bluesea777

It says “Not available to book” ever since the 125 days mark. I’ll check back at 21 days when we’ve checked in. Or when we board.

Just as well you here here in Bermuda yesterday in fine weather - calm seas and sunny. Today it had been overcast and slightly cooler.

Getting good meals in specialty restaurants varies by ship and timing and who the chefs are in those restaurants. Once you dine in a particular restaurant on a ship at one time and you had a great meal, and later you go back there - same ship, same restaurant but different time, you might find the experience different. Remember the crew rotate…. Same thing goes with bars and “favorite bartenders”. We learnt that on our 3rd Epic cruise 🤷‍♀️.

When you decide to go to a MDR to dine and find there’s a long queue, it means you made the same decision to go and dine at the same time as the 1000 others. Whenever it happened to us, we just go off to the nearby bar for a cocktail or two until the queue dispersed.

Latitude Platinum and above Behind The Scenes tours are (and have been) abbreviated since they are complimentary. For the full tour (that includes the bridge) you’ll have to pay full price at the Cruise Next or Excursion desk.

Bring a 15-20 ft simple extension cord regardless. There are no outlets beside the beds. Also, if the bed is next to balcony, the outlets will be in the middle of cabin. Escape was built 8 years ago.

When’s your cruise? Ours is May 31 and June 7 (back to back from Seward to Vancouver and then back to Seward). Another bonus with Spirit - longer port hours than the mega ships!

The Starbucks self serve machines are on the pool deck, starboard side outside the Garden Cafe, and there is Starbucks bar in the Atrium. Starbucks bar in Atrium Atrium - the Starbucks bar is at bottom center. Self-serve outside Garden Cafe on pool deck. The Prima, Bliss and Encore have Starbucks SHOP, and there are far more people on those 3 ships, so no surprise about the lines! You chose wisely the best ship (Spirit) for your Alaska cruise - we chose Spirit hands down because we love the aft section of the ship - Garden Cafe, Terrace Bar, Terraces, Spice H2O, padded loungers, tables and chairs, etc. Great viewing area for Alaska! From deck 10 up to 13. We are booked in an oceanview cabin, and will not bid for upgrade .... for this reason!

No, pull the BEDS away from wall - the whole beds do slide away from wall like the couch bed.

As taken from our place in Southampton … Pearl (L) and Epic (R) side by side … you can compare the size and differences between the Meyer Werft and some French builds. Enjoy the rest of the day!!

No, it’s gonna be 70°F today, partly cloudy.

Not quite a storm, but icebergs! Both ports and their vicinity aren’t quite free of ice. A bit early in the season to sail that far northerly across the pond via Iceland, imo.

Have you cruised on the Spirit before? The thread that I created was directed to the people who had sailed on Spirit previously and were dying to see what the $100m refit did to the ship. We were the first pax on the new Miss Spirit. We loved that ship - perfect size! We will be going on her next month for the two B2B Alaska cruises. Can't wait to set our feet on Miss Spirit once again!

True, plus "long layovers", "short layovers", "multiple legs on different airlines", and so on.

Yep, that's prolly true! That is one of the reasons I would NOT use NCL air!

We were on the Spirit post drydock major refurbishment in Feb 2020. You can see the photos I took on board the new Miss Spirit: the link to the thread is in my signature. Enjoy!

Don't you have paperwork/ticket/confirmation of your bus transfer from Anchorage to Seward? If you do, please go through them to look for place and TIME to meet your bus (motorcoach). Motorcoaches are run by several companies and they leave from either Anchorage airport or Egan Center, and they depart at various times during the day. Did you buy NCL transfer? If so, did they give you instrux? As for us (3 in the party), we arrive in Anchorage 3 days before our cruise, hotel has shuttle to pick us up from airport. We stay there overnight and early the next morning the hotel shuttle will take us to Anchorage train deport to catch the 6:45am train (non-NCL chartered) to Seward where we'll stay in hotel for 2 nights. On return to Seward (we're on 2 b2b cruises) we have a 9:45am motorcoach from ship terminal to Anchorage airport. We booked the above two transfers, hotels and all flights independently, not through NCL.

Thanks for the heads-up. I remembered seeing that as one of the NCL excursions before. When we end up in Miami this coming November after our Viva TA, I'll make sure we get to go on this excursion. This time our flight home isn't until 7:35 pm.

Same with us!

Not really worth it if your flight is at 4pm as you need to be at airport 2-3 hours before. Our flight home from Miami usually is at around 5-7 pm, so we delay getting off ship, be one of the last crowd to get off ship, catch a cab to airport, check in (it’s an international flight), go thru TSA, find a nice eatery for leisurely lunch, catch up with emails, etc. Time passes quickly for us.

Which hotel? How many nights are you planning to stay in CPH pre-cruise? CPH is my fave city (I’m 1/2 Danish) and last time we were there I booked a hotel in the city that we accessed very easily from/to Kastrup by Metro.

Birthdays not on the planner!!! 😲

Cabin 6008 on the SUN. It's category OK - obstructed Oceanview with porthole window. We loved that cabin as it's the lowest priced Oceanview. People cannot see into the cabin from the promenade.

What NCL could/should be doing is not to activate the cards upon check-in for bars, restaurants, etc until those people showed up at their assigned muster station and had their cards swiped.

Webcam shot, just now .... docked at Skagway RAILROAD DOCK - AFT