European_CruiseGirl

I love those cabins as I like to people watch - not other people inside their cabins or balconies but the Boardwalk or Central Park area. I see the ocean each and every day from my window and balcony at home. I have zero interest in looking at the ocean from my balcony while on a cruise (there apparently can be such a thing as too much seaview) but still a window/balcony is nice. So those for me are my favourite cabins ☺️

I guess the problem here is op said in his opening: ”Surprising someone onboard - try it...you'll like it.” The latter part is why people are reacting. Not everyone likes it or would like their friends to do it. And thats fine. Not everyone needs to like it. If op’s title had been ”We surprised our friends and it was fantastic” the replies would have been very different I assume. I may sound like a broken record but I still want to emphasize once more that people can change their minds. Just because someone has invited you at some point to a trip or wherever and you say no thank you it doesn’t mean that the friends would be happy that you then surprise them by joining as they might at that point have made some very different plans. I might invite someone to my home for tomorrow evening but if they say no I’ll change my plans. I might very well still be at home but have planned something else like a quiet evening and a ”surprise we came” most likely would be a very big no no.

Cancel no. Change times - yes. Funnily enough we just two days ago received NCL info that our cruise - to those exact ports - have new timings 🤣 They were not big changes but changes nonetheless. For example at Cozumel we leave at 5PM instead of 6PM. That could potentially screw someones private tour to Tulum or Xcaret. The reason for the changes: ”As we optimize itineraries for fuel efficiencies, we have modified Norwegian Joy's itinerary as shown below.” 🤣

In US (and Canada?) - yes. In EU/UK (and Australia?) - no. So depends on through which NCL office/travel agent (location) you have booked.

Pre cruise it is good to know that NCL does not do the same kind of discounts on shore excursions, dinners, wifi packages etc through their app like RCCL does. The price is what it is and the only way for the price is up (happens usually but not limited to beginning of the year). So if you see a shore excursion or wifi package or whatever that you want just buy it. It won’t go on sale - ever. Another difference is that even if you have the dining package (as part of free at sea or if you have purchased extra dining credits through the app) you can make reservations in advance for the restaurants of your choice. Reservations open 130-120 days before your cruise depending on your cabin class and past passenger program status. If you are 3, book a table for 4. If you are 5 book a table for 6 etc. NCL reservation systems do not understand odd numbers 😄 Shows…NCL used to have better/more big production shows available. Now it’s 1(-2) bigger shows so definitely less than on the big RCCL ships. If you love the RCCL production shows you will be disappointed. Main dining room. Unless you are a big group there is no need to reserve a table in beforehand at NCL. They know how to handle anytime dining whereas RCCL my time dining is usually a complete mess.

Yes indeed. I once had a situation at a hotel while I was attending a seminar (this was in Germany of all places, usually they are very strict with personal info). One evening mid seminar I heard a knock on the door and it was a person (male) whom I had met at the seminar. I am a female who was travelling alone. I was completely puzzled because I certainly had not given him my room number or even hotel name but he just casually said that ”Oh I noticed you came to this hotel after the seminar, I stay here too so I just asked at check in what is your room number”. Whaaaaaaat??? I made some vague excuse to get him away and immediately went to check in who scoffed at me and said ”well madam if you would have wanted to stay incognito you should have mentioned it when you checked in”. Those were their exact words. I asked for the supervisor who changed my room - but still made a big deal out of it saying to me that ”well now madam we have marked you incognito”. Ummmmmm…shouldn’t everyone automatically be? You shouldn’t really be handing out room numbers to others 🙄 Needless to say I have not stayed at that (big international) hotel chain anymore.

However that was then. They could have changed their minds after that and looked forward to just some alone time. It does happen many times. People hope for something to happen (in this case for friends to come along) but when they hear it is not possible they change their plans and embrace the possibility to spend alone time as a couple. Obviously they wouldn’t tell about changing their minds because…why would they need to tell anyone? The friends already said they are not coming. In that type of situation it will become as a truly unwanted surprise if those friends then suddenly join and expect to hang out. I am 100% sure op knows their friends and hence there is no problem for him or his friends. But for many…yea, there are huge potential risks associated because people are allowed and will change their minds…without telling their friends.

