Chuckabobo

A few years ago we took cruises out of Miami and New Orlean's to the Caribbean - and towards the end of the cruise the ship held a $10 shirt sale featuring the different ports visited.

Is this still a thing NCL does - specifically curious regarding an upcoming Bliss Alaska cruise next month.

I seem to recall it was not well advertised or even included in the dailies in the past. 

On 4/24/2023 at 3:16 PM, ashank1m said:

Ship: Beautiful and big ship, it seems to be the only NCL ship with huge observation lounge in the front, where light meal/snack and a bar was open most of the time.  This is where the Glacier Bay NP rangers hosted presentation overlooking the Glaciers from 8-noon.  ship layout with one central point with two elevator banks on forward and rear. As typical there is no indoor pool/Solarium which would have been nice in 40s in Alaskan cruise.  This being fairly a new ship with refurbishment in 2022, I thought ship would be smoother but in cabin 13270 which is right by rear elevator (2/3 of ship), I felt ship vibrate throughout the trip, standing still, I felt like I was a vibrator.  The vibration was mostly throughout the ship more noticeable in center to rear in every floor.  The fitness center was small but has about 3 dzn cardio machines and about a dzn workout machine, full rack of free weight and virtually no extra room for stretching or individual work out.  Unique to the ship, it has a very decent go-cart track, $15 for about 10 min ride, it was nice but the speed seems to be limited by central controller, where at the beginning no matter how hard you press the accelerator, it wouldn’t move until they give you the power then suddenly pops forward and if you drive fast, they seem to throttle you back. 8^th floor has various restaurants and boardwalk, forward port side had District brew which has several specialty beers on the tap.  We avoid 8^th floor in the center due to heavy cigar smoke near Cavern club area.

Cabin: in Fam Bal 13270, was by far the smallest room I have been onboard with virtually no storage space.  Other than closet with 4 shelves, there are no real drawers in the cabin.  There is two large drawers under the couch but it had couch cushion when converted to a bed, main desk/vanity had two area with shelves but one was just enough to put clothes other with about 3-inch width, it really didn’t serve much. The bathroom actually had more storage space than the room!  Bathroom size avg but sink was big enough, and shower actually had enough space to move around. Although nearby elevator it was far enough no noise yet quick access to most rear of the ship facilities (2 floor up for Fitness and Spa, elevator down to 7 for Main dining, 6^th for two alt main dining Savour and Taste.  This is one of few rooms that narrow mid ship expand to wider body thus giving you extra 20 sqft of balcony space with forward view.  With the latest change, the daily gratuity is $20, which is almost 35% increase mean while you get only 1 room cleaning a day. (get the math, 35% increase to get half the service?)  I don’t really mind on cleaning but making up bed should be done 2x a day.  With bunk dropped from the ceiling and couch being a bed, you really don’t have any room to lounge and move around in your room.

