MkeCruzn

On 5/18/2024 at 12:20 PM, Sugar Magnolia said:

I walked in at 5:30 for dinner at Food Republic and was seated right away. Everything I ordered was great…just too much of it. I used my FAS dining package and was entitled to 4 dishes. 

 

 

 

Pork Belly Bao

 

 

Thai Steak and Noodle Salad. 

 

Spicy Pacific Salmon Roll

Dynamite Roll

 

 

 

Sadly there was no one with whom to share this meal so there might have been some left for the fishes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We loved Food Republic on our Escape cruise! We went twice and shared four dishes per FAS dining package. That was plenty for us!

Wonderful so far. Looking forward to more info and postings.

Hi Henry @mking8288!! Nice to see you on here!

1 hour ago, marys350 said:

 

We were on the Star in September 2023. We made it to all our ports (Isafjordur included) but the port call didn't show up on the Isafjordur port schedule, so our independent tour didn't want to commit until that had been resolved. Fortunately, we did get confirmation and were able to book the tour (with Arctic Shorex/Wild Westfjords at half the price of the NCL shore excursion). We heard that the issue with the Prima wasn't the dock construction, but something to do with the tenders on the ship. I am not sure if that's accurate or not, but we never really get a straight story from NCL.

I hope you get there. Isafjordur is a nice place.

We had Northern Lights for 5 nights during our September cruise to Iceland and Norway on the Star. The cruise staff let people know early each evening what time the lights were expected to be visible, and announced via audio/TV when they were visible. One night it was 1:30 am, the rest were more like 10:30 pm. Tip: they announce the visibility at the earliest time you can see them, but if you can hang out another 20-30 minutes you just might be rewarded with a stronger display. At first, they look more like the Milky Way, just kind of gray/green on the black sky, so you might not realize you're seeing them.

I also found that the iPhone pictures were better than the "live" view (more intense, etc.) and a "regular" camera didn't do quite as well. I also saw people with tripods who thought that the tripod was not going to move when the ship rocked 🙂

24 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

Looking forward to two weeks on the Star this summer from New York through the Canadian Maritimes to St. Pierre, Greenland and Iceland.

Iceland was amazing. If you can plan extra time there, it's well worth it!

22 hours ago, zqvol said:

MCL is fully staffed so if that is an issue for you, you definitely need to consider another option 

I don't know if it's fixed or not. I would like to know if the Star is better for this cruise than one we took 6 months ago (with many examples of service not being up to prior standards). And yes, I would like to know to add it to planning future cruises.

If you have more evidence that staffing has been improved, please share it.

Yep, I would like to see this too. We're trying to decide whether to do Antarctica on NCL or Celebrity, but Celebrity isn't going there in 2025, so we will have to wait if we want that.

We took the Star for our recent Iceland/Norway cruise (September 2023), and they had some serious issues with staffing, long lines, service in the MDR, etc. There are a lot of reviews (including mine!) regarding this. I'm not sure I would look forward to another itinerary on the Star until they get this fixed.

If you could keep an eye on this, it would help everyone! Thanks!

2 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

So...if I restrain myself from commenting, will I get sent to the naughty room?

I think so 🙂

54 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

How about 550 paracords 😁😁😁 since I keep them around for emergencies and as improvised tourniquet, if there's nothing else around. 

 

On a more serious note, agreed with @MkeCruzn the router will have to in repeater and/or bridge mode, and not AP configuration to share the "masked" or cloned signal with the MAC addresses.  Very often, the server handling the traffic can and will detect these and block it ... saved me a few ounces leaving the Roku stick & remote at home. 

 

 

Hi Henry, thanks for the additional info. Personally, I am not hung up on watching TV shows from home when I am traveling (or many other times as well), but to each his own. I go on vacation to do different things. I suppose that it would kill some time if we were stuck at sea due to stormy weather, but still...

It looks like a lot of stuff to lug along. My wife is annoyed sometimes with just the laptop/phone/iPad drawing my attention away.

3 hours ago, hallux said:

No.  Travel routers take an existing WiFi connection and then broadcast their own network.  To do that they need two WiFi radios so it would not cut the speed in half.  Realistically, though, the internet speed on a ship is slow enough that such halving of WiFi throughput won't be noticeable.

 

I guess I was in a fantasy world when I grabbed this screenshot on my cruise on the Escape earlier this year - 

The Beryl spec sheet says specifically that connecting your devices through a wi-fi network uses "repeater mode" which means the radio will need to alternate between communicating with the WAN and the LAN sides. Otherwise, the transmit signal will overwhelm the much fainter receive signal from the laptop/phone/etc. if they are on the same band (2.4 or 5 GHz). It may be possible to have WAN traffic on one band and the LAN on the other, but that is not guaranteed. Even so, your devices will all have to share the speed of the main link (in this case, 5.82 Mb/s down and 3.15 Mb/s up).

You're fortunate to get 5 Mb/s in mid-afternoon.

