Ellis1138

3 hours ago, SueMo said:

We spent 10 days driving the ring road in Iceland and never needed ISK.  Even hot dog stands took credit cards!  The only tip money we needed was for a “free” walking tour in Reykyavik, and the guide made it clear they welcomed euros, USD, etc.

Even for the pay toilets? That's what worries me.

I just found that 5 day cruise on NCL's website. 5 days on the Escape, January 6, 2025 to Jan 11, 2025. It's still there. Going to Cozumel and GSC.

It's a long URL but hope it will work for you.

https://www.ncl.com/cruises/5-day-caribbean-round-trip-miami-great-stirrup-cay-and-cozumel-ESCAPE5MIANPICZMMIA?embarkationport=4294949427&sailMonths=4294949384&numberOfGuests=4294949461&sortBy=duration&autoPopulate=f&from=resultpage&itineraryCode=ESCAPE5MIANPICZMMIA

21 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I got off the Spirit last Wednesday.  The pizza in the buffet was the best I've had on NCL.  They've gone to a slightly thicker crust that actually has some flavor.😎  Also, the "noodle soup station" (or whatever they call it) was great.  They had a lot of good stuff.  If I want a good burger, I go to the local or MDR.  I sometimes get soup and salad at the buffet before joining DW and DD at the MDR for lunch.  They like to get off the ship and shop and I like to stay on the ship and eat/drink/chill/gamble.  win-win!

I call that Hobbit Mode. I do it for breakfast, getting just the thing that one venue makes best and going to the next one. 🙂

23 minutes ago, erisajd said:

Thanks all. Interestingly it appeared as a $50/$50 on each of sides of the reservation.  You would think that it would show as a single $100 credit to me since my wife is not on my IRA account!  

Nope. It's split up between the first 2 people in a cabin.

13 minutes ago, hallux said:

Are you talking about that breaded flounder filet?  That's been on the classics menu since 2019 when I started sailing NCL (so it could be longer).

Yeah that one. And yeah, it's been on the menu for several years now. I first sailed NCL in 2003. 

Salmon is pretty much the only scale fish I will eat. So changing it to flounder has a big impact for me. I also don't eat port and I'm not wild about chicken. I have an allergy to shrimp and as of 3 years ago, had to quit as much carbs as possible. So no pasta or rice or potatoes for me. 

But there's always something, somewhere on the ship, for me to eat.

30 minutes ago, schmoopie17 said:

I get that, but that doesn't explain why we have two different statements...the website vs. the app.

 

Speaking of statements, I fully agree with your last statement. 😁

In my case, the website added some weird discrepancy in the pre-paid gratuities. But aside from the difference of $75 vs $0.02, it seems like the same website glitch. The owed amount did not show up in the app, nor when the NCL reps went to look at it. 

I don't cruise as much as everyone else, but as a food allergy person, I pay a LOT of attention to the menus. Yes, I noticed the appetizers have not been as varied, although I think you could probably ask for the artisanal fruit and cheese, when it isn't offered. The classic salmon turned into flounder. 

There is still stuff for me to eat, thank goodness. Although I do still hate everything on the menu on Lemon Pepper Shrimp night, with the exception of the caesar salad. 

I had this happen on the Pride of America sailing I took in February. I had done the final payment. About a month before our cruise, I checked the account on the webpage and it showed us owing 2 cents.

I called in and NCL's system showed us as paid. 

But on the webpage, the DSC was showing as being 2 cents more than it was.

I did not want to try to check in at 21 days to find our cruise cancelled over 2 cents. The NCL rep adjusted my husband's fare down 2 cents, so that we were definitely marked as paid.

I checked the week later, the glitchy webpage had re-adjusted back and now it showed as OVERpaying by 2 cents. I decided to just leave it and if it wouldn't allow me to check in, I would buy a 6 pack of Flow to make the webpage mark me down as fully paid.

So check in went fine, we boarded fine, disembarked fine. It's now been 2 and a half months since we sailed.

I look at my recent credit card activty: I got a 2 cent refund from NCL.

Their webpage is glitchy.

3 hours ago, DorothyB said:

The youtube is the Prima, not the Getaway.  (I do have two cruises planned on the Prima but have outlet next to the bed for those cruises 🙂 )

My bad! And I went to look for Harr Travel room tours of the Getaway balcony but none came up right away. Just run a thin 12 foot extension across. The one I have even fits in the same pocket as the ResMed brick and power cables, and I got it the same color, so it matches all the CPAP equipment. Never had an issue with it.

I've found a 12 foot extension is sufficient for a standard balcony cabin. Make sure nothing you bring has surge protection. The cheapo $4 ones at Home Depot or Walmart should do.

I had custom 20 foot cords made for our ResMed AirSense 10s from SF cable. They plug directly into the little power brick, but it's an overly complicated answer to a simple problem. 

There is one outlet next to the bed, according to Harr Travel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c50qwgMe4AI

1 hour ago, KasaMom said:

Since I’m late to the party, can you please provide more info on this? It looks like a great travel item to have but want to make sure I get the right thing. 

They have Google Fi as their phone provider. I think the cost for the International Roaming plan is about $65 (assuming one line). I did look into it, but am just going to do a $25 European nano-sim (my phone can't do eSim). If the nano card sucks, for the next trip, I might go with Google Fi, based on how good the coverage has been in this thread.

https://fi.google.com/about/plans 

(Dislaimer: I do not personally have Google Fi nor have I tread it yet.)

If you don't drink any/much alcohol or soft drinks, then unchecking the "Free" Open Bar part of Freee At Sea is a good idea. No use paying for what you won't use.