Dining: Main cabin dining presentation was good, food was very mixed some good some bad.  One biggest gripe was all chowders/creamy soup had one flavor, no matter which soup (clam chowder, Salmon Chowder, etc) I had it always tasted like a raw flour and had small rump of flour floating.  I don’t think the chef on NCL knows the concept of roux for chowders.  If due to dietary restriction, veg oil can be used for roux.  Service was mixed as well, sometime decent other times not even getting a water or see a server for 20-30 min.  Buffet was set up with similar food on both sides.  starting with drink station, cold food (right side had desert with ice cream section) that connects to middle that served egg stations in morning, pizza/burger bar in the afternoon and dinner. Across that center section will be hot food and carving stations (egg and hot breakfast in the morning), similar set up forward except, left side will have Indian food section and right side with Asian food (had one type of noodle soup, one stir fried item, one stir fried noodle and rice), food quality is very lacking. Like the food you get from cheap Chinese carryout in a bad neighborhood.  Indian food was decent in taste (I am not a fan of Indian food but as a foodie I will always try different food.)  Other free meal places are at the 15^th forward for Observation lounge where they usually have drinks and light finger food/fruits.  Local bar has various bar food which also was hit and miss. Wings were ok I prefer more deep-fried type, had hotdogs and bugers which was good.  Fish and chip was weird as when you bite into it you will only find inside with half empty.  They could cut back on amount of fries with food to cut back on food waste as we left about 2 large McD portion of fries with 3 orders we had. if you choose to have a dining plan (2 meals) or purchased a plan, you have access to Cagney’s Steakhouse, Ocean Blue Seafood, La Cucina Italian, Los Lobos Mexican, Le Bistro French, Q Texas Smokehouse, Food Republic Fusion, Teppanyaki, American Diner.  For me, paying almost $50 for a meal to have Teppanyaki (typical in my area for $40 a meal), Mexican, or American Diner for burgers didn’t make sense.  So I opted for Cagney and Food Republic.  Cagney, with a meal plan, you get 1-App, 1-Salad or soup, 1 main course, and 1 dessert, and you cannot combine 2 meal plans for a Porter House.  As you can see from the menu, steaks weren’t either Prime or Choice and my opinion, I have had better steaks at Long Horn/Outback than here, the meat was flavor less and was not juicy even at Med rare.  This was the same for Prime rib, NY strip, and Filet Mignon.  Fries and veg were good, but the baked potato were not.  it was a lump of potato in a nice dish, you cut it and a server will load the toppings but my potato was not hot enough to melt the butter and was dry.  I also tried a NY Stip in main restaurant and I like the free steak better than at Cagney’s.  Food Republic was a good choice, each meal plan will give you any 4 choices from menu.  They had 10 diff rolls, varying Asian food and some Latin fusion food.  Rolls were good but rice was too wet and over cooked (you shouldn’t be paying to eat at a sushi restaurant if rice is like this, wet and busted/broken due to overcook) cut back on water by 10% should solve this problem. (I would cut back by 15% and after cooking pour mirin/rice cooking wine to simmer in room temp.)  Most of other food was acceptable although bit off from authentic, especially spicy Korean fried chicken was not very good.  But, I do recommend this place for varied food.  Hint: you cannot make pre-reservation for this place, but you must make reservation at Teppanyaki restaurant for Food Republic as this place is small and is always packed.  Next time I will opt for Q-smokehouse instead of Cagney’s.

Bar services were typical, but did notice Local Bar had only couple bar tenders working and wait was long.  District bar is good place to go for beer as they had several special, including NCL’s own brew.

Entertainment: As mentioned above, go-cart was nice.  Game room is on 5^th but also some in Local bar with 2 lane mini bowling alley. Six and Jersey boy’s had two shows each.  They are very long (1:25 min for Six and 1:45 for Jersey boys)  it is full production show.

Overall, it’s a nice ship and plenty to eat and do.  I do wish, NCL can cut back on food portions a bit to reduce the food waste. (I don’t need 3 egg omelets along with plate full of other items.  People tend to count how many they can eat not how much (volume) they can eat.)  It has been 3 years since last NCL cruise and will be on another in couple years. (we cruise once a year and alt with other cruise lines.)

 

Note for Alaskan cruise: Rockslide in Skagway port.  You cannot walk to town from the ship.  You need to use the screen by the stair (around the corner from elevator banks) to make shuttle bus reservation or go to guest service.  You will disembark and walk up the ramp then walk 200 yards of container ship made tunnel to board the bus for about ¼ mile to the parking lot by the entrance to the port.  From here you can purchase a town shuttle for $3 one way or $5 all day pass.  Getting back to the ship the same way.  Line are very long so prepare for this.  Our time was Shuttle 8, shuttle 1 was calle at 8:30 but we went out at 8:30 and no one seems to be checking.

What did you mean by "Hint: you cannot make pre-reservation for this place, but you must make reservation at Teppanyaki restaurant for Food Republic"... i indeed understood you cannot make reservations at food republic, but are you saying you can go to Teppanyaki and they somehow have a way to make food republic reservations?
 

22 hours ago, coastcat said:

What about restaurants? I’m thinking the bar in Q and their specialty, the smoked peach margarita. I don’t think that’s available elsewhere onboard. 

Can you order this peach margarita if you don't have a dining reservation, to go? Same with other specialty dining restaurants, can you use the UBP to get a specialty dining restaurant drink to go, without actually dining?

Checking back in on this thread... do Vibe passes now officially get handed out at Guest Services on bliss, or is it still sometimes The Social?

21 hours ago, mrsderitis said:

Hi everyone, 

 

We are staying in the French Quarter before our cruise on the Breakaway next month. We're planning to use Lyft or Uber for arrival to the port. Would you suggest navigating right to the port, or to somewhere close by and walk? 

 

I've read some horror stories about traffic build up and wonder if it makes more sense to just walk a bit. We've never been to the Port of New Orleans before, so any help is appreciated! 

 

Thank you in advance! 

It also appears Lyft/Uber have forced minimum fares of $32-35 to/from the airport - give or take $5 the same cost as a taxi ride, and may be easier to quick jump in a cab than navigate special uber/lyft pickup locations allowed by some airports.

We also find lyft/taxi far preferable in most instances, though in this case it may be a toss up - I'd guess to be allowed to have service in louisianna they were forced to have these airport minimum fairs out of some "fairness" to the taxi companies, or perhaps they are having airport minimums in other cities as well - in any case - unfortunately it won't be 1/2 the price it usually is to take lyft/uber in this case.

2 hours ago, bww11 said:

When we did the behind the scenes tour it was certainly not free. Are you mixing that up with the Platinum benefit of getting a free behinds the scenes tour? A few times when we ordered speciality coffee from the Haven restaurant it was free but that might have just been an oversight... I wouldn't count on anything with a charge being free.

 

Only item I can recall is on the first day on the larger ships Margaritaville is free for Haven guests for Lunch and half price for dinner at Food Republic.

Thank you for the tips, indeed the free ship tour seemed unlikely - where i saw it referenced wasn't specific so I thought I'd ask here for more broad input.

Will be first time experiencing the Haven, Thursday 1/17 on the breakaway.

I've read these forums and other sites extensively for tips and reviews and have a fair grasp on all of the obvious inclusions of the haven - the dining, butler, included room service, concierge - to tip the butler/concierge separately etc.

Would appreciate input on any non-obvious benefits - for example - In other forums I've seen people alluding to free behind the scenes ship tours for haven guests, or items on the haven menu such as coffees listing a price, but haven members never being charged when dining in the haven - or free desserts from specialty restaurants?

Can anyone confirm such bonus perks, particularly an included behind the scenes ship tour, or other things you weren't charged for that weren't obvious.

 

On 1/17 Breakaway 10 day sailing. (Leaving on a Thursday)

10 days early on 1/7 - many in our cruise group received lower category upgrades from inside/ocean-view to balcony rooms.

6 days early on 1/11 - All or most of the haven /suite/spa upgrades happened for our group, with soon to follower other lower category upgrades again.

Upgrades happened between 1pm-4pm in both cases. Bids going from pending to processing, with the rest expired.

In my case after seeing processing, soon after the bid page went away entirely saying "Not Authorized to bid" But an hour later both credit card were charged and email came through confirming the bid.

About 30 minutes later then my NCL Summary page showed my new room number and E-Docs and Luggage tags were also updated.

Had been watching the previous 2 sailings of this ship, and the upgrades in those case happened 3 and 4 days out, we got the 6 day out upgrade - may be that our sailing was on a thursday and the others were sat/sun sailings that allowed for a bit earlier announcement for us who knows.

Our upgrade was from BB Balcony -> H9 Haven Spa Balcony - bid in lower to mid poor range - very excited to experience first time in Haven 🙂

2nd time on norwegian, first time we had opportunity to bid. Ship is mostly full though not quite sold out.

45 minutes ago, Phaedrus78 said:

 

Not that I’m doubting what I’m reading, but it seems like they’d want to do it the other way around doesn’t it?  Moving people to the Haven frees up balconies and minis, which could then be filled by insides and ocean views... max profit for NCL. 

 

The more I try to figure out the whole process, the less I know. 😄

 

13 days till my cruise, still no word. I’m getting antsy. I’m not optimistic, I don’t see a ton of availability anymore. 

This ship isn't 100% full (though getting there) and the talk i've seen going back and forth of those that did get upgrades - and others that track upgrades out of a hobby apparently - is that indeed if upgrades are to happen all at once... it happens top down most expensive first, to least.

However when there is more ship availability to play with, last minute cruise bookings are more likely to sell cheaper interior/ocean view rooms - so having some of those available before the suites etc are filled first can also be profitable for the cruiseline.

But then to make things even more confusing, since the upgrades of inside/ocean view happened a few days ago - for several days on NCL and 3rd party sites - inside/ocean view rooms have not been available for purchase.... showing sold out - given they just upgraded a bunch of these people that seems odd - though what is also likely at play is the people who booked a sail-away rate - NCL upgraded inside rooms that paid a pick-your-room rate, to make room for all the sail-away-rate inside rooms they sold.

Again much conjecture and anybody's guess, upgrades as you see described throughout this thread are complicated :)

5 minutes ago, janis_no1 said:

Is it just me? We leave on January 17th (breakaway 10 day Caribbean) and haven’t received an upgrade offer? not when I log into my account anyway.

maybe because we booked through our travel agent?

I too am on the 1/17 Breakaway sailing.

TA participation varies, if you go to the Messages tab of your NCL account and don't see a link to the offer - indeed your TA must not participate.

I never received an email to participate, but occasionally see a banner on my NCL account regarding the upgrade option, as well as a message in my NCL portal account.

A large swath of upgrades have already happened for the 1/17 breakaway sailing, seemingly all inside/ocean view -> various balcony/mini-suites.

Suite/Haven upgrades have not yet happened according to a group thread for this sailing.

On 11/30/2018 at 3:07 PM, aeroo777 said:

You’re welcome. We’re on a 10 day sailing and Vibe was $318 for 2. $409 for a cabana.

Did you do the cabana, I've heard it may come with $100 on board food & beverage credit for a 7 day, curious if you received that or more for a 10 day and found it beneficial?

Related to inside haven vs not...

On port days, on the Norwegian ships we've been on, the lunch dining options are very limited... generally only O'Sheehan's and The Buffet are open and maybe 1-2 ala carte's like Margaritaville.

Noodle Bars/Main dining/Moderno Lunch buffet's are available on sea days, but if you have a port heavy itinerary - none of these options are available on port days.

So finally my question is - inside the haven, is the haven restaurant - open for lunch everyday, or is it also limited and only open on sea days for lunch?

1 hour ago, Budget Queen said:

I  always go to West  Bay- excellent shore entry.   Last several trips (3 this year).   I've gone with https://www.shoreexcursioneer.com/roatan/west-bay-beach-day.html

 

which is the cheapest,   I've found.  🙂   I sometimes also add a Costa Maya snorkel tour with this booking agent.    I book my Cayman- snorkel directly since I am very picky where I go.  

Thank you very much I'll look into it.

53 minutes ago, Budget Queen said:

I as well was on the same sailing.  I had a great time and really enjoyed it.    Frankly-   with a 4000+  passenger ship,  you have to be accepting of lines and waits.    It's actually pretty amazing,  that they are able to load and process all those people in 4 hours.    

 

I go real cheap,  picking up late minute bargains-  so have far more tolerance and acceptance of some "imperfections".  (I'm not on a private yacht)  🙂     I know a lot of people paid a LOT of money so,  expectations are probably are going to be higher.    I simply,  am never disappointed.   

 

This was a snorkel trip for me,  with Roatan a huge bonus.   I get picked up right outside the port gate and transit to my superb snorkel -  shore entry area.    Again,  absolutely  enjoyed the excellent snorkeling.    

If you don't mind, can you share the roatan snorkel excursion / location info?

46 minutes ago, AllAmericanAmy said:

Just some data ...

 

I'm booked on Breakaway 1/6/19   11 day Western Carib which departs in 17 days. I am booked on IF sailaway rate with cabin not assigned yet...  I've been sporadically tracking ALL avail cabins in certain/specific categories on a certain website that lists ALL cabins.  3 days ago inside cabin I1 category had 44 avail. cabins at $799 pp.   Today, all those cabins are removed/hidden/allocated or something.  Thoughts? 

