wil e coyote

Try crossing the border into Canada at 2 AM when you're 17, with three other 17-year-old friends, so you can "have a smoke in Canada." Then the Canadian BP officer asks how much money you have, and you realize that between the four of you, you have a total of 77 cents. Yeah - we spent an hour in the border patrol office - were denied entrance to Canada, but told, "You're officially in Canada. So have your cigarette and get out!" Then, we had to go back through the US BP point. Now it is after 3 AM. When the officer asked us what we were up to, one of us replied, "We just got kicked out of Canada!" Got to spend another hour in the US BP office before they finally let us back in...

I'm reminded of a Steven Wright bit... "I was driving in from Canada and the border patrol agent asked, 'Do you have any weapons?' So I said, 'What do you need?'" 😆

Touche! Excellent points. I also try to book direct flights as much as possible - with NCL it is a coin flip. On our last trip we used NCL Air and the flight out had a connection while the flight home was direct. Go figure!

@pinklady65, you might want to double check the terms of your discount. It may very well be that you simply need to book your next cruise by June 20, 2023 to get the discount. The cruise can probably be later than that. Worth a look...

Yep - we have always packed a change of clothes and swimwear in our carry-ons just in case. Still, losing access to all the other stuff would be a definite bummer. @ChiefMateJRK, I do agree that there are situations where using "NCL Air" isn't the best option. But in the case of this issue, I don't think NCL's booking of the travel has anything to do with it. NCL has no control over whether the airline loses luggage.

Ship - Breakaway Deck - 14 Stateroom # - 14732 Stateroom Category – Haven Penthouse Starboard or Port Side - Starboard Quiet Stateroom? (With comments on problems) – Yes, overall. We found the room to be very quiet 95% of the time. Even the air handler was whisper-quiet. It was really nice. The only noise (and it was minor) was we could occasionally hear someone on a treadmill above us (we were under the gym.) But even then it was not any louder than other ship noises. Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - No Balcony View - Give comments on view, noting if location of any obstructions was an issue. – No obstructions. We were on the same level as the bridge, so we could see the starboard wing of the bridge off to our left. But we were far enough back that it did not obstruct our view. Balcony Size? Normal or oversized for class? - Balcony was normal size. Plenty of space for two chairs and a little table. Not enough space for lungers. Was wind a problem? - No. Any specific problems with this cabin? - Some of the catches on the doors/drawers were broken. Otherwise, no problems. Any other comments? -

Wowzers! Glad I like beer!!! 🤪

Maybe this is the NCL IT department...

I'm so sorry this happened to you and your family. If you have travel insurance, that is probably the best place to start. Most policies provide some payout for lost luggage. I'd also go to the airline and file claims for your lost luggage. I doubt you will get much help from NCL for this issue. While they did book the flights for you, they are basically the travel agent for your airfare. They had nothing to do with the bags getting lost/delayed. At the same time I don't have any personal experience in this area with NCL so someone may know more. Hope it all works out.

@redwave, I have them from the 6/12 sailing and will post in a few days (I will start a new thread so as not to hijack this one. 🙂

@Floridastorm, your question will probably create a real (virtual) storm of different opinions of what people should or should not do...but before that happens I will simply answer the question you asked. We were on BA in June, and I'd estimate that about 10% of the passengers were wearing masks. All of the staff were wearing masks, but even they had to lower them sometimes to be understood in noisy environments. We were also told in our Freestyle Dailies that masks would be required at each port, but we did not find this to be true. I heard that the NCL excursions were requiring masks while on a bus, but we didn't take any of those so I can't confirm. In short, if you don't want to wear a mask on your cruise, you don't have to. Hope that helps. Enjoy!

Yup, that will definitely get you flagged for secondary screening, as I have learned...🤪

We were in a forward facing penthouse on Getaway in February. The cabin was huge - but the balcony was really small. Really only big enough for one person to enjoy comfortably. So if a big balcony is your aim, go for the aft facing cabins.