Wow I would hate this kind of surprise - but thats just me. I guess you really need to know the other people. Even if they’d initially asked someone to join they might have later made other plans and planned for alone time together and a suprise like this could really backfire.

I had kind of this happening (kind of)…but my PCC told me what to expect so it wasn’t a surprise. If it was I would have been upset too. We had a cruise booked and bought the FAS+ upgrade for it. After that we needed to change our cruise. Our PCC quoted us the new price and said ”please notice that the FAS+ does not automatically transfer to the new cruise; instead the money you paid for that will be considered as a payment towards this new cruise and your final payment is only xxx because of that. However please notice that if you want FAS+ also to your new cruise you have to pay for it again”. We were ok with this but I can imagine being truly upset if we’d been quoted a new final payment sum and only later found out that it was actually much higher but our previous FAS+ payment had been used towards the new final payment. I have noticed on several occasions that when you talk with NCL reps about changes they always just quote the new final payment sum. Tbh I am most interested in that anyway (knowing how much I still owe to NCL after the change I am thinking about making).

No s/he does not. And also the concierge is not included on the daily service charge.

It's still weekend for NCL who is based in Miami. They will come to work at 9 AM and then slowly realize that "ah there has been a mistake on the updates they did during the weekend" and start sorting it out. The cruise may come back by tomorrow morning. Or then it truly is cancelled but tbh anything strange that happens during the weekend on a NCL website is most likely due to their IT department doing something...

I wouldn't do it. We once cruised so that my father and mother were in a club balcony and we (me, my husband, DD, DS) were in a Haven suite. They simply did not want a Haven suite and we all thought it was not a big deal as we'd anyway be quite often at the main pool area, having dinner together at a specialty restaurant 4 days out of 10, we'd be at port so we wouldn't even notice we are on a different cabin category. Boy were we wrong... Going to the port at embarkation my family was whisked away to the Haven lounge. My parents (although platinum) were faced with a huge crowd and lines. When we were inside the ship we called with my parents who indicated they'd have still approx 30-60 min until they would be inside. So we headed to Haven restaurant. When they got in they went to where ever. Breakfasts onboard: either we ate separately (not nice) or we ventured out from the Haven for breakfast (not nice that either). At tender ports we had priority access for the tender. They did not so either we gave up our tender priority and stood in long lines with them or we went our separate ways. Non specialty dinners...see breakfasts...If we went to the Haven restaurant without them we felt bad. If we went to main dining room with them we missed the Haven restaurant and felt that we had paid a ton of money for something we didn't use. Debarkation, sun deck etc...well you get the point already. We learned that there simply is no good way to go about a cruise with some family members at Haven and others in a non Haven cabin. Either the ones at Haven cannot use the Haven perks to the max and they will need to downgrade their experience to spend time with their non Haven family members. Or then they must be ok with going their separate ways and doing many things separately. For us it definitely did not work. For others it might. But at least downgrading the Haven experience to spend time with the non Haven guests seems like a huge waste of money to me. Why pay for Haven if you're not going to use it to the max.

November can be nice. Or it can be non stop rain and/or windy/cold. I have had both and you cannot predict in advance which one you will have. So of warmth is something you are looking for you should definitely skip the first one although it is a lovely route otherwise. Although I have to say that if Istanbul is important for you the 9am-6pm stop that you’d have there with the other cruises won’t be enough. Even close. So you’d need to first decide if Istanbul is something you’d want to experience. If yes you need to sacrifice the thought of warmth. If warm weather is important yo you I’d choose 2 because I simply like smaller ships.

Although the problem with that price comparison is that if you had booked those exact same flights 1-2 months ago you’d most likely had seen a price significantly lower (less then half) of what you are seeing now.

I would think it like this op: Do you want to see Antarctica and are you ok with cold weather and rough seas? If so the Ushuaia one is most definitely a nice one which cannot compare to anything else. Heck you will explore a new continent. However if you prefer to cruise only in warm/tropical weather and if Panama canal is on your bucket list. Do that cruise. Personally my choice would be Antarctica because I simply would want to see the glaciers, pinguins etc etc and just being able to say that I was there. However my husband hates (really really really hates) cruising in cold weather so I know that with him I’d never take this Antarctica itinerary.

