taffy12

A question for the best community of photographers I know: where do you get your photos printed? For standard sizes - 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 - I'm actually super happy with Target's in-store photo lab processing...but they don't do non-standard sizes and I can't find an online-based company that I'm happy with. Target's online printing isn't as good. Nations Photo Lab is ok, but not as crisp and sharp as I'm used to. Any suggestions? I'm mostly looking to print 8x12s and square photos. Thanks!

Not a novel, but a fun read for any cruise aficionados. "Burning Cold" by Paul Jeffers. The story of the Prinsendam sinking in October 2008. I was half way though it on a HAL cruise a few years ago when I heard a male voice say "REALLY"??!! I looked up and it was the captain. He just shook his head, smiled, and walked away.

Ha! That's hilarious.

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I went ahead and booked Portland. Between the flight and the rental car, I would have saved $380 (just for me - one person!) by flying into Boston, but I wasn't keen on the drive :-/

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Advice, please! Do you think I could make a 5:15 flight out of Boston if I'm driving down from Bar Harbor, five hours away?? I can't drive five hours all at once so I'd have to factor in a couple of quick stops, not to mention time to turn in my rental car and catch the shuttle to the airport...

We love the Radisson Resort at the Port!!!

Some great points, martincath! Thank you for the thorough response!

Thank you, all!

Hello all. This is not a cruise question, but I felt you all would be great people to ask. I'll be going on a 9-hour lighthouse tour out of Bar Harbor at the end of July, weaving up to see the lights along the northern Maine coast and the very southern bits of Canada. I'm very worried about getting seasick, and I look to you all for advice. I don't usually get seasick. I've been on something like fifteen cruises, plus some long and choppy tender rides (we got caught in a storm coming back to the ship in Belize once!) and several dolphin tours out of the southern US. I've been seasick exactly twice: on a glass-bottom boat tour in the Bahamas...and on a whale-watching trip out of Gloucester, Massachusetts last October. It's this last trip that has me worried; I was ok when we were sailing, but became quite ill and miserable as we bobbed around in the open water watching whales. I don't think trying to take pictures with a zoom lens on my DSLR did me any favors.

So I ask...do you think I should be concerned about my lighthouse tour, and what can I do to prevent seasickness? This boat will be a double-hulled catamaran, which I've heard will help - hopefully. And a friend recommended taking Bonine every twelve hours, starting 24 hours before my trip. What do you all recommend?

Hello all. This is not a cruise question, but I felt you all would be great people to ask. I'll be going on a 9-hour lighthouse tour out of Bar Harbor at the end of July, weaving up to see the lights along the northern Maine coast and the very southern bits of Canada. I'm very worried about getting seasick, and I look to you all for advice. I don't usually get seasick. I've been on something like fifteen cruises, plus some long and choppy tender rides (we got caught in a storm coming back to the ship in Belize once!) and several dolphin tours out of the southern US. I've been seasick exactly twice: on a glass-bottom boat tour in the Bahamas...and on a whale-watching trip out of Gloucester, Massachusetts last October. It's this last trip that has me worried; I was ok when we were sailing, but became quite ill and miserable as we bobbed around in the open water watching whales. I don't think trying to take pictures with a zoom lens on my DSLR did me any favors.

So I ask...do you think I should be concerned about my lighthouse tour, and what can I do to prevent seasickness? This boat will be a double-hulled catamaran, which I've heard will help - hopefully. And a friend recommended taking Bonine every twelve hours, starting 24 hours before my trip. What do you all recommend?

It will depend upon the weather. I've done a whale-watch trip on that boat, and it's a pretty good size, but if it's rough, you will feel it. The motion of even a fairly large boat is very different from a cruise ship; I've seen people who have no trouble on small vessels get deathly ill on large ships, and vice-versa. I think you're asking for an assurance that really doesn't exist. Take medication with you and be prepared for anything. It may be like glass on the water when you go, and you won't need it, but better to have it just in case. They probably won't go out if it's going to be really unpleasant, but people react differently to sea conditions. I once crossed the English Channel on a hovercraft from Calais to Dover and what I thought was just a mild chop caused the passenger sitting next to me to vomit into a bag during the entire journey.

I'm not too concerned. The only time I've ever gotten really seasick was on a glass-bottom boat in calm Bahamian waters. Twas something about looking down, I suppose, because I've handled all other small boats on up to cruise ships just fine. I just wanted to know what to expect. Thank you :-).

A friend recommended Bonine every twelve hours starting 24 hours before the trip. What do others with seasickness experience suggest?

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I'll be going with Cape Ann Whale Watch out of Gloucester. It looks like a pretty big boat... How does that compare?

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I plan to take a whale-watching trip off the coast of Massachusetts next month. I've had two people now ask if I get seasick and one even advised me to take seasickness medication even though I don't typically get ill. Is it really that bad??

I'm not actually visiting on a cruise, but I can think of no better people to ask for advice, so I hope you don't mind.

I’m going to have one day in Boston and I have some questions. First…is it cool to do Boston on a Sunday? I’m assuming that a big city like that will still be thriving during the weekends, but I just want to make sure I don’t miss out. Second…I’ll be staying an hour away, and visiting in mid-October when the days are shorter, so I know I won’t have that much time. Tell me if I’m biting off more than I can chew, and if so, what’s a must-do and what can be dropped:

I’m planning to do the hop-on, hop-off tour through Old Town Trolley (almost two hours start-to-finish), which includes a Boston Harbor cruise. I’d like to visit the new Boston Tea Party Museum, the Paul Revere House, and the Skywalk Observatory at Prudential Center. I want to spend some time at Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market, and check out the Old Corner Bookstore.

