dos equis

On 2/23/2023 at 1:29 PM, perakcruiser said:

We always got telephones from them when we left our baby at Baby Care. And they called when the baby was crying too much.  Actually it is a walkie-talkie, not a cellphone.

I also disagree with some other answers 😄 

 

There is babysitting for 0-2, that is Baby Care, while Baby Time is when you spend time there together. 

 

Also the little bit older kids had lunch and and dinner with the Kids club team and not with us. You can choose of cause. 

Thanks for this! I knew that there were limited hours for drop offs for 2&under, and I should have specified in my post that that's what I was asking about. So thank you for answering my unclear question!

Can I ask what ship you were on that had the walkie talkies?

We are sailing on the Meraviglia this year. If you drop off your child for babysitting hours, will they provide any way to keep in contact with you in case your child needs to be picked up/there's an emergency? Royal does telephones so I am wondering if MSC offers anything like that.

Thanks for anyone who can share their experience. I cannot find this information anywhere online.

How much does the "back home clean" service cost? Thanks.

Just received our upgrade confirmation. Booked a sail-away balcony for $329 pp on the Sun leaving 9/2/19. Offered $400 per person (the absolute minimum) for a Forward-Facing Penthouse Suite and it was accepted. That makes it $729 pp for a suite! Not bad!

Now just waiting to see if we actually get on the ship... Hoping Dorian doesn't delay too much of our trip (and of course hoping that the impact to other people and locations are MINIMAL)!

They're pretty dang good! 

The Escape. My husband LOVED the district and we kept saying how fun it would have been with a bunch of friends.

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Really great info, thanks!!

What ship would this have been? August 6th or 8th out of Vancouver... Jewel?

You all are definitely my people! I do much of what you're all posting, and it's fun to hear about everyones pre-cruise planning techniques (and compulsions).

Here are a few things I will add:

-If there is time in port to hit up a local restaurant, I visit Yelp to read reviews and view menus to see where I want to go. This really helped when we were in Bermuda for 3 days and had lots of opportunities to eat off the ship. I also use Google Maps street view to get an idea of what the area will look like. It's always fun to look up something on street view and then stand in that actual spot a few months later. Surreal!

-I plan on what books I'm going to take with me. Usually I read various current listicles like "books you need to read on the beach this summer" or "great vacation reads." I usually read on my Kindle, using my library's ebook portal. I make my lists and try to have a few options so at least something is available to download before I travel.

- Although CruiseCritic is the best place to read reviews, I scour the internet for other blog posts or travel website reviews of the ship I'll be traveling on, or the ports I'll be visiting.

-I look up the drink menus for each bar on board and make a "must try" list for different cocktails and at which bar they are available at (some drinks are only available at certain bars.)

The planning part is SO FUN but a lot of it goes out the window when I travel because I end up wanting to just relax instead of doing everything I had planned. It is such a nice feeling though when you feel like you did everything you wanted to do by the end of a vacation. Although I prefer to have every minute of my vacation accounted for (to make me feel like I'm getting the biggest bang for my buck), I have to remind myself to slow down when I'm actually on vacation and not try to rush to do everything. Plans always change and some things just end up being impossible. Keeping my own schedule is hard; especially because of the increased activity level (and increased cocktail consumption...) so I end up taking more naps than I do in regular life. I have to remind myself that I'm on vacation and relaxing is my number one priority.

There are terrible people on every ship, and the beverage package doesn't help when they decide to show off their crazy side. I was on the Dawn earlier this year and a man cut in front of the entire bar line of about 10 people in Bliss to order. Everyone was just kind of looking at him, and I was the only one to say "The line starts back here." He came right up to me, put his face right in my face, and started just SCREAMING at me. I'm a woman and I had this big guy drunkenly screaming info my face. I remember his spit landed on my face. He was slurring his words and not making any sense, but just yelling into my face because I called him out on his "mistake." I told him he was drunk and he didn't need anything more to drink and he said, "Yeah, but guess what? They're going to keep serving me anyway." He actually said that. I ignored him, he the proceeded to stand directly next to me while I waited in line for my drink. When I got to the bar I told the bartenders what happened, still with him standing there swaying all over, and said "this man has been over served and you shouldn't give him anything else. He's going to start an actual fight." They just kinda shrugged their shoulders and said "do we need to call a manager?" I said yes, the manager told me that because he didn't see the incident there was nothing he could do, and they gave the guy two more beers. It was a horrible experience and NCL really disappointed me. Still makes me shudder to think about that guy in my face. What a trash human.

Waiting to board right now. We arrived at 10 and it was a madhouse with passengers still getting off. Waiting to board now, group #2 (at 11:58am). Previous week passengers seemed really angry.

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We found out we were upgraded from an obstructed Oceanview cabin (category OK) to a midship balcony (BA) on the Norwegian Dawn. Sailing has been sold out for weeks but we got the upgrade 2 days before sailing. Paid $550 total and that was the lowest amount in the highest bid category. Still much cheaper than what it would have cost to upgrade outright before the sailing sold out. We have 3 people in the room so we're very happy to have the extra space now!

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This is all so worrisome to hear that the issues aren't just on one cruise, but all of the recent cruises. Why haven't they tried something different by now?

We have a 12pm flight out of Tampa and now I'm worried about missing it on debarkation day. Ugh.

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Great review. Thanks! I sail in one week [emoji41]

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Thanks for your review. How was Soul Rockin Nights?

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download the NCL app to your mobile device then connect to the ship wifi network

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Hi all, I'm trying to remember if this is something you can do while waiting to board in the cruise terminal. I know I've seen tables set up for specialty dining and spa treatment bookings before boarding, but does anyone know if there's a way to book excursions while waiting to board? The one we want to sign up for was removed from the website a few weeks ago so we'll need to book onboard but I'd like to do it while I'm waiting in the terminal rather than using precious ship time! Thanks for any insight. Port of Tampa/Dawn, specifically.

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Not sure about Dawn, but Escape has an entire craft beer restaurant with quite a few options. Most I've seen on a ship.

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Thanks for your review!

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Are you all big drinkers? Remember that the UBP will only be good for the first two passengers in the room, so if you're planning on lots of drinks, getting two rooms might end up actually being cheaper since you'll all have the drink package. Just something to consider.

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Hi

The current offer has 3 signature dining credits. Do you have to use them yourself? We are traveling with family who booked already without this option. Would we be able to eat with them and use our options for them? There's two of us and two of them, so use four dining?

CAN I BUY DINNER FOR MY FRIENDS WITH A SPECIALTY DINING PACKAGE?

Specialty Dining Packages are for personal consumption. If you wish to pay for someone else’s dinner, you will incur in regular cover charges for their consumption.

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Are you literally shaking your head in a side to side manner or just sort of cyber shaking your head?

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As far as I’m concerned the insurance aspect of this story is secondary to the fact that the wound wasn’t cleaned and inspected properly and that pieces of coral were stitched up inside the wound causing a serious infection. He also had a severed tendon. That’s incompetent medical care he received on the ship.

 

If the doctor wasn't able to address his needs, they should have been upfront and told the patient that he should get to a land based hospital ASAP. Who knows what kind of lasting damage treatment like that could cause. So scary.

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This is absolutely correct. The process is identical to if you went out-of-network shoreside. You pay first, and then request reimbursement. Sounds to me that the passengers made assumptions and did not understand how the policy worked.

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This is horrible and so terrifying. I can't imagine how painful that must have been. Hopefully there isn't any permanent damage.

Everyone who usually just comments "should have bought insurance" can back away from this one because they did and it still didn't help them.

What a nightmare.

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