shoreless

Yes. We generally stick to Norwegian and Royal and will now lean towards Royal, all else being approximately even.

I always bring bottled coke and spring water (still, not sparkling) on board. If I could purchase the same thing on the ships and keep them in my cabin refrigerator I'd gladly pay extra for the convenience of not having to carry them onboard.

Yes, of course I could live without my beverages of choice for a week. I could also probably live without air conditioning, a mattress, and indoor plumbing but it's not how I would choose to spend my vacation.

"Entitlement" has nothing to do with it. NCL has a perfect right to implement whatever policies they want, just as I have a perfect right to take their policies into consideration when planning my vacation. I do think it's wrong of them to put the new policy into effect when some people are already past final payment date; fortunately for me I'm not in this situation but I sympathize with the people that are.

Does anyone know if you can buy bottled spring water (still, not sparkling) and/or cans of ginger ale onboard?

I'd love to have Coke also (and would pay a hefty price for it) but I guess that won't be available in any form unless a black market emerges.

Yay! Now I can go back to browsing the NCL site and picking out my next cruise. :)

On one of our NCL cruises, one of the "for-crew-use-only" areas in our hallway was used for temporary storage of the trays, etc. left in the hallways or cabins. The crew left the door open and our steward said we were free to leave our trays in there if we didn't want to leave them in our cabin for pickup. I thought that worked well. It meant we didn't have to have the trays taking up space in our cabin. It was totally optional of course.

Not having been around here for a while I’m kind of late to the party, but I’ll add my two-cents worth anyway.

I only read about the first ten pages or so of the thread before skimming through to the end, but a lot of posts surprised me. I’d thought that one big reason people chose to cruise NCL was the “freestyle” element – relax, eat what you want, where you want, when you want, dressed in almost whatever you want. Strangely, a lot of this thread would be right at home on the Cunard or Celebrity forums.

I don’t understand why some people have compared taking food from the ship’s buffet to taking food from a buffet on land. On a cruise, the fare includes all that we will eat for the duration of the cruise – breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, whatever. The price of the cruise reflects that. It doesn’t matter if you eat in multiple restaurants every day or take out a similar amount of food from the restaurants and/or buffet. The price of a buffet at a restaurant on land is calculated to cover a single meal, so it’s logical that you can’t take any food with you when you leave.

I’m in my seventies, but have only been cruising for nine years. I’d always thought that cruising would be too formal for me. I was happy to be proved wrong. I pack no dressy clothes, and on most of our cruises we’ve eaten at least half of our meals in our cabin or on our balcony. We’ve gotten “take-out” from buffets and many specialty restaurants. I know some/most people would consider my cruise fare wasted because I spend most of my time reading in my cabin or on my balcony but it suits me. I don’t even leave the cabin to go ashore at most ports.

I don’t consider myself a slob (athough I’ll admit to being somewhat antisocial). I realize that clearing away dishes from either take-out or room service is extra work for the stewards, but we do tip accordingly.

I don’t have any quarrel with a room-service fee for an occasional meal, but room-service is not the same as free-style, involving fewer choices and more advance planning. If I want a plate of fruit I’d like to go pick it up when I want it, rather than calling room-service, waiting for an hour, paying eight dollars for it, and finding that it's mostly cantaloupe (which I'm not fond of).

We’ve enjoyed cruising with NCL (and have cruised enough to be platinum now). I hate to leave but I just am not comfortable with this new policy (which is not a “small thing” to me). I’m not generally a rule-breaker, so if this policy continues I’ll be leaving NCL and hoping RCCL will not copy this new idea.

Leaving quietly, not flouncing……..

I'm very disappointed about this. When we first started cruising, only about nine years ago, I did a lot of research and chose NCL mainly because of the dining options.

We book balcony cabins, mini-suites or suites -- always something with a balcony. We usually eat at least half of our meals in the cabin or on our balcony and get the meals from the buffet or one of the specialty restaurants.

Even when we eat dinner in the buffet or a specialty restaurant we generally bring a dessert or snack back to the cabin.

We're platinum now and I hate to give up NCL but I don't think I can live with the new rule. I'm not disabled but I'm getting up there in years and cruising is a relaxing way for me to vacation. I know a lot of people would think it wasteful to go on a cruise and hang around a cabin and balcony most of the time, but it suits me.

