PatandStu

I received notification today by email that my application was conditionally approved. The next paragraph indicated “book an appointment”. There are none available within a 6 hour drive of our home for at least a year. 
Do renewals require an in-person interview? 
I did my husband’s renewal application at the same time & he hasn’t received an email yet. 

We applied for our nexus renewal last week. Other than taking our payment, there’s been no further word other than the generic “keep checking back” and notice of the automatic 2 year extension. Ours expire June 2023. 

My previous ta always gave an obc and a gift like strawberries. I used a different ta for our February cruise as her agency was the only one that would take my avion points as payment. But, I find her not as knowledgeable about cruises as my previous ta and there has been no mention so far of any obc or gift. 
Now that all my points are gone, I’ll go back to my previous ta. Not so much for the obc, but for the better service.

Sthrngary, we enjoy fine dining & getting dressed up. But, equally like the shows. So far our two dinners are booked for 7:30 & 7:00 on sea days. 
Our preference is going to a show on a “not-specialty-dinner” night. There’s nothing worse than constantly looking at your watch while enjoying an exquisite meal. 
I’ll look for recent dailies from the Breakaway and see if I can ascertain a pattern. 

So it’s a bit of a crap shoot booking dinners in advance? 

We are 120 days out from our Breakaway cruise out of New Orleans. This morning, I was able to book our 2 specialty restaurants. But, of course the concern is we’ll be dining while the shows are on. The website says it’s too early to book Six or Burn the Floor.

When do these normally open up? 
And, is there a “usual” time for the shows? 
We will likely buy 2 more dinners but want to wait to book the shows first. 
Let the countdown begin!

On 9/30/2022 at 5:59 PM, ChiefMateJRK said:

Was it always overcooked like my single experience?

Yes. We found all the meat to be well done. When the lamb arrived well done, we asked for some with at least some pink shoeing, and were told “that’s not how we cook it here”. We may have hit a bad night, but having mashed potatoes sitting there cooling for 10 minutes before any meat arrived was not acceptable to us. It was too bad because we’d heard rave reviews. I do say the salad bar was stellar; too bad the main course didn’t match up. 

I second the light scunchable down jacket. We were on a cruise in January a few years ago; our 2nd flight was postponed a day and the airline put us up in a hotel for the night. But, we had to wait outside for the hotel shuttle. Believe me, I’d have paid anyone any amount for a warm coat & gloves! 

Our experience at Moderno was only fair. All our sides were delivered 10 minutes before any meat arrived. We like our meat medium and each carver said “that’s coming next”-it never did. We loved the salad bar but it won’t be our first choice for dining. Teppanaki was a good show, but the food was average. Our first choices are Cagney’s & Bistro followed by Cucina.  We are eager to try Ocean Blue on our February Breakaway sailing. 

Pre-pandemic, my sister, parents & I cruised on breakaway in January. All cabins were sold and we were able to move around fairly well. My brother took his 3 teens during a school break & he said “never again”. My nephews couldn’t get onto the basketball court or any other activities due to huge lineups. The buffet was crazy! 
So, there’s a difference between all cabins sold with an average of 2 per cabin, and all cabins sold with 3-4 per cabin. 
Luckily, we can avoid school holidays. 

I have a good friend who turns 55 in 2024 and I’d like to treat her to a cruise. She’s been Ill on very small boats (less than 30’) so is concerned she’ll “waste” money. What can I tell her to convince her that cruising is fabulous? 

Thanks for the replies. After much consideration, we have decided to wait till our next cruise to book an aft facing balcony. 
Thanks also for the concerns regarding open doors & AC function. We will certainly keep that in mind. 

DH has always dreamed of an aft cabin & one is available for our February sailing. But, it’s right above Moderno & Cagney’s. Will it be noisy? Also DH likes to sleep with the balcony door open. Noise? Smell? 
can our upstairs neighbours look down on us?
Any input welcome.

thanks, Pat

I was able to see photos of my cabin on that site. DH wanted to be sure he was facing the balcony window, and he is! It is $8.99 to join for one year. Depends how badly you want to see photos, I guess! 
and I see your cabin has photos available.

Found photos. Bed is by the closet, but DH gets “his side” so we will keep the cabin. Now to wait, and wait and wait!

DH & I are on the Breakaway in cabin 11818 next year.  I’d prefer the bed by the balcony and DH wants “his side” of the bed to be facing the balcony door. Without waiting on hold for hours with NCL, is there a way to determine the setup for a particular cabin? I’ve booked with a TA and she “thinks” we’ll be ok. 

I mistakenly thought our specialty meal package would include 3 restaurants as in previous years. Now I notice on my reservation there are only 2. 
To buy 2 more would be $89 CAD per person. (There is no option for one more)
We had hoped to go to Cagney’s, Bistro & Ocean Blue. 
Does anyone, by chance, have current menus showing pricing so we can decide whether or not to splurge & go up to 4 or stick with 2 & decide once on board whether to pay a la carte for a third. 
We have previously tried Teppanaki, Moderna & Cuccina, they weren’t our preferred. 

As much as we’d love the idea of a large balcony, we have visions of folks on deck 10 staring down at us all the time! Has anyone stayed on deck 9 and had issues with upstairs neighbours? 

319 days=way too long! Breakaway out of NO-a city on our bucket list so we’ll spend a few days pre-cruise. 

When we were on the Dawn we always sat at that lounge. We were often the only ones there. Yes, we could hear the music but it wasn’t overwhelming. 

There was no drink service, we had to run down to the bar and grab our own 

One of the guests at our table requested a vegetarian meal. As I recall it was a pasta dish and he raved about it.

I have no objections to an indoor smoking area for cigars and cigarettes. 

But given the size of the ships, surely there’s a place away from specialty restaurants that the room could be placed, perhaps with a door that opens to the outside. 

My sister and I did this. 

We had an issue in line as the “gentleman” behind us was trying to provoke the gentleman in front of us with brash political comments. We had to be firm with the hostess to not seat us with the boorish one. (I’m pretty sure he was the one escorted out partway through lunch for being loud). 

Some wines we liked, others not at all. But we “traded” with others at the table. 

A little too much wine for me in the middle of the day-the pours were generous! 

I thought it was worth the money; my sister didn’t enjoy it very much. 

We had 4 sea days on our cruise-not sure I’d do it if there was only one or two sea days-too many other things to do. 

Does anyone know if the seas were calm enough today for them to tender? 

It hasn’t run very often the past few sailings. 

The Port Canaveral webcam at 6:15 showed Epic still tied up. 

Because it’s now focused on a departing Disney ship, I can’t see where the Epic is, although ***** shows Epic still moored.

She seems to have had her share of woes this year!