Ellis1138

Once on board, I've been able to make MDR time reservations, although I suspect it has more to do with my food allergies and keeping track of me and my pre-order. We did see long lines and buzzers on the Prima during popular times. A few times, I had to explain to people that I wasn't cutting in line, I just had to tell my allergy contact I was there.

On NCL, you can request to have the same dining time at the MDR each night and even request to have the same waiter. You'll have to move to where the waiter is, though. Or request the same table each night at a specific time, although your waiter will change.

It's glitchy, yeah. 😞

And really... post your experience and cabin number to the link I gave before. That it took 9 days meant something about your cabin is kind of dire.

It's possible to check in without a photo. Just go through it 4 times and the website gives up and says you'll have the photo done at the terminal. There's no need to do joke photos with a dog on your head. Just keep clicking until the check in decides to let you advance. I usually take my selfie direct staring at the phone with a white wall behind me. It's generally accepted by the check in. It needs to be head on for the face recognition.

I do imagine this every time I cruise. It's the exact reason I buy travel insurance. It's why I buy EXTRA medical evacuation insurance on cruises where we'll be far away from the mainland US or transatlantic, where I might have to be helicoptered. I don't fully trust NCL. They usually send changes but not always and not always in a timely manner. That's why I check Cruisemapper to find out where the ports have my cruise ship scheduled. On my recent Prima cruise, I noticed a time discrepancy, weeks before the sailing. I marked it down with the idea that the port is correct and NCL was wrong. and planned our independent excursion based on the port website. During the sailing, the notice came to our cabin about the time change. NCL has been famous in the news this past year, for "abandoning" their passengers at "remote" ports all over the world, so... no, I don't go into the cruise expecting NCL to make sure I'm on the ship and wait for me. When my husband and I left the ship to explore ports, I made sure we had our passports in zipped pockets, a small bag of any Rx or emergency meds, the contact info for the NCL port agent and the info for the US Embassy (in foreign ports), I even had apps ready for when we did the Pride of America on Hawaii. If we had missed the boat, I would have had to fly us to another island. I'm the kind of person that, had I been trying your itinerary, I would have already had a Plan B in place for NCL not being able to make Akureyri due to weather or port overcrowding. I'm sorry this happened to you. I can tell you outright that no one should expect NCL to take care of them, as far as leaving the ship on an independent excursion goes. They will not. They might give you Goodwill FCC. That's it. I don't know what cruise line does. Maybe Silversea if you buy their "door to door" package?

Bruges is most likely Zeebrugge. You'll need transportation to Bruges or Brussels. For the rest of it, you need to know your itinerary and what day you're where. Then check cruisemapper like people said. If you get Ijmuiden for Amsterdam, you need transportation to the city center. Bergen is most likely Jekteviksterminalen 2, one of the big ship docks. Took us maybe 10 minutes to walk to the Floibannen funicular, Bryggen and the fishmarket. The Prima on our sailing docked at Keiser Wilhelms dock.

Like I said, I'm not a financial person. I actually like the later explanation where I'm paying for a membership perk that I can later try to sell the membership back.

Sorry for not answering your actual title question. I think it would be "no." I've been on these boards and FB groups since 2003 and you are the first person I've heard who even had the cahones to attempt that itinerary.

What I love about NCL over the others: 1) Their Access Desk response to my medical issues. They make sure I have what I need. 2) The food allergy response after I fill out the form. Other lines and land restaurants tell me what I can and can't have. NCL will make me a special version of what I want out of anything they make from scratch as long as they have 24 hours notice. 3) Freestyle and casual. No formal nights, no set dining times.

I bought 100 of the stock when it sunk to about $14 a share back in the lockdown days of 2020. It's not a good investment, really. No dividends and the chart for it looks like the Teton Range Mountains, meaning it can get volatile. So let's say you buy it now at 16 a share, so $1600. You would need to go on 16 7-day cruises to break it even with OBC. Or 7 14 day cruises. So the question is: Will you go on a lot of NCL cruises soon? At this point, I don't think NCL is going bankrupt or anything, so it's possible that in 10 years the stock might return to what it was pre-pandemic. But no guarantees. (Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, nor a licensed broker. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. My opinion on the stock is my own individual thing.)

If they couldn't get this fixed during the cruise, that means something very systemic. Please add a post to the cabin thread, with the problem listed. You might save someone else from booking a problematic cabin. https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/1981007-ncl-cabin-information-compilation-no-cabin-questions-posted-here-please/page/27

Ah yeah, that would be an issue as to being able to re-cabin you and the children can't use the thermal suite at all.

