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We're considering trying MSC YC next year after 5 cruises and one upcoming on NCL in either Haven or suite class and the duplex suite intrigues me.

How windy are the 2 balconies while underway?  On NCL,we've always sailed in Aft suites, so wind was never an issue.

Thanks...

1 hour ago, hallux said:

The ship may not actually shove off until even later.  You're doing a daytime transit of the canal the next day, you may push off and go through the first locks Sunday night/early Monday morning, or they may be able to wait until during breakfast on Monday to go through the locks.

 

There isn't much in the immediate vicinity of the port, you're going to need a taxi if you want to get off the ship and go find something to do after boarding.

Thanks, we're wondering what time check-in and boarding will be.  On all of our other cruises, check-in and boarding was between 11am and 2 pm with a 5 or 6pm sailaway time.   We'll be in Panama City for a few days prior to our cruise, so we are hoping for lunchtime boarding.

We are on the Jade, departing 2/9/25 from Panama City. The departure time is showing as 11:59pm. If you've been on a cruise that departs that late, what time have you been able to board the ship?

I belive one of the reasons NCL does not want door decorations is that each cabin door is a fire rated  In case of a fire in a cabin, the door is designed to help contain the fire within the cabin until it can be extinguished. If there are combustible decorations on the outside of the door, if there was a fire in the cabin, the door would still contain any flames but the surface of the door could get hot enough so that the decoration would self combust and spread the fire into the corridor and other parts of the ship (which would be very bad).

In the US, any UL fire rated door cannot have combustible signs on them for that reason. UL has strict requirements for what type of signage can be affixed to a fire-rated door.

Actually,  how good the wifi is depends on the shop and if it has been upgraded to Starlink.

We were on the Getaway TA which had Starlink wifi and it was fine throughout the crossing except on our aft balcony. We just had to go inside the cabin to get a signal.

Another thing the concierge staff can do is escorted you BACK to the ship and bypass the long line at a port stop to get back on the ship.   

This is the bar mix that used to be widely available at all bars.  On our recent Getaway TA, I didn't see any at the bars (including the Haven Bar), but asked our Butler if they had any. He said no problem and kept our bowl full in our cabin throughout the cruise. 😀

https://www.newurbanfarms.com/munchie-crunchie-mix/

9 hours ago, complawyer said:

we are booked on the sept 26th sailing on the prima. final payment date was may 29th. wouldnt you know it, the price of our cabin went down $1,000 on may 31st.by the way, regardless of how ncl calls their sales, check the prices and they are almost the same no matter the so called "sale".

i 1st noticed this a few years ago while i was watching the prices. they advertised a 50% off sale starting in a few days, guess what? prices were exactly the same, i even posted a few years back under the heading when is a sale not a sale. im not that thin skinned, but what really annoys me about the ncl advertising is the FAS offer of "free shore excursions" yeah! right

 If your fare went down after final payment, try calling NCL (or your TA) and you may be eligible for a one-time Future Cruise Credit  for the difference. We had that happen and they gave us a $600 FCC good for a year after our cruise ended. 

36 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

Up to 5? hahahaha....I guess someone will be ordering three shrimp cocktails next time we're in the Haven. Hopefully the chef didn't force the avocado, tomato, and lettuce on ya like Pr1ma's chef did in November.

The first time, they did prepare it a Shrimp Louie with the dressing and  cocktail sauce on the side.

The next time and for the rest of the trip, the waitress brought me just the shrimp and cocktail sauce. 

8 hours ago, Sand and Seas said:

As they have shrimp available on the Haven dinner menu, easy for them to make you shrimp cocktail.  My DH had them at every dinner.     

 

Hope you have a wonderful cruise😎

Yes, I was just on the Getaway and was able to request a shrimp cocktail (offered up to 5 shrimp) instead of Shrimp Louie appetizer on thee dinner menu.  

4 hours ago, Coastalbreezes said:

Recently on Escape, Veuve was only available in Bistro. Elsewhere around the ship the bubbly offered was Pommery Rose.

That was our experience to in the Getaway.  I found the Pommery Rose was actually quite nice. 🍾🥂🍾

What are the current US-based FAS and airfare deals?  We're currently on the Getaway TA and the wifi will only connect  to the UK-based site.  We're thinking of booking another cruise while on board but want to make sure we are getting the correct FAS deals.  NCL airfare is shown as £250 discount instead of BOGO. 

15 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

Yes, there is a separate line for Haven going through security. You can't miss it. Big, gold banner-up that says

In April 28th for the Getaway TA, that sign was missing and the crowd control.pepple outside the terminal were saying there was no Haven

line and herded us onto the ridiculously long regular line. 

I had to ask 3 different people until someone directed us to the left line that until that time was being used for disabled people only.  Once we got to the Haven check-in line after security, I mentioned it to the NCL staff and they said they would straighten it out. 

Boarding in NYC that day was a cluster@$*@

6 hours ago, CharmCity2000 said:

Which do you prefer and why?  Price difference is about $1000 for true aft.  Going on the Bliss for B2B.  Kids will be happily entertained.  My entertainment will be a beverage of choice and my kindle.

One advantage to an aft balcony over one on the side of the ship is the lack of wind in an aft balcony while sailing.  This makes the balcony much more usable and comfortable while underway than a side balcony.

