Firstin87

I would think that getting your OBC through use of NCL's credit card would be easier to use to pre-book excursion than OBC acquired from any other method.  I'm not familiar with the details of NCL's credit card - is the OBC refundable or non-refundable?  I would guess it si refundable, but... maybe not....

Good to know.  Thanks.

On 2/1/2023 at 2:03 PM, kjquilts said:

There are other good videos on YT.  Tall Danny has one but I don't post his videos on CC because of the travel agency advertising.  He does do good videos so worth watching.

 

Have a wonderful cruise.  It's been quite a few years since we were on the Spirit and I'd love to experience her refurbishment.  We enjoy the smaller ships as well as the newer larger ones.

We LOVE 'Tall Danny''s YT videos.  He does an outstanding job - thorough, clear explanations of the benefits you get with a suite.  His videos are our 'go to' anytime we want to see a room or ship tour. 

NCL used to let you use OBC to pre-book shorex, but have stopped since the return from the pandemic.

Hi,

We're on that Roll Call, too.  On a previous cruise we were on, the M&G host had a good idea to get everyone up and moving and talking to each other.  He handed out a list to everyone to fill out that was full of "find someone who..." and you had to find a person, not in your group, who met that criteria.  Wasn't done as a competition, as people do help others find the "someone who...".  Might not be too time consuming to create the list.  I remember it had items like:

"has 3 or more children", "is on their first cruise", "is from Europe", "drives a car from the 1980's".

It was done by a fellow named Mike, who has been on a zillion cruises and usually hosts the M&Gs.  You can try to contact him at @casofilia and see if he can help you.  Helpful guy.  He may also reply to this thread if he sees it.

With a group that large, NCL's cruise director's staff might be willing/able to have a person run some large group game(s).  Maybe split people up into several teams of unrelated people and do a short trivia or emoji guessing game.

I think MNJones is on the current sailing of the Sun.  Perhaps he can ask the cruise director's staff or help or suggestions for you.  Asking in person well in advance is better than trying to ask them to help more than they usually do the night before, of course.

Cyndy

Another dinner with a bottle of wine wouldn't be turned down, either.

We are Sapphire and NCL's Latitudes Tier Benefits list shows us getting one bag of laundry each.  I also checked their "Terms and Conditions" and didn't see anything about getting more than one bag per person.  Where do you see that it increases to 2 bags per person for a 14 day cruise?  That would be great!   I've used is many times, most recently in Feb. on a 9 day cruise and, like you said, just write "Latitudes" on the slip.

Hi,

I'm planning for our 20 day cruise next month and am wondering if anyone who has been on a very lengthy NCL cruise remembers how many times they offered the "fill the bag of $29" laundry special?  We've got two free bags of laundry (love how much they hold!) and it would be helpful to know how many $29 specials I might also be able to use.  Would like to be able to only bring two suitcases.

TIA,

Cyndy

Currently on Riviera - use the description from AMHunt Ferry above.  Dark, no fading, look new jeans with nice shoes and top would be fine.  My DH usually wears dockers to dinner, but ‘nice’ jeans would be fine, too.  Be sure not to wear tennis shoes or flip flops.  Men - collared shirt. Women - nice top.  No tees.  Nothing with slogans.  Color coordinated.

some people choose to really dress up.  Others stick more to the resort casual.  I suspect that luggage space contributes to that decision - lol.

Yes, we embarked yesterday.  Beautiful ship!

Thanks, hawkesbaynz.  I can picture the smart casual and 'popping out to the hardware store", but I've got to ask what is "care home casual" - lol.

Making clothing choices the next couple days and it feels odd to be going through my warm weather clothes while here in the San Francisco Bay Area we are having very cold weather, more rain in the forecast, and snow in some mountain areas.  Not the norm here at all.

3 hours ago, rbtan said:

Jacket is not required. I think it looks a little nicer in the specialties. Temps on the Riviera tend to run pretty warm. My husband drives me nuts by dropping the thermostat to its lowest setting.I guess snuggling has its merits.

Maybe that's why he lowers the temp... I'm usually the one who gets cold all the time, but lately my husband gets cold at higher temperatures than he used to.  We're packing a sport coat more for weather than for dress code.

Now I'm on the fence about a nice dress, heels, and nylons for specialty nights.  Might bring them to make those evenings more of a 'date night'.  We leave next week, so I'm starting to make outfit choices - my favorite part of getting ready.

4 hours ago, Guppy99 said:

no need whatsoever, unless you want to buy new shoes or the ones she has a rubber flip flops. Nice sandals are perfectly acceptable. Even fancy flip flops are just fine.

Skipping the show shopping.  My sandals are nice - not flip flops - and fairly new.  Sounds like they will be just fine with a sundress for the GDR.  For specialty restaurants, I'll wear a nice dress, heels, and nylons.  DH is harder to dress, in a way, as I would think Hawaiian shirts with dockers should be fine for the GDR (we'll be in the Caribbean) and a dress shirt and sport coat for the specialties.  He has new colored jeans (black and tan) which I would think don't count as 'casual jeans' that should be OK for the GDR, but he'll have Dockers, too.

We were on the bus ahead of you, then.  It sure was nice not to have any crowded areas onboard.  You don't sound familiar, so if we saw each other it was probably just in passing.  Glad you and yours had a good time, also.

Loved the Aviary in Cartagena.  I got to hold a baby sloth, so that was quite a highlight of the trip.  We did an excursion to the walled city and we could certainly have done without all the vendors every step you took.

Good advice from Mrs. Acrusa.  Repeats and mix-and-match, with a few trips to the laundry room onboard, which I hear is a nice way to meet people, too.  Hope you are enjoying your trip!

