MkeCruzn

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.

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.

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!

Oh, and we had two dinners in Cagney’s. Both great!

La Cucina food was good, atmosphere was like a cafeteria. Very little to distinguish it. We should have gone elsewhere!

We have done it both ways. If you want to wait for promos like 2 or even 3 bonus Latitudes points per night, it may be better than the small benefit to get a better cabin. Cruises seem to be filling up faster than before, so you’ll have to decide. There’s no perfect formula 🙂

Just read your great review. We enjoyed cruising with you and your group. Hope to see you again. We just finished 14 nights on the Star from Reykjavik to Southampton. Definitely not as good as the Epic. I can’t wait to fill out the post-cruise survey (and hoping they care). Oh, and thanks for the M&M shout out!

Yes, earlier in the cruise and from Tromsø.

We just visited Isafjordur on Sep. 10, 23 on the Norwegian Star. We took an independent tour to Dynjandi with Arctic Shorex and it was great! Much cheaper than the ship’s shore excursion.

We had two fabulous tours with AA/YDT, one to Snaefellsnes and the Golden Circle plus hot spring. We had the same tour guide (Pawel) both days. Everything went very smoothly on both tours. No issues for us! I’d recommend them any time.

We did some private tours with Arctic Expeditions/ Your Day Tours. They were great. You can book directly with them vs using a third party consolidator like V.

Hi, we just left Tromsø. Here’s what I wish I’d known in advance. There are public buses and bus 26 goes to the cable car. If you’re on NCL, they offer a shuttle bus for $20/person. The shore excursion desk sold those a day in advance, but they didn’t advertise this at all. Other lines may have a similar deal. Our excursion was bad. Too expensive, plus all the buses showed up at the cable car at the same time. We waited for more than an hour to go up, stay 10 minutes and stand in line to go back down. You can also get a taxi at the cruise terminal. That would have been faster and better. If you’re doing any of these, try to get off the ship as soon as you can. Otherwise, the lines will be very long.

Pretty sure they will always take more money to fill empty cabins! But our problem with trying this is that we have return flights, hotels, etc. and plans for when we get off the ship. It would work well if you can rearrange all that stuff...

The new Ts&Cs are interesting. When we were on the Escape, they said we could use one person's SDP meal in places like Food Republic, order the four items that were covered and share them between us. We found that four items were enough for both of us, so we got to try that out twice. I also see that now they don't list Bayamo as a restaurant that allows the SDP. That was one of our favorite specialty restaurants, and one of the best we had seen on any NCL ship. Having said all that, I would agree that it's better to buy the two extra SDP meals in advance if you can. I believe you can buy onboard as many SDP meals as you want, and they get incrementally cheaper (going from 5 to 6 adds only $15-20 to the total, from what I recall). It's about the best deal they have, unless you get extra free SDP meals with Latitudes status 🙂

We have two excursions booked with them for the Sep. 9 sailing of the Star from Reyjkavik to Southampton. The first is in Isafjordur and the second is in Akureyri. Initially, they said that the Star would not be docking in Isafjordur, as it was not listed on the port's calendar and they kept our booking on their tour in pending status as a result. In early August, they emailed me back to say that they had confirmation that the Star would visit Isafjordur and that they would reinstate the tours. We had to book and pay within a week so they could open any extra slots for other people. I found their communications to be prompt, clear and decent. I did see the policies if we canceled, but figured that we would only cancel if the ship did not visit the port. For both ports, they offered 100% refund if the ship does not dock for whatever reason. Some other ports were not 100% refund, which seems strange, but I assume that is because they have costs to cover in those ports (perhaps up-front fees, getting a vehicle to the port, etc.). You always have the choice of taking a ship tour at double the price or booking through Viator if it's available, but even they have a 48-hour cancellation policy. Many other companies also do not provide a full refund if the customer cancels at the last minute. After all, that is a seat that they cannot sell to someone else, and they have to eat too! I have booked tours through sites like Viator. Their policies are better sometimes, but the prices they charge are usually higher than booking directly. Plus, many tour companies can be more flexible if you book direct vs. through a third party. I will try to come back to this forum to post my experience with taking their tours. I am willing to put up with some restrictive policies if the tour is great.

Hey @WNcruiser, thanks for a great live report. We will be taking a similar itinerary on the Norwegian Star in about 10 days, hitting some of the same ports as you. A few more in Norway, no Belgium/Amsterdam, but it should be good. We have a forecast of clouds and rain for the first week in Reyjkavik and our Iceland part of the cruise. I am sure our food and room will not be as nice as Regent. I did notice the Star in your video of the ship horns talking to each other!

Looks like we will be on the same itinerary, sailing in 10 days! I am the planner for our group. I have some ship excursions and some independent ones.

Just called NCL. The agent said it was good through April 2024, but there are not many sailings that qualify. They could have extended it a bit longer, at least into May. I think we'll try for a fall 2023 sailing, maybe to Iceland and Norway from London.

Just checked my NCL account. The 20% off and 10% off FCC are now available, though they said June 1. Time to see what qualifies and maybe jump on some bookings to get the additional Lat points plus discount, and before they all sell out... Small difference/concern: originally they said through April 2024, but the certificate says the offer has to be booked by June 15, it's only on new bookings for 2023 Europe sailings, and TA/Extraordinary Journeys are NOT included. https://www.ncl.com/exclusive-coupon-terms for the details.

Hi all, I just spotted this thread. Sorry for the multiple comments below. We were booked on the Epic for the Feb. 4 sailing and are disappointed that we won't be taking this cruise. The whole FCC thing is rather confusing. I spoke to two different agents today and got two different answers about using the FCC before it's posted to the account. One (Jared) said it could be applied retroactively and the other (Jasmine) said it couldn't. This is important because they currently have a past guest offer of either 2 or 3 extra Latitudes points per night, which (coincidentally) expires on May 31. There is a FAQ that says we can apply the FCC to an existing booking: https://www.ncl.com/cruise-faq/guest-make-a-new-booking-before-they-receive-the-FCC They also could not tell me in advance which itineraries would qualify for the FCC. Example: does a TA that starts or ends in Europe qualify as a "Europe" itinerary? Do Iceland and Norway qualify? Does Britain qualify? I wonder if they will issue a new past guest promotion on selected cruises that is valid from June 1 and might overlap with those that qualify for the 20% FCC. Our CruiseNext certificates are already back in our account. We don't have an issue with expiration dates, as they are good until 2026. Also, regarding what the Epic will be doing, I think the options they have are: 1) it's chartered for that period; 2) they're going to do some maintenance or refurbishment; 3) move it to a different market. This will be hard for them to move it somewhere for a winter season and fill up the ship with 6 months to go. Side note: We sailed TA on the Epic from NY to Barcelona this past spring. Yes, the Epic has quirks, but all ships have some quirks. The Epic's quirks did not really bother me too much.

The Jewel regularly gets chosen as one of the best ships in the fleet (at least according to the Jewel officers, but I believe them...) Anyway, we've enjoyed two cruises on the Jewel and would probably take another one. It's a reasonable size but smaller, so smaller crowds and less of a line to get off the ship at the ports and back on at the end of the day. They could use a few specialty restaurant changes, but oh well... The Escape had great options and we'd like to do another one on that ship as well.

Yeah, both Clay and mking8288 are going. I am too.

I hope to watch this live-ish as I have a chance and don't run out of Wi-Fi minutes. I'm reluctant to upgrade to an unlimited plan since the 4-day TA portion may not have good service.

I really enjoyed reading this, even if it was post-cruise. We are on the TA leaving New York on Apr. 22. I think it's going to be pretty full, so we will see (sea?) how things go.