expectthebest

So let me clear up a few things about our friend Sandy who sold us the beautiful set of Cutco knives in a stunning natural wood block. We did ask he how in the world she was able to get said knives onboard.. She was a local who lived about an hour from the pier. She said she was asked at the security booth inside the terminal why she is bringing them onboard and she said she needed them to cut her medicine tablets she takes daily in such a way that most inferior knives sold in the US just can not handle. The security guard said ma’am you need to be more specific. She said she then quickly finished a store brand soda can she was drinking and asked if she can demonstrate her knives for him. She not only sliced the can in half in one fell swoop. She also used the pearling knife and carved the remaining can into what best resembled a tiny pineapple.. she told the security officer to keep the pineapple and give it to his 3 year old son 🍍🍍 She said he simply put a small piece of red tape on the closure of the knife set. Smiled at her and said please be careful. He also thanked her for the gorgeous tin pineapple souvenir and said his young son will love playing with it.

Snoop.. please please do an update on here and let us all know how the adventure went. I’m being serious.. I want to hear all about the roll all set up and the cookie delivery shenanigans. Please share the experience as it u folds..

We can leave that to the fresh air markets that surround the ship and you are forced to walk through once you are off the ship lol

Last year on the breakaway the neighbors in the stateroom to our left and ourselves were invited to our neighbor on the right for drinks on their balcony. So after about 2 hours of nice talk and getting to know our new friends the wife says oh since you are all here I have a surprise for all of you. She goes in the closet and comes back with a small trunk and opens it on their small end table.. my wife and I were perplexed..turns out that the woman packed an entire sales pack of Cutco knives.. she insisted she demonstrate how the worlds greatest knife set to never be sold in an actual store will change your life. My wife picked out the 13 piece set she had with the natural wood block and kitchen scissors to boot!! Best $2,300.00 we ever spent!! We still keep in touch with her and we laugh that she invited us to her balcony but all 3 couples were actually in inside cabins !!! Fun times for all of us.

Also please remember in the US it’s Tax Return Season where most of the NCL target market will be getting 4-7k dollars come April- May and will want to spend the money on something!!!!

I actually laughed out loud!! i bet the stock surge can be summed up in 2 words: Hash Browns well done Rocket!!!

I feel terrible what you have been through..something similar happened to me years back: On a Princess cruise ship years ago my wife fell in love with gold chain that the cruise line was selling “by the inch” mid ship. She couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted the white or yellow gold so after a few days of lamenting I surprised her. She was playing Bingo one afternoon (didn’t win) by herself and I decided to go buy some gold for her. I know she always complained that our Christmas tree never really shined enough bc we had old ornaments on the tree.. That was about to change.. I purchased enough to wrap the Christmas tree (39 feet to be exact) in the white gold chain!!! I know it’s crazy but I figured every investment pundit tells you to invest in gold.. so I did!!! Fast forward 4 months to Dec 1st… my wife had absolutely no idea that I had made such a sound financial decision for our family… we set the tree up and strung the lights… she was pulling out the old ornaments and I grabbed her arm and proclaimed.. honey, I have a big surprise for you this year.. she loves surprises so I had her close her eyes while I grabbed the bin under the bed and presented it to her..she looked confused and then said thank you? I told her it is 18 carrot plated white gold that we will string around the tree like garland. She started to cry.. asked me how much I spent on it.. I told her almost a mortgage payment.. she then asked “in what part of town” lol after about 30 mins of stringing every inch of the gold chain around our tree it looked absolutely stunning..she even said let’s not put those old ornaments on the tree this year!! That Christmas even though we didn’t have money left to buy each other any gifts to put under that shimmering gold masterpiece it was still a Christmas to remember. Not to mention anytime we get tired of the gold garland I can always sell it and make some good money on it.

Buddy of mine stayed in a 2 bedroom haven suite and told me the butler would usually come in the room and hold the ashtray for him while he sat and enjoyed a smoke inside the cabin. To me that seems a lil much to expect from your butler!! Now I think about this story it was in fact many years ago…

Delivery driver just dropped off a package to my door while I was outside getting the mail. The driver had me sign for it then flipped his ipad over revealing a tip screen if your driver did a fantastic job.. tip started at $5 and went up by 5’s to $20 Ok.. changing gears.. 112 days from now we are in a windowless suite on joy R/T NYC to Bermuda.. some say not a real suite but the gratuities were $25/ pp pd I think it comes with a concierge.. I prepaid entire cruise and all gratuities.. I want my shipboard acct to say ‘0’ at end of cruise..I will bring a wallet full of $1..$5.. and $10’s and pass out during the cruise when the moment strikes me and I think to myself wow this person went above and beyond for me. I try not to hold myself to a hard number of per day.. per person.. bc if I connect with the room steward and only talk to concierge at the beginning meet and greet and then they disappear for the entire cruise then it’s their loss.. we do always tip the wait staff at end of the meals in specialty and end of cruise in main dining..

I will keep an eye out in the dailies for “kid specials’ and see if we can do that at least

Thank you for this info.. it sounds like the $20 price is only seen in the rear view mirror.. they were some fun times!!! I guess I will try my best to steer the kids to doing something else while at sea.. I can’t imagine the room would be full at $50 per person but it has been a couple years and I guess everything must go up.

