SuzieQ521

1 hour ago, shof515 said:

it is in their computer system. go to any specialty restaurant you want. Order as much as food as you want with appetizers, sides and desserts and get one entree. at the end of the meal you will get a check for 0.00 just like a land based restaurant

 

 

Thanks for this info as well!

So basically the only limit is the 1 entrée (and drinks of course)? Otherwise, you can order endless apps, sides and desserts?

Also, I thought I read that there was a complimentary kids menu...is that still the case? (Cagneys).

Thanks!

Hello:

Somewhat of a strange question, but does the Bliss have a magnetic ceiling?

We have a family balcony where our young son will be sleeping on the sofa bed; he is generally a light sleeper and is not used to sleeping in the same room as us; so I was wondering if it was possible to get some magnetic hooks to put on the ceiling and then hang a lightweight curtain, to somewhat make a room divider? I don't believe that the Bliss has any type of divider between the sofa and beds.

Thanks!

Not sure if it was changed during Covid-times, but is the Buffet still "serve yourself"? 

Are you allowed to bring a water bottle and coffee thermos to fill up and take with you?

We are sailing on Bliss in January.

Thank you.

21 hours ago, SDPadreFan said:

Noon would be cutting it close unless you can be on one of the first tenders (AND the ship arrives on time). You don't have to walk very far (probably less than 10 minutes from the tender pier). Generally - the tours like you to be there at least 15 minutes early. The tender ride is only 10-15 minutes, but it all adds up. And obviously priority for tender seats will go first to ship sponsored excursions and passengers in suites and/or status holders with NCL. Your best option may be a ship sponsored excursion. If you are doing the 5 day cruise on NCL - get your outdoor fun time on the first full sea day. Once you leave Cabo, you will be heading home smack into the southbound Alaskan

current and the southbound winds. It will be noticeably rougher and much windier heading north. You may not find time up on the pool deck that enjoyable unless your ship has a covered pool deck. It's just the nature of a Mexican Riviera cruise. South of Cabo is not so bad. We will be on Carnival Panorama in just 2 weeks. This will be our 6th Mexican Riviera cruise because we really enjoy West Coast cruising.

 

Wish you the best.

Thanks very much, especially good tip about doing outdoor fun (lots of it on our ship...hopefully weather is warm-ish) on the first sea day. We are doing the 5 day cruise, first stop Cabo, last stop Ensenada.

Have a nice cruise!

Thanks for your recommendations above.

I really like the tours that Cabo San Lucas Tours (la princesa) offers for Pirate and whale watching but many begin at Noon. Our ship (NCL) is not scheduled for Port until 11 am. 

Given the time needed to disembark and tender, what is the earliest you would schedule a boat tour?

Thanks!

Hello:

We recently booked the Crowne Plaza for our January cruise (we arrive late afternoon the day before so we won't be there long).

I do see that the Double Tree has a similar price for our rate but instead of double beds, they have Queen beds (it would be myself, husband and son) and they also have the free shuttle. I know they do not have as many walkable restaurants for dinner as the Crowne.

Both of the hotels' recent reviews seem to be hit or miss (but DoubleTree does seem to be more worn down, according to the reviews)...does anyone have any input that could help us decide where to stay?

Also, do you know if either of these hotels (wherever we end up staying) would hold our luggage after disembarkation to allow us to waste some time (maybe with the USS Iowa) before our late afternoon flight?

Thanks

7 minutes ago, njhorseman said:

I think you should change your plans.

First, you have plenty of time to make the 12:25 pm flight from LGB .

Second, there's no luggage forwarding service from the ship to the airport.

Thanks. Is that a port-specific thing? My parents went on NCL out of Seattle last month and they left their bags out the night before and it was sent to the airport for them.

How long do you think a ride would be to LGB from San Pedro on a Friday morning? I am thinking we will try the earlier flight like you said.

Thank you!

Hello:

We are taking a NCL cruise that stops in Cabo in mid-January. I have been to Cabo many times before (non-cruise trips) but it will be the first time for my husband and 4 year old son. 

I wanted to do a family friendly excursion--probably something on a bigger boat (so no banana boats or tiny boats) that involved whale watching. I was looking at some of the pirate ships but not sure if anyone had any companies they would recommend or anything else that would be family-friendly?  We probably want to stick close to the Marina area, maybe also a boat that goes out to the Arch. 

Any good family-friendly restaurant recommendations near the Marina?

 Also, is the marina walkable from the tender pier? Thanks!

Hello:

We are sailing out of San Pedro on NCL in January. Upon returning on Friday, we were debating between a 12:25 p.m. flight at LGB or 3:45 p.m.; even though I believe embarkation is between 7 am to 10 am., we did not want to cut it close so chose the later option.

