still serving. He looked after us well...other than the hangover from working through the Whisky menu.

I wear a lanyard in certain areas at work and I hate them. Last thing I want to do on vacation is to wear one, I want to be away to forget about work. So I simply keep the card in my wallet.

We used my Tactical 5.11 Rush 12 backpack for beach excursions.

On beach days it contained

2 x Beach Towels

2 x Snorkel and Masks

2 x Bottles of water

Go-Pro

Compact Camera

Sunglasses

Sun screen

Book

And still had plenty of room left over

Personally I would avoid. As stated above there can be issues with CO2 build up especially on a poorly fitted mask. Which brings be onto the next issue. If the mask is poorly fitted and does not seal properly then any water entering the mask is going to cause a lot more trouble than it would using a normal mask.

In my opinion I would recommend you buy a decent fitting mask and snorkel, Avoid the full face mask at all costs purely for safety.

1. The inevitable security hassle at airport I get usually cause by the wife leaving something there.

2. Rude Cruisers / Lounger hogs / Queue jumpers. All can be branded as "Rude", My wife and I have a daily "Walk the plank" list of folk who should be overboard for the sake of other guests and staff.

3. Electric Wheelchair users who think they can use there "aid" as a battering ram.

we had a death in the family while we were in cozumel. The family did contact the ship and we got a msg to call home. I don't remember the charge being usually large. We also go to a starbucks or internet cafe when in port and can email or skype from there.

We had the same thing happen to us on our honeymoon. In our case it was a sea day and we could not make a call from our cabin. We went to guest services and they were fantastic, they took us into the back office for privacy and made the call for us, made sure the we were OK and brought water and tissues for the wife. We never got charged for the call.

We ended up buying the staff a load of chocolate, biscuits and left a note thanking them for there help, support and assistance they gave us that day.

Both my wife and I got it after our 1st cruise. We had never heard of it or expected it until it hit is. It is not horrific, and didn't stop us doing our day to day tasks and certainly didn't stop us booking our next cruise as soon as we got back.

My wife was a bit worried before out 1st cruise as she is not a great traveler and tends to feel motion sick and brought a load of potions along to stop her feeling ill...We brought them all home unopened and unused. Enjoy yourself and please dont get worked up as once on board I am sure you will have a fantastic time.

Overheard while walking past customer services which had a queue. The *bloke in front on me while walking commented to his buddy "I cant believe they are people still arriving on the boat"...I nearly killed myself from trying not to burst out laughing as we were on our 2nd day at sea after leaving port!

*nationality not disclosed for fear of offending the more intelligent members of this fine country.

I always treat others with the same respect and courtesy I would expect myself.

On our last cruise we got word that the wifes Grandmother had passed away suddenly. We were unable to make a call home from our room for some reason so we went to guest services for assistance. The girl who was helping us was fantastic and took the wife and I to the back office for some privacy and made an outside call for us - even they had difficulty making the call but they managed. She brought my wife a glass of water and a box of tissues as she was quite upset. After the call she sat down with us and made sure we were both OK and made sure we had her direct line number that if we needed any assistance, wanted to call home she would arrange it all for her. She also said if we needed to just talk she was available anytime we wanted.

We found out we didn't need to leave the cruise early as the funeral was not until we were back home.

The next day after the shock had worn off a bit the wife and I got talking about just how some fellow cruisers were treating the staff especially some of the demands we overheard while we were at Guest Services. So we decided to buy the girl who helped us some chocolates and biscuits from the shop and wrote a thank you letter telling her thank your for her assistance and how much we appreciated and we left the package at Guest Services.

It was later on in the day we bumped into our girl who ran over gave the wife a huge hug and thanked her. She was actually in tears that we had taken the trouble to do that for her and she was really appreciative of our gesture and letter thanking her. Every time we saw her the rest of the cruise it was always the same, She would run over and gave the wife a huge hug and another 10 min chat. The other guests must have started to wondered how on earth we were on such good terms with Guest Services.

Never any real issues on board a cruise. But every issue we have is always at the airpo,rt we always seem to have problems/panics. Last cruse there was a major panic over the wife leaving the passports and tickets at airport security, It was only later after we sorted this problem and in the frantic searching I discovered I had accidentally left duty free with lip gloss, lips stick, eye shadow and blusher the wife was planning on buying....without paying.

On the same trip we also had Jewelry left at airport security (along with her see through bag of toiletries with inhaler) as well as being pulled aside for traces of explosives found on a new hand bag which she bought on the cruise ship! Needless to say I now dread the airport part while we are heading to our cruise.

