aimee0715

Cruisefam, I just had to comment to give a shout out from Winston-Salem! This is the first time I've seen Walkertown on CC.😊

You can request to fly in the day before or two days before. The one time that I used the NCL BOGO flights, I had to call in to book my cruise because the website was acting up. I asked the representative what happens if the flight doesn't get there in time, he said you miss the ship. He set it up for us to fly in the day before. The representative also said NCL offers a small discount to encourage folks to fly in the day before. I don't remember exactly what it was but I think it was $25 per person. If you book online, I suspect that you just get flights the day of embarkation. I don't recall being given any options on when I wanted to fly in. A friend booked online (her first cruise) and realized 60 days before the cruise that they were flying day of embarkation from NC to Seattle. NCL would not change it but the airline did for $626. You can make changes to NCL flight if you call at least 75 days before your cruise.

We will also be stopping in Dubrovnik, Kotor, and Corfu.

We will be in Split from 9AM to 9 PM next month. I definitely want to visit Diocletian's Palace. I'm also interested in Krka National Park. The cruiseline offers a 5 hour excursion to Krka which leaves at either 10AM or 2PM. I believe we have plenty of time to do both the palace and Krka. I'm wondering if it makes more sense to do the palace in the morning and take the 2PM excursion to Krka. Or, go to Krka at 10 AM and then go to the palace when we return. Also, I was looking for hours for the palace and it appears to be open 24 hours. Are there parts (eg the cellar) that are not open 24 hours? If there are museums that we should see that will close at 5, then I would opt for the 2PM excursion. I'm open to suggestions if there are other things we should be doing in Split.

Oh yes, I would have preferred to do this itinerary with Azamara but I had $8,000 of credit with Virgin Voyages left over from the pandemic that I needed to spend. We were booked on the inaugural voyage of Scarlet Lady which would have sailed on April 1 of 2020 and was a really expensive $4,000 for 4 nights. I was excited for the opportunity to be on the first sailing of a new cruiseline. Anyway, they doubled our money in cruise credit if we didn't ask for a refund. I've turned that 4 night cruise into two back to back cruises one going to Croatia and one going to the Greek Isles. It's true that their excursions are different.

I was a history major with a minor in Classical Studies. It makes me sad to go somewhere amazing like Ephesus and have to waste time at a made up 'historical' site like the House of the Virgin Mary when there are more impressive things to see. I did find a private excursion but it was going to be several hundred dollars more than the ship excursion--probably $7-800 all in. I will just have to plan to go again at some point. I'll be sure that we stop in Kusadasi next time so I'll be less nervous about not going with the cruise line.

So after looking around at private excursions, I just booked the ship excursion. I just don't want to risk missing the ship in Turkey. It's my hope that we will have enough free time at Ephesus to see the terrace houses on our own.

I'm fairly certain Virgin's excursion does not include the terrace houses which is one of the reasons I don't want to take their excursion. We're doing a back to back on Resilient Lady and the roll calls for both are dead, unfortunately. I'll probably just book a private excursion.

We will be on Resilient Lady docking in Bodrum on May 31 from 8AM to 8PM. I would like to go to Ephesus. I would prefer to do it on our own rather than through the cruise line but I know that it is a significant distance to Ephesus from Bodrum and that makes me nervous. Virgin offers a 10 hour excursion for $155 per person. However, it includes some things I'm not interested in like the purported House of the Virgin Mary, folkloric dance, and carpet weaving. My question is has anyone done a private excursion from Bodrum to Ephesus and if so, do you have a recommendation? I don't mind going in a group with other travelers, I just want to be sure that we are able to see the terrace houses and get the whole Ephesus experience and not miss the ship.

I read another similar story about someone's cruise getting cancelled a couple days before sailing because of this as well. It may have been the same one that you are talking about because my friend and I were sailing on Bliss the week of Valentines Day and this happened within the month before our sailing. I got really paranoid about doing anything on the NCL site before our cruise. I went and doublechecked to make sure that our spa passes were completely paid for and I stopped even thinking about booking any excursions on the website. The person I read about was able to get their cruise reinstated but she really went through a lot to get that done. I'm not booking anything with NCL if this is how they do business.

We love ship tours! We've toured Grand Princess and Celebrity Beyond. I would love to tour Resilient Lady during our cruise in May. How do you book the ship tour on Virgin? Is it done on the ship or can you book it ahead of time?

We were on NCL Bliss the week of Valentine's Day. We received a notice the day of embarkation that Cozumel was being cancelled due to "port congestion" and replaced with Bimini. I thought that was weird but I checked a marine traffic site and there were going to be a lot (6 or 7 ships) in Cozumel the day we would have been there. I didn't think that was all that unusual for Cozumel though. We also missed Costa Maya. The captain said that was due to wind. Each cabin received $100 nonrefundable OBC. I thought it was odd but I took their word for it until I heard about them cancelling Roatan for "port congestion" when the only other ship in Roatan that day was a small Carnival ship (Paradise, I think?). We were in Roatan in February with one of those ginormous Royal ships plus a Carnival ship (Dream or Breeze, I believe) at Mahogany Bay. My guess is Bimini is a more profitable to them somehow.

I do see that now if click "manage booking" and scroll all the way down to the bottom. It's right above the small print.

All of this 100%! I spent a couple days trying to figure out how to book excursions and trying to find prices on them. That's when I found out about the app. Before I knew about the app, I also found it ridiculous that if I want to know the specifics of the itinerary (dates and times in port), I could not see that by looking at my account at the cruises I have booked. I had to go out and search for it as if I wanted to book a cruise. It would be really helpful if they mentioned the app somewhere on the "my Account" part of the website.