33 minutes ago, Epicurean C said:

I think dressing better enhances the whole experience. Look good. Feel good. You probably will get treated better, and perhaps you treat others better. Win-Win-Win-Win!

 

Nice to see some familiar Oceania cruisers here. 

I agree that dressing up a bit makes the experience more special.  What can be challenging is trying to balance packing for a 20 day cruise with not bringing too much luggage since we are flying with not under- or over-packing and either having to do laundry quite often or finding that we brought a lot of unnecessary items to lug around airports.  I am looking forward to wearing a couple of my nicer dresses that I don't wear often, and my husband will dig his old dress shirts from work out of the closet for the specialty restaurants.

11 minutes ago, Acrusa said:

On Riviera now and my wife and I have noticed more men wearing jackets in the GDR.

I wear a jacket only in the specialty restaurants. 

Do you feel you fit in OK at GDR without a jacket?  Does it get cold there?

How funny - we may have been on the same bus and seen you throughout the cruise and not know it.  I think the process devolved as the day went on as the buses were loaded and got to the pier faster than they were unloaded and the security line could move.  The lack of communication added to the mess

The cruise was great, though.  Excellent service, good food, met lots of great people (maybe even you).

I see your point about the second gangway and being concerned about safety.  When we were there on the Jewel (Sat.), there was no construction equipment in the way.  Maybe safety was a concern that kept only one gangway open.  Overall, though, there is room for improvement on everyone's part, especially the port itself, to have a smoother process.

One aspect that we found upsetting was that nothing was done to acknowledge the massive headaches and extreme inconvenience people experienced before boarding.  Like I wrote in my original post, no announcements were made all day about it, nothing done for the passengers (free drinks, specialty dining, something).  If I were in a position of authority onboard, I would have been making hourly announcements apologizing for the embarkation delays and discomfort and have offered something.  The first PA announcement was by the Cruise Director (Tahana) that began the Muster Drill and there was no acknowledgement about the headaches of the day.  There were also no announcements regarding the change of Muster Drill time.  Just very unprofessional handling of communication and no expression of concern for passengers by NCL.

2 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

@Firstin87, I'm really sorry you had this experience!  We just returned today from B2B Panama Canal cruises on the Gem: NY to Fuerte Amador, and Fuerte Amador to NY.  Feb. 6 was the turnaround day for the Gem at Fuerte Amador, and as I posted then in the Panama Canal forum, the cruise terminal is still an unfinished, chaotic mess.  NCL and other cruise lines have certainly been sold a bill of goods by Panama.  

 

I think NCL did the best it could by using the Convention Center as though it were a cruise terminal for check in, but the whole situation with the shuttle buses to and from the ship to the Convention Center was an incredible waste of time, whether you were embarking, disembarking, or, like some of us on the B2B, merely getting off the ship for the day to do some sightseeing.

 

When we got back to the Convention Center in the early afternoon, we were directed to a shuttle bus to get back to the ship, and had to wait while it filled.  When the bus finally got to the pier, we had to sit and wait about 20 minutes, because there was no room for the bus to pull down the pier to the ship.  The only good news for us was that because we were "in transit" as B2Bers and had been given stickers saying so, we were allowed to proceed directly onto the ship and did not have to wait in that security screening line with embarking guests and then have to walk halfway down the pier to the only gangway.   (I'm not sure why, since everyone has to go through security to get back on the ship in every port.)

 

For those wondering what things look like around the actual cruise terminal, here are a few photos.  I don't think it's going to be finished anytime soon:

 

 

 

 

I agree that using the Convention Center for check in was the best option.  I would stress that if people put their luggage tags on ahead of time it will be a significant time saver for everyone.  That was a real congestion point that is easily avoidable.  NCL should also be handing our tags for those in line who need them to fill out and attach before reaching the check in table.

The buses are their only option for getting people to the ship, but there has got to be a better, faster way for unloading and boarding the ship.  Don't know why only one gangway was open - two would have really sped things up.  This system also makes it hard for supplied to be loaded onboard, including luggage, which also delays sail away. 

11 hours ago, vacation44 said:

Even though we do not have any embarkations for this port, I wanted to say your post will be very informative to others.

Thank you.  

3 hours ago, Longstockingpippi1 said:

Thanks for the update/ insight. Any idea how they are handling wheelchairs? I imagine they must have to contract  some medical transportation ( with lifts). 
Luckily, we don’t embark from there, we disembark. And double lucky for us I splurged and got a suite, so that should help us disembark. 🤞🏻🤞🏻. Thanks again. 

We saw a van/bus that appeared to be for wheelchairs.  I think they were given a bit of priority, too, but am not 100% sure about that.

As someone posted earlier, they disembarked in Fuerte Amador with no issues.  I think disembarkation will be smoother than embarkation due to not having to go through security, for one.  Having everyone bused to some other location will make it slower than usual, but the earlier poster didn't notice any real problems.  Being priority will also help, of course. 

43 minutes ago, biggerbearmom said:

We disembarked on February 11 at Fuerte Amador and there was no problem whatsoever. We collected our luggage, boarded a bus and off we went to the Panama Hilton.

Great!  The Hilton was lovely.  We stayed there the night before embarking.

1 hour ago, Early_5 said:

I was thinking of the traffic congestion of everyone trying to return to the city. Plus the threat of road blocks. 

I would think traffic might be an issue - slower bus ride - but sounds like minor, if at all.

2 hours ago, Early_5 said:

Do you think the priority boarding was valuable in this situation?

YES!!!!  We would have been sitting on a bus for 2 hrs., standing in a slow moving line in the heat for at least another hr. before boarding.