DuckTollerFans

1 hour ago, Turtles06 said:

I suggest you head over to the Canada/NE forum for great info on your ports. 

Plenty of options other than NCL tours.  (But yes, it seems odd not to have those posted now.)
 

Make sure to get a Holy Donut in Portland. The best donuts ever! 

Yep, I've been checking that forum too - lots of good ideas of what to do/not to do. Thanks for the donut recommendation.  I see Breweries in our future there too.

I'm guessing with such a port intensive journey the dailies will not be too full of activities.

We got the Excursion credits as one of our perks. Kind of comparing the NCL excursions to private ones. 

Hello -

We just booked this for a late May vacation.   I think this is a new itinerary for the Pearl (but been done on plenty others.)

It could be I'm not using the search function right - was hoping to see some dailies for the trip assuming that there's not that much variation even if it is a different ship.

Also, looking through the excursions - nothing even listed for the last 2 days: Portland and Newport.  Isn't that odd for only 90 days out?

5 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Those aren't sales... they are just price fluctuations due to supply and demand. They may be good deals, but they aren't "sales".

What she said 👆

The emails promoting "sales" are enough to get me to look often.  When I was looking at the supposed sales for next year I came across one for THIS year that I probably would not have looked at otherwise.  And thanks to the fluctuation in supply and demand, as of 1 pm we are now booked for May 2020 at a far less expensive fare than I hoped to find.  🙂

And, as a marketing professional, I see their sales emails are doing exactly what they should --- driving traffic to the website.  They win. I won, too.

(Hi Jamie! Been to Swans lately?!)

Ha! My husband said it looks like the plastic shopping bags that get caught in bare tree limbs during a wind storm.

4 hours ago, TheDougOut said:

Tammy’s Chocolates of the World event... A huge turnout!  All remaining chocolates are gifted to the crew.

 

 

 

Hedonist Salted Caramels! The best!

 

 

 

. 

Before we took our first cruise (which YOU were on!), I never expected to be "afflicted" with this illness.  But it happened. "Bigly."  We've had one since then, but don't have any on the schedule yet, and it's killing me not to pull the trigger on a new reservation.  I think we might pick one for 2021, and hope that some <stupid job upheaval> clears up sooner rather than later, and we can do something in 2020, too.

Anyway, @graphicguy very happy for your upcoming adventure.  And we'll expect reviews and photos, of course!

I'd mix it up a bit.  Have the M&G and Slot Pull on one day, and the Pub Crawl on another. 

Our pub crawl lasted the better part of the afternoon.  We visited 5 or 6 spots and spent 1/2 hour or so at each.

We really enjoyed After Midnight.  Yep, I'm over 60 (eek!) but I am also a musical performer and valued the singers, dancers' incredible talent and the exceptional orchestra. Costumes were great too. No plot to this or to Choir of Man but in both cases the musical talent and presentations were top-notch.

If you go to the early shows, book an 8.30 or 9 pm dinner.

We booked Choir of Man by phone, too.... and once on board we booked it for a second night using the big screens scattered around the ship.

Best:

• Gotta admit that the planning and anticipation is a big part of the experience (see last best point)
• Freestyle - for all the reasons mentioned above
• Unpacking once and then locking everything in the safe and only having our key card with us
• Being on the water
• The variety of restaurants where I don't worry about the price of the meal
• Drinking without the worry of driving
• Visiting new places
• Back home, sharing our stories with other cruising fans

Least

• The expense of getting to the port and parking.  It can add quite a bit of extra expense for us
• Pushy people at the elevators
• the cons are far, far outnumbered by the good bits

23 hours ago, luke0902@aol.com said:

Were on the Jade in February, and Jackie Tan, the cruise director really enhanced the experience. Funny, clever, personable. Wish I knew what ship he is on..Excellent entertainment-everyone's different, but when I'm on a cruise, I will see a show twice in one night, and thoroughly enjoy it both times. 

Luke,

Jackie was on our Escape cruise the first week of June.  He was also leaving the ship on June 9, and I'm not sure if he was taking a leave or leaving NCL completely.

He was excellent, and seemed to be EVERYWHERE!

We did Wine Lovers: The Musical for a lunch on our last sea day.  It was about $24.

Some of the "After Midnight" performers were the cast and they were excellent.

Food and wine -- one of the best meals of the week. Here's the menu for both food and wine.  And I'll tell you -- these were hearty pours of wine, too!

Tip: Go early to get a good seat.  We were near-ish the stage, but the people between us and the stage were not really into being so close.

On our recent cruise, we met 2x to play a game "Left - Right - Center" -- winners won about $60.  It's an easy little dice game, and each player started with $3. We played in the late morning, and Cagneys was very good about setting tables together for us.