So what do you think? Too much?

That's a good question. I've been wondering the same thing. I have a fear of heights, but I really want to conquer the ropes course and the plank.

 

Can anyone answer this question for us?

Conquer it! I don't have a fear of heights so long as I feel secure and, well, the first time we tried the course, I did not! But you learn to trust the harness and your own balance, and your confidence grows the more you do it! The first time I tried the plank, I made it just a couple of steps before I froze and had to back off of it. Very scary. But on the last day of the cruise, I went through the course a couple of times and, in the end, marched right out there, totally confident and full of adrenaline! I do recommend trying the course while in port of you're nervous though. It gets freaking windy up there while at sea and that adds a whole other dimension to the scary factor!

OK, i'm going to ask a question that may seem dumb. I know on the ropes course you strapped into a harness, but what happens if you slip/fall off the thing you are walking on? Do you just hang there? Do you drop 10 feet? Just haven't heard from anyone who slipped...

There's a good deal of slack so you'd fall a bit, but certainly not ten feet! I'd guess it would probably just be akin to slipping and falling to the ground - no farther than that. We did the course three times though, and never saw anybody slip. I asked one of the people running it if anyone ever falls, and they said the only people that ever do are kids that are rough housing.

I couldn't find an exact height, but let's say its equivalent to deck 17. Deck 3 is usually waterline, so 15 decks at an average of 11 foot per deck puts it in the area of 165 feet above the water.

Thanks :)

Silly question: does anyone know how high the ropes course on Escape is? I conquered it a couple of weeks ago (woo-hoo!) and I'm just curious how far from the water the planks and ziplines really are!

OP, what was your room number?.

11280.

Fortunately, our phones were still under warranty and Apple will replace them for free. We just lost information - pictures and such - that hadn't been backed up since we were at sea :-(. But we aren't looking for compensation. I just wanted to offer a word of warning, really, and then someone suggested we see if anyone else had the same issue.

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I appreciate the heads-up about a possible electrical issue on this ship. It would be useful if the OP posted her cabin number in the thread she started on the NCL forum. But I don't think it needs to be turned into buzz marketing for Apple products (although their share prices could use it :)) Still, I have nothing against the general advice that people should probably use original or officially certified accessories with their expensive electronics, especially with something as finicky and fragile as the iPhone is, evidently. ;)

Oh, that wasn't my intent at all. Just sharing what I was told in case the info might help somebody else.

We were in cabin 11280.

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Calling NCL is your choice, but if there is a problem they do not know about, they cannot stop it and resolve it.

 

They will not accept liability, but as above, if they have some malfunctioning USB charging sockets or electrical problems within a group of Staterooms, they may be able to track it down, and resolve it for future Guests.

 

I would reach out to their customer service dept. and explain your situation, and what Apple have told you.

 

ex techie

Ok, thank you.

Just off this cruise and I have a question: Did anybody else with Apple phones have any problems? My sister and I were in the same stateroom, and both of our iPhone 6's got fried during the cruise. Within a day of each other, both phones stopped charging. We were using different cables and different outlets - I plugged mine into the USB port on the bedside light and she used a regular outlet over the desk. The only similarity is that we were in the same stateroom and both plugged in to the ship's power. I'm thinking about reaching out to Norwegian, but I don't know who to go through. Can anybody advise? And did anyone else have the same thing happen?

taffy12, have you contacted NCL about this yet?

Were you part of an online group on here or FB before the cruise so that you could speak to anyone else that may have had the same charging issue after the cruise?

Did your sister also use an uncertified cable, but an Apple wall wart/block?

 

ex techie

No, unfortunately I wasn't part of any groups and knew nobody else on board with an Apple phone, but perhaps I'll poke around on the old Roll Call boards. Do you think it's worth contacting Norwegian? I'm not even sure who I would try to reach out to...

Yes, my sister used an uncertified cable and an Apple wall adapter.

Ours were off by 30 minutes as well. We booked for 6:00, but the vacation summary showed 5:30, and I confirmed with the dining rooms onboard that 5:30 was indeed what we were scheduled for. We ended up abandoning our reservations though and just going whenever we felt like it, and we never had to wait.

Doubt that the cable had any thing to do with the issue, in spite of what the Apple store said. The cable is nothing more than wires. I suspect that the issue was teh brick that was plugged into the socket.

Escape had USB ports on the bedside lights, and that's how I charged my phone. My sister used the actual outlet on the desk with what I assume is what you're referring to as a brick. We had two different brand cables and used two different charging methods...but the same thing happened to both phones in the same stateroom within a day or two of each other.

A friendly tip to you all: make sure you use whatever the official charging cable for your phone is. In my case, I have an iPhone 6, and I always use the Apple charger at home, but something made me bring my spare, Belkin brand cable on my cruise. Big mistake. My sister did the same thing, and both of us lost our phones on the Norwegian Escape. Mine stopped charging maybe halfway through the cruise, and hers did the same thing a day or two later. After talking to people at the Apple store, we've figured that what probably happened was that there were power surges on the ship that our unofficial cables could not accommodate, thus frying our phones. They are completely dead and cannot be repaired.

And on that note: please make sure you back up your phones before you leave on a cruise. You never know what might happen.