mking8288

When NCL first launched the GA and BA ... 7 to 8 years ago, Manhattan MDR (the larger one) had a suggested dress code, not insisting formal or shirt & ties for men, but no shorts or flip flops ... Over the years, it's been tweaked, loosen & faded away - you would be hard pressed to find more than a dozen or two in suits, blazer & shirt/dress slacks, etc. walking in to dine for the evening; unless they were doing studio portraits and/or celebrating a special occasion, etc. Nowadays, there is sometimes a daily Chef's Special, printed on the menu, or NOT - which is served like the rest, in all 3 MDR that evening - and, having done a good # of BTS tours over the years, come from the same heat-lamp "stations" in the gallery & less errors-prone with the use of tablet ordering by the server & retrieved by the team's assistant(s). Feel free to try out at least 2 of the MDR to sample their services. The MDR (all 3 of them) tend to be jammed pack full on the last night, sometimes last 2 evenings before disembarkation - and fewer folks upstairs in the buffet. We plan some of our specialty dining schedule on the basis of these pattern, adjusting for the port schedule & timing, to avoid longer waits for everything.

Ditto, yours on the Prima doing T/A and ours on the Joy ... I would say it they didn't "overfilled" the Haven Observation Lounge to maximum capacity. Don't recalled anyone masking up either, aside from a handful of working crew (bar runners) Maybe, you think they might've cranked up their high filtration HEPA ventilation system. Got a 12 nighters coming up in mid/late January, going to see & maybe stopped by CruiseNext onboard to harass them about it. In short, have yet to read about any confirmation here on CC that BTS tour and/or Dine w Officers being resumed again.

Services at the 2 smaller MDR tend to be faster, more casual and overall background not as noisy ... more near/window seatings for 2's and 4's if you arrive early. Manhattan MDR is the larger one, some folks do dress up a little more and it's more common to see/have larger groups dining there, and it can be quite noisy during meal services. It does NOT have a dance floor unlike the GA and BA / Escape - more tables and ... as best as we can remember, no place for entertainment, nor was there live music or even DJ-less background music. A matter of perception, overall meal services tend to be slower or taking longer but you are inform the server team that you are on a schedule ... sometimes, they'll ask & try to please or speed it up.

Just wait for next Fall's last minute specials ... several NCL ships will be running donuts up there. Just hail an Uber, the fare for us from the pier up to the Citadel was $9.50 CDN on the App - quick & easy as we weren't going to walk up that hill & gave the driver a nice, big cash tip. Much, much less than the most frugal ship tour available. Took a taxi afterward back to the ship (seen enough of downtown over the years) after walking down to the bottom of the hill from one of the nearby hotel's ... fare & tip, $20 CDN. Of course, you can explore the casino there by the waterfront too ... Great pictures 😎

Check one of our existing bookings (still outside final payment window/deadline to cancel or change ... something we usually don't do in planning that far ahead) and saw a price drop with the "current" 50% sale, instead of the usual 40% off or 70% off the 2nd pax FAS promo ... not a big saving, but nevertheless, worth the call into NCL directly. Agent was cheerful & in just a few minutes, re-priced and made the change with the newly lowered price, no changes to the perks selected, kept the same cabin, etc. - emailed the confirmation w. amenities, etc. Done - saved about $120 on a 7 nighter, not bad, some of it due to overall price drop across most categories. In short, don't sit & wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday cause, I haven't seen any real deals in past years ...

