Panhandle Couple

We have had some very good conversations with bar staff during slow times. They have generally been everywhere, but still have family they miss back home. I hate how some people here complain about them and staff in general. Get to know them, even on a minimal level, and you will get better service, and help them with a rather boring job.

These new large ships, maybe not even through preliminary design yet, will be predicting what the cruise world (and the world overall) will be 10 years from now. There will obviously be some hits and misses along the way. It is easy to project better port infrastructure worldwide.

The older ships are well past their financial payoff date. While older technology, they are much more similar to the majority of cruise ships, and all the commercial cargo ships. The true life will be determined by the fatigue status of the main structural components, the beam and ribs. Whether NCL uses them to that point, or sells them is the question. Smaller ships also have less water and wind drag, allowing them use less fuel. That trades off against newer more efficient engines and drive trains. I'm sure NCL keeps track of fuel consumption vs miles traveled for all their fleet.

Recommend you review NCLH debt schedule, and finance terms for new ship builds.

I have a review from our PC cruise in December. Storage was similar to all BA/BA+ ships. OL is very crowded during transit, not too bad the rest of the time. 3,700 on board vs 4,000 capacity, so wait times and elevator were not bad.

Small ships are easier to lease out for specialty cruises .

Interesting to see if they can fit in the new locks for PC, AND under the bridges, even at low tide I could see one always on west Coast, 1 Caribbean, and 1 in Europe.

They didn't, but wanted to temper expectations up front. Any 1 excursion for a day at any of the ports can't show everything that island has to offer.

Syd Norman is a made up name and person. No royalties required. The location restriction is for the Fleetwood Mac Rumors performance. On Breakaway Christmas cruise, the band played as part of the Christmas show at the main theater. They also played 4 gigs at Syd Normans that cruise (Fleetwood Mac, 2 nights of classic rock, and Prom night) They have also been confirmed playing in the Viva theater's "open" configuration for Prom night. (The open configuration leaves a large dance floor area in front of the stage, making it a "Prom like" event.) The whole idea of Syd Normans is to enact the small club feeling of large cities, where many rock groups get their start. This includes the closeness and interaction with the crowd. You can't get that in the main theaters.

First, have you ever been to Hawaii? You simply can't do it "all" even with 1 week, and few days on either side. This is what we did in early March. Rented a car for 2 days (shuttle available from cruise terminal to/from airport). Spent first day driving to the Waimea canyon and the various overlooks. In a car you can go all the way to the top of the Napali coast line. We took our time coming back, stopped at a local fruit stand, Port Allen area, and the home of Lelo and Stitch. 2nd day we went on the Kauai Back Country Adventures tubing trip. We really liked it. Well organized and run. Did some extra shopping after that, but traffic looked very heavy on the return, so we cut our plans short to ensure time to get back to ship. Check the location for helicopter rides. I don't think they all start from the main airport. Uber is expensive in Hawaii. Taxi's are about the same, but you generally don't have to wait. We had been to the big island twice before, and visited Volcanos NP when in Hilo. So for Kona, we rented a car (Enterprise is close by the port) and drove north, along the Kohola coast to Kapa'au, then along the side of the mountain to Waimea (yes, same name, different island), then back to Kona. (there was no equivalent NCL tour for this route) We still had time for a bite to eat, a drink (Kona Brewing) and quick shopping, all within walking distance to the port. For all our driving, we used the Guidealong app, which is very good.

I find it works best on Firefox. Although clearing your cache and maybe cookies can certainly help any browser.

When was the last time Blue Man Group was on NCL? 2005? I honestly don't know, and only knew they were on in the past due to the show Mighty Cruise Ships, which featured the first Breakaway sailing.

Thanks! That is interesting, because cruisemapper shows only 1 ship at Sao Tome for the rest of this year, and 8 or 9 (including NCL and Oceania ships) for the rest of this year. Looks like cruisemapper is off on this location. By their map, there isn't any real dock in Principe either.

According to Cruisemapper, they were at Principe, (Santo Antonio) not Sao Tome. The country is called Sao Tome and Principe. The main cruise port is Principe, which in smaller and less populated. They probably had to get a small plane from there to Sao Tome.

You provide the info on pre-cruise check in.

According to which family? The ones producing hourly FB posts, or the actual relatives back in the states? Has anyone actually interviewed the unfortunate ladies relatives? And, is her emergency POC the ones they interviewed? You don't get a list of 4 or 5 on your contact list. And the unfortunate lady was in the hospital at the time the ship left. What exactly was NCL supposed to do?

Well, I don't know about anyone else.... But I have deleted over 300 e-mails telling me about new posts made on this thread. I will probably get another 300 more before it is all over.

NCL and many other companies have to make a projection what will be happening and what restrictions may be in place (using their resources) for future business. Obviously NCL (and other cruise lines) have made a decision for 2025.

Suggest not worrying. Since restart, NCL hasn't canceled a PC cruise. They pay for those transit slots in advance, and also use some of them for repositioning between US coasts or Atlantic - Pacific ocean departures locations. Are you looking at the NCL board for live or semi-live reviews, or just the no comments review pages? I would use the live or semi-live as better information.

Travel, and many other things returning to "the way they were before" is unlikely. I did a lot of travel before and after 911. In fact I was in the air trying to land in DC on the morning of 911. We do many things differently now. This is far worse than 911 for Israel and the surrounding countries.

ALL of the news reports are simply the internet echo chamber. The local coast guard portion was CLAIMED during the couples original face time with a TV station. There has been no second report of this being true. In fact, one poster here who was on the ship watching the tenders saw nothing like a coast guard type boat approach the ship. It's called embellishing the story.

The on-board time or last tender time is posted in the daily, and also on signs as you exit the ship by the security scanners. For a tender, they will also announce the time for last tender before you exit on shore. And then there is always the option to simply ASK anyone involved in the tender process or security officers.

I checked trip advisor for this port, and it is the smallest page for them. 4 tours listed, 2 that had no POC or ratings. The other two had POC but minimal info. I suspect this was done by a dock hawker. Also, per internet stats, main language is Portuguese, only 5% speak English.

Thanks! Still searching. We found a beach cruise option that leaves from thr harbor area, but boat might be smaller than my wife prefers. Still searching. I did see where the shuttle bus drop off is, so that helps. The pictures you linked helped in that.

Many countries in the middle east will not let you in with an Israeli stamp on your passport. Given world politics, that number is probably growing. This may preclude any cruise line from originating or stopping in Israel for many years.