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Interesting .. here's an Irish version which shows the discount/promo codes, obviously no water package on this as I booked over a year ago

I have to say a Matador is my favourite evening drink, on my first cruise it was the special cocktail on the menu for the dinner show. On a few of the ships you can only get it at Maltings. My other old reliables tend to be Dark & stormy, Margarita (any without chili powder are good with me), Mudslide or Honey Lemonade. I did wind up with a Dark & stormy made with Ginger beer instead of ginger ale one night when the bar ran out of ginger ale. The Raspberry guava mojito is my favourite at the mojito bar, I even ordered the guava syrup from Amazon so I could make it at home.

That seems odd for the getaway buffet, they usually have late snacks from 9.30pm to 11/11.30pm I've gone for a slice or two of pizza from there after shows when I had dinner early. The back page of the daily newsletter gives all the opening hours. If getaway is closing the buffet completely that early in the evening they must be dealing with staff or supply shortages like everyone in hospitality right now.

On the entertainment schedule fluctuations, there's always been some changes from normal schedules even before COVID. I had 2 sailings where there was a brand new cast for one of the shows, in both cases it meant that show was only on the latter half of the cruise rather than alternating stagings with the other main show. Then post-COVID I was on 2 sailings of Epic that had cancelled stagings of Priscilla due to individual cast member illness/injuries. Thankfully on the first sailing they managed to get a substitute on-board in time to stage the show before my cruise finished (upside of a Mediterranean itinerary) but on the second one it never got staged(Caribbean itinerary).

Every so often a rugby union outhalf uses the NFL kickers recruitment negotiation tactic to improve their contracts, particularly if they have US connections. Honestly not sure why more of them haven't followed through on it, NFL would be so much easier and much more lucrative for them.

Try being a rugby fan on a cruise ship… I’ve now mastered the art of finding the strongest WiFi on the ship to use the vpn streaming of my Irish tv subscription services . My next cruise is overlapping the rugby World Cup, I’m hoping if Ireland are still involved in the tournament they’ll have the decency to be in the games that don’t clash with embarkation and disembarkation.

I’ll be pre purchasing the WiFi upgrade myself as I suspect NCL will inevitably be putting the price up sometime soon.

I’m looking forward to you relating your experience, I definitely like the idea of the air tags for finding each other. I’m currently trying to persuade a friend to come along on a cruise in October and we’ll be in separate cabins if she comes.

If you want credit from your 150mins against an unlimited plan you have to upgrade before you use any minutes. They only sell the unlimited plans up to the end of day 2 after that you can just buy minutes add-ons. There is a tactic to not use minutes or buy unlimited on Day 1, instead buy the unlimited plan with your minutes discount after midnight and there’s a day’s charge taken off the cost of the unlimited plan so you only pay for 6 days rather than 7. white hot party has been replaced with the glow party, mostly still folks in white but neon colours now added to the mic

Unfortunately not building their schedule of events/shows around port schedules seems to be a failing across NCL. I noticed it particularly with the solos meet-ups being scheduled for 5 or 5.30pm no matter the hours in port were on every sailing I’ve done much to the disgust of the majority of solos.

Every cruise I’ve done there’s always been some solos who preferred to dine later. As well as some that prefer the specialty dining so there can sometimes be multiple groups or just a smaller few going to dinner.

That is the most detailed schedule I’ve ever seen from the solos host! Hope it carries on to future hosts on the bliss.

I’ve seen a mix on previous cruises some of it seems to depend on their relationship with the theatre manager and restaurant maitre’ds and overall policy on the ship. I wanted feedback on Bliss so that I’d have an idea of whether they’re allowed to do the show bookings or not. The minimum for all hosts seems to be the MDR nightly reservation rotating between the MDRs and everything after that varies from ship to ship and host to host.

Just checked mine this morning, it's showing a €100 increase on the base fare but the balance owed hasn't changed. In my case there is the added uncertainty of changing exchange rates.

Thanks for that ! I'll definitely check into that organisation, I've a cousin who's an artist coordinator and curator, I know how widely she spreads her network of contacts so they're probably the same.

Btw a note about those 2 excursions, totem bight park is further North of ward cove so you don’t go anywhere near Ketchikan town. Saxman is south of the town so you pass through Ketchikan to get to it. from the research I did you can do a public bus from ward cove to totem bight park but it’s not well signposted and it’s a bit of a walk to the bus stop.

I’d check with a local transport company. NCL do an airport transfer to fiumico (?) but not ciampino. Ciampino is the airport used by Ryanair and other European budget airlines and is further from the port.

My personal rule on cruiseline v booking directly for excursions is that as long as there’s a possible alternative transport to get back to the ship then you don’t need to bother booking via the cruiseline. But if an excursion involves a boat or train then book via the cruiseline in case of mechanical failure. In the Caribbean there’ll be tour companies and taxis at the main ports offering all sorts of excursions and there’s usually flat fees for taxis to the most popular destinations if you want to wait until you reach the port to decide what you want to do or want to haggle with the locals. As others have suggested check the ports of call forums here, but also check trip advisor and viator. Do check the t&cs on excursions to ensure a full refund if the ship misses the port.

possibly and probably. But work means no holidays at any other date that works for Alaska. Plus I'm Irish and live on the west coast of Ireland in a surf town so the weather isn't a factor.

I'm having similar dilemmas but I discovered there are totem poles dotted around downtown that are within easy walking distance from the shuttle drop off. Unfortunately it looks like the Totem heritage centre hours won't align with Bliss' port times as it doesn't open until 1pm (according to google). You can however always go there and see the exterior and there is a circle of poles outside cape fox lodge which connects to Creek Street via a Funicular if you don't want to walk the married men's path. My plan at the moment is to get the earliest shuttle into town, head for creek street and then up to cape fox lodge and over to the heritage centre ..I've pinned a few of the spots around the town with totem poles on a google map along with the location I think the shuttle will be using for drop off and pick up. I am cheating a little by booking the lumberjack show simply because it finishes later than the last shuttle back to Ward cove but I need to talk to the excursion desk folks about whether they'll let me meet the excursion in town rather than have to return to ward cove to meet it.

I'm just wary of getting something expensive shipped to a hotel and being an international customer I'm probably going to have to jump through more hoops.

I'm hoping there are some folks who've been solo on Bliss lately that can answer this. Does the solos coordinator pre-book any of the shows for a solos group ? i.e. do I need to run off to the entertainment booking desk as soon as I embark to book Six and Jersey Boys ? I'm not cruising until October but from recent reviews it looks like it won't be possible to pre-book before embarkation and I haven't seen any posts about the solos hosts on Bliss. On my pre-covid cruises the hosts booked about 20 seats for the 2 main shows but I haven't heard if this is happening now.

In the few years I’ve been cruising it’s mostly been a 30day final payment, at one point briefly it was 60days but it’s always been a non refundable deposit (we do have 14day window for change of mind if booking online thanks to eu rules). I did manage to get a deposit transferred to a different booking once before covid, I’m not sure that would be possible these days.

I suspect a lot of places will already be closed. If it’s anything like Irish tourist towns they probably rely on a lot of students for in-season staffing and they’ll all be back at school by October. Or they’ll have switched focus to non-cruise tourists like we do.

Btw in terms of changing itineraries “after final payment “ what is that window for most of you? My deadline for final payment is 30 days before sailing but then my deposit is also non refundable. If they change itineraries within the 30day window then it’d better be a damn good reason. They changed the arrival time for Victoria on my Alaska cruise but they gave me that update a year before the sail date and it doesn’t make much of a difference on that itinerary anyway.