You just book the table for whatever amount of people you want to reserve it. When you make the reservation it is not restricted to the number of people in the cabin. So let's say you are two couples in different cabins. One person books a table for 4. That's it. If you'd be 3, 5 or 7 just book 4, 6, 8. There is no problem with that.

Yes well...there is really no point in comparing black friday sale prices to normal prices. Chops without black friday price is way more than $60/pp.

It is expensive, yes. Although it is not significantly more than on RCI for example even though they have the fixed price available at their ships. Chops - their equivalent for Cagneys - was $70/pp during our cruise this year…

It should be available already. So perhaps call CAS and ask.

I agree though with a twist 😁 Op says it was his son’s idea that they’d cruise together. So perhaps his gf wasn’t too happy about the idea of a cruise with the (future) in laws and son is now trying to find a way to back out from the cruise…

On NCL you will have a special diets coordinator who will work with you and will find you regardless of the restaurant you eat. My DD is celiac so eats gf. The special diets coordinator is amazing. I have no idea how she finds us always. I do understand main dining rooms and speciality restaurants where we either have done a reservation or swiped a card on entry. But she found us multiple times even at breakfast time at the buffet when we just thought we’d grab some pre packaged gf serials and fruit for our DD to eat. Amazingly she suddenly appeared with DD’s favourite gf waffles and all the treats she had found out our DD usually wants. Etc etc. So on NCL you really do not want to have the same ”normal” waiter every night. You want to meet the special diets coordinator asap when you board and s/he will take care of your every meal whichever restaurant you might be at.

Excursions never go on sale on NCL. So if you see something that you like book it. Chances are they will increase the prices in 2024. No need really to book MDR if you don’t want to unless you have a larger group going. Dining reservations can only be changed by calling or chatting with the customer service.

Actually laser pointers have caused problems for aircrafts landing and taking off. Obviously they cannot cause problems for flights flying at their flight altitude but then again landing and take off are in any case the most accident prone parts of a flight where even a small distraction can cause serious problems. And a laser pointer is no small distraction for the cockpit crew.

1. Having worked for a long time for an airline I wouldn’t assume that automatically. Those bookings are handled at a completely different group department which will book whatever they notice might not book well otherwise. You might get a good flight. On the other hand you might get a truly horrible flight connection although better ones would be available. The price an individual pax pays is completely different to what this type of cruiseline booking dept will pay. 2. In any case NCL will have return cruise port to airport transfer available for purchase so you don’t need to arrange anything yourself. That is an non issue and the cost is reasonsble. Btw the 10:30AM flight is too early. 3. You should be fine but of course as mentioned above the flight times can be suboptimal. Lets say your cruise leaves on Saturday and you plan on leaving on Wednesday to have Thursday-Friday in Rome arriving in Rome on Thursday morning. Well your NCL flight schedule might be such that even if you leave on Wednesday you might arrive in Rome only late on Thursday evening or even Thursday-Friday night effectively missing one day. For example Boston Logan to Rome via Lissabon. Leaves 10:55PM on a Wednesday and arrives in Rome on Friday (!) local time 00:05AM. Compare it to a flight that leaves from Boston Logan at 6:00AM on a Wednesday via Chicago and arrives in Rome at 07:55AM on Thursday. Thb as a former airline employee who used to work at sales I strongly encourage everyone to book their own flights instead of booking via a cruiseline.

Achile Lauron was hijacked on Egyptian waters on the way from Alexandria (Egypt) to Port Said (Egypt) at a time of high unrest at that part of the world. So it was a totally different situation than what op is asking. They are not going to cruise in an area of high unrest. Go to a Israel or Egypt cruise now? Ummmm not wise but Bermuda is not risky at all. There are unfortunately always wars going on around the world. Constantly. In multiple locations. Some get more media coverage than others so we know more about some of them. Still if you aren’t going on a cruise in an area of high unrest or war then you are far more likely to be hit by a car while going to the port than to be on a ship that will be hijacked. The risk of which is almost zero to none. Heck most likely even if you’d go on a cruise in an area of high unrest you’d still be more likely to be hit by a car than be hijacked on a cruise ship. Personally my view is: I avoid and do not travel to areas of high unrest. Other than that I refuse to live in fear of a possible terrorist whatever. If I would the terrorists around the world would win. But thats just my view and my decision.