WexIrl

Yes, I always bring a bag of €2 and €1 euro coins with me to slide across the bar and then give the other service folks notes. My wife couldn't fathom this at first and soon came to realize the method to the my 'madness' through observed experience. I have some good stories that have roots in the tips.

On the Escape last June it cost €136.34 each for both teenagers for a 10 day cruise. I can tell you it was worth every euro! I probably used up that amount on their cards playing pool over the 10 days, neverminded what they used it on 😁 Yes, of course they can share, but be wary of the time limit on each card.

Thanks for the replies, the time limit makes sense now as I purchased the packages for the Escape just before the sailing date. Happy Hump Day!

We were on the Escape in 2022 and purchased 2 arcade packages for our two teenagers. We are due to sail on the Getaway in June 2023 and I just tried to search and purchase the same arcade package and I cannot find it on the NCL website (Where I found it previously for the Escape)...I book everything myself..no TA etc Before I go wait in a phone que to find out if its available, has anyone else purchased the arcade package on the Getaway? Thanks in advance.

This is an interesting thread and good insight from the OP perspective, which is very welcome and should be encouraged to give "new" cruisers a bit of color to past and present cruising in terms of offerings/value for money (with inflation considered). I had a recent conversation with a work colleague in relation to holidays/vacation in 2023. Both of us wanted to go on a cruise again, my work colleague once cruised with Royal Caribbean and I twice with NCL. The conversation turned to price point and value and not a company verses company comparison but a "What we want out of a cruise" type of discussion from a personal perspective. To cut a long story short, my colleague got a fantastic black Friday deal with Royal Caribbean in the Mediterranean in May for 2.5K for a family of 3 for a 7 night cruise, balcony state. I got what I thought was a "black Friday deal" a 9 night cruise with NCL in the Mediterranean in June for my family of 4 for more than double that of my colleague. with a balcony state. Taking ships into consideration.. I was previously on the Epic (Honeymoon) and the Escape, the forthcoming June cruise is on the Getaway, I don't think I will see anything new on it, which is OK, I just love to cruise 🍻 and give my kids a good holiday experience (both teenagers). My colleague was on the Oasis of the seas (Honeymoon) previously and is now going on the Symphony of the seas in May. **Both of our cruise price excludes flights etc. I still think I done well with NCL considering I had a similar cruise with NCL in June in 2022 that was almost 3k more expensive for a very similar itinerary/days and same sate balcony. So we laughed, and discussed who was the real winner here ( FYI we are Irish and we take the piss out of each other just to entertain ourselves.... so this post is very much a tongue in cheek because we really don't care at the end of the day.. you pay your money and take your chance 😁 🍻)? I went with NCL due to loyalty, my collogue went with Royal Caribbean due to loyalty. But we also discovered during our chats, that MSC and Costa had some very inviting pricing on cruises at the same time at a much lower price point, alas reading forums on these did put me off a bit so I stuck with NCL for now. Apologies for the long winded post, but I do think we can learn a lot from others, especially those that have frequented this travel/holiday/vacation space before us. Maybe it is time for me to look beyond NCL for our next cruise...... Hope you all have a great 2023 cruising.

We (family of 4) carried our four 20kg suit cases off when the ship docked at 7am, to catch a flight at 11am from FCO airport with Aer Lingus. We used Airports Taxi Transfers.No problem at all, I even had time for 2 pints of local craft beer in the airport 😀 We done the same when docking in Civitavecchia and flying out from Ciampino @ 12 noon back in 2017. Same again, no issues with the private transfer, had time for some food and a couple of pints before take off!

We done the Ice bar on the Epic back in 2017. The vodka was Skyy and it was 3 drinks once inside. The wife and I had great craic in there with a bunch of random people, we all stayed for the full duration and the drinks were quite strong (Or was that just the cut of the cheaper vodka?) 😁 We are on the Getaway again in June 2023, we will definitely do it again for the craic.

"Ncl has like zero precautions." Absolutely ridiculous statement. Is said statement a recent observation or just a broad sweeping statement said for effect of the narrative?

We (family of 4) carried our four 20kg suit cases off when the ship docked at 7am, to catch a flight at 11am that was an hour drive away to the airport. No problem at all, I even had time for 2 pints of local craft beer in the airport 😀

The soda package is the only option we had this summer for our 2 teenagers on our Europe cruise. However, once we got to know the bar tenders over a few days... (and tips) the kids were well looked after with milk shakes, slushies and random mock tails etc by the bar tenders, often with out the kids even asking for them! They were very rarely asked for their cards when they went to any of the bars for a drink.

We were on the the Escape in June this year and I echo your comments on the tendering procedure. It was a $h1t $h0w for us, a family of 4 with 'paid for priority tendering' to be in group 1, to be told when we arrived at group 1, no you are not, go talk to guest services...(yeah that makes sense, by time we talk to them and they agree we had paid for that access, the paid for access will have passed and we will have missed the tender...) Apart from that, great ship, great service, and a fantastic cruise.

Staples, sellotape, blutack, pritt stik. ... the only limitation is your imagination 😁 P.S. I printed my own tags for my Escape cruise 10th June - 20th June. It expeditated the check in process nicely!

Yeah, that sums it up nicely 😁

We were on the same cruise and had the same experience as this.

Hi, I was on the 10th June to 20th June Escape sailing, and I can confirm that we did stop at Corfu.

Haha, aye still do a bit on win 95 for my troubles.

Well with the chat Agents offline.. I just tried an F12 on the web page to look at the HTML code for the link, it looks like bad syntax with the 'on click' function by whoever coded it. I copied the string to a new window and it produced my Maroon luggage tags! Cheers.

Thanks. I tried that clickable link, but it just redirects me back to the landing page of NCL.com

RE: Luggage Tags. I am now slightly concerned, where/when do I receive these tags? I checked in online on the NCL website over a week ago and I downloaded my eDocs, but I do not see anything relating to luggage?