Bocadude85

My vote would be for a land tour, I just don’t think you will get enough of a taste of each island on the cruise, as others have said pick one island and spend a week or more and really immerse yourself into the local culture and cuisine. 

12 hours ago, AdoraBelle said:

Going to hijack this thread ever so slightly because I can see it’s already gotten the attention of the pro drinkers. 🙂

 

I don’t drink much, usually not at all on cruises. Bad alcohol metabolism or something. Going to have the UBP next trip. I like Kir Royals (incidentally because I had one at Le Bistro on my first cruise ever). Is this a pretty common drink I should be able to get at most bars onboard, or at least some other fruity sparkling wine concoction? (No peach, please. I do really like the creme de cassis in the Kir royals, just not sure if that’s a common liqueur.)

I also like Kir Royales and have never had a problem getting them from any of the bars. 

My husband and I are in our early 30’s and for the past few cruises have sailed exclusively in suites aboard NCL, the rooms and service have been wonderful. NCL ships are obviously not luxury liners, but the haven suites do give you that sense of luxury you are looking for.  Also NCL will have more of the age demographic you are looking to connect with, atleast that has been my experience. Recently we have been cruising NCL’s smaller ships and while these ships do not have the haven area, we have found the suites to be just as luxurious and the service and food has been better then on the larger ships with the haven area. 

We received the email to bid to upgrade for our May 18th Spirit cruise, we are in a SF suite and paid a little over 9k for the room, they are offering the owners suite(currently priced at $12,600 ) with a starting bid of $500 pp. we didn’t bid as I am not a fan of the owners suite on the Spirit but thought maybe someone would find the information useful. 

Prices really have gone up, a balcony room on our Europe cruise in May 2019 is over $7k. A inside room is over $4k! We sailed on the Spirit on a two week European cruise two years ago and paid $2200 for a balcony including the drink and dining package.

It was only available for purchase in the casino on our recent Sun cruise.

can you use two $250 cruise next certificates to book a suite or do you have to have the $500 cruise next haven certificate?

I see the Star is doing a transatlantic from Barcelona to Miami from Nov 22nd to Dec 6th 2019 and then is scheduled to do a eastbound South America cruise from Chile to Argentina from December 21st 2019 to January 4 2020, my question is where is the Star from December 6th to the 21st 2019? Is there a charter for those dates or has NCL simply not released the repositioning itinerary for the Star from Miami to South America? The repositioning cruise is the itinerary I am interested in booking.

If your itinerary includes a stop in Brisbane then Lone Pine Koala sanctuary is the place to go. We were able to hold the koalas and take multiple pictures.

I was not a fan of the north south blend, it’s drinkable but nothing like the apothic blend. If you want to try a really great red blend I would recommend the prisoner(it’s around $40 a bottle but worth it) unfortunately the prisoner is not available onboard as far as I know. I would choose the Estancia Pinot Noir over the North South Blend but it’s not going to be dry.

we had that menu in our aft penthouse on the Sun a few years back. Regular sized tub- can't recall if it had jets.

We just got off the Sun, we had a forward facing SG penthouse, the tub was jetted and we had the bath menu hanging next to the tub.

I read a thread months ago that had a photo of the Haven Spa cabin "bath menu". Apparently the butler can run you a special bath and there is also a drink menu to compliment it. Not free of course - but just interested to see what's available. I've been trying to search the forum but to no avail.

 

Also wondering - can we use our own bath products in the spa tub? I know there are plain bath salts provided, but if I wanted to bring something special from home (scented bath oil etc) - are we allowed to use it?

There should be a jar of bath salts by the tub, we drew our own bath and added some of the bath salts and a touch of the bvlgari shampoo for some bubbles. We poured two glasses of sparkling wine and had a wonderful bath.

NCL has confirmed that if we were to upgrade to the larger suite we would lose our onboard credit. Looks like we will be staying put in our current suite. Thank you to those that replied.

Call NCL or TA if you booked with one. Only someone able to access the booking will be able to give you an answer.

I’m booked directly with NCL, a lot of times the customer service people do not know the answer or give you incorrect information. I trust the people here on cruisecritic more then the customer service reps.

We are booked in a forward facing SG suite on the Sun sailing Nov 28th. When we booked we received $300 of obc. The price of the aft facing SE suites have dropped so much so that we can upgrade to one for a few hundred dollars, the current promotions offered on this suite are the same as what we got when we booked the SG suite minus the obc. If we upgrade to the SE suite will we loose the $300 of obc we got with our original booking?

Keep in mind that hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Florida and the Bahamas region have a high frequency of hurricanes in the months of August through October. In the Bahamas water temps will be warmer in October then in April, but air temps will most likely be similar(low to mid 80’s).

