Independent

Meanwhile on this sailing, the thermal suite is full, I mean each and every lounge chair full at times, and they are still advertising 3 day passes for sale ($179, in case anyone wants to know.)  Can’t say that I’d recommend it at this level of crowding, though.

I’m a little nervous about commenting on this, but I do kind of get the OP’s reaction.  Currently on the Bliss in Alaska, and it is striking to me how some things are excellent, and other aspects are - not.    I love  Freestyle, meet mostly nice staff, receive good (although declining) value with Free at Sea.  BUT our mattresses needed replacement long ago - they have the shape of classic glacial valleys, i.e. U, and are so worn that there is basically no padding left at the bottom of the curve. Yes, we requested and received egg crate foam added.  Our room attendant made up the couch with bedding, which is better, but not exactly excellent.  It’s a good thing that my spouse can sleep almost anywhere.

Observation lounge is lovely.  It would be even nicer if part could be a designated quiet zone.  Somehow the most raucous groups always seem to find the spaces filled with people reading books and proceed to, well, be raucous.

Had a vey fine vegetarian meal at Le Bistro, excellent.  Then we had a shore excursion that we were told included bus transportation (we asked, because it is important to us) but that in reality provided a dedicated bus to town, but that left us to walk and stand in the long line for the public shuttle on the way back.  Not really excellent.  

So mixed feelings, I very much appreciate comments from OP and others that tell me what works and especially what doesn’t, so I can try to make better decisions based on what matters most to me personally.

On 3/30/2024 at 7:54 AM, Joanne G. said:

Enjoy your cruise!  Just be aware that a 4-day cruise on Carnival, presumably in the Caribbean, could be a very different experience than a longer Carnival cruise.  I have been on many Carnival Caribbean cruises of 7 or 8 or 10 days, and I have never encountered the drunken party crowd that Carnival is known for - accurately or not.  

 

Or maybe you want to be part of that party crowd!  Nothing wrong with that, and have fun.  

Oh, this is an interesting point!  We tried a Carnival Western Caribbean cruise some years ago, and decided it was Not For Us.  There were many positives, but we just didn’t enjoy what seemed like way too much noise and way too many crowds. That wasn’t a good fit for us.  You make me think that perhaps we should have another look sometime, and stop setting our online travel agency search filter to ‘exclude Carnival’.  Thank you for the info!

Now I am wondering if NCL (or other cruise lines) can decline to book future cruises for these passengers?

Ah, this answers so many questions!  While we ask about meat broths and lard, it would not have occurred to me that asking in advance would be useful.

Wonderful, thank you.

Thank you!  Sounds as though we will find some good things to eat.

Any suggestions for good uses of the specialty dining meals for a couple of life-long vegetarians?  Will be on the Bliss next month and wonder if anyone knows of something enjoyable to use up the FAS meal package?  We don’t have any other dietary concerns, fine with dairy and eggs.  We are not triggered by others nearby eating meat, although Brazilian steakhouse style might not be our first choice 🙂.

We usually just skip the specialty dining, but hey, CC folks may have some other advice.  Thanks in advance!

Ok, I’ll bite.  I will say up front that I’ve never felt that I needed a Scrubba on a cruise ship.  If there’s a laundry service,  sign me up.  I do, however, travel to moderately remote places - moderately meaning running water but no laundromats or fluff and folds.  So how to get dirt out of our clothes when when we’ve been getting filthy on a geology field trip or archaeological dig? Scrubba.  

Pre-Scrubba, I used pretty much the same technique described.  I think the Scrubba’s useful, not everyone would find it worth the space.  Oh, and It is first rate for getting chlorine out of swimsuits.

Lately have been using this Beyond Free and Clear for travel:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08RZFXJDX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I’ve also used LuckyFiji, also from Amazon, and it seemed to work just fine.

1 hour ago, rbxlady said:

1 hour ago, rbxlady said:

I ended up buying a Scrubba wash bag. I was going to purchase one on Amazon, but some reviews said they were subpar counterfeits. Therefore, I went to the Scrubba site and purchased directly from them. 

 

A person who thinks like me!  I pondered the travel wash question for quite a while and found all sorts of interesting gadgets online.

I have a Srubba and I like it.  The Scrubba feels nicer to me than washing in the sink.  It is similar to the plastic bag approach, but is a fairly sturdy thing, more like a snorkel dry bag than a kitchen ziplock.  The Scubba has little nubs that help get things clean, and a valve to remove excess air. 