We are booked on the Epic in February and totally looking forward to it.....well we were looking forward to it. My DW and I are pretty easy going travelers and never expect perfection from any place we stay. If you look hard you will ALWAYS find fault with something minor be it staff/food/room/bathroom. Even our favorite weekend away hotel which we love we have had issues before yet 99% of the visits we have had its been lovely and enjoy our stay, My theory is a cruise ship will be no different.

Over the last few months my DW has read a lot of posts about NCL and Epic and is now got it into her head its going to be the cruise from Hell and our honeymoon is jinxed. Even I am starting to think we have gotten a bad deal now with some of the posts.....I am so hoping its wrong and we are going to have a fab time.

I dont know if NCL / Epic is getting worse or some posters here like complaining or have too high expectations about the cruise, after all its impossible to please every single person in this day and age and people are more likely to complain rather than praise going by some of the posts.

Anyway I feel its maybe time to step back from reading this forum ignore the rants and sometimes silly over the top expectations and simply go and enjoy the cruise with an open mind. I do not want to start our Honeymoon cruise looking for problems or going there with the impression its going to be awful with xxx number of potential problems which are going to crop up. All I want is my new wife beside me having fun, ice cold beers and cocktails, good food, some great excursions to do while in port and finally be nice and relaxed (is this not what cruising is about?). If NCL can at least do that then it will be fine for my wife and I.

I will post upon our return from the cruise, until then goodbye for now. And for those members on out Meet and Greet cant wait to see you all.

I usually travel:

Cargo/combat trousers - The ex squaddie in me still finds them really comfy and they have loads of pockets to keep phone, tickets and other items to quickly get out at security.

T-shirt

Hoodie (It can get cold on a flight - So my DW2b usually steals it to keep warm)

Walking boots (heaviest item I usually take on a flight and so to save space I wear them)

Baseball cap - No I am not a teenager but handy to be able to slip down over your face to get some sleep.

Tactical 5.11 rucksack - loads of handy storage areas to be able to find or move stuff into during flight, built like a tank and comfy if you carry it for long periods. Again the ex squaddie would never travel without it.

There was a time when 'sense' was common.:(

I always say we should remove the safety/warning labels from EVERY item on sale and let the problem eventually sort itself by culling the idiots out of the heard. :rolleyes: #justsaying :D

Depends on your GP I have found out.

I had a word with my work place occupational nurse who informed me (as stated here) we do NOT need vaccinations to travel to the Caribbean . However my Fiancee was recently at her local GP for her flu shot, While she was there the GP was chatting away about our forthcoming wedding and if we booked the honeymoon yet. When she told him where we were going he said he would get us BOTH booked in as soon as possible for....

Hepatitis A

Tetanus

Diphtheria

Hepatitis B

Typhoid

Yellow fever

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

I guess there is not harm in getting these but I really suspect the injections we have been told to get are precautionary and down to our local GP being cautious rather than we actually needing them to travel.

To anyone sailing on the Epic for the first time and reading any threads that are full of negativity, please do not let them put you off or cause you any concern.

This was my first cruise so have nothing to compare the experience with but I can tell you me and my DW have had the most wonderful time. Accommodation, entertainment, staff, food, itinerary etc were all top notch and we can't wait to have enough money to sail on the Epic again.

 

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Forums mobile app

Thats great to hear. We are booked on the Epic in February and after reading some of the negative comments here I was getting worried. I am starting to think a lot of comments posted here are made by some folk who would complain about anything no matter what level of service the received.

My dad forgot to leave his car keys. I was meant to drop them off at the airport and drive his car back home afterwards. The drop off went fine. I left the car in the car park where we dropped them off and popped to a nearby shopping center for 2 or 3 hours and came back to the car...It was then I remembered he had the key less entry token in his pocket and he was now on the plane. To make matters worse my house keys were locked safely inside his car and I was 2.5 hours drive from home! :eek::eek:

Both my fiancee and I experienced this after our last cruise. Weirdly it only appeared after we arrived back home from the airport and were chilling. Like most folk it lasted a 2 or 3 days and was quite a strange feeling but neither of us were really bothered too much with it.

deposit already taken out for both.. not sure what's going on anymore.. just looking at this stupid thing and now I can't sleep! bah hum bug!! :D

I would double check and then check at least 3 more times with them via the phone and ask for email confirmation of the booking date, times, sail dates and anything else you are expecting.

Very very Long story cut short here : Celeb tried to get us to pay close to £12,000 on a 2 week B2B cruise for our honeymoon after claiming we only booked for 7 days and not the 14 day cruise that we asked for on the phone. Phone call recording evidence proving our side of the story mysteriously was missing.

So my advice is check absolute everything you can to confirm the booking and prices you have are 100% correct.