However, this will likely leave us with a few hours of time to spare (We, as in--myself, husband and 4 year old son). I am hoping NCL can send our checked in bags directly to Southwest airlines (I think they do that when you leave them out night before) so we will likely just have a small carry-on.

Anything you recommend we can do to pass through a few hours? We were thinking of even taking Uber/Lyft and going to the beach (Long beach) but we will have a small suitcase with us. Any other suggestions?

Thanks! 

How does it work with the traditional arcade games (the ones that require tickets)? About how much do those cost? My 4 year old will be interested in those.

thanks!

Thank you for this info! We are taking our first NCL cruise (Bliss) in January and I was wondering about this for my 4year old.

Do they mix the 3 and 4 year olds together? What's the ratio of staff to children? (we are going during school time so I imagine there won't be too many kids).

What's security like, i.e. How do the parents check in/check out? How does the staff communicate with parents if there is an issue?

Are they only open Sea days? (there's one port we may skip).

My son is in preschool now but I just was not sure how the splash academy worked.

Thanks for any input!

Hello:

We (myself, husband and 4 year old son) are taking a Norwegian cruise out of San Pedro in January. We initially we going to take an early flight on cruise day (Southwest from Vegas where there are many flights so there will be a backup plan) but are likely going to fly in the night before the cruise, mostly because the airfare is so much less expensive that day. 

A few questions: 

1) For now, we are arriving at 4 p.m. the night before so for convenience sake, I booked the Crowne Plaza right by the Port. I had been looking to see if there were any Long Beach hotels that offered both an airport shuttle and a shuttle to San Pedro port but it did not look possible. Question--with probably 1 large suitcase and a carry on and with a 4 year old, is the Port walkable from the Crowne Plaza? I know they do offer a shuttle for $5.50 pp; how much would Lyft/Uber be that short distance? (we plan to take LYFT from LGB to Crowne).

2) Has San Pedro improved the embarkation process? I read it was a nightmare a few months ago. We have a 4 year old so I want to minimize waiting in a line...what time would you arrive to the Port? We had wanted to arrive early enough to have lunch on the ship.

3) What time should we expect to Disembark when we return? Debating on whether we could make a 12:30 flight out of LGB or do a 3 p.m.?

Alternatively, we could take a cheaper flight out of LAX but not sure if it would be worth the headache on a Friday afternoon. Thoughts?

Thanks!

Hello,

since my husband and I don’t drink alcohol so much to justify the drink packages, we were thinking about the unlimited Starbucks plan.
 

I read that you need to really have three drinks a day to get your money’s  worth…But what is everyone’s experience with it?
 

Is the Starbucks on the Bliss normally very crowded ? Is it convenient to order? I know we both need to purchase the package, but would they let me order multiple drinks at once?

thanks

11 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

The Splash Academy was accepting kids 3 - 12 on the Prima last week. 

Really?! That’s great to hear…thanks! Hope that will happen on Bliss.

Hello,
 

we just booked the 5 day Mexican Riviera cruise in mid-January on Bliss. Upon reading through this forum, it appears that the Splash Academy is only open for children five and up. Our son will be 4.5 years old in January. We did not plan to leave him alone there anyway but were hoping it could be some place to entertain him and meet other kids.

Since this does not seem to be an option anymore, what else is there to do for young kids his age? I’m not sure he’ll be able to do any of the water activities depending on weather. We will take them to the arcade and laser tag but those will be costly to do every day. I think mini golf is free 

…but is there any other activities that would work for a 4.5 year old?
 

Thanks

43 minutes ago, wyobean said:

I had booked through Costco. They sent me a form to use.

Oh, how long did it take for Costco to send you the form? Today our cruise was automatically cancelled  since we had the Alaska June 7 one. Haven’t received the Costco email but got one from Holland

As expected unfortunately...we booked for a big group through Costco.

Does anyone know if we go through Costco for a refund or have to fill out a HAL form for each booked room?
 

My husband just contacted Costco Citi card and they said they can just refund but not sure if that HAL form was needed.

Will try to get a hold of HAL also to ask...thanks

Great news , although airline has to initiate the cancellation.

Assuming our June Alaska cruise is cancelled, how would we go about getting a refund for a flight  we booked ourselves with Alaska Airlines?

2 hours ago, lazey1 said:

If you have a very trusted travel agent why don't you call and ask for advise.  My agent cancelled my 4/25 cruise just after the 1st announcement which was well past final payment date; then after the cancellation was in effect she rolled all of the money over to a new cruise in Aug.  When I say all it includes the HAL Platinum Ins. premium for myself and the entire amount paid by my travel companion who did not purchase any insurance. Plus the perks of the 4/25 cruise such as prepaid gratuities dine around and the OBC were all transfered.

We booked with Costco who will just go by whatever HAL tells them.

