Ixtoras

I'd like to see that too, but based on the current Latitudes "Past guest cruise offers" they'll only be offering it for cruises in December 2023. I've been checking all year and haven't seen a single 2024 cruise listed for extra latitudes points. Right now there's only the 8 south pacific cruises listed.

Yup, actually called today to see if we could reschedule our February VL cruise to one of the other sailings within a month window. Cost to reschedule at the same catagory and itinerary was going to double the cost of the cruise. Ouch

@Lvbhappy Thanks for doing this review! Your pictures are great, as is the narrative. Thanks also for posting the menus and dailies. We're just about to book the Viva for one of the January / February itineraries in the southeastern Caribbean, so this is getting us psyched up. 🙂

We've been considering an interesting S2S Out of San Juan in February '24 to compare Virgin and NCL's new ships. Virgin has Valiant Lady doing Saturday departures, with a southern Caribbean itinerary every other week. Either 2/3-2/10 or 2/17-2/24 Overnight stay in San Juan between cruises NCL has the Viva embarking from San Juan every Sunday, but on the same east / southeast Caribbean itinerary each week. 2/11-2/18 or 2/25-3/3 This would give us a chance to check out two new/newish ships and a different line. (Originally this would have been on the brand new Brilliant Lady, but she's been delayed. Still seems like it would be cool to try out VV and compare it to NCL.

The NCL terminal in New Orleans is at the South end of a shopping mall (Riverwalk?) with the Hilton Riverside near the North end. We didn't stay there, but spent a bit of time in the mall waiting for our boarding time. We saw probably 50 or more groups of people with luggage that walked from the Hilton through the mall to the terminal.

You might want to take a look at that again. On the NCL site, the cruise may be titled "Alaska: Glacier Bay, Skagway & Juneau" but it actually visits 4 ports plus a day cruising Glacier Bay. The itinerary includes Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, and Victoria BC. Encore and Bliss are very similar, both have a great observation lounge area and if the weather is good, the waterfront areas are a good area to hang out outdoors. We cruised Alaska on Encore last May and found it to be a great experience. Assuming they haven't cut them, the main stage entertainment on Encore is Choir of Man and on the Bliss is Jersey Boys. As for the others - radiance of the seas is quite old, and had some propulsion issues that caused it to cancel some cruises earlier this month. Personally, Celebrity Edge and Solstice would be my next choices.

The Starbucks on the Jewel is in the Atrium on Deck 7 and is called the Atrium Cafe on the Deck Plans. I stopped by a few times on our cruise in April. It is smaller than the Starbucks on the larger ships, and it seemed to have a more limited menu. Still had the main coffee & espresso drinks, Iced coffees and it had a list of frozen Frappuccino's. I know that Starbucks is not included in the standard FAS beverage package / Open Bar, but the Premium Plus beverage package and the Starbucks packages should cover them under "Specialty Coffee".

Yes, absolutely. Booking "somewhat last minute" requires flexibility, but can certainly result in some significant discounts. It helps if she is relatively close to one or more of the major departure ports and doesn't have to deal with airfare. (Being out of California, I envy the options that the Floridians have.) We did a "somewhat last minute" cruise earlier this year, booking an NCL Mexican Riviera cruise at just over a month out. The deal was good enough that we had two other family members join us as Solos (not having to pay a solo supplement.) Pre tax, fees and gratuities, the cruise fare was under $100 per day per person. That said, and while we love NCL, they've stated that their financial strategy is that they'd rather sail with some open rooms than discount too much just to fill the ship. Other lines are discounting more heavily. Looking at one of the sites with a 90 day ticker, I'm seeing 30+ Caribbean itineraries in the next 90 days in the under $75 per person per day range. The MSC Seaside is $36 per night per person for a Nov 12th cruise, double that if you want a balcony.

@PORT ROYAL Question for you - searching for Novana in San Juan, but only seeing a Navona studios. Is this what you were referring to? We booked our cruise pretty far in advance, planning to stay in San Juan a day before and few (4-5) days post cruise. However, when we went to book hotels, prices had gone way way up from when I was first doing my research (essentially double). Sheraton Old San Juan is running $366, Courtyard Isla Verde is $437, La Conchada and El Convento are both $477/night... At that rate for 4-5 days, including other expenses, it would be cheaper to reserve a B2B cruise, flying directly home at the end. Started to think about Airbnb or boutique / guest houses as an alternative, and those are running around $100. We've done it before in other cities, but this is our first time in San Juan and I don't know the area. I'm guessing by your recommendation that you've stayed there and enjoyed it?

I think you're absolutely right, from what others have posted, it sounds like they're able to pick any itinerary that's published. just not a lot of great options in the same timeframe and region, unless they can rearrange plans and head down to San Juan instead of Miami to pick her up there.