In terms of soap, I like laundry detergent sheets, so no liquids to carry and they dissolve well.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/fire-at-vacant-building-closes-multiple-roads-in-belltown/

The smoke was probably this, by the location.

Now that is determination!  Have you managed to cruise again?  (I hope.)

Of course I can’t guess when NCL will provide any updates to those on pending cruises.  Our experience with the cancellation of the June 30 sailing was that my husband received a cancellation email June 28 just before 6 am Seattle time (but no email to me.). Later (around 7 am) I did receive an email, not mentioning the cancellation, but requesting that we rewatch the safety video.
 

Around 11 am, I got two identical text messages in quick succession, informing me of the cancellation and referring me to email for details.  No text so far to husband, but I did ultimately get an email.

We are trying to unravel our arrangements - prepaid parking at Pier 66 garage may not be refunded because of cancelling less than 72 hours in advance, and the dog boarding cost won’t be refunded.  At least we are local to Seattle and don’t have flights to cancel.

I am mildly tempted to try to rebook for the sailing on the 5th.  So far NCL has cancelled two cruises in a row for us, wonder if third time’s the charm…

Well, we were to be on the Sun sailing on June 30 from Seattle.  We awoke this morning to an email letting us know that the cruise has been cancelled.  We very much appreciate the updates from this thread, which let us anticipate that this might happen.

The letter says we will get a refund (minus cruise protection fee) as well as a credit of 50% of the voyage fare, and airline change fees up to $300 pp.

Very disappointing, but so it goes.  

Many thanks for the information about seating options!

11 hours ago, dcl999 said:

The opera house experience was not pleasant. Breakfast food was very poor and in a huge crowded room of unmasked people. We did not find out about the walking tours until after the last one has left so we had a lot of time standing around waiting.

Thank you for the info.  I wonder if you literally had to stand around, or if there were chairs available?  I’m now debating taking my chair/cane.

I want to thank BQEC and others for sharing their experiences with us.  The information helped me make a better decision about cancelling our booking for Aug 31.  

I’m glad to hear that everyone seems to be home ok.

8 minutes ago, Sea-Traveller said:

Which sailing are you referring to? Many of them lately have 1-3 dozen people affected, US and not..

I think the question might refer to a group of 26 discussed earlier in this topic, beginning about post #2514.  I also hope they made it hoeme without further trouble.

Well, this afternoon we cancelled our Aug. 31 booking on the Jupiter, since we decided that we are not comfortable with the risk of spending our time quarantined in a cabin or sent home from Iceland, even if we always test negative for Covid 19.  We are sorry to miss it.

We would have rebooked on another Viking cruise somewhere else on the same phone call, but we learned that this isn’t possible if we want to apply the value of the cancelled cruise to the new one.  Apparently we must wait for the credit for our cancelled cruise to show up in Viking’s system which is 2-4 weeks, (but maybe sooner?)

Best of luck to those of you who are proceeding with your cruises, hoping for safe travels for everyone.

3 minutes ago, schnapperin said:

Iceland regulations are pretty clear - if you are classified as contact it’s 14 day quarantine or a test on Day 7 of that quarantine period. Testing negative the day or on the same day is simply not following the same rules as demand in Iceland

So will you be cancelling your cruise?

4 minutes ago, schnapperin said:

travelling during an ongoing pandemic- in Iceland current at the highest it ever was- comes with the risk of needing to quarantine or isolate after catching Covid 

True enough, but these are not people who have “contracted Covid”.

15 minutes ago, Rappersmom said:

This is a game changer from what we've been told was the recent protocol. Being on the same bus with someone means a lot of people have to be quarantined. And Viking is totally silent about the protocol so people won't cancel. We may have to reconsider this cruise. It's just not worth all the potential stress.

I think you’re right about reconsidering this.  It may not make sense to go ahead.  Darn.

There is an item in the Iceland Monitor about arriving passengers also stuck in lines for hours.

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2021/08/09/passengers_arriving_in_iceland_stuck_in_line_for_ho/

If you are still looking, you might check www.hotelsbyday.com

We haven’t booked through this website before, but they show a hotel with day rooms available for the day we arrive back in New Orleans (not too far from the port) so we may try them. The hotel would be only a little more expensive than checking bags at the cruise port for delivery to the airport. It might make some sense for us, since we have almost a full day in town before our flight home and that’s longer than I want to be sightseeing.