I also don't work for any cruise company and I am always sailing on a tight budget. I'm very sorry this happened to you and I know how it is when a vacation doesn't go as expected. And if there's one thing I know about cruising it's that no port is guaranteed. I had my fingers crossed the whole time on the Prima, hoping we would get to do Geiranger and I actually had it planned to miss Isafjordur, since it missed it all 2023. I'm not excusing NCL for what happened to you. In fact, I think whoever this "embarkation manager" was who told you could get off at Akureyri and get back on there was in the wrong. They should not have allowed you to think it was guaranteed. If this happened to me, I would complain to NCL, giving them the name of the NCL employee who told you that you could rejoin the ship at Akureyri without telling you that the ship could skip that port. But as I mentioned before, they won't refund you, but might give you goodwill FCC because one of their employees led you astray.

You don't say how packed your cruise is or not. If it's just about full, this might be all they can offer you. If I'm reading correctly, it's just that your cabin isn't getting hot water and that your toilet and sink are still okay. If it happened to me, I would go to Guest Services and sweetly ask if I could have a pass for the sailing to the Thermal Suite. That way, you could relax and do your showering there. Hopefully, the engineering team can fix it before you disembark. If not, once you do disembark, put a cabin report in the pinned thread at the top of this forum, so that future travelers will know it might have issues.

Thank you so much for this detailed review. I hope your disembarkation day is smooth.

My compilation is from the months before I was going to be on the PoA, but if anyone wanted to see my "Pride of America Sewer Smell" document, here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/177PtRV7gu31oHHax3Cb2-SY2SRbs4NQ1vfJG9iYCGFc/edit?usp=sharing

One additional note is that the Paid-For priority tender is only for tendering off the ship. You would not have any priority for tendering back to the ship. To me, the money NCL charges isn't worth it.

As I read through each post, I'm somewhat aghast at how bad the "word salad" is in the reason. It's like they have ChatGPT writing it.

The side of the ship doesn't matter anymore, unless your particular itinerary will go past Na Pali coast. They only do that if another ship has to be in Kauai the same time. Otherwise, the side won't matter. We had cabin 9622, which was fine and had no sewer smell or any noises from public areas. I can't vouch for anything on deck 10, but odds are if you're under the pool deck, it will be noisy in the morning and night. The restaurant should be quiet in the morning. I can't answer the helicopter thing, because we only did it on Kauai for the Na Pali coast and whole island circle. We generally drive up to the top of Haleakala and Mauna Kea. My tips: * Renting a car on each island was better for us, since we could go where we wanted to, when we wanted to. * If you're a Costco member, bring your card. Lower gas prices and some really great macadamia nuts.

Depending on your cell phone carrier, you will have coverage on the islands and even for a while after sailaways. My husband's T-Mobile worked everywhere except the top of Haleakala. My Tracfone was a bit iffy, but it's iffy at home, too. The 150 Free at Sea minutes were more than enough, and we barely used the internet on the ship since we were asleep when the ship was sailing between islands. I would pre-write what I was going to post, log into the NCL app, post it, check my email and then log out.

I did the same cruise on the Prima in the Studios on June 23 to July 4th. Breakfast tip: Indulge Food Hall had congee in the mornings! With ginger and scallion topping. And yeah, I don't bother with the Solo meet ups because it's usually at a bad time for me. 🙂

I did research this and yeah, NCL (nor any other cruise line) owes you nothing. It's risky, because there's no guarantees of making any of the ports, even the embarkation and disembarkation ones. That said, you could call NCL and ask for some goodwill FCC or something. However, since you just joined CruiseCritic this morning, post-cruise, and chose the profile name of 'Never Cruise With NCL', I suspect you aren't interested in Future Cruise Credits with NCL. If you don't have travel insurance, you don't want FCC and/or NCL doesn't offer any, you might have some coverage from the credit card you used to pay for the cruise?

In September, there was an excursion in Bar Harbor that I wanted (lighthouse boat tour), but I wanted to use my SH OBC for it. I decided to risk not getting it by booking it on board. It's by far not my first time to Acadia, nor my last, as we can drive up for a quick weekend, so getting the excursion wasn't high priority. On embarkation day, I checked, but the excursion was full. I don't think I did the wait list. On day 2, I checked and 2 spots had opened, so I grabbed one. There's always a chance someone will cancel or a spot opens.

Yeah, I was dubious of the initial and sensationalized story, but the very basic takeaways remain: 1) NCL excursion guarantee means it waits for NCL busses/tours/shuttles, not individuals. If you are not on the bus, the ship leaves. 2) Always take the numbers of port agents from the Freestyle with you, either in paper or as a photo on your phone. Research ahead of time and keep a note of numbers for taxis or info on Uber/Lyft in the ports. 3) Keep your passport either on you or in the cabin safe where NCL can find them. 4) Make sure NCL has a way to contact you when you go ashore. Every now and then, check that your phone is working. 5) Keep an eye on the time, always. Don't assume you can get on the last shuttle or tender easily. (I personally like to get back to the ship 90 minutes before all aboard, to be safe.)