hallux

Based on my experience on the Escape - one of the great things about those shows is how the performers roam the venue and in some cases interact with the crowd. You won't get that, not as easily at least, in the theater.

Because NCL can get them a little better rate?

For both Spice and the OL check out the Bliss and Joy, they have both AND have the walled-off smoking area in the casino. There's so much open deck space on the Escape I'm not sure if having Spice is even that critical.

To be clear - NCL has two different air programs. One is the BOGO airfare where you tell NCL how many days before the cruise you want to arrive and how many days after you want to leave and they take it from there. You get no choice on flight times or carrier. THEN there's the Premium Air program that doesn't force you to give up total control of your flight selection and NCL just passes along the flight cost, just acting as the TA for booking the flights. This program is probably more like the ones you're used to with other cruise lines.

That's the only way to do it - book for two. The smallest table is for two so even if you book for one you'll get the same size table.

The solo gathering on my last cruise was quite the opposite of that. We had over 30 people one night!!

When you are selecting the room, perks and 'gateway' airport the flight cost shows up on the right after the airport is selected. It's plainly visible as 'airfare' You can see it in this screenshot I just grabbed for a random cruise..

For dinner you can book tables up to 8 or 10, for shows you're booking just for your room.

I haven't gotten FCC in the past (nothing cancelled, no price drops I was eligible for) so I couldn't say, I just figured it should..

Good for you, I don't. The bottles I use (the Yeti I saw pictured earlier in the thread is more like a lidded cup) DO fill directly into where your mouth touches when you drink.

You're right, they don't. But they also don't go putting their fingers right in their mouth either (well, I don't anyway). But if the rim of someone else's bottle rubs on the spout, then you dispense water into YOUR bottle and it rubs on the spout you're effectively kissing a stranger the next time you drink from your water bottle. How that translates to someone's bottle touching the spout then you use a glass to fill your bottle I'm not entirely certain, I guess it depends on where on the spout the bottle rubbed. But - the button-pushing and lever-pulling (the water was lever-dispensed on my last cruise) argument is moot if everyone just did the sanitary thing and WASHED THEIR HANDS BEFORE EATING! It's not exactly inconvenient - all the new ships have sinks with soap and water right at the entrance to the buffet!!!

Your FCC belongs to you, not your travel agent. It should have appeared on your account.

They didn't pay for the deviation (NCL actually CREDITS $25 pp for requesting a deviation on their promotional air, look it up) but if they requested the deviation and the reservation reflects that then they should arrive 2 days pre-cruise. However - there's a chance that arrival is an EVENING arrival. While technically meeting the 2 days pre-cruise request, it's not exactly what was planned or expected.

Your FCC should show on your Latitudes account and allow you to use it as partial payment for the cruise. If you cancel before final payment the money goes back to the original form of payment, BUT the FCC will go back with the original expiration date. You can't book something then cancel and expect the expiration date on the FCC to be extended (similar applies to CruiseNext).

and as I pointed out in a post in another thread - nearly equivalent cruises on NCL CAN be found at the same price as on other lines, and the NCL cruise includes the beverage package while the other line does not so the NCL cruise would come out on top for value.

One of my co-workers was looking at a cruise, had one priced on Royal Caribbean and thought he had a good deal. I went on NCL's site, found a similar itinerary on a similar-sized ship, same room was a nearly identical price (taxes, fees, dining and bev. package gratuities included in the NCL price, txes and fees in the Royal Caribbean price). Royal Caribbean's price did NOT include their beverage package, for which he would have paid full price.

I saw this several mornings on a sold-out Escape in March.

I once said to my boss that a baseball player is considered good if they get a hit less than 1/3 of the time and then asked them if I was correct only 1/3 of the time would I be considered good at my job. They didn't appreciate that...

If you browse the Royal Caribbean board you will see similar complaints about THEIR IT. It's not just an NCL issue, and maybe they outsource to the same folks (well, shoot, I work for an IT contracting company, I sure hope they're not one of OUR customers!!). @eileeshb see above, it's not just NCL. At least not until I stopped spending as much time on the Royal Caribbean forum as I do here...

Yeah, I have a couple vacuum-insulated aluminum bottles that I'm now bringing, in addition to the Nalgene. I bring multiple as I use them for excursions.

My bottled water - filled in the room or the buffet (be sure to use a glass, DON'T fill directly). The water the ship produces (produced through either reverse osmosis or distillation) is probably as good or better than bottled in some plant that's just using a city water supply. 6 cruises on 5 different ships with 2 different cruise lines and I always used this 'bottled water plan', never an issue.

I've only been to Cagney's a couple times, on the Bliss and Joy, I don't know that any of the steaks were seasoned during cooking - relying on the sauces you can order from the menu to go with them for that seasoning.

As is mentioned in ALL of the many other topics on specialty dining (but you're new so here goes) - NCL only opens a portion of the reservations prior to embarkation. As soon as you board, make a bee-line for wherever the dining reservations are made on your ship (you don't say which ship so we can't tell you where) and get them booked.

You hand your luggage over to porters before going through security (which is before check-in). I've experienced both where I had to hand my bag off myself and where the driver had a porter come right to the bus and took care of it for me.

AHHHH, American Airlines! There's a big part of your troubles!! I've been hearing of so many people that avoid them now because of issues they've had with them - my parents included. They were also very obstinate when I was at the airport at 10 AM and wanted to be on standby for an earlier flight since my booked flight was at 11 PM, when I had booked through the previous free/reduced airfare. It seems other airlines have been a little more lenient on trying to get an earlier flight. They were nice enough to check our bags but we still had to proceed with a rental car and sightseeing for the day.