UKstages

thanks, that would normally be a great idea, since i'm using OBC, but i'm traveling solo. i've actually heard of a lot of instances where people scored vibe passes onboard... and, yes, i'm talking about after NCL switched to selling them online in advance. if i'm successful, i'll report back next week.

despite what they may say about injury during rehearsals... "injury and "indisposition" are often thinly veiled code words for covid, that's the moist likely reason for show cancellations these days.

i've never done the vibe... i am considering it for next week on the joy. it's sold out, but, typically, a few spots become available. where do i head to inquire if i'm among the first onboard? would that be guest services or the social, where, if memory serves, they often do restaurant reservations?

pending availability, you can book an excursion in any port on the day and the FAS credit will apply.

interesting perspective. the long hallway that is the local bar didn't really bother me. what bothered me in the local bar area was the lackadaisical service, from the servers to the bartenders. as for the actual local restaurant, i thought it was fine the way it was set up... much like a hotel coffee shop. there are plusses and minuses at the prima local... remember that the prima is the first NCL ship to have outdoor seating at the local, not that it was used much on its nordic itineraries. i personally don't like o'sheehan's and the local in the atrium... invariably, i'm eating lunch or dinner and listening to some inane game show or a movie that i can't see.

i am pretty sure, based on some of the things that he's said, that the OP is considerably older than she. i assumed the OP is retired. he saod she was "college aged," which is different than saying she was a college student. she may have already graduated or not gone to school at all. you can be "college age" without being a student.

i have not sailed on the escape, sorry.

say what? this will come as news to the folks in bermuda, st maarten, aruba, bonaire, curacao and the dominican republic. and to US immigration and customs. i can assure you they do care very much about where you stopped. actually, you'd probably be broke. anybody buying a 400,000.00 server rack knows what he or she is getting into. they wouldn't dream of buying a server rack without "the other part." and that's pretty much the same as a sapphire level cruiser who wouldn't dream of traveling on this itinerary without a passport or him and his traveling companion.

he may have been carefully chosen to helm the prima, as the ship itself is not terribly customer-oriented.

yes, a lounge chair is guaranteed in the vibe in the sense that the number of passes sold does not exceed lounge chair capacity. but i don’t believe NCL makes that specific claim.

if so, sad to see it go, but it makes far more sense to me than removing a ginormous portion of the observation lounge.

i didn’t miss that at all. i specifically mentioned this in my post and it was in fact the foundation of a bit of praise that I directed towards NCL. while you quoted me (thanks!), your points seem to be addressed to what some others have said. THIS cruise starts and finishes in the USA. a more interesting question might be how do you plan on getting home from a foreign port of call in the case of illness, civil unrest or damage to the ship? some countries require a passport to be valid for six months beyond the date of your visit. I know of no country that restricts visitors with newly minted passports, but i don’t know everything. thanks for this! this supports my supposition that NCL is in fact proactively doing what many in this thread have suggested they should do. you gotta start somewhere and, unfortunately, the email was ill-timed for the OP.

same menu each night in all three restaurants. the names of the restaurants may differ from ship to ship, by the way.

the best kept secret - and quietest location - on the ship... almost always empty. many haven guests don't even know it's there.

i haven't been on cruise critic all day and so clearly had some catching up to do. my gawd, the things you kids get into while i'm gone, i swear! like the OP, i'm an NCL fanboy, more or less. Like the OP, i book all my trips through casinos at sea. like the OP, i'm ruby in the casino and sapphire in latitudes. like the OP, i'm scheduled on the 10/16 journey on the joy. like the OP, i, too received an email from NCL today reminding me of passport requirements. unlike the OP's girlfriend, i have a passport and already knew the requirements. look, it's not NCL's responsibility to badger or coddle its passengers. it's just not. it's their responsibility to get them to agree to the terms of the contract, which everybody does at the time of booking, most without reading. in a perfect world, however, NCL would have reminded passengers long before three days ahead of a monday departure. that's just good business. do they have to? no. should they have? yes. but i have a slightly different perspective on this email notification. it seems to me, since many people received this email communication today, for cruises very far out, that NCL may finally be addressing the very thing most people here are criticizing them for not doing! i am assuming, but can't say for sure, that they are sweeping the system and sending this notification to passengers on all currently booked applicable cruises. and i am also assuming that going forward, they will be sending these emails after somebody books an applicable cruise. just a hunch. as for passports, yes, you can absolutely get one in one day in manhattan and many other major cities, including boston (the OP appears to be from massachusetts). i've done it. that would be the way to go, in my opinion, especially since he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on for any service recovery.. and it will make for a great travel story, too. but the OP has rejected that idea. full stop. i'd ask the OP to reconsider. it's the only way to salvage this mess. alternatively, she could get a passport in boston on monday and you could fly down to bermuda on wednesday to meet the ship. i think i may remember reading in here somewhere that the OP's girlfriend spent six months planning this trip. if so, surely at sometime during the past six months, she would have stumbled across the travel requirements, no? as for the OP's assertion that he will never step foot on an NCL ship again, i'd ask him to reconsider. i had an absolutely horrific experience on my last NCL cruise, but here i am, a few months later, set to sail monday on a 19-day B2B. if i vowed never to travel via any bus line, cruise line, airline, dog sled or rickshaw company that treated me poorly at some point, i'd be forever homebound. as for people who wonder how upgrades become available right before departure... this is one way that happens. people get sick, people die, people don't read the terms, the travel requirements or the contract. (i'm not saying the OP necessarily has a room that somebody would want to upgrade to., i'm just saying this is one reason rooms become available just before departure.)

yes, absolutely! as i think i said in this thread or in my actual review of the prima (this thread is not the review... there is another thread in which i throw praise and brickbats at the prima)... as i said previously, i'm actually a fan of NCL. not so much the prima, nor this cruise experience, but definitely NCL. hey, sometimes you have to have tough love conversations. i doubt i'll go on the prima again, but i might consider the viva and most definitely the third of the prima class ships. i'm doing a B2B out of new your on the joy in just three days time. two different caribbean itineraries. i've sailed the joy before and think it's an excellent ship.

um, maybe. but without going into dry dock and ripping open the walls of the many problem cabins, i don't see how they could possibly fix this problem. the noise is coming from deep within the walls and/or ceiling. it's not like they can superglue an air conditioning duct.

which NCL ships were these? there may be some confusion because on older ships without a haven restaurant, suite guests and haven guests dine together for breakfast and lunch (typically in moderno and cagneys). the menu might say "haven" on it and it is indeed the haven menu, but it's not the haven restaurant. and suite guests are not given access to any part of the haven complex (which is not that grand on the smaller ships, anyway). suite guests on the prima get private breakfast and lunch, too... i believe in cagney's, if memory serves. but it'll be just suite guests, as haven guests have their own restaurant. it's counterintuitive... why would suite guests be given access to the haven? (even guests in "front suites.")

oy. i'm also on that cruise and feel the same way. i don't mind if NCL adds a game show here and there, that's fine. but don't try to tell me that it's a replacement for a broadway show, even a marginal one like "footloose." well, i've got good news, i think. i have no inside info, this is just speculation, but i seriously doubt that that they will get WOF up and running the week after they pull "footloose." i wouldn't think they would be able to strike the "footloose" set, install WOF and rehearse the show that quickly. (yes, the show itself is probably rehearsed first in miami, but they still have to have run throughs in the theatre.) as for being able to book "footloose," yes, this is faulty NCL website updates (or lack thereof). they are still letting you book it, but on the very page where they invite you to book it, it also says that the show will not be offered beyond 10/26 (or whenever the actual closing date is).

one thing to consider is the ship's arrival time. is the ship arriving late and is that one reason, perhaps for the late departure? it may not do any good to show up at 10:30 AM if the ship doesn't arrive till 10 or 11 AM. another thing to consider is whether it was repositioning with or without passengers. if without, the rooms will likely be ready at boarding.

no need for a book bag. two words: kindle and audiobooks. OK, that's three words. also, you could substitute "ipad" for a kindle. so, maybe four words.

the size of the improv on the prima and the viva is now irrelevant, as is the "improv" branding. when i sailed the prima in may and june of this year, all levity comedy shows had been moved to the theatre. i assume they have done the same on the viva. the improv, at least on the prima, is now used for lectures, trivia and what not... but no comedy, unless you count a presentation from the park west folks... that is often hilarious.

true. however, the joy is actually scheduled to be in bermuda next week, too. it's the first stop on that 12-day caribbean repositioning cruise to miami. enjoying your live report, as i will be on the joy (B2B) beginning with that cruise, 10/16.

yeah, it's a bad website update, (or lack of update.) they have the disclaimer about it not being available after october 28th on the very page where you can still make an active booking for the show. i'm on a B2B on the joy 10/16 and 10/28 and i am looking forward to seeing it on the 10/16 cruise. some of the performances of "footloose" on my cruise last september were canceled due to covid among cast members, so i never got to see it. i did see it on broadway 25 years ago and it's not a very good show, but i haven't seen the NCL production.

it's been said many times, many ways, but this can not be done. at least in the short-term. the show is a property which has been licensed by NCL. part of the agreement is that the show must be presented in the club named after its fictitious founder. the creators (rightly, in my opinion) believe that part of the syd's magic is the intimate venue. place it in a larger theatre and it loses that special something. so they say. (i agree.) it could conceivably happen if NCL renegotiates the contract to allow the show to be performed in larger venues. but be careful what you wish for. anybody who has seen "the beatles" in the theatre (which is allowed), as opposed to the "cavern club" knows that it's a very different show.