Thanks for the responses! My husband is a business traveler and is the highest level of loyalty with IHG and has hundreds of thousands of "points" with IHG. We're staying at this Intercontinental for free for a week prior to our cruise because we booked with points. We're fine with some extra walking but could also pay for transportation as needed. Unfortunately for us, IHG only has 3 hotels in Athens: the IC, a Crowne Plaza which is not more convenient, and a hotel (holiday Inn?) out at the airport. I did look at The Athens Gate but it was sold out on some of the days of our stay. It's good to know about the shuttle!

I know nothing of Athens. We'll be there in May and will be staying at the Intercontinental. What is wrong with the location? Is it just inconvenient?

Frankly, I resent having to make reservations for anything on a cruise. Just give me an early or late dining that I can just show up for without any hassle. I'm busy and the attraction of a cruise was mostly that I can book it and be done. Now I have to worry about dinner reservations. I miss the days of just being able to go to dinner at my appointed time and then go to a show if I wanted to with zero planning on my part. This seems to have gone the way of the dodo bird on most lines. We'll be on a b2b on Resilient Lady in May/June. The app tells me that I can make dinner reservations starting April 6. I guess I'll just plan to be up at 12:01 on April 6 to make those reservations.

Thanks everyone! I used up all my loot booking the two cruises in a XL Sea Terrace. Not bad turning a 4 day cruise to Key West and Bimini into two weeks in Croatia and Greece! I have the app now. I probably would not have thought about looking for an app until we got on the ship so thanks for telling me about that! We would have been sad to not have any dinner reservations.

Call the constituent services office of your Congressperson. They may be able to help you get it expedited.

Thank you for this explanation. We have cruised a lot but will be doing our first VV cruise and first B2B cruise in May on Resilient Lady. I was curious how it works. Thankfully we do have the same cabin on both trips. I am absolutely astonished that passengers would have still been on the ship at 11:50! Leaving with to go containers of food is beyond the pale as well. In San Francisco last April, they would not let me off the ship with a to-go coffee.

We were there a couple weeks ago with a different cruise line. We didn't go to Resorts World. We read that renting a golf cart is very popular there but for $5 per person, you can take a taxi down to Radio Beach/Alice Town. There were people who walked it but there's not really much to see scenery wise between the dock and Alice Town. It would probably be more of a 30-40 minute walk. That's what we were told when we asked one of the locals in the port area. We went to Radio Beach and had a fine beach day and then walked around Alice Town for a bit and got a taxi back. At $10 it was probably the cheapest day in port ever.

I am so pleased to read the reports that people have been pleased with their trips on Atlas. We went to South Georgia and Antarctica with Albatros Expeditions in November of 2021 (solar eclipse trip) and we docked next to Atlas in Ushuaia. The ship looked beautiful. We are booked on a solar eclipse cruise on Atlas in 2024. At the time we booked it (over a year ago), the reviews of Atlas were not great. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt due to being new and Covid and all that went along with that and sounds like they have improved. I would love to get one of those cute suitcases but I bet we won't since this trip is a charter.

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question, but how does one book excursions with VV? We are doing a back to back in May/June (Adriatic Sea & Greek Gems and Greek Island Glow)--finally using up that $8,000 of credit from the cancellation of our April 1, 2020 inaugural sailing on Scarlet Lady. Yesterday, I started looking at excursions on the VV website. There are no prices on any of the excursions and no way to book them that I see.

I think Princess is classier. I'm not sure I could even say why I think that but it's just more elegant. The first time we tried NCL, it was 10+ years ago on NCL Jewel. The MDR food was just not good and I am not a foodie. The desserts were all gelatinous in texture. We just got the ice cream every night. One night, we decided to try the Italian specialty restaurant just to see if it was any better. Everything there was wonderful, including the dessert. I realized then that they were trying to push everyone to the pay restaurants. That pissed me off. I didn't cruise them again until last year. I have to say, the MDR has greatly improved. I really don't have any complaints about the food. I just like the atmosphere better on Princess. Celebrity is another one that I prefer. If you have not been on Celebrity Beyond, definitely go check it out. Since you said you thought NCL catered to old folks, you might not like Princess but I bet you would love Beyond.

I was on this cruise. The letter that we handed when we showed up for embarkation explained that Cozumel was being skipped due to port congestion. Admittedly, I didn't initially read the letter beyond Cozumel being replaced with Bimini but did read it later and see that the reason given was port congestion. I checked a marine traffic website and saw that there were 6 ships aside from Bliss scheduled to be in Cozumel when Bliss would have been there. As for Costa Maya, the captain explained exactly why the ships that were already docked were able to dock and why Bliss could not. It was due to the fact that Bliss was not pulling straight in but would have to dock sideways and the captain didn't think that possible with the wind blowing the way it was. The ship was crowded there is no denying that. We were spoiled on Breakaway in January of 22 with only 1200 people on board. But I remember what cruising was like before Covid so I'm not surprised by crowded, sold out ships. I don't normally take the elevators at all but the friend I was travelling with always takes them so we were on the elevators a lot. Occasionally they were crowded but we just waited for the next one. I don't recall ever waiting more than a few seconds. A lot of the time, we had more than one elevator to choose from because two showed up at once. Our main issue was the long wait some nights for the MDR. The service was slow. We had that issue on Ruby Princess as well back in April . I think all the lines are short staffed and staffed with inexperienced folks right now. Origami and towel folding are common cruise ship activities. I've definitely done both on Princess and Carnival. We're going to Greece and Croatia for two weeks on Virgin in May so I guess we'll get to see what the cool kids do on cruises. I asked about the port charges at guest services and was told that the NCL offices ashore would have to handle those refunds and they should happen automatically. I guess we'll see. I'm not going to hold my breath... I'm no NCL cheerleader. I only sail NCL when I sail with my friend who really likes it. I prefer most any other line but mostly sail with Princess.