2 hours ago, IAcruising said:

 

The Super Bowl was everywhere on the Prima last season. They had the theatre split down the middle with Eagles fans on the left and Chiefs on the right. HUGE video screen. It was an incredible experience.

 

I'm glad they played it. You had a better experience than we did.

4 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

Waiting for one of our UK friends to stop by to give us their definition of football...😁

Go Pack! (Though they have been inconsistent so far this season...)

I have seen different priorities for showing NFL games on different ships. Even during the playoffs/Super Bowl, you could not count on seeing the games. However, "football" and rugby seemed to get higher priority, particularly if the world cup is going on.

A couple of observations, not getting into legal/moral issues. Apologies if this turns too geeky.

1. For the travel router to work, you need an Ethernet port, right? Using the wi-fi connection for both the WAN and LAN would cut the speed in half, just like a wi-fi repeater. If NCL cared about people bringing routers, they could disable the Ethernet ports in the cabins and force everyone onto the ship's wi-fi network.

2. My last unlimited wi-fi package allowed three different devices to connect through my account, though I could use only one at a time. I was able to authenticate my phone, laptop, and iPad without doing much other than logging in/out. When my wife wanted to use the wi-fi, I just had to remove a device so she could log in. When she was done, I just removed hers and added mine back in. Inconvenient? Maybe a bit. Limiting? Yes and no. I just had to discipline myself and use only one device at a time.

3. MAC spoofing probably would not work, since the system knew what OS version, device type, etc. was connecting. I suspect that the same MAC address with different details might appear as different devices, but I have no way of testing this. I did have to remove a "device" if I used a different browser on the laptop to log in, as it thought the computer was not the same.

On 9/30/2023 at 11:48 AM, graphicguy said:

We think alike.  No Fanny Packs.  Passport card, credit card and a little cash in a wallet attached to my phone, which is ALWAYS in my FRONT pocket.

 

The rest, Passport, drivers license, cash, etc stashed in a very unlikely place.

It sounds like your "passenger" could have been someone working the gate areas and never planning to board your flight. It's a reasonable scenario - get to the airport way in advance, grab a few wallets while you're waiting, and then fly out later in the day. Or, they buy a refundable ticket so they can get into the secure area, work the departing passengers, then leave and get a refund on their ticket.

Front pocket is not always as safe as you would think. I could tell you a long-ish story, but you get the idea. Watch out for groups of 2-3 people walking together, and maybe not having a lot of hand luggage.

I've decided that I will take a duplicate driver's license on trips where I plan to rent a car. The rental car companies won't accept a copy, probably even one that came from the DMV in your state.

Also, I suggest more than one ATM card with different account numbers if you plan to pull cash from your account while you're gone.

I hope that your experience is different from what I recall on our most recent cruise (Star, Iceland to England, September). I noticed that people had to check in any wine/spirits you brought on board and the sign said you'd get them back at the end of the cruise, not on-call during the cruise. Perhaps there was some issue with local laws in Iceland, or perhaps I am not recalling the situation correctly. I was surprised that it seemed to be different from prior cruises.

On 10/7/2023 at 2:39 PM, JIMESOPUS said:

Deck #6 mid ship restaurants, photo's didn't load correctly in order, ugh

Looks like some of these are pictures of La Cucina. They don't have a great atmosphere on this ship. It looks to me like they tried to squeeze it in, but it has no ambience. It's just like another cafeteria. The food is decent, but I'd go to Cagney's or Le Bistro for a nicer experience.

10 hours ago, JIMESOPUS said:

Got ashore and found out the trains are back to normal decided to stay in Dun Loaghaire.

Another pub visit, was informed by ordering 1/2 pints means your are a tourist.

Almost nobody orders less than a pint. The half pints are considered a "ladies' drink", from what I have heard.

9 minutes ago, eileeshb said:

Personally I’m going to wait until I’m on board to see what will be blocked using the regular unlimited wifi anyway, plus the upgrade price on the app and website is out of whack at the moment.

I found that VPN software did not work on the basic package, but I didn't try much streaming or FaceTime.

8 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

This has been true, wait until it's past midnight or 00:01 to do the onboard WiFi upgrade, and save 1 day's worth of unlimited WiFi charge.   We did that trade-up in April on a 15 nights TA ... but the daily charge was $25 instead of $30 as it's based on 15 days,  When we did that on Day 2, the calculated daily rate became $30 per day, didn't save any money despite trading in our 300 x 2 minutes with the allowance. 

 

More recently, last month on the Escape, the upgrade price for unlimited WiFi remained unchanged, whether it was done at 00:01 after midnight on Day 2 or Day 3.  Reasons to wait until onboard is that we can use non-refundable OBC for the trade-up ($100 allowance for the 150 unused minutes as trade, higher allowance on a longer cruise with 300 airtime minutes.)  

Hey @mking8288, nice to see you here!

Last month on the Star (Iceland to Southampton, 14 days) they offered various upgrades to unlimited or unlimited with streaming. The price kept dropping day by day from $199-ish for the non-streaming package and eventually (after about 5 days) the price dropped to $99 for basic and $199 for streaming. I bought one package and shared it with my wife quite easily, though we could only have one device at a time logged in. She kept watching and the price never went lower, so I think I maximized the number of days vs. the price.