Thank you Flaham!!!

Hello Fello Cruisers, it’s been a couple years since we have sailed NCL. Our (2) kids (14) and (6) have discovered Bingo and asked if they can play bingo on a sea day on our upcoming Bermuda cruise.. My Questions: is it still $20 per person to play? Can you charge it to your room or cash only? how many games do you get for said entrance fee? do you win actual cash? Or is it ship board credit? do they still do a progressive ‘cover all’ with the numbers slowly increasing each day? is it a complete money grab and should be avoided at all cost? can you still win a free cruise if you win the final cover all ? has anyone on this sub ever won the free cruise? How was it? Did they make you have an inside cabin on deck 4 or can you pick location if you are the lucky winner? Does NCL still eat all the taxes and port fees including gratuities..so you are granted an actual free Cruise? we are 110 days out so we are getting excited!! Any advice on this would help!!!

Thank you UK!! This will set my expectation very low when thinking of the concierge service.. I understand their loyalty to the Haven guests as priority number 1… Our family is pretty low key and we don't require much besides maybe a tweek in reservation or entrance to a last minute show. Plus with our 2 children along in this journey I would assume bedtime will sneak up pretty quickly and I will be carrying our 6 year old back to the cabin each night.. Last year on RCL he would frequently fall asleep as dinner was wrapping up and never make it through the ice cream and cookies at the end of the meal. We would always bring “his” cookies back to the room with us and sure enough the next morning the first thing he would ask us is did we forget his cookies from the restaurant.. lol Best, Mark

Update!!!!!!: First of all a special cruise critic thank you to all who chimed in!!! All the info was soooo helpful.. We downloaded the app and once logged in we searched open times.. and there was a lot.. we booked both Cagneys and Ocean Blue for 5:30 which I’m so excited about.. Now we are salivating over the menus !!!! Thanks a million!!! -Mark

I do find it hard to believe there are no times open at 124 days out.. I think the rest of the ship gets to book at 120 days.. should I try our cruise consultant on the 120 day mark? or is that gonna be same results?

Thank you for clearing that up !! Do you think something in the normal 5-6pm range would become open?

Hi Critics: We are booked on the JOY 5.26.24-6.02.24 Bermuda RT NYC in an inside suite..I just realized I can book our specialty dining b/c it’s 124 days till sail away. I call NCL to book and was told only reservations open are at 9:00 pm on one sea day and 9:30 pm on the day we sail back to NYC in Ocean Blue and Cagneys.. the rep on phone said to book the the 2 time slots and just change them when I board the ship on sail away. He said go to the actual restaurant as soon as we are on the ship b/c we are suite guests we will be able to board along with Haven if that is true. Has anyone encountered this? Should we seek out the Concierge upon boarding or actually run to the restaurant.. We have a 13 yr old and a 6 year old so those times would just not work for us.. Any advice would be appreciated -Mark

Jeans are fine.. short shorts are prob fine as well.. but short Jean shorts may be a lil uncomfortable. Lol Serious note LeBistro requires pants.. we were in the Haven on past NCL cruise and I expressed to our concierge how it stinks that I need pants b/c I didn’t pack any whatsoever.. no word of lie our concierge looked at me and said.. I can launder the black pants he had on to let me borrow his.. I politely declined but that was the most above and beyond experience we have ever had in the Haven

We (family of 4) returned from Disney World the week before thanksgiving.. the prices have absolutely skyrocketed there.. but demand is still at an all time high.. Even though it rained for 7 straight days in the parks each park still had 80k visitors each soaking wet day.. Disney has manipulated the attendance policy this creating no “slow season” We just booked on NCL joy 5/26. - 6/2/24 Bermuda 7 days out of NYC said kids are $99 each… with port fees/ taxes and gratuities included each child came to $605 each so additional $1,210 We are still excited to cruise and feel fortunate enough to have a few vacation choices.. you are correct… we are inching close to our “tipping point” #bringbackthehash #hashbrownsforbreakfast

So we pulled the trigger !!!! With a slight modification : we are now sailing the week before bc there was 1 suite left. It is an inside suite with a ‘virtual’ balcony so not sure how that will be but we are excited. The room has 512 sq feet with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths with a middle living room area!!! we will have enough room to spread out and also decided to have my in laws join us… (in their own balcony room of course) close to our room.. so now another question: has anyone sailed in one of these large inside suites? We didn’t use our balcony on last Bahamas cruise we did last year on RCL so I do t think we are gonna miss it. Plus the in-laws have a balcony so the children can always stop over for a visit 139 days till sail away… getting excited!!!!

$15 per drink is a good amount.. I prob will not venture off of the included list but good to know it’s an option that won’t cost that much overall.. I appreciate your input!!

Thank you JandC such good info!! I appreciate you taking the time to post 🙂

We did wind up keeping the drink pkg on and will just pay the gratuities.. they have some very good booze to pick from when we want to try something new

Thank you Trivia!!! Great info..much appreciated!!!