TQuila

My husband and I are planning a trip on the Prima, and my sister-in-law may be joining us, so we were looking for a balcony near the studios. However, CruiseNext manager told us that there is only access to the studio area from one level, he thought 12. While I would expect this to be true for the Studio Lounge, is this true for studio cabins in general? The deck plan seems to show multiple exits from the studio cabin area, and it makes no sense to me that if you aren't on the level with the lounge, that you'd have to take the stairs to get to your cabin. Can anyone shed light on this? Was CruiseNext desk confused? We don't need to be near the lounge, I'm more concerned about our cabins being relatively near each other, so this whole discussion just left me lost.

Any chance you can post a Daily or two as the cruise goes on? In particular, I'm interested in the lectures, when they're scheduled, and whether they're replayed later on TV...

What kind of camera/zoom did you use for these photos? Trying to figure out if my Nikon with 300mm zoom is sufficient...

We got the same email for our cruise, which doesn't depart until 18 Feb - I was surprised to see that going out already, as the initial articles seemed to imply that they expected the changes to be relatively temporary.

The app is misleading - upgrades aren't actually available until after final payment, if then.

In 2019, we booked directly through Alaskatrain.com almost a year in advance, and we were able to put our NCL tags on our bags in Anchorage, and they were checked straight through to the ship while we took an independent excursion in Seward (Major Marine Tours - highly recommended!). I would suggest reaching out to the Alaska Train and ask them to confirm, but I'd be surprised if this has changed.

Yes! They were great and had great stories, even though I managed to do some kind of damage to my leg on the way to the tour because I forgot to grab our passports and was running back to get them! All healed up within a few days, but I was limping badly on that tour! I dug up my blog post from that tour, if anyone needs further info & pics... https://simektravels.wordpress.com/2019/08/09/yukon-ho/

We did this through Chilkoot Charters, rather than through the ship, I think? I suspect the NCL version of the Yukon expedition is on a big bus, we were in a small bus and saw additional scenery and stopped for lunch at a roadside attraction. Lunch was acceptable, and the museum at the stop was interesting, lots of taxidermied animals!

We're following you in Feb, so I'm interested in your experience - in particular, I'll be fascinated whether you dock or tender in Punta Arenas. The website says tender, but cruise confirmation says dock. I'm guessing tender is correct, but would not object in the slightest if we dock!

I stop at the bank ahead of a cruise and get a pack of 100 $1 bills. It certainly goes to the bartenders/servers, not NCL, even if they pool it.

Well aware of that. Still a bargain for that level of service, quite frankly.

We tip $1 per drink when we get the drinks. We don't drink all that much, so it doesn't break the bank. And we generally get served very quickly, sometimes before we even have a chance to sit down. This skill was honed in our 20s at local bars, where we also tipped well. I actually consider it a laziness tax on myself, since I don't have to get my own drink...

Try the web app instead of the app. I had a similar issue trying to buy the thermal spa for my 2/18 cruise. I had issues in the app, but was able to purchase on the web.

I'm unofficial historian for my family, and I was able to find the itinerary for my grandparents' cruise in 1986 by searching historical newspapers for the ads. Ships sailed much more set itineraries back then.

I would argue that the best way to advertise would be for CC to actually purchase ad space on that other site in the cruising groups. Barring that, another option might be to provide some boilerplate text that those of us that are on both platforms could post in those groups, explaining the benefits of CC. I noticed that for my upcoming sailing, there are 180 people in the group on the other platform, and 20 following the thread on CC. I posted a quick note with a link to CC and instructions for how to access the roll call. I'm no marketing major, so I'm sure someone else could have sold it better, but I'll let you know if any of those 180 folks bites, as I would also argue that it's better to advertise BEFORE the cruise. If you attract new cruisers on the ship, great, but it doesn't do much to bolster the M&G numbers for that particular sailing.

In addition to the bathroom situation mentioned above (which wasn't that big of a deal for my DH of 20 years and me), I felt very cut off from the water on the Epic. The only lower deck that's open has all of the lifeboats on it, so you can only get small bursts of scenery as you walk along. The Waterfront on Escape was lovely for exactly this purpose!

We always use a TA, and have always gotten our shareholder money, including on our upcoming cruise, which they added the OBC for just a few weeks back. I once got pushback from someone who said I needed to apply for it closer to the cruise, but when I replied back, someone who actually knew the rules responded and I got my OBC. I would try again, because this is NOT a rule.

I would vote for a modified version of a - someone messed up bad, they weren't going to fix it since they profited by it, but now that they've triggered revolt, they're scrambling to figure out how to fix it without admitting fault