I did lose the remainder of my 300 minute free package, but hey, I guess free is free anyway. I might have spent the 300 minutes a bit faster if I had known the package price would drop.

Another small point: on the last day, you lose the login page on the app, and it's replaced by the "Goodbye for now" screen. That means it's harder (or maybe impossible) to use your remaining free minutes. However, if you're logged in on the unlimited, your package expires at 10 am or 11 am on debarkation day, so you can still use the last bits of time until you connect to a shore-based provider.

The ship wi-fi still had serious speed issues, and there were several times that things did not load very fast at all. I don't know if the streaming package is any better on the speed than the non-streaming package.

On 10/6/2023 at 10:41 PM, Rob_H said:

 

Yes, Rumi (GM) and Tahaini (CD) left for vacation recently, according to a friend who was onboard a couple of weeks ago.

 

Today was Icy Strait Point.  Not a day for the Skyglider mountain gondola (lots of low cloud, some light rain).  Ship docks at the secondary port (next to the Skyglider), there is a free gondola along to the Cannery which has a $5 shuttle bus into Hoonah.

 

We've given up even looking at Norwegian Shorex this year, except as an idea of what to look for in an outside tour.  The Skyglider was $50 in April, which with the $50 shorex credit and Latitudes discount isn't too bad for two.  Now it's $70.

 

The zipline shorex is a crazy $270 for one hour.  Still, not as bad as the $550 Norwegian shorex we saw for two hours of kayaking in Iceland a few months ago!

 

BTW, in what will probably be normal for Asia cruises, the ship has run out of green tea teabags by day 4.  Most cruises run out of green tea at some point (so we bring our own as a backup), but not usually this quick!

 

 

Iceland shorex with NCL are mostly crazy expensive, as you noted. We passed on almost all of these those and booked similar ones at 1/3 the price through Arctic Shorex and other companies, or just walked around the town and enjoyed a free day (in more than one way).

I am willing to spend $150 per person for a full day, or close to it. We did some pre-cruise excursions in Reykjavik for that price, and our independent shorex came in at about that price too.

I understand an expensive tour in a bus (after all, gas is $10/gallon or thereabouts), but a $550 kayak trip? Come on, NCL.The vacation is expensive enough without gouging pax on the shorex. They also don't tell you about interesting options like a $20 per person shuttle bus vs. the $150 shorex in Norway.

Rumi is an excellent GM, in my opinion. I hope he enjoys his vacation. He deserves some time off.

2 hours ago, Rob_H said:

 

Hotel:

 

General Manager, Hannah Han

 

Food & Bev. Director, Fabrice De Cotte

 

Cruise Director, Victor Stevenson (currently unavailable, acting CD is Robert Deane)

 

Guest Services Mgr. Charlyn Pacilla

 

Exec. Housekeeper, Eric De Leon

 

I'll see if I can find the bridge officer details. This ship doesn't have a board with photos, just a scrolling list on the TV. 

 

 

Didn't see anybody VIP, but I'm not good at recognizing faces! We went back out shopping late morning, didn't get back to 1.30 so probably missed anything. Was this to celebrate the return to Asia?

Looks like Rumi is taking a break as GM. He's been on the Jewel since 2020.

Back after the cruise. Both excursions through Arctic Shorex were excellent. Great tour guides, smaller 19-pax Mercedes Sprinters, and one tour had only 11 people. The guides were knowledgeable and liked to talk, so we got a lot of good details. They took us to the spots you'd like to see. We had plenty of time and made it back to the ship with plenty of time to spare.

If the cancellation policies are understood and acceptable, I would not hesitate to book a tour with them.

We walked around the town in the morning and had a walking tour of the town in the afternoon. It was booked through the ship, but we only had 6 people for the tour. It was nice to hear the stories, but we also wound up back at some of the spots we'd seen earlier in the day. We did not do the walk up to Aksla, but others probably did.

On 9/17/2023 at 10:51 AM, ontheweb said:

Did you tender? The captain of the Prima either would not or could not let passengers tender there?

We tendered at Isafjordur. However, the port schedule did not list our stop until early August, so our independent port tour was a last-minute scramble. However, it was great and worth taking the chance. It was with Wild Westfjords/Arctic Shorex.

On 9/26/2023 at 10:43 AM, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. Where downtown did the shuttle take you? The main shopping street or the ferry port where the tourist info is? All I see anywhere is "downtown." 

The ship's shuttle took people to the Arctic Cathedral and the cable car lower station. I don't know for sure if it went elsewhere, as we did not take it. I talked to some people who took it and they mentioned a few spots that it went. I would have been really happy if it stopped near the ferry dock as well.

Our ship was docked at the cruise terminal that is not close to the center of town, maybe 2 to 2.5 km away. There's a ferry port that is at the center of town, but it's upstream of a bridge that appears to be too low to clear many cruise ships.

Hope that's helpful!