CWMixer

Just catching up on this thread and am surprised to see the reactions to use of the word 'masses' in my comment on priority boarding experience (#17). Apparently this is a pejorative trigger word to some, taken as a negative comment on other passengers (and generating an 'us vs them' sub-thread). Oh brother indeed. Not my intent at all. As others have since used the synonym 'crowds' I'll trust it's ok and will rephrase my original comment, hopefully not inadvertently offending anyone this time but who knows: I've flown enough with the crowds on Southwest to appreciate the different experience on the relatively few times I've been in front on a JAL or Delta flight. I've traveled enough with the crowds on Metro North/NYC subways to appreciate the different experience on the relatively few times I've been able to take a private car service. Same comparison goes with my cruising experiences. It's a comment on our relative experience, not the other passengers. Regarding elevators vs stairs: as stairs are not an option for my wife, we have to use elevators to get around. General elevator etiquette issues have been discussed enough on these boards, and the availability of a 'private' elevator once in a while is a nice alternative experience. I hope the OP is enjoying their cruise after the bumpy start.

No restrooms on the Haven "lounge" level but there are one floor down, but not well marked. Agreed, weird design You have "priority" when it's your time to board, and in our experience your 'time" is when the Haven lounge team takes you in. It's not a clock time or relevant to the rest of the passengers boarding times. Having someone walk you on board and right into an express elevator to the Haven lounge (vs waiting w/the masses for a 'regular' elevator) is enough of a 'priority' to us. The room 'mix up'? Sounds like you have it covered with your TA: good. "Stuff" in the room from prior occupant? &$it happens (not frequently, thankfully) whether a ship, hotel, AirBNB/VRBO, rental car, or plane (I've become very hesitant to look in the seat-back pockets): as long as it's taken care of promptly we move on. Enjoy your cruise!

Apparently nothing would, yet. Despite acknowledging 9 specific reductions in service, they stand by the statement there have been no reductions in service. Subjectively, that’s apparently true, for their personal experience, as there’s no personal value on those 9 services. Objectively, 9 services (that others do place value on) have been agreed as being eliminated: that is by definition a reduction. Until/unless some area(s) that they consider valuable are removed, there will be no reduction in quality to them. (on a lighter note, this argument for some reason reminds me of the “ it’s only a flesh wound” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

I agree with your points on pricing trends, but obviously I can only see pricing for the 2/25 cruise as of today for comparison: I'll keep watching it. (In the dry dock they added ~40 (revenue generating) balcony staterooms in what was part of the observation lounge. The point could possibly be made that those additional rooms should result in an overall fare reduction). The 2/23 cruise was booked ~6 months prior to final payment. I tracked pricing and re-booked a couple of times prior to final payment. Price fluctuation overall was ~15% range, generally lowering as final payment date approached as we've found to be typical. As of this morning, it looks like ~70% of the rooms in this category are still available, so it's pretty certain there will be some price adjustments over the coming months. But with current pricing nearly 70% higher than the same sailing 24 mos earlier, I just don't expect NCL to lower it to a 'reasonable' (to us, anyway) increase level, say in the ~20-25% range. Someone who's looking at this 2/25 cruise, with no reference point of prior pricing, may however consider it a good deal.

First, enjoy your cruise! Joy is our favorite ship. Second, completely agree with your comments. We have 3 more NCL cruises booked over the next 18 months: one has gone up 12% in the past 3 months, two haven't changed in over 6 months. We enjoyed the Joy cruise I referenced so much we were considering going on it again next year, until we saw the price jump. We'll keep watching it, and fully expect it to be a higher price than the last one, just not nearly 70%. We doubt it will come down to a 'reasonable' (to us) increase. We'll continue to look for specific cruises (ships & itinerary) that interest us and will book when comfortable with the value: it's just getting harder to find those cruises.

Just back from a 7D cruise on Epic, and reading through this thread. 3 cruises in past 3 years (Breakaway, Bliss, Joy). Any noticeable declines in quality compared to prior 3? Yes. Any approaching a "shocking demise", individually or collectively? Absolutely not. However, NCL pricing on future cruises can be "shocking". Our 02/23 cruise on Joy vs 02/25 on Joy, with exact same itinerary and room, is up 68%. No thanks (even if hash browns AND cookies come back).

We'll be this Sunday as well (and also leaving a big couch potato/65lb lab/rescue mix at home!). We'll look for your comments (and might add as appropriate?!): Cruise well, my friends!

Wi-Fi calling with the non-streaming unlimited internet plan worked for me last year while at sea during a Panama Canal cruise. Our carrier is ATT with their $10/day flat fee for international talk and text option and I didn’t have any Wi-Fi app on my phone. Due to an emergency at home I had to be on the phone for ~2 hours. I never received any extra charges from ATT or NCL (but at the time extra phone charges weren’t my biggest concern!). If I remember correctly, I just had airplane mode and Wi-Fi calling “on”. Hope that helps.

Once onboard, we consider whatever we’ve paid (including DSC and FAS gratuities) as the base cost of the cruise, ie the cost of admission. Anything beyond that is a voluntary extra (excursions, shopping purchases, tips, etc), and we budget/plan accordingly. We have no idea if the specific crew member (from waiters and bartenders to butlers and concierges) at any specific point providing us with great service has been suitably (to us, anyway) compensated/appreciated. We therefore tip that person directly, usually at point of service, to show our appreciation, along with a kind word. Do we tip everyone all the time at some predetermined set amount? No. How much we tip is, and should be, irrelevant to others: it makes sense to us, and we budget/plan accordingly. Everyone will have their own opinion of what does or doesn’t make sense. Our approach has worked for us, in terms of having many great cruise experiences, and seems to have been appreciated by crew members, based on our experiences and feedback from them. To paraphrase the MIMITW: Cruise well, my friends.

