jomf

Or stop none of the local stores either before or after your excursion for some snacks.

Best idea!

Need a like button!

As far as I know you cannot take fruit off the ship in Alaska. If you need to stock up take some pre packaged cereal bars, chocolate bars etc

There are plenty of prepackaged foods that are acceptable for taking ashore without risking their environment.

Not sure, but I think that people who have cruised the Med have reported that the vat has been added on some occasions and others not!

The consensus has been that now the system has been sorted you don't pay it.

Even if you do get charged it's not a huge amount.

Hopefully someone who has been to the Med recently will be able to give you a more definite reply!

Whichever land tour and cruise you choose, my advice would be to take the land tour part before the cruise.

We took a land tour first, there were around 40 people on it (princess cruises), by the time we got to the ship we had around 40 new friends!

The time onboard was better for knowing so many people.

Another point in taking the land tour first is that the ship is more luxurious, nice to end on a high!

While underway, you can smoke occasionally on the balcony. No one cares unless there are multiple smokers or you are running like a chimney. Just shut your balcony door and stay behind the dividers. Of course, don't smoke while you neighbor next door (down wind) is out unless they are cool with it.

The OP asked for areas where you are permitted to smoke, not where you think you can get away with it. New cruisers need to know the rules that apply, which is what this thread is about. Most of us like to keep to the rules, making life so much more pleasant.

Smoking on your balcony is not permitted.

Fortnight = two weeks

Go for it, one of the best cruises we have taken. The food was not top notch but the islands more than made up for that.

That is ridiculous.. a balcony is an open porch made of metal on a moving vessel in the open sea. It tka em a all of 6 minutes to have a smke while enjoying my coffe in the morning. all the smoke is completely gone within seconds of my extingwishing a cigarette. You balcony is avalable to you 24/7. If you cant allow me to ejoy mine for a whole 7 minutes it is my rights that are being enfringed on..

 

YOu claim that you support smoking in designated aeas.. Well you already have 16 restraunts and not one is designated to smoke in, as well as multiple bars and on the Sun NOT one is a cigar bar. Now by your wo addmission you are annoyed that the casino is a smokeing area. NEWS Flash The casino is the designated area.. NO doubt becaue statistic have prven that smokers tend to gamble more than non smokers. They woudl lose revenue if they told me I cant smoke at the slot machine..SO where would you like me to smoke since you want 100% of the ship non smoking?

I am a smoker and i have rights to.. I have smoked on my balcony discreetly all the time and it is totally undetectable and poses 0 risk to your health as you want to claim.

 

BY the way.. I dot like your kids running down the hall of my cabin or you making all that noise you make at night next to my cabin.. I do not like waiting forever for the elevator because your wheelchair takes up sp much room and has to be accommodated.. I especially did not like it when someone goes out on the balcony a night drunk and throws up.. leaving an awful stink out there. But i have had to put up with all these things and more..

 

I paid extra to have a balcony cabin and i will smoke on it discretely .. I have rights to. But it would be a lot more civil if i could just go out there and see if you are there and ask do you mine if i smoke or would you like me to wait until later.

We took a cruise before smoking was banned on balconies where the next door neighbours both chain smoked. They spent every moment on "their" balcony thereby denying us the use of ours for the entire cruise.

A balcony might be a open porch made of metal but, as we were downwind, the smoke was overpowering on the balcony and if we opened the doors came into the cabin.

Their rights made our cruise less enjoyable, we too had paid extra to have a balcony.

We would not cruise on a ship where smoking is allowed on balconies, but have no problem with designated areas. These can be avoided. Luckily we don't use the casino but if we did then we would not cruise with NCL because of the smoking.

It would be great if the cruise brochures showed explicitly where the smoking areas were, so they could be avoided in cabin selection if required ( or a cabin booked close if smokers so choose).

Can't be a relaxing since you'll miss a show or getting your kid back in or out of the Splash Academy. Freestyle is mostly dead.

Freestyle is definitely dead as we have had to book dining at 90 days out to make sure of getting in to the speciality restaurants at times to suit us.

At 84 days out the main dining times have been booked up.

I was only able to book all the specialty restaurants for our 6/27 Greek Islands cruise by making a phone call to NCL. Only a couple were showing as available online, but when I called I was able to reserve each one at my choice of day/time...including La Cucina. Soon after the call, all reservations appeared on MyNCL summary.

We have UDP & UBP as free promos.

We also have the UDP/UBP free promo. Managed to book all we wanted except La Cucina.. We will book it once onboard.

Thanks for the replies.

Is the restaurant La Cucina on the Jade?

I thought it was but am unable to book it pre boarding, it doesn't give that option.

