eileeshb

Some of the older NCL ships have a bridge viewing room and they seem to have added the bridge and engine control rooms back onto the tours this year. I did the pay behind the scenes tour a couple of times before covid which had: theatre dressing rooms - no photos due to IP restrictions on the licensed show costumes, I95 - no photos due to personal info, Main galley - posed photo for the ship photographer of each guest, laundry area, cold storage & butchery, waste recycling centre. The i95 restrictions did vary on each tour.

I’m well aware of that. however as an example in October Norwegian bliss will be the only ship in port yet if you look up the cruise on NCL’s website it says tender. I’m beginning to suspect it’s a snafu on NCL’s website, they’re taking it down for maintenance tonight which means everyone on my cruise has to wait until tomorrow morning to check-in.

Not just happening in Alaska, we had a rubbish summer in Ireland but it stayed okay temps, then we had glorious sunshine the first week of September, but tonight the forecast is for near freezing temperatures! it is not unheard of for us to get the warmest day of the year even as late the last week in September and we were hoping we’d get something like that this year to make up for the rubbish weather in July and August. Meanwhile the surfers are finally getting some decent waves just in time for national championships. normally it would be November or later before we get to freezing temperatures…. This is causing trouble as I’m trying to preserve my warm gear for Alaska in a couple of weeks.

#1 freshly squeezed/pressed juices are not included except for breakfast but processed/bottled juices that they have at the bars for mixing drinks are included, hence the seeming contradiction.

I work in retail in a town that is traditionally a tourist destination here in Ireland. Our domestic tourism has been significantly down on normal levels for the past 2 summers. Last year was explained by folks having travel vouchers to use from the 2 covid travel ban summers, this year it was wholly due to cost and particularly accommodation costs. It was far far cheaper for people to fly to somewhere with guaranteed good weather that it was to holiday in Ireland. As it turned out we had miserable weather from the minute the kids finished school until the day they returned to school. I do the product ordering for our business and the prices have been steadily increasing since early 2021. It initially started to increase because there was a shortage of shipping containers in Asia (apparently they were all full of PPE sitting in Europe & North America). The cost of importing a single container jumped from €1,500 to €20,000 by the end of 2021, then just as the costs started dropping the Ukraine invasion happened and jacked up the fuel costs. The last update I had from the supplier was that shipping is now costing about €15,000 , one surfboard company has pulled their manufacturing back to Europe as the shipping prices now mean even with the higher manufacturing price in Europe it still works out cheaper to manufacture here. I had customers in 2021 that also dealt with imported products and a guy in the food industry was cursing the electronics industry as they could out bid everyone else for containers! Thankfully that is no longer the choke point. A couple of our suppliers are dropping some of their product prices for next summer so hopefully that will be the start of things getting back to “normal” in the supply chain.

From my experience it varies per ship, show and venue. Usually the 2 big shows in the main theatres were reservable but the smaller venues weren’t. I never really paid attention to the comedians, or smaller acts in the main theatre as such, the only non-reservable show I made sure to queue up early for was The Epic Beatles on the epic. The solos hosts have sometimes gotten a group of solo’s a batch of seats in the theatre for the one staging each of the 2 main productions in addition to haven guests effectively having a skip the line via their concierge. I don’t have access yet to check what the situation is for my next cruise but another guest in a suite has already reported that there are 4 options for one of the main shows but only 3 for the other when there would usually 4 for each. That may be because of our port times or maybe there’s some other reason.

I’ll second @karatemom2’s suggestion, get the free shuttle early into town and maybe do a later excursion that is in town. It’s the approach i’ve planned for my cruise on Norwegian bliss . I’ll try to get the shuttle early into town so I can wander around and see the totem poles along with creek street, I’d then go to the lumberjack show and get the excursion transport back from that.

I have to contradict the bird, but there are 2 berths for big ships on the railroad dock, RRF & RRA (forward and Aft). Ships using the forward berth RRF use tenders because that part of the pier is directly inline with the landslide. Ships using RRA use the shuttle bus to move people through the risky area as quickly as possible which is why you’re not supposed to walk through that area of the pier. encore was scheduled to be using RRA this week while Majestic Princess was scheduled for RRA

Don’t worry you’re not wrong, it used to be per port when it was first introduced but changed pretty quickly to per excursion. I think ncl realised more people would book multiple excursions with them so they could jack up the prices on everything.