If you mean that the “Open Bar Gratuities”, typically $305.20 on a 7 day cruise, have been paid ( by you or a TA or someone else) as part of the total cruise cost, then no, you are not “required” to pay any additional beverage package related gratuities. However, you will most likely get a wide variety of feedback on what you should or shouldn’t do re: additional tipping. Any additional gratuities should be based on whatever you feel comfortable with.

OP: FWIW: We're on a 2/24 sailing with "Amber Cove" shown as a stop on the webpage cruise itinerary summary, which matches what is shown on our booking summary (below). As noted in #12, GA webpage cruise itinerary summary shows "Puerto Plata" (ie Taino Bay); if your booking summary also shows "Puerto Plato" I'd bet you're going to Taino Bay (at least on paper!?).

To paraphrase The Who: “…meet the new sale, same as the old sale.”

Agreed. Unfortunately, fear sells. Reporting objective facts apparently isn’t a profitable business model.

02/02/23, Puerto Vallarta pier (from Joy during 15day PC transit cruise): No idea why there were A LOT of these guys and assets on prominent display and moving around the pier area all day; we never saw any similar security displays in any other ports. Never heard a word from staff or other passengers, and passengers were coming and going all day. I just put it in the same category as when I’ve seen heavily armed patrols in Penn Station, etc: visible deterrence. Overall great cruise, and very much looking forward to our next one.

Glitch seems to have been fixed: it's now showing again in the vacation add-on's/purchased items section of the Summary page for our 2/24 cruise, and as an upgrade option on our other 4.

Rechecked our 5 booked cruises this morning. The FAS+ upgrade option is now back and showing on 4 of them (all in '25). On the 5th one (in Feb '24), which we already purchased the upgrade and nothing has changed: still not showing.

5 bookings and FAS+ gone from all of them. Already purchased for our Feb '24 Epic cruise and not on the "Vacation Add-Ons" list any more, but the double excursion credit is still there as others have mentioned. I'll bet it's another weekend IT glitch; there was one a few weeks back that affected booked excursions that took them a week or so to straighten out.

Agree 100% with @Monica887Itinerary is #1 by far in Alaska. 6 years ago we asked 3 different TA’s the OP’s same question: if we only get to Alaska once (for a land and cruise tour), how should we do it? We had already been on 3 lines (once each) and none stood out. The unanimous answer was Princess so we went with that. The land portion was seamless and very good, as everything was ‘in house’. The cruise? We still don’t remember much about the ship (Royal Princess) amenities but sure remember countless hours on our balcony and deck areas taking in the non-stop views, along with all the ports and excursions. Overall the ship experience was ‘meh’ and the Princess atmosphere wasn’t for us, but it was still a great cruise because we were in Alaska! After 3 cruises since then and 3 more booked, all on NCL in Haven, we have a B2B (NB/SB) booked on NCL non-Haven in ‘25. We’ll be on our balcony, on deck or an excursion: that’s our Alaska entertainment! Go to Alaska for the experiences, not the ship: they’ll all do a good job keeping you warm, fed and appropriately hydrated.

my experience is the 'sale of the day' (30% off, 50% off, 2:1, etc) is basically click bait. Prices for cruises I've tracked (and booked) over the years have gone up, gone down or remained the same, regardless and independent of the 'sale of the day' language. Bottom line pricing can change on any day, presumably based on algorithms that track demand, booking volume, other cruise activity, and a 1,000 other factors. I check a cruise I'm interested in (or have booked) regularly. If price goes down and hits a level that works for me, I book (or book).. Most recently, a booked cruise had 2 price drops in the 50 days prior to final payment, saving us >10% off the original price.

FWIW: this is a deck plan showing for a mock booking on a 2025 sailing: no new rooms in the current OL area. If they're actually investing in new rooms it seems odd they'd not be trying to sell them already.

We were on the Joy for the first time earlier this year (Panama Canal transit, Miami to LA). Previously we had been on both Bliss and Breakaway in an Aft Haven Suite, which had become our favorite type of room (mainly for the large balcony). For the Canal trip we decided to try staying in the Haven, and chose a two bdrm on 17. In short, this is now our favorite room, location and ship! As much as we enjoyed the aft balcony, being directly in the Haven area made a huge difference. We liked Bliss better than Breakaway, and found Joy to be even better than Bliss. We've already booked our next cruise: on Joy and in the same room category.

We’ve gladly tipped $1/drink at start of a cruise, then occasionally up to $5 based on subsequent service. We feel good doing it, the waiters and bartenders appear to appreciate it: win/win. Never have we had to wait >5 minutes, and most often we are asked/served before the current drinks are empty. As an aside; our tip is folded under the key card, not laid on the bar or tray. Sometimes the tip is pocketed, sometimes it’s put in a drawer or on the tray. Either way, it’s none of our business, and we feel good that we’ve expressed our appreciation for the services of others in a way that makes sense to us.

General question for clarification if anyone knows: Is a tip given to the (lead) concierge then disbursed among the total concierge staff, or would it be kept entirely by the lead? Most comments here only indicate a tip to 'the concierge' and don't differentiate between other members of the concierge staff, as they do with giving tips to individual bartenders, servers, etc.

em-sk: It is all Flow containers

Boarded Joy on Sunday: 12 1-L's delivered per promotion (booked 11/01/22) 2 1/2-L's (due to Platinum?) 6 1-L's that I had purchased (I didn't have a lot of faith in the 12 showing up) 6 1-L's because _____________?????? no idea why: no note, etc. 25 L's of water We've got enough water for a while!