Mississippian

I have a Transatlantic booked for Dec. 1 and have "standard" insurance. I've got a sinus and lymph node infection that is for the first time antibiotic resistant. My doctor switched antibiotics, and it's beaten down somewhat, but not eliminated, and this has been going on for more than two months. Quite honestly, I could make the trip and may yet decide to, but I feel bad and worry that the thing could get out of control. My airfare is through Delta, so they have free rebooking, so that's not a problem. I'm just curious what I need to do with NCL. I am using a CASNext certificate for $250 of my fare. Do I get a refund or a future cruise credit? I know I need to cancel the drink package and all my tours before I do anything else, but just trying to know how to proceed. Also, would they prefer that I act now, or later. I'd rather wait to pull the trigger in hopes that things might improve.

This is a long shot, buy I saw a comedian/musician, age 55-60, around 10 or maybe even 15 years ago. I think I saw him on the Ruby, but pretty sure he had been on a lot of Princess ships. He was a pretty funny guy, but towards the end of his show he played Classical Gas on his guitar, and did a fine job of it. If memory serves me correctly, at some point I was able to find a video of him on Youtube, but that was when I remembered his name. I just figured it might be worth asking.

I take a photo every time I hit four of a kind. It's kind of a way for me to keep track of how lucky or unlucky I am. It also turns out to be a good way to keep up with paytables. Earlier this year, the NCL Breakaway had 8-5 JOB at the quarter and dollar level (97.87%) and 9-6 JOB at the $5 level (98.98%). The 9-6 JOB is about as good as you will find on a cruise ship, but I played it for a while and am just not rich enough for a $5 machine. My experience is that Celebrity and Princess pay much worse than NCL. They also had 25-cent 9-5 DDB. It would be interesting to see what they had at the dollar and $5 level, although I certainly couldn't afford the $5 game! Here's the link to my post:

One of the things I heard they cracked down on is allowing people to take bottles back to the cabin. People reported that they were allowed to share with others at the table but not to take bottles back to the cabin. I had Premium Plus back in April and never ordered a bottle as I was cruising solo, but I got kind of annoyed that I couldn't get any type of champagne for the last three or four nights of the cruise.

The inflatable tub is small, will fit in shower. The bungee cords are to make another clothes line, either in bathroom or elsewhere. It is small, but bigger than the sink. Mommy's Helper Inflatable Bathtub for Baby & Toddler; Saddle Horn Baby Bath Seat Keeps Baby from Sliding; Whimsical Ocean Design Makes Toddler Bath time Fun; Recommended Age 6 to 24 Months https://a.co/d/7R7GoVq

I bought a $15 inflatable baby bathtub along with some clothespins and bungee cords for my next trip. The sink is too small for me.

I kind of regret my solo balconies. On a Breakaway transatlantic earlier this year I certainly used my balcony some, but not that much. It is nice to be able to walk out and see what is going on, and my hotspot worked really well in ports because it could get a cell signal. I doubt I would be able to use my hotspot in an inside, although there are lots of public places where it works.

I've gotten some mail from Princess telling me that I'm eligible for discounted cruises, but when I logged on I never found any. A few weeks ago I was searching for Alaska cruises and a bunch of them came up as $0 (they are now a little higher). I searched Europe and transatlantic cruises and most of them are not discounted, but a few are, and the discounts are pretty substantial, as in $800 for a solo stateroom instead of $2,800. They aren't exactly the cruises I want to take, but they look fun. The discounted prices just appear as regular prices, and not as part of any special search. I know they are discounted because I've looked at them without logging in. At this point, my attitude is to just book it if it seems like a good deal and play as much or as little as I want. At a land-based casino, I make an effort to have a reasonable level of play for comp rooms, but Princess isn't even telling me that I am getting a discount; it's just there. Can anyone with experience explain exactly what is going on? FWIW, I did spend a good bit of time in the casino on my last Princess cruise, but it was mostly playing low stakes for an hour or so most days, just because the odds and paytables were so awful.

Plus Lisbon is a great place to spend a couple of days post-cruise. It's actually a pretty hard city to visit, in that it can't be reached by train very easily. So most people never go.