What a mess. Been trying to make heads or tails out of it. We were / are booked for the Feb 10 Brilliant Lady now Valliant Lady sailing out of San Juan. Got a quick note this morning saying, hey we're just gonna change up ships. So I guess we're fortunate. Nothing to see here... I get that it was clearly some sort of business decision probably favoring higher capacity sailings, but the logic seems questionable due to all the other complicating factors. It seems like the "logical" thing would have been to just nix all the Brilliant sailings, with the natural excuse that she's just not gonna be ready till maybe April or Later. Heck - with the issues with the Puerto Rico cruise port debacle, do we even know which port is going to host embarkation / disembarkation? Taking the Valliant, which was doing 6 & 8 day rotating schedules and moving it to the 7 day schedule out of San Juan for like 3 months, and then pointing her passengers to the 4 and 5 day Scarlett sailings out of Miami just seems incredibly complicated. I feel sorry for all the impacted passengers and the poor TA's that are going to have to deal with this over the next few weeks.

Alternatively - Let's go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over. - Shaun

That's essentially what we're doing. Booked a multi city flight staying in Orlando a couple of days prior to departure just to have more options for getting to San Juan. We're coming from California, so pickings were slim on single stop flights as it was. As for flight prices - president's day weekend flght prices were rediculous - so in addition to staying in Orlando pre-cruise, we're staying several days in San Juan post cruise. Wish I had known that the prices would be that high that week. Might have picked a different week.

Gloriously open, with access to the mini side of the vibe bar and a pair of spa tubs that time and people seem to have forgotten about.

Nothing really significant. In our case, we had spa passes and liked that the aft stairs on 12 were only two floors down from the Mandara Spa reception area. We also had family travelling in the solo cabins and I think they were on 12 as well. The studio lounge (accessible only to the solo cruisers) is near the forward elevators and has a private stair between decks 11 and 12.

We stayed in Epic cabin 12242 (B6 Balcony) back in 2019 and we liked it. I would probably go with cabin 12241 if I were to do it again as its bed is closer to the balcony. The large balcony was pretty large, fitting two loungers plus two chairs and a small table. The balcony is mostly covered by the balconies above, but I wouldn't say that the room is "dark" as a result. These cabins are just midship from the aft elevators and stairs. (Only about 4 doors down.) IMO, the aft stairs / elevator were closer to areas of interest on decks 6,7,&15. Unfortunately, Epic doesn't have the waterfront that they have on the Away(+) class ships. There is a lot of open deck space, but its all on decks 15, 16, 17,18. Hope you have a great time!

It does make me wonder what kind of situation prompted them to add fans to the prohibited items list in the first place..... Someone claiming a drone is a fan? Big ol box fan? Vornado?

Seeing the picture in the article, it just needs to be pushed back into place. We've had family stay in the studio cabins on several of the away class ships and the Epic, and its just a normal tv mount. Limited mobility but easy to adjust. Looks like someone tilted that one way out.

Yup, looking at those as well. Virgin has Brilliant Lady out of Puerto Rico doing the ABC isles on alternate weekly itineraries throughout the first half of 2024. So maybe a B2B to hit em all.... 🙂

Looking at the Viva for an early 2024 cruise, but noticed that she only has one itinerary heading to the ABC isles in December 2024, but then does it on repeat for her Caribbean itineraries throughout 2025. Any speculation on why they wouldn't be doing the ABC itinerary with the Viva in 2024? We're considering the Pearl or Jade instead to get to some new ports, but would really love to get a chance to check out the Viva.

Think there are other posts on this by now, but... Maybe they had to tone down the racetrack to afford all the sets and special effects for Beetlejuice: The Musical.

From what I've seen the first day out heading down from LA and the last night back up to Ensenada / LA can be somewhat choppy, But unless there's a real weather system forecast, its relatively minimal. We've had pretty good luck and missed any "real" weather in the three times we've done the Mexican Riviera. We've gone in April and October, Don't know about deeper in the season. Both NCL and Carnival have pretty large / modern ships based out of LA doing the Mexican Riviera itinerary, Panorama is 134,000t and Bliss is 168,000t. Neither should really have much of a problem with the chop. Our first cruise was on the Carmival Splendor at 113,000 and while you could "feel" it, we didn't get seasick or see anyone having a problem. I've not tried Princess yet for the very reason you mention, although I've noticed that Holland America has some interesting itineraries with additional ports, so we might try that sometime. Whatever you choose, I hope you have a great time.

We used a couple of different companies, but "The Roman Guy/The Tour Guy" tours were all very good. Their Vatican Combo tour with the Sistine Chapel and Dome climb is a long day but well worth it. Their Colosseum tour was also very good. We also did the catacombs tour with them, but they hand you off to the official guides at the crypts themselves, so that part is pretty common among all the tour offerings. Funny thing though - our guide was so personable and entertaining during the drive there and extremely informative. We got a couple of good restaurant recommendations from him. On the other thread below about where to stay - we stayed at Hotel IQ Roma, which is right by the opera house and very close to termini, which made it a breeze to get to our destinations. It is modern, with AC, offers a good included breakfast and the staff were awesome.

42 till the Jewel Mexican Riviera. Can't come soon enough.

Anyone know if the "Latitudes reward insider offer" search page is a good representation of the cruises that qualify for bonus points? I've always found it a little frustrating to use - if you click the "log in and view cruises" button (already logged in) it takes you to the normal search page with the "Past guest offer" checked, and gets zero results. However, if you look at the filter options, it does seem that the results "largely" seem to qualify under the current promotion terms.....