The others Cagneys, Le Bistro etc are available.

The ships plan shows an Italian place but no mention of La Cucina!

90 days unless you are in a suite ( not a mini suite) then it is 100 days.

One can always just google Ship Name and Sail Date and you'll find out that way as well if the group has set up a web page.

Thanks, I tried that and nothing came up.

Might just have been a glitch when I looked, or just in the UK.

I had been looking at upgrading the cabin and could not find cabins/suites available. I was hoping there were no large groups onboard.

Thanks, will do that.

How do I find out if the cruise we have booked has a large group booked on it?

We are sailing out of Venice, the roll call is extremely quiet but the cruise is being shown as sold/almost sold out. We are three months away from sail date.

Also note that you cannot cancel after booking without losing your deposit, no matter how far out the cruise is.

Of course this is not ideal for people who feel safer carrying their passport in port. I remember one family that missed the ship in one Italian port and ended up sleeping in a train station overnight because no hotel would accept them without their passports (which the ship was holding). If this is a problem for you, ask at check-in or boarding if there is any way to avoid handing over your passport, or to hand it over for as short a time as possible. I have never asked about this, so I don't know kinds of accommodations they can make.

Of the ships we have been on, if the passengers missed the ship, then the cruise line gave the passports to the dock side staff.

Obviously that is only if they can find the passports in the passengers cabin! They would look in your safe and obvious places. We have seen the dock side staff holding passports as we cruise away!

Thanks, will delete the app from my phone then!

That's a shame, looks like a good way to sort out reservations etc.

Has the Jade got iconcierge?

Had a search and can't find anything to say either way.

Remember that only the Haven people get everything. If you're in a balcony/mini, you only get to choose 1 of the promotions. And I would imagine (based on the original sticker prices) that most people will choose the Beverage package.

 

They'll probably be a small uptick in the number of folks utilizing the specialty restaurants, but I don't think it'll be overrun to the point that everything will be booked up before you even step foot on the boat.

We are booked in a mini suite and got both the drinks package and the speciality restaurant package.

I am hoping that the free packages won't make too much of a difference.

We will make reservations ahead of the cruise but, as we haven't eaten in any of the alternative restaurants yet, we won't know which ones to book more than once!

I am sure this is answered somewhere, but I did multiple searches and am coming up with a bunch of interesting but non-responsive information. SImple question is, on a Med cruise, can I use EUROS I have left at end of cruise to reduce my on board account without paying a conversion fee? or will I be charged an outrageous conversion fee? or can't they be used at all?

 

Terry

As the onboard currency is the Dollar I would say that they will convert the Euro's to dollars at their exchange rate ( with fee-buy back rate) then credit the dollar amount.

So is an NCL cruise in Europe, is presumably 'there' not 'here'.

To me NCL, Celebrity, Princess, RCL etc are all American ships , no matter where they are cruising to and from, whilst Thomson, P & O and Costa are all non USA.

To the OP, the amount you tipped seemed fine to me!

Stay with Cunard, where there is distinct lack of pomposity, snobbishness, moaning and complaining. On Cunard we are never asked how much we paid. In addition, on Cunard, good manners and the unwritten cruise etiquettes are followed.

 

Cunard is for Gentlefolk

Having sailed both (the last cruise on Cunard) I would pick P & O.

We found far more snobbishness and pomposity on Cunard. The looks and tutting at daring to wear shorts and jeans at 5.50pm, a full tens minutes before witching hour were laughable!

We found a lack of friendliness in part (no speaking in the lift) although we did meet some great people.

Having said that, we would only said on the smaller P & O ships, the Ventura was filled with cheap sell off people on the repositioning cruise we took.

Choose a cruise out of school holiday time.

Isn't 0820 a bit early to be calling? Admittedly, I don't know what the start of the business day is in Scotland. Where I live it is 09:00...but allow time for transit delays, navigating around slow moving tourists, collecting a cup of coffee/ tea, maybe a bagel, greetings to fellow workers. And by 09:30 most are in place and ready for conversation (it's a New York thing:)

 

At any rate, the call center has nothing to do with the reason why I've taken 12 cruises on QM2. If you need to ask why you should book with Cunard as a result of your unsatisfactory experience with the call center, I am not here to convince you otherwise: follow your instincts.

 

Regards,

Salacia

The telephone lines open at 8am for bookings, when I worked ( not for Cunard though) it was expected that you be at your desk and ready to work by the stated time. Getting coffee, chatting to other workers was to be done before opening time! It's a Brit thing.

To the OP, we have found that call centres bear no relation to the actual cruise.

Have had great customer service and a terrible cruise and vice versa.