Most of our cruises have been on NCL but we've also taken and enjoyed several cruises with Royal Caribbean. If they don't copy this new policy I think we'll be switching over to them for all our future cruises.

ETA: I realize that bringing food back to the room makes more work for the stewards; we do tip well for it.

Thank you Gambee. Wonderful review, awesome pictures, and amazing video tour! The Waterfront looks great, even in the rain.

Thanks to you and Slice I have a long list of things not to be missed. :) And thanks to poor Joeski's review I also have a short list of what to watch out for. :eek:

If you see something you want as a souvenir, but it when you see it, especially if it's a bag or fleece. I wanted a black half zip fleece and when I came back to buy it later in the day it was all sold out! The aqua striped bags when quick too.

 

I brought bottles of Coke and Sprite on with me, I am not a Pepsi fan!

Thanks. I'll definitely bring some Coke, buy souvenirs early (after seeing your pictures I see that I need ornaments too), and ask for lanyards. I see that I'll also be spending some money in the Clayworks Store. :)

All of your pictures are great -- these are the best pictures I've seen of Spice H2O. I really appreciate all the work you've put into this.

Thanks so much for posting your pictures. I think I'm going to be spending more than usual on souvenirs this trip -- among other things I'm quite sure I need one of those aqua striped bags. :)

In your pictures of O'Sheehan's I couldn't help noticing a bottle of Coke. Was it available on the ship or did you bring it with you? I'm afraid I'm addicted to it (hate Pepsi). :o

I agree with you. It looks like maybe 1/4 is covered. You can really see it from the "Flicker" picture that was posted.

But I think that would still mean that the covered part is about equal to the whole of a regular balcony. So the uncovered part is just a bonus. At least that is how I'm thinking of it. :)

That was our aft balcony on deck 13. Balcony was a nice size balcony with two chairs and a little table. It wasn't until the last day that they put two loungers out there and they fit perfectly with room to spare. During our cabin crawl we had fifteen people on our balcony at one time taking pictures. Lol. However must mention one thing about the aft balcony there is no privacy. Unlike the Epic which is straight at the back of the ship, the Breakaway is angled so anyone above you can look straight down to your balcony. Even the aft penthouse are the same as you can see from Mike's pictures. That was taking from our balcony. No privacy but great cabins and no wind. We enjoyed our balcony almost everyday.

The late-arriving furniture gives me hope that the M6 balconies might also be getting more. I can dream anyway. :)

That has been my experience also.

Marriott (and I think other chains too) will waive the internet charges once you get to the second or third membership rewards tier :)

Royal is currently investing in O3B service.

http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/post/2012/06/royal-caribbean-faster-internet/790873/1

That sounds great, along with the new unlimited plans they've been trying out on a few ships. I don't mind paying for internet access if it's not too expensive. I think I read that on recent Allure sailings it was ninety-nine dollars for unlimited access on a week-long cruise. I'd be very happy with that.

I think I'm in the minority here; I spend a lot of time relaxing in my cabin or on my balcony, watching the ocean and reading or browsing the internet. It may not be everyone's idea of a perfect vacation but it works for me.

Besides, if we all spend our cruising time in different ways and at different venues, it makes it better and less crowded for everyone :)

Thanks, ell52. Taverna Gorgona looks great. :) I think we're going to rent a car for the day, so we'll be pretty flexible.

I'm thrilled to see a thread with Vancouverites? on it. We'll be there for just a day -- we're taking a 4 day Pacific Northwest cruise on Celebrity's Mercury.

My question is more than vague, unfortunately.:) The last time we were in Vancouver, three years ago, we ate at a Greek restaurant that we loved (small lamb chops to die for and a nice Greek salad with no lettuce and lots of cucumber), and we've been trying, with no success, to remember what it was called, or even kind of where it was. It was listed in one of the little free magazines or brochures in our hotel, but it was definitely not near downtown or any of the tourist areas. I think we had to drive through a bit of an industrial area to get there, but I'm not sure. It was on a street (I think on a slight hill) that had lots of shops and restaurants (a nice area, casual rather than expensive looking). It was a fairly small and narrow restaurant, with a section of tables on the right separated by a railing from the entrance. I don't really expect that you could identify the restaurant from this pathetic description, but I thought I'd ask anyway. In any case, we'll only be there during the day on this trip, so I suppose a lot of restaurants are only open at night.

Another vote for the Skagway Fish Company. Wonderful crab legs!