Someone judging you based on your blankets would be just as superficial as someone judging you based on your clothes...

LOL (y)(y)

I own a clothing store and I can tell you that distressed jeans are very much in style. I think the op would be fine wearing them in the MDR. We were on the Spirit last year and people were wearing shorts in Le Bistro. I always wear dress pants to the specialty restaurants but that’s my own preference.

are you able to have specialty restaurant dinner in your suite? obviously you would pay the upcharge.

Yes you can, just speak with your butler a few hours prior to when you would want to eat dinner. He or she will set the table and serve each course and of course clean up afterwards.

Hilo on the big island should be your rainiest port, Kahului, Kona,Nawiliwili and Honolulu will be drier. But it really depends on what kind of excursions you opt to do. If you plan to take the road to Hana in Maui you need to plan on getting wet, same goes for a visit to Volcano National Park on the big island. Most of the ports will see quick showers blowing in on the trades and the sun will return a few minutes later. December and January can feature big Kona lows that will cause very nasty weather island wide, but these are unpredictable and are relatively speaking a rare occurrence. Keep in mind that the north shores of the islands can experience very large swells and many of the north shore beaches will be closed during these events but this can happen year round.

Based on your opinion then I guess ncl should avoid ports that are known for human trafficking? Sexual assault? Racial intolerance? Religious intolerance?

 

For example..

 

Should I remove my cross when visiting Muslim ports?

 

Should ncl drop all Muslim ports as it may offend christians? Of course not!!!

 

Should I have not spent several days in Moscow in 1988 knowing my every move Was being watched . All visitors were watched pre 1989 USSR btw

 

Of course not and to this day it's one of my best vacay ever

 

 

 

I've visited Istanbul, Cairo, Tangier and Tunis, Kusadasi and I made sure every female in my family had knees shoulders elbows etc covered

 

Should I have not visited these ports because I could wear shorts?

 

Are you kidding of course not!! Lol

 

 

I've been to Roma many many times and always cover what must be covered when visiting churches

 

I'll never avoid rome...ever!!!!

 

Point is I cannot change the ways of life of places I visit so I either adapt or avoid. Mostly I adapt but I will avoid if danger or terrorism is part of the equation. I'm too well traveled not to.

 

The accommodations I have made are just sensible and realistic and I would never expect anyone else or any cruise line to change things because of me

 

 

If I were gay and it was noticeable I might not get off the ship

 

If i were gay and I really wanted to get off the ship in Jamaica I would make every effort possible to tone down my actions

 

Fwiw yes I know you can't just "spot" a gay person but I'm going under the assumption that the op feels they can be spotted hence their apprehension

 

If I were the op I'd stay on the ship. It's gay friendly.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

What does not being able to wear shorts in a church or females having to cover their knees and elbows in certain countries have to do with homosexuality being illegal in Jamaica? Choosing to wear a cross in a Muslim country or choosing to cover or not cover your knees in Turkey or Egypt is a CHOICE that you made. Whether you like it or not being gay in not a choice and any mainstream cruise line should not be visiting a country where you can be jailed or murdered just beacause of the way you were born. And btw I’ve been to Cairo, Istanbul and Kusadasi and observed many female tourists not covering their knees or elbows with no penalties whatsoever. If you attempt to visit a church while wearing shorts you are simply denied entry not thrown in jail. The op did not book a cruise that had a scheduled stop in Jamaica, his itinerary was changed and Jamaica was added as a replacement. Thankfully NCL allowed the op to switch to another cruise not stopping in Jamaica, so kudos to NCL.

We sailed the spirit last year and dinned in Le Bistro and La Trattoria as our platinum benefits.

We had the owners suite on the Jade which is not in the haven, but we did have access to the haven.

I was just reading that water temperature can be too cool to snorkel or swim comfortably. Also it says rough surf on the northern ends of the islands. I am not sure how this translates as the ship sails from place to place if that means we should expect Hawaii 5 0 type of waves? Also is the rain an issue?

We used to live in Hawaii, the water is always warm enough to swim, however the water is not as warm as what you would experience in the Caribbean so it may feel a bit cool when you first jump in. Depending on what side of the islands you are visiting will determine how much rainfall you experience, you can get the big Kona lows in the winter and that can bring some pretty nasty weather, the north shores of the islands will most likely have the highest surf, the south shores should be fine generally speaking.

We don't have any excursions listed for our 3 new ports on our 11-28-17 Sun cruise, someone from our roll call did state that they had called NCL and they were told excursions may not be available to book until we are onboard the ship.