On 1/18/2024 at 9:11 AM, Smitheroo said:

First, the process of getting on the ship is embarkation. Why isnt the process of getting off called disembarkation?  Yet I have seen "Debark?"  Anyway, that's what this thread is about, rather than add to my first Getaway Experience thread.   Getting off the Getaway on 1/17/24 at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal in NYC was a painless experience, at least it was for me. I thought NCL outlined the process extremely clearly even giving each passenger the choice of time to leave and choosing the corresponding color of tag and publishing all of this in the Freestyle Daily. Sometimes your situation dictated the color  i.e. I was taking a transfer to the airport so I was assigned a brown tag which was delivered to my cabin the night before.  Otherwise you got to choose the time and the color tags were in the Atrium.  Self assist was no tag and very clearly explained.  There are people who are just not "visual " and miss information when only distributed in visual form. i.e. I got in line at guest services to check on a lost item. A woman gets on behind me muttering "this is so stupid" so I asked her what was wrong.  She said "I put my luggage in the hall last night just like i was told to. How am I supposed to know what color tag I am?"  i told her that she was supposed to choose a color and attach it to her bag. She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language "It was explained in the dailies"   Apparently she missed this part. She put her luggage out in the hall with no tag and they still took the bag. She thought the tag issued by NCL at the beginning of the cruise was sufficient. She was not aware of any other tag!  I assured her they would find her luggage, perhaps there is an area in the baggage hall for bags with issues. Dont know how this turned out.  As I said, the process was explained in the daily newsletter. If you had a question about it, guest services is always available to help. If the line was long , another crew member went up and down the line screening the question you had which could save time.  The process became even clearer with the morning announcements as tag colors were called. I was given the approximate time of 8:15 am for the brown tags to be called and they were, at 8:20. The lines were not long and moved quickly.  Next interesting experience..... At the podium where your keycard is scanned to make sure you have checked out, the passenger ahead of me handed the crew member a card which turned out to be a keycard from a previous cruise. The crew member asked where the current keycard was.  "oh, I left it in my room" So the crew member makes a note of his room number. Simple, right?  Well, the crew member then hands over the old keycard and the passenger waves his hand saying "keep it, throw it in the garbage, I dont care", turns and heads towards the gangplank. The crew member threw the card at the guy. Fortunately the rude passenger didnt see this happen and the card didnt hit him.  Another crew member picked the card up and placed it on the podium. I sure hope that poor guy's day got better.    Found my luggage with no problems in the area with brown tags marked clearly.  The buses werent seen immediately but  one question asked to one of the many people in neon green vests pointed me in the right direction. The driver had a list of all the people on the transfer. There was no specific time to leave but it was advised that your flight left after 12 noon.  The driver knew which terminal each flight left from and advised.   He  waited until 9:45 for a few stragglers who never showed up and left. We arrived at Newark Airport as expected.  I soon learned my flight was cancelled but that's a story for another thread somewhere else.

 

So, to summarize. A painless experience. I have heard many complaints about MCT .  I've now experienced 3 ports that NCL uses (Los Angeles, Seattle, NYC) and my order of best to worst is  Seattle (really hard to beat Port Valet), MCT, and last, Los Angeles. 

Debark and disembark are interchangeable for cruises, not for trees. 

On 9/27/2023 at 9:38 AM, DCGuy64 said:

Disagree (at least in theory), it depends on where/when you're going. Example: Last December we did a TA from Lisbon to New York. It was cold and windy a lot of the time, so a balcony was rather useless. We spent VERY little time out there. By contrast, if you were doing a TA at a different time of year (same itinerary), a balcony might be nice. Perhaps an AFT balcony would be different, ours was not.

Were you in an AFT balcony? 

We took a Transatlantic from Barcelona to Miami on the Epic late October years ago in an Aft suite and spent lots of time on the balcony while at sea. 

We'll find out next April if the same is true westbound when we sail from NYC to Southampton on the Getaway also in an aft suite. 

I highly recommend an aft balcony for a transatlantic.  There is very little wind and the balcony is very usable. 

5 hours ago, navybankerteacher said:

Of course one of the best deals going was back in the early 1980’s when it was discovered that the Connecticut Turnpike tokens (at 17.5 cents) worked in the New York Subway turnstiles as well as the MTA tokens (at 75 cents).

I wish I knew that back when I lived in Queens and worked in Manhattan! 😆

In case you are interested,  the snack is called Munchie Crunchie and available through NCL's vendor, New Urban Farms.

https://www.newurbanfarms.com/munchie-crunchie-mix/

We are lthinking of West Quay car service next year to get the Eurostars train to Paris.   https://westquaycars.com/southampton-london/

With luggage, we don't want to have deal with buses and taxis. 

This should answer your questions about the aft PH.  

Haven Aft Penthouse on a 13 night transatlantic from Barcelona to Miami on the Epic in 2011 for an unbelievable $1900/pp.  We booked it while the Epic was still under construction. Of course back then, there were no free at sea deals so we had to pay for drinks.

We'll never see those prices again....

We loved going to ISP.  Hoonah is a genuine Alaska town, unlike the touristy nature of Skagway and Ketchikan.   Despite the rain, the whale watching and bear watching excursion was great. We did see bears as well as salmon swimming in the Spasski River.    Just make sure you bring rain jackets with you and also rain hood for your camera.  I actually think walking through the woods in the rain added to the experience.   

On 3/15/2022 at 4:43 PM, meglet said:

Sailing on the Pearl soon in a non Haven aft suite. Anyone know if robes are provided? Thank you!

FWIW, we sailed in a aft suite (non-Haven) in 2018 and there were definitely plush robes (and slippers) for us.  I'm not sure if that is still the case.

Is there an option for deck 10?  The deck is much larger and in the past not too much more $$$,