I've taken three transatlantics over the past 15 months and have another booked for December. I travel solo and these tend to offer good value. Some have a lot more port calls than others, and I try to go on those with a lot of stops, because there are still plenty of sea days. I enjoy them, but I also enjoy lying in bed reading a book or taking a nap!

My big regret is that I bought 100 shares of Royal Caribbean for $35 and sold when it got to $50. It's now close to $100.

Probably the same as yours.

I've been there and done that half a dozen times, so it really doesn't matter. And I prefer to see Venice from a hotel room, not a cruise ship. But my personal opinion is that these cruise ships were not doing any damage whatsoever. They did pose some risk.

The shareholder credit used to require an investment of almost $6,000. They now give it for $1,850. And by blind luck I bought in for almost $500 less than that. Pretty good benefit, as far as I am concerned.

Cruise ships aren't and weren't "destroying" Venice. There was fear, probably legitimate, that a serious accident could do great harm.

On Princess some years back, we had giant prawns one night, and I think maybe langoustines another night. We thought both were better than the lobster tail we were served near the end of the cruise..

Starbucks burns the beans. It tastes awful, which is why they have to dress it up as a cupcake.

Ok, I just booked a cruise and got my upgrade offer. One of the upgrades is two additional specialty dining credits for $69+20%. I can also get Premium Plus, which includes two additional dining credits. Last cruise, after I booked Premium Plus the specialty dining credit upgrade disappeared, although it took most of a day. So, has anyone ever purchased two upgrades, one for dining and the other for the full package?

On a recent Breakaway cruise, there was pizza on the buffet all the time. I pretty much hated most of the buffet food, but I thought the pizza was good, even though the crust was quite different from what I am used to: it was very "floppy."

It is much easier to clean 12 rooms twice a day than 24 rooms once. Many people don't take a nap during the day or create much of a mess at all, so the 2nd cleaning/turndown can sometimes be done in two or three minutes, maybe less. The first cleaning takes much longer.

But I don't think they did know. This is a new rule. If forces the stewards to provide crappy service. I am not going to pull down the mandatory gratuity, but I won't be tipping extra. The consuming public will vote with their feet on this one. NCL is a bit cheaper than the other mass market lines, in my view. It may be they are making a wise marketing decision, or not. There is already a staff shortage, and they may find a lot of workers jumping ship for better opportunities.

NCL now expects the stewards to clean 24 cabins. On my recent transatlantic my room was made up about half the time. I keep odd hours, and there was never any information on what time would be best for the steward. I had a couple of port days where I returned and was surprised to see the room unmade, but I think the stewards go ashore, too. I didn't make a production of it because I knew the steward was overworked, but I do think it was bad form on NCL's part to raise the daily gratuity while making a substantial cut in services. FWIW, I didn't tip over the mandatory gratuity amount, and probably will not in the future if receiving only once-a-day service.

I took a recent Breakaway transatlantic and the Internet service was the best I've ever had. There were a few days when service was slow or spotty, but overall it was speedy and working. I took a transatlantic cruise last year on the Enchanted Princess. Service was so bad that they simply refunded $10 a day for wifi. After Day 6 wifi barely worked. After Day 9 it didn't work at all. I actually prefer Princess to NCL, but Internet is important to me and be the deciding factor in selecting between similar cruises.

Sorry for the delayed response. In Valencia, there were supposed to be shuttle buses waiting to take us into town for around $15, payable at the dock. There were zero. When we asked about them we were pointed toward the exit and so started walking. It was roughly a two-mile walk just to exit the cruise port. But there weren't many buses or taxis available, so I ended up just walking to the science museum as my only option. This ended up being close to four miles total. To return I had to walk a mile to find a taxi, and the port wouldn't let the taxis fully enter the port, so there was another mile-plus of walking. All-in-all I had to walk six or eight miles. I talked to people who had trouble walking and turned around after about a half-mile and returned to the ship. Compared to other cruise lines, NCL provided very poor information on port transportation options, and their planning was awful to non-existent. This was true for all ports.