Sailing12Away

Are you able to get into your account on a regular computer and it's only the app that is giving you trouble? Or are you locked out of both? Get it working on a regular computer first, you may need to reset the password. Then once you're sure of the login info, go back to the app. Much easier to book dinner reservations on a real computer than a phone, don't wait on doing that. But shows need to be done on the ship itself for most of them. Dinner you can do now for the specialty places.

I try to sign up for all the roll calls for our trips, and if there's a cabin crawl I always volunteer our room for a tour. When we were on the Star in May we threw a little party in there as that room was way too big to NOT have one. My upcoming trips are always in my signature. If anyone is tagging along, just say the word and the tour is yours. We've converted several folks we met on our travels into future Haven guests... would be nice if there was some sort of kickback 😛 Not sure why, but the tours usually end up with everyone talking in the bathrooms in those bigger rooms. Guess cause they're so big and because you can? But challenge accepted... I'll have a Miami Vice in my hand on the first day of all my trips, and we usually attend at least one wine tasting event just to remind us what we already know. Where's my fellow team Puppy Dog Eyes winners?

The joy of sailing with NCL is that you can do almost anything you want in terms of dress code. At the Haven restaurant at night there will be folks dressed to the 9's, folks like us in simple clothes, and folks in between. If you didn't opt for the drink package, you won't get it for free by being in Haven. You can always add it on once on board if you feel you want it. Moving into Haven will give you access to the Haven-only parts of the ship (private bar, private restaurant, private pool/sun deck, the butler service, dedicated concierge, etc etc).

Unless you book an NCL hotel, the shuttle is from the airport to the port and vice versa. If you let NCL book your hotel (usually not a good price IMO), then they'll get you at the hotel. Other option is to book a hotel that has a free airport shuttle, and use that to get to the hotel, then back to the airport for the NCL transfer. But to me, I'd rather just Uber than all that back/forth.

No shame here... we put the glob of butter in first so it starts to get melty, then literally dump the cup of bacon bits on top. Can't let that bacon go to waste...

That's why I don't ever answer the phone unless it's a number I recognize (and even then only pick up half the time), or I'm expecting a call. That's what the technology lords invented voicemail for. No rule out there saying you have to call them back.

We have a friend who recently passed away that loved anything ship related. Would always share fun facts and trivia about ships, sailing, the point of the rat guards, how you can't call it a boat unless it's on fresh water (with the exception of that one vessel in Michigan).... He would have really loved that dinner and being able to pick the brains of all the officers, so if it's truly available to us on our February trip I plan on going just to honor his memory.

No, it's called asking for a refund/FCC as you don't want to take the vacation being offered as it's not the vacation you paid for. You would get the money back to put towards a different one that suited your wishes. Only thing you would be out is flights/hotels etc if those were prebooked and needed to be adjusted. Which you could also fight to try and get some compensation back on, or, the almighty elusive travel insurance which is meant for such last minute unplanned changes. The point is that by agreeing to step on the cruise with the changes already told to you, you made a choice. Even a crappy choice is still a choice. My dream vacation is to the Galapagos. If I spent a year planning and shelled out the 8K+/pp that it costs to cruise around there and was told at the last minute we're headed to Chili instead... yeah, I would be pissed. But I still have a choice. Time is already taken off from work, I'm already in South America... either I put off Galapagos for another year and go to Chili first, find a last minute private company to take me where I truly want to go, or head back home with nothing at all. There's still choices. Maybe it's just the word choices used of 'worst cruise ever' and the theatrical overly dramatic which diminishes and discredits the true vs perceived losses encountered.

It's not 'excessive', but after a long day of wandering the ports or ship itself and lots of cocktails, being a 1 minute walk to your own bathroom and bedroom is always 100x better than a 5 min walk. We were in an aft Haven room on Encore and the room itself was great, balcony one of the biggest we've had - but for us, with a ship that has the full Haven experience, if we're sailing in Haven it will not be aft. Last cruise on the Joy we were on deck 15 but midship, so going to the Haven bar was a short 2 flights up/down and a 3 cabin walk. That's our happy compromise for the Joy. Closed down the bar every single night as that's what we find enjoyable to do after dinner. On a smaller jewel class ship, we'll take whatever is the best deal available since there's no Haven bar to hang out in anyway. The only issue with being aft in those ships is if you plan to use the courtyard pool/jacuzzi. It's a long walk back to your room in your swimsuit and those robes are NOT one size fits all. It also depends on where your cruise is going. Our Encore trip was to Alaska, so being able to wake up at 6am and look out at that amazing aft view of the beautiful scenery was nice. Getting woken up by strong vibrations in the room was less nice. But generally speaking, there are folks who LOVE being aft - we're just not them.

I've never seen this in any of my cruises. We do our best to arrive later in the afternoon when the hubbabaloo has died down. Drop our main bags with the porter, keep a backpack/laptop bag with important documents with us. Grab lunch, then the room is ready and we're on our way.

Itemize and count your stuff, roll them up nice and tight and shove em in. Definitely helps for folks who fly in early or plan to stay behind after the cruise ends. Club balcony rooms get a free bag, as do platinum lattitude members.

I would imagine there's certain seats that are more coveted (near the windows, quieter, away from busy thoroughfares, etc). If/when they're available, priority would be given to Sapphire and up when the come to check in for dinner.

Haven cards are gold with a starfish and say "Haven" on the top. Regular cards are either purple or teal, depending on your lattitude status. In the top right corner it will say how many dining meals you have and the type of drink package, make sure that is correct too.

You did have a choice. You chose to still get on the ship and have a vacation with food, drinks, entertainment, a clean room... You could have chosen to not board the ship on the premise of the last minute changes that were unacceptable to you. Your last statement is funny and where I stopped reading the 4+ pages of this thread. Last time I checked, the next Star Trek cruise isn't until February 2023 and sailing on a different line. There are no teleporters to bring cruise ships from port A to port B without having to sail THROUGH other areas. Just because Nassau didn't have a hurricane didn't mean there wasn't other stuff happening around the area surrounding it that you would have to sail through to get there.

Just because a particular room type looks sold out, doesn't mean on the day of sailing that it actually is. We bid on the 3br garden villa on the Star which had been sold out for months. The night before we flew to Spain for our trip we got the alert that our bid was accepted. People cancel at the last minute, people miss their flights... you never know what may happen. Bid on the rooms you want and hope for the best. If you sail on the Joy, consider looking at the HH, HI, and HJ cabins. They're outside of the Haven proper area, but not nearly as far as the aft or forward facing cabins. Rooms are cheaper than the courtyard ones with bigger balconies, so a double win in our eyes.

We've figured out what we consider to be a 'smart' way to eat at both Q & Food Republic that makes it 'worth it' for us. Q offers a sampler platter which includes more than enough food for one person, especially when you add in the included sides. Last trip hubby ordered 2 of those to use up both of our credits and fed the full table of 4 people on just 2 credits. If we were by ourselves it would just be one credit to feed both of us. For Food Republic, we each tried it for the first time during lunch. On sea days it's open for both lunch & dinner - so we each got 4 items. Way too much food. Going forward, we'll plan on stopping there for lunch again, but just using a single credit each time and splitting the 4 items. So if you think of each of those restaurants as more of a half credit value and share 1 meal, they're both good options.

That's odd... never had that happen to me. I use the same person for my bookings for the last year now, but the marketing emails I get from NCL have someone else's name listed as my PCC that I've never spoken to once. You might need to buck up and if they reach out again just admit you don't consider them to be your PCC and prefer they don't contact you. Breaking up is hard to do sometimes 😛

Sailed on the Joy last month in/out of NYC and no facial recognition in play for us at all the entire trip. Good old swipe/tap in play the whole trip.

I guess it's semantics at this point, but it's not really about what you booked but what you ultimately are doing and taking. You may have booked a 12 night, but you're actually sailing on an 11. If it changed from 12 to 13, would you expect the perks to extend to that bonus day for free without a charge? Why would the rules be different for the other way around? My guess is the reduction is not a set % but more an issue of the presumed gratuities for the beverage package on a 12 vs 11 day calculation of '$$$' x '# of days' with that last part being different now. As for why Vibe price isn't changing, that doesn't seem to be a price per day charge - it's a flat fee based on cruises of length <7 = xyz, 7-14 = qrs, >14 = abc. The simple fact that the rules are different for those of us in the states vs everyone else doesn't help with the confusion when people see others getting different perks or perceived discounts/inclusions that others do not.

Even though the perks may change, depending on the drop it may still be worth it. One of the first big drops we had for our next trip we saved $900. The only change to the booking was we went from 5 specialty dining credits to 3. I can buy 2 more for way less than $900 so for me it was still 'worth it'. If you see a drop, just call and ask them what will change to determine if it's 'worth it' to you.

I never made dining reservations for the MDR when I was on POA a few years back. Unless I have a big group dining together I wouldn't bother, never have a problem getting a table for 2 just walking up on any ship we've been on.

Prices will keep dropping typically if there's lots of rooms left. After final payment date it gets tricky to get price adjustments. Before then, you just call and you can get a reprice without issue. But after... the rules seem to change for what they can/will do. Our next trip is in February and the price has dropped over 4K from when we first booked. So I just call and get it adjusted. But I only have 1 more week that I can do that, then it will be past final payment. If you don't book anything at all and want to wait until <30 days, you get what's left over in terms of cabin choice. If you don't care about specific rooms and just want a last minute deal, then wait it out I suppose.

Step 1 in recovery is being able to admit when you have a problem 😛 For the OP, if you're on the 2/24 sailing with me out of LA, another thing to consider is upgrading your cabin. Balcony rooms seem to be higher in price for some reason, but there are some VERY good discounts on Haven rooms. ~$350/pp/day right now for the lowest category Haven room. If that's too much of an upgrade, look into the club balcony rooms - they're only about a $500 total increase from a regular balcony.

Our February Panama canal sailing seems to be fixed... albeit with the wrong itinerary based off of recent emails from them. But at least it now shows up as a PC cruise.

Check the roll call section. If someone takes the lead and organizes one, then yes, there will be one allowed.