 

Higher categories still show many, many cabins avail (ie:  BB = 44  BA = 61  H5 = 12  M9=17   close to 190 balcony cabins avail).  FYI for anyone monitoring price drops, the # of cabins avail in many of the categories I'm tracking is substantially unchanged for over 2 months on what is known to be a very slow/soft week in the cruise & travel industry.  Pricing has held at almost exact same amount with only variance being the amount of perks in a promotion which always is extended past deadline on this cruise.  Today is the first I've noticed a price drop in a few categories (coinciding with the removal of the 5 or 6 perks "free" with high cabins)... and the price drop on average is $100 pp.  (for example:  BA was $1459 pp is now $1379 pp with fewer perks.   H5 was $3999 pp now $3899 pp with fewer perks).  I'm not making a specific point.... just putting info out there for people curious about how much to expect a cabin to drop if booking outright and/or if attempting to use pricing as an indicator on bidding for upgrades.

Been watching the 1/17 Breakaway Sailing... and regarding your observation of all inside cabins no longer available.

At least 3x in the last 3 weeks, Intermittently inside, ocean view - have gone from many available to "Guaranteed Room" Only... then in 1-2 days, back to you being able to choose rooms.... after it goes back to allowing you to choose, the same or roughly the same quantity is available. 

Not sure  why specific rooms selection seems to be blocked certain days, but watch for your cruise to show them available again - as others have pointed out upgrades often happen from haven/suites on down - though with a slow cruise week it is always possible if they have an excessive amount of higher category rooms they could do some lower tiers first as well.

Can anyone who has sailed in the last 1-2 months confirm the current cost of VIBE passes?

Sailed last year and it was $99pp, per week.

I've seen some posts commenting this may have been raised to $129pp, per week - can anyone confirm?

Then does anyone have the cost for 10/11 day sailings by comparison?

1 hour ago, Cwipes said:

Unfortunately I didn't have a current email from the upgrade advantage program to test. I only had the one from the past sailing and I was never under the believe that it would display anything other then "Not available".

I've used the same TA for all of my sailings over the past 7 years and my TA know how much I like upgrades.

 

Others in my roll calls report that they have received upgrade bid offers.

 

Other then the main NCL number (1-866-234-7350) is there another NCL number associated to the Upgrade Advantage Program to call and inquire or is there a specific department within the main number to contact?

Regards,

 

As others have said the "Upgrade Banner" isn't there everyday... sometimes Dining plan banner will be there instead for example.

Sometimes there are left right arrows that will allow you to get to the Upgrade Banner, sometimes those still won't show the upgrade banner.

Many people never receive an email about the upgrade being available, but if bidding is available to you - you should always have a link to the upgrade bidding specific to your sailing, by logging into your NCL account, selecting your sailing... and then clicking on the "Messages" icon towards the top right of the page.

There are 3 icons...a heart,letter,shopping cart... the letter icon is your "messages" specific to this sailing... offering you welcome instructions, embarkation advice, advertising specialty dining, and also your offer to bid on upgrades for this sailing if applicable.

I never received an email, many days i don't see the upgrade banner, but this messages folder always has the link available for upgrades, if you have been offered them.

Can anyone confirm that the Haven Sundeck has a bar/service similar to vibe?

The pictures/video i have seen of the haven sundeck haven't shown a bar of any kind, I presume there is one but just wanted to verify.

I know this isn't you BUT why wouldn't they cancel? Call, visit the restaurant, use the kiosk, or heck even the app. It's just rude to no-show when they are holding a table and possibly turning others away.

I completely agree on you should cancel, though on my last cruise ~18 months ago on the Escape - the only way to cancel was to wait in a long line in the main lobby which was quite bothersome, not only did the app/kiosk not have a cancel option, when calling from our room to guest services, we were advised to go to the long lobby guest services desk.

Has this changed? Can you use the app/kiosk to cancel, not just book new?

Or does it indeed work well to talk to the restaurant host during dinner hours 1-2 days in advance to avoid a long guest services line?

For the $15 upcahrge... if you make a reservation before the cruise, say 90 days out -

I assume you pay the $15 pp to a credit card (+ maybe tax etc)

If you wait to book Ocean Blue on board... would the $15 pp be available to be charge against OBC instead of to a CC if OBC is available?

Long story short I'm assuming if booking pre-cruise, you can't use OBC... but if booking once on board, the upcharge can be used against OBC - can anyone confirm if this is the case?

Not working for me either, for Sep 23 Escape cruise.

Booked through Costco

Anyone else having same issue that booked directly with Norwegian?