There’s something weird popping up on NCL itineraries with Juneau as a port of call, they’re showing it as a tender port. Has anything changed in Juneau lately that would suggest this will be the case for the rest of this year and for next year? I know the city is going to be limiting the number of ships visiting but that should ensure all can dock rather than cause more to tender. when I did a search on ncl.com for my upcoming cruise Juneau is showing as a tender port but there’s been no communication to announce such a change. yes this is being discussed on the NCL forum and other social sites, I’m posting this question here because I’m hoping someone local to Juneau/Alaska might have some insight.

There’s an Irish tradition for halloweeen that involves baking things into a cake.. ring = you’ll get married, pea = you won’t marry in the coming year, coin = you’ll be rich, stick = unhappy marriage, rag = poor . It’s a Barmbrack, cake or bread is in the eye of the beholder, it’s a fruit loaf that isn’t quite as sweet as a cake but is definitely sweeter than most bread. I don’t think anyone’s going to start hiding all of those items around a cruise ship.

I could understand if folks just hide a few but there are people bringing dozens of ducks onto cruises with them! Finding one should be a rarity not being so many that not finding one is unusual.

I’ve also found them hidden behind the current day’s menu on embarkation day when they’re laid out alongside the specialty restaurant menus

There’s a bunch of different photo packages, some of which include digital copies. You can preview all the images to decide if you want order some or all and what format you want them in. I don’t know current pricing but there are usually a couple of promos run at various points in the cruise.

Once upon a time there was a filter option for ports of call, a TA might still have access to that type of search. One of my cousins told me her husband got himself a TA license just so he could access way more information to find good prices for their own cruise holidays.

My parents tried having me use those as a kid but it was only as an adult I figured out it wasn’t motion sickness but rather the smell of stale smoke in my dad’s car, ferries and public transport. I have no issues at all these days. the wristbands use pressure point therapy, see an accupuncturist if you’re not sure where to place them so they’re most effective for you.

The closest I can see to your wish list is one itinerary on Norwegian jewel on random dates next summer which has Hubbard glacier rather than glacier bay. Screenshot below..

I can top that .. 16 hours travel so I have no intention of taking a chance on missing the first leg of my journey home with the result that I’m staying the night in Seattle when the cruise ends so I can get home without being completely stressed out.

Always use an incognito tab on the browser when pricing things so it doesn’t keep the history. Then only login when you actually want to buy/book something.

The price does change if your web/app interface uses your local currency rather than USD, I held off on making some bookings waiting for the € to strengthen against the $ so it worked out a bit cheaper. The US$ price doesn’t change dynamically but the foreign exchange rate does.

I can usually find the same excursions on Trip Advisor or with a determined google (other search engines are available) to figure out the excursion provider and get to the reviews that way if it’s not widely reviewed on cruise critic. e.g. I found out who the excursion providers are for the 2 whale watching excursions being offered by NCL at Juneau in October and was able to contact the one that uses smaller boats to find out if they’re expecting any weather issues to affect their excursion before I booked it.

Officially that’s always been the policy, in practice their IT system is too dumb to enforce it. The value of a CND doesn’t usually match the required deposit anyway so I think that’s why they haven’t fixed the loophole.. or we all stay quiet and don’t tell them about the quirk.

There’s a bunch of people on my next cruise that have just received their tags by mail, many for the first time ever and not all in suites.

You may find a few more Europeans aboard than typical for NCL as a few countries here have mid-term break that week. I’m on the Bliss October 14th sailing which is looking to be pretty close to capacity. There’s plenty of folks likes myself who simply can’t cruise in the summer due to work commitments or other factors so now that there’s sailings in October they’re jumping on them.

Maybe not that cabin, but they could into another cabin as it would free up a space in a lifeboat. IT’s why you can’t always add a 3rd or 4th to a cabin that can take that many people but was originally booked for 2 people. but we’re all familiar with how dodgy NCL’s IT systems are so I’m not at all surprised.