The Free At Sea parts are
Free drinks under $15 except for specialty coffee and carton water (I'm not totally sure about the water.) But you DO have to pay a 20% gratuity on what NCL thinks the package is worth, so yeah, not free in the sense of being totally free. Just discounted. You can uncheck this.

Free 150 to 300 minutes of basic internet. These are free, no gratuity added.

The $50 shore excursion discount for the first person on the reservation. Just a discount, unless you choose all $50 or cheaper excursions.

Free Specialty dining. So it saves like $80, but you have to prepay the 20% gratuity. Still a pretty good deal. You could uncheck this if you only want to eat at the complimentary venues.

I generally decide based more on the "Am I really going to use this balcony?" question. On the whole, my budget maxes out at $170 per night, regardless of the cabin type.

On a cold weather type cruise, I just go with the interior unless it's Alaska, where you do want the balcony. I also want a balcony for the Panama Canal, when I get to go, if the price is right.

We had thought the balcony on the Pride of America would be good, but without them doing Na Pali coast, it's not worth it. 

You don't say what your itinerary is, so I would say if there's nothing to see and you don't need the "fresh air" at night, remain inside and just go out on deck when you feel like it.

19 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

The guides on our ships excursions accepted $5 and $10 bills gratefully. 

In USD?

I had been wondering this, because we have an NCL excursion the moment we get to Iceland, so I won't be able to go to a bank to exchange for ISK.

I didn't say we got special treatment. Just that if you go down to the gangway when the Freestyle Daily tells you that you won't need a ticket from X time to Y time, you get to tender and not worry about a ticket or group number. I might have heard some crew member call us "early birds" and just assigned that name to it. But yeah, it wasn't priority of any sort; just being ready and needing to get off that early for a rental car pickup.

8 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

 

Last summer, the Prima missed every port call in Isafjordur because the port had not finished its dock construction and the ship could not tender.

That's why I simply booked an NCL excursion for Isafjordur. While the dock is supposed to be ready, if it's not, then I want to be able to be refunded for NCL's last minute decision to not dock there.

Geez, that is a steep gangway. I better bring my poles.

18 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

Interesting. Might have been that specific ship / port thing?

 

I browsed through a few threads on here to find other FS dailies, and none had that either. All stated to get a ticket.

 

I guess I'll be the chosen one to get in line for tickets 😉

I must have been on some cruises or specific port things where I was able to mosey off early, or the crew were just amenable to letting me off without a ticket. I guess I'll see on the upcoming Prima cruise, assuming we tender.

The last time I was at the MCT (Sept 2023), it seemed like a first come, first serve and we were handed boarding passes with a group number. I can't afford Haven or Priority, and was a lowly bronze at the time. I got onto the ship within about 35 minutes of arrival at the MCT. I used the extra time to fill out the customs card and hand it in.

I don't know if this will help with anyone's embarkation day stress, but I've found that it goes very quick if you do a check-in time of 90 minutes after boarding begins. Like, everyone wants to be the first person on the ship, but nobody tries to be number 15. It winds up being fairly low stress for me; I didn't pay to get on earlier than anyone else and I get on when I want to.

I thought it was called early bird. I don't usually keep all my FS dailies, but here's an example of the "get off during an early window with no ticket", and there was something similar on the Escape when I went. 

free-style-daily-5 (3).pdf

51 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

 

Thank you much. As I have never been on a cruise that I needed to tender for the port, does the Freestyle give the location on the ship to  meet for the Early Bird drop off in addition to the time?

It should say where and when, although by the time you need to tender, you'll know where the gangway is. You can always call guest services and ask them. There might be an extra slip of paper in the night before, telling you the information.

6 hours ago, AlaskaGoer said:

 

Hi, could you explain #2 a bit more? I thought you needed tickets if you weren't latitude level gold and above?

So on just about every NCL sailing I've been on, for tendering, it goes like this:

The first lifeboats/tenders are dropped and crew goes over to the land to set up the security area and where people get on and off the tenders. (Edited to add: I remember there was a post from someone who got to over with the crew, due to a super early excursion. That was dependent on the crew being really nice, though.)

Next, there is a 90 minute window, called Early Bird, where you don't need any tickets. You go down to the deck where the tendering will take place and just get on. 

After that Early Bird window is done, now starts the ticket parts, with Groups 1 to whatever. Never having been Gold or above, I have no idea how the ticketed groups work, since I always go early bird. I assume that I would have had to go to the assigned place to ask for my tickets and hope that I get a good time. High level Latitudes might be able to just get on, I don't know... someone with high Lat status can chime in.

The alternative is if you have an NCL excursion, that is your tender ticket and you meet at the assigned place for that excursion.

After a certain number of hours, when the ticketed groups and NCL excursion tenders have gone, now is open tendering. You will no longer need a ticket.

I hope this explained the process.

3 hours ago, njhorseman said:

Sure you have a canal...the Erie Canal ! 😉

And don't forget Love Canal (though admittedly, that's closer to Niagara Falls than Schenectady.)

Also, I hope that Sexy Loo wasn't the only public toilet. 

Other outsourced foods include the hush puppies and the matzo balls.

Oh! I forgot a question for my husband. For the Go Kart racing cars, the NCL page says "flat" shoes. I had only been planning on bringing Merrell hiking boots to the cruise. Would those count as flat? They have a very slight arch in the center of the foot, but are otherwise quite enclosed and not loose-fitting. 

Or should I bring like basketball-flat sneakers just for the kart racing?