We had mixed experiences at Cagney's in early June. 

My husband's beef (filet) was fair, a bit dry for his taste.  His appetizer of Oysters Rockefeller made him happy though.

I had a delicious crab cake appetizer and fantastic lamb chops.  (If I'd been at home I would have gnawed at the bones to get every last bit!)   The biggest complaint about the meal was my broccoli.  It was barely warm, had no seasoning, and clearly an afterthought. I think in many of the restaurants veggies are a real afterthought.

Also, we had to ask/wait for a wine list.

By far the best beef we had was at the Wine Tasting: The Musical. 

1 hour ago, zqvol said:

IMO  Taste or Savor (whichever ONE is  open (they will not both  be open)) is the place  to  go.

On our recent cruise (6/2) both were open and keeping very busy.  We had lunch at one of them though without my notes I'm not sure which one.  I had the Cajun mahi mahi on a pretzel bun.

I should have said that the Choir of Man and After Midnight were in the theater. We saw the Choir of Man twice - and go early and get a beer on stage w the cast!

Howl at the Moon was a hoot! Almost as much fun as the cast was watching the people in the audience. 

All musicians on board are incredibly talented!

The selection of wines $15 or less is limited, but they were good for the most part. 

Choir of Man and After Midnight.  We saw both last week. Both were excellent. 

There were also various comedians or magicians which we didn't see. 

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

The time on your eDocs is meaningless for any NCL sailing.

I take it as suggestion, not rule. 🙂

I was surprised to see my eDocs say boarding began at 12.   I was thinking of arriving closer to 10 than 11. Not so sure right now.

We have that NE cruise on our bucket list, too.  Does that end in Quebec City or Montreal?  Montreal is one of my favorite places to visit - and only about a 5 hour drive for me.

I'm going to have to Google food festivals in Toronto.  If I left home right now, I could be there for dinner.  It's a lot easier for us to get our "Big City Fix" there than it is to travel to NYC.

I'll look for your Semi-Live for tips -- the walking tour sound right up our alley.   As much as I love beaches, we are also very interested in history too.  I mean who goes to Nassau with a must-stop at a museum re: slavery?  Me!

Somehow I missed this earlier -- looks like the ferries arrive on the south, inner elbow, right in the town.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/St.George's,+Bermuda/@32.3817466,-64.6861132,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x8a2d728c2be67107:0x80fc35300f6fa626!8m2!3d32.3819877!4d-64.6769793

Thanks for the pics, @mking8288! Are those at the Dockyard?  We are looking forward to Cruise #2.   What's your next cruise adventure?

We are planning for our day in St. George next month.  Where does the NCL ferry dock in St George, and is it a different location than the public ferry that also runs between there and the Royal Naval Dockyards?

3 hours ago, PelicanBill said:

A couple things to consider and why we park at the pier.

 

1. If your car is a minivan or SUV most Manhattan parking calls it "oversize" and adds a big extra charge per day.  Make sure you know.

 

2. The convenience of having your car at the pier cannot be compared. We pick a self-assist early time and we are off the ship and on the road at 8:30.  No effort to find a pickup along crowded 12th avenue, no hour to get to a place in NJ to get it, no worry about luggage to and from the pier and kids in tow.

PelicanBill -- agreed but like you, we are coming from Rochester, so a hotel will be involved *somewhere* and for the difference of $40 to do the NJ thing (which was a 20 min ride), it was pretty simple.  We are not heading out before dawn for the trip.  

How do you do the trip? I'm open to suggestions that keep the trip in the same price range.

I did the Hilton Garden/Ridgefield last year and it was very convenient, and well organized for us. (2)

We're using it again - I booked it a couple months ago, then re-booked the other day because it went down a bit in price.

Total: one night, breakfast, ride to/from, safe parking = $320 with taxes.  So if parking at the pier is $280 (7x40), we're basically getting room, breakfast, 2 rides, tolls, someone else navigating for $40

We have used the Hilton Garden Inn in Ridgefield Park to get to Manhattan Port - and it could NOT have been any easier.  Trips both ways to/from the port to the hotel were much easier. 

Since we had to stay somewhere overnight anyway, it ended up only being about $60-70 over the price of parking at the pier.  I couldn't find any hotel with a short drive in the morning for better than that.   It's about a 5 hour drive for us to northern NJ and there's an adequate restaurant in the hotel that also has a decent complementary breakfast.

For our first time it was a great experience.  We are most likely doing that again for our 2nd cruise out of Manhattan.

Though you're sailing out of a different port, I suspect the experience would be just as positive.