Do you know if HAL insurance is refundable if HAL cancels? I would think it should be. Thanks 

4 hours ago, IPB4IGO said:

We are booked on the same cruise, and we will wait for HAL to cancel. Now, there are only two of us, so we don't have as much to lose as does your group.

 

Our thinking is that, unless HAL goes belly-up, we will at least get a full refund, including our non-refundable deposit, if they cancel. I we cancel, we lose the deposit. Best case, HAL will make the same offer they are making to the current batch of cancelees.

Yes I hope they will cancel soon! 
 

Does anyone know if HAL platinum travel insurance would be refundable if HAL is the one that cancels? It would seem to be that it should or else that would not make sense...

Hello:

We finally had planned our first big family trip (13 of us!), including my 95 year old grandfather, with a June 7th cruise to Alaska. Of course, that's off the table now with the virus...

However, as we all know, HAL has only cancelled cruises through May 14th at this point, even though it's very very doubtful that there will be Alaska cruises prior to July 1st.

Here's the ISSUE: We have until Saturday before our deposit penalty turns into the 50% cancellation penalty (as you can imagine, the deposit alone for 13 people was pretty high). We really PREFER the cash refund, especially given the fact that the couple of elderly passengers in our party may not be able to use FCC in the future.

It does not seem like anyone knows when HAL may cancel the next batch of cruises as they appear to be doing so every 30 days.

SO DO WE:

1) Risk going to the next penalty phase (50%) in the hopes that HAL will cancel our cruise on their own? (Some members of our party purchased HAL's travel insurance and it is my understanding that this is the only way that travel insurance will be refunded). OR

2) Cancel this week so that we at least get refunded all but our Deposit. The PROBLEM with this is that since FCC is tied to each individual passenger, some members of our party who might not be able to go another cruise will lose it.

Of course, there's also the worry that HAL (along with the other lines) may file for bankruptcy and we may not even get our refund or FCC anyways!!!

Thanks all for any input you may have. This was going to be our first family trip and our first HAL cruise so it's been disappointing as we may never get this chance again.

2 minutes ago, KidCruze said:

Does anyone else have an Alaska cruise booked this summer? With Canada closing their borders to cruise ships until July 1, there isn't much HAL can do about cruises scheduled before then. Celebrity has already canceled their cruises, but HAL is taking a wait and see approach, at least publicly. I just got off the phone with them. I was trying to move my booking to a week in July. They are advising me to not change the booking at this time. I asked where are they going to sail to if they can't stop in Canada. They are not sure at the moment.

wow... Did it sound like they were going to cancel the remainder of the Alaska cruises anytime soon? I’m  not sure why they won’t just cancel them all, although it is probably because they want to line their pockets with more money for the refunds

I had really hoped that that was going to be part of today’s announcement. We have a June 7 cruise, 13 of us, and we only have a couple more days until our deposit turns into a 50% cancellation fee. My 95-year-old grandfather is one of the people in our party and and we are not sure if he will be able to cruise anytime after the summer. That’s why we really want the refund vs. FCC .

If we have to cancel on our own, do you happen to know how FCC works with the big party? Is it tied to each individual passenger and then that passenger has to use it? That won’t really work for us so that is why we were hoping for the refund...thanks 

2 hours ago, atexsix said:

Does anybody know if the FCC is based on all parties sailing together again?  For example, Dear Dad and I both take the FCC, but one of us can't sail in the future, can the other party still use the full credit?  Or is it all per person? 

 

I also noticed the email terms did not mentioned deposits considered nonrefundable at the time of booking.  Would that be forfeited?

I have the same question about FCC as well. I don’t know why Holland is not addressing Alaska cruises as we have one in June with a party of 13, one including my grandfather, 95 years old who may not  be able to take another cruise. That’s why we really want the refund but they are taking their sweet time and should be canceling the early Alaska cruises now.

If we have to cancel on our own and get FCC instead, does anyone know if it is one big lump FCC or is it tied to the individual person, even though they may not be able to take another cruise? What happens then? thanks

Hello, we were supposed to have our Alaska cruise on June 7 and we have until April 4 before we are out 50%. Right now, we would be out our deposit. Everything has been paid in full.

My husband booked this cruise for our first big family trip, 13 people, five rooms. He put it all on his credit card through Costco travel. We would rather receive a full cash refund but who knows if HAL will make their decision on the June cruises by next week.

My question is, if I do not hear from HAL before April 4th deadline, then we would rather just cancel on our own and so the deposit would be the FCC from my understanding.

Would the FCC then be linked to each individual passenger, or is it one big FCC that would be under my husband’s  name since he paid the full amount on his credit card. 

thanks

18 hours ago, PSR said:

 

I understand your situation now...you probably have a larger deposit than we (2 persons), and do not want the FCC for a deposit refund, but cash instead, and that only occurs if HAL cancels your cruise. As least that's how it has been going so far.

Yep...13 people in our group so quite the deposit...😒