Read about it yesterday - they just installed them on a trial basis to test while at sea. Speed has been throttled to avoid congestions among shared users - capable of much faster u/l and d/l ... obviously. https://www.teslarati.com/11-starlink-dishes-norwegian-cruise/ That's about twice as far as the previous speed that I benchmarked myself on the BA, about 5 years ago and nearly 3 times faster/better than the GA, Escape with the Joy coming in the worst, no better than 2 Mbps. The Prima, apparently, the worst of the worst - let's hope they can switch to StarLink if they can work out the deals. MTN's latency was much higher & ping time shown here in the 100 ms range, definitely will help those trying to stream on the premium tier if NCL choose to switch over. Results are very simlar to what @graphicguy reported As for more competitive and lower prices, I wouldn't hold my breath on it and I'm quite sure @fstuff1 will agree (why should NCL lower their prices by 1/3 to 1/2, no way) - now, go find them in person & post some additional pix for CC addicts like some of us. BTW, all is well / good & you are back at sea (enjoy the BA) again 😁

Glad to know that disembarkation was easy & quick, looking at that picture - the line was quite short and you weren't among the last to do the express walk-off. Got to EWR without rushing for the gate & the "Friendly Skies" were good to you ... while using NCL"s shuttle bus services. Whatever happened to Big Blue a/k/a Super Shuttle's booking (personally, I would not recommend them as they have a miserable reputation here and per my nephews that work ground ops at JFK) I see the GoAirLink shuttle vans dashing all over & across the city but seldom see SS's blue van anywhere. Interesting to ready the report that Sunday's Marathon didn't really affect and/or disrupt those disembarking the ship & heading for the airports ... some taxi & car service drivers were known to take the day off, not wanting to deal with all the closures & go-arounds, which probably help explained Uber's surge pricing when demand spiked up around Pier 88. Congrats on hitting 50 states on your personal travel map with Maine as the last pin.

@graphicguy - That Reuben will taste better if they grilled it good, which isn't difficult to do. Their burgers are even better as is, very juicy with the mushrooms - if you haven't had one all week, be sure to wash it down with your favorite beer or what not tonight. Checking marinetraffic again, looked like ship is definitely on track for early arrival - been doing 21, 19.5 and now 20.5 knots all day long & that's with all 4 engines running to get those speed, not slowing down. Hopefully, for other reasons and not b/c of needing to rush the passenger stablized from Code Alpha to better shore-side cardo care ... since medevac, apparently wasn't necessary, that s/he is okay. It's been a joy to follow along, thanks for all the pictures - there's always something new, different to discover from these posts and reports. Impressed that you managed to keep up with just the "free" WiFi minutes for 7 nights. As for the time zone changes & correct time, this week & tonight will be exceptionally challenging - with the clock being turned back ... iPhones & smartphones "should" sync the correct time after 3 a.m. after you turn them back on or reboot, fingers crossed. Sunrise for tomorrow should be around 6:30 a.m. (today ... was about 7:30 a.m.) just look out from the balcony ... should give you a good sense of approximate time for the pre-dawn hours, without a doubt - it will still be dark when she slip past Lady Liberty. Have a safe & pleasant trip flying home.

One can expect pier's security screening and check-in to be smoother & quicker starting next weekend, with Bermuda lifting the TA (and, ArriveCAN no longer needed) - both meant extra document checks, between security & getting check-in. Security does not open up until 9:30 a.m. at the earliest but apparently, folks thinking that getting there at 8:30 or 8 a.m. is a good idea ... when the earliest, likely boarding time to head for the gangway is no earlier than 10:30 if you are in Haven. Nowadays, it's a long walk to the middle of the terminal building and sometimes, all the way to the end of the building (750 ft. into the Hudson River complex) for VIP & to access the "special" waiting areas.

Dan - oh well, next time. Enjoy tomorrow's full sea day - excellent weather ahead here in NY, dense fog expected in the morning (again, like today) but warm for this time of the year. Watching ship's track on marinetraffic, she's still hugging very close to the shoreline - should still be pulling in a decent land (cellular) signal as you go past Duncans Cove. Ship captain must be in a hurry to bring her home to NY, they can slow it down - anyone in a hurry to disembark on a NYC Marathon Sunday. Forecast - ETA: 2022-11-06 02:30 LT (UTC -4) That's super early.