The two ports are quite close. When we visited the DR in February, we docked in Puerto Plata, and drove by Amber Cove on our shore excursion! It was maybe 15-20 minutes away, as I recall.

Just to clarify a little bit, it is $50 credit per excursion for one person - so in the rare cases where you might book more than one NCL excursion at the same port, you get $50 off each. We actually took advantage of this at Harvest Caye.

Fun question...as others have noted, a lot of this depends on what you want/value in a cruise, so my observations may or may not apply...but we have been on both ships (on those itineraries) in the last two years. Epic in Feb 2020 just before shutdown, and Breakaway last week (same ports, but out of Miami rather than NOLA). My DW and I would both choose the Southern Caribbean on Epic over Western Caribbean on Breakaway. We did like BA a bit better than Epic, but the ports on the Southern Caribbean itinerary were much more interesting (for us) than the Western ports. For us, the newer ship didn't offset the ports. Both cruises were great, by the way. My view is that almost any cruise ship beats my home office! Either way, have a fantastic time.

My point of view - and it is mine alone - is that you can have a great cruise on NCL without paying for any of the "upcharge" stuff. My DW and I did that several times. We didn't get a drink package, do specialty dining, or book the Haven. The only "extras" we bought were shore excursions and an occasional drink. And we had a GREAT time. Now, the last few times, we have chosen to take advantage of the specialty dining, the drink package, and even the Haven, fully knowing they cost more. Those have made the cruise even nicer. But those are our choices. If finances (or other factors) dictated, we could go back to the base plan and it would still beat sitting in my home office doing Zoom meetings for 9 hours a day, hands down!

We've sailed on Royal, Princess, and NCL. Our last several cruises have been NCL, partly because it is comfortable, but also because we like the combination of itineraries, features, and price the best on the NCL offerings. As others have said - if you're really trying to do an apples to apples price comparison between the lines, you have to do your homework. They all price things differently. I don't know that any of them are wrong, but you can't just take the "per-person cabin price" from the various cruise line websites and get a meaningful comparison. Understand what is included and what is not, and which of the options are worth it for you, and add everything up. For us, the itinerary is most important, so sometimes we pay a little more because one line (or ship) is going where we want to go. But that is just us. Your mileage may vary. One other thing - Carnival is the largest cruise line in the world, so it makes sense that we would hear about more incidents on their ships. We have been on a Princess cruise with a mechanical failure, and NCL has had issues too. Just a side note... Enjoy whatever you choose!

Jenga on a sea day could be fun - especially if there are heavy seas... 🤪

Just FYI, last week the Breakaway docked at the International pier in Cozumel. There was an RCL ship next to us, and an MSC ship at Punta Langosta.

Many of the OP questions have been well-answered by other, very knowledgeable sources like @Sthrngary (to whom, by the way, my DW and I owe a debt of gratitude for the outstanding Haven guidance in his many posts - most notably, to write a letter to your butler - it works!)...but to build on a few of the answers from our just-completed cruise to Harvest Cay: -There is a large bar & grill restaurant next to the pool on Harvest Cay. This is most of the food. There are also some small shacks around offering ice cream, drinks, and the like. None of it is included in the dining/drink plans from NCL. But since we are frugal (cheap?), we didn't try any of the food on the island and chose to go back to the ship to eat -where the food was both known to be good and already paid for. -Towels are not provided on Harvest Cay. You need to take towels from the ship and return them to the ship. If you are staying in the Haven, you should have a couple of the blue NCL towels in your cabin that you can take. If not, just get them on the pier when you disembark. -On our just-completed cruise, the Muster process was even simpler than when we sailed in February. As others have noted, you have to watch the safety video as part of on-line check-in, and then you will get several emails asking you to watch it again. When we boarded, we were directed to a check-in station near our muster station (but not actually at it) where they scanned our key card and we were done. No one asked whether we had watched the video, but I am guessing they knew we had from the check-in process. Happy cruising!