Just do it - was surfing for deals & specials for 2023 & seeing this, price for 14 nights deal for solo is better / lower for the club balcony vs. regular balcony (neither sold out ... probably upgrade bids pending) See what you can hustle together as a package deal, with your TA & Amex offers, why not if you can do it - change/cancel/rebook your original flight going home ... If they are running end of season sale in the gift shop tomorrow or Saturday, pick up some t-shirts & things with your non-refundable OBC & done, get 2 to 3 batches of free laundry done over the next 10 to 15 days, problems solved. BTW, great photos - rich colors & depth ... ours are the SS Galaxy S22P's and Pixel 6a (waiting to leap to the 7 or 7 Pro) have been cashing on great trade-in deals on our older devices lately. When doing the "semi-lives" - almost done entirely on the smartphones, sometimes using the backup iPhone SE with an 5000 maH integrated powerbank as a WiFi hotspot, hardly use the folding keyboard or iPad mini's What's on deck tomorrow after getting into Halifa ?? Disembarkation temperature for this Sunday is about 63 deg F, high of 73 and Monday, 75 - more like mid/late September weather in NY.

Ha, found your way to 180 Commercial St on the waterfront, proud of you. Route-66-Restaurant-BHME on your stop tomorrow is even better but next time, they are closed for the 2022 season - their lobster rolls in your choice of fixes, just out-of-this-world, a bit pricer than PLC but so good. Some of the local mom-n-pop shops are done for their tourist season. BTW, I chuckled with that screenshot of ship's WiFi - speed are actually better than other mega-ships. Are they metering your minutes by the MB data used, unlike the rest of the fleet with the minutes counter only ? You probably can slip by without adding extra minutes, just hunt for a 4G/5G signal once near the ports ... Bar Harbor is always tricky on overall land coverage. Enjoy dinner !

Nonsense, AFAIAC ... I call that BS. If the perks do not change or you aren't losing anything with the switch ... odds are you won't lose your chosen cabin (there's a chance, as always - being the conditional risks involved) just go ahead and get the new & lowered price now/tomorrow, especially if you are dealing with NCL direct and/or working with a good & trusty TA. Otherwise, just instruct them to cancel the existing reservation & book a new one from scratch - since you aren't losing out on anything if future/cruise credits that're applied might be involved. Also, some of the 2023 sailings are offering, still double points (and up) when you (re)book - you need to check it carefully after logging into your MyNCL account to do a mock booking, it's not always listed on the main page's promo section when you do a generic search by ships/ports/dates/destinations, etc.

Ditto what BirdTravel said re dexddd's comments - I guess we're lucky to be able to do Dine w Officers onboard the GA in March but both subsequent times on the Joy, was no can't do ... first go around in May, issued OBC but not in September, like everyone else. I even jokingly left a written comment with "Dear GM", hey - why not do a virtual tour instead, one of the CD onboard the BA and Escape, pre-Covid, did that in the atrium lobby and it was quite informative, for everyone interested vis-a-vis another CruiseNext presentation. Surely, they can come up with an in-house video production, maybe even make it a PPV (hate to do offer them ideas to generate revenue, but this poor shareholders just wanting to be fair & reasonable). Thoughts, dexddd ... for "their" convenience, right & biomed health safety. VIP and private/captain reception were jammed full inside the Joy Haven Lounge, elbow-to-elbow & not everyone masking up ... maintaining social distance, etc. etc. Skipped the Lats reception entirely as others from the CC circles shared that we didn't miss anything. Last time being on a bridge tour was just about 10 years, right after Sandy came thru NY (2012 ... it's been 10 years) and we left with an inbound Nor-Easter on the GEM, invited not because of Lats status but b/c the small group was with CC - escorted by security & done on a sea day. That was really nice but to such tour since then for security reasons, not b/c of infectious diseases and Covid. I don't expect ever to experience that again in my lifetime with NCL. Ron is a very good & friendly GM and has command & respect of the teams under him ... maybe, those sailing next / soon on the Joy can speak to him privately. Most likely, it's out of his hands & in the directives issued by Miami HQ. Just my thoughts. Now, what's this message about 50% sale, hahaha 🤣🤣🤣

That's what we did in late September, why spent 3 hours to/from the outlets strip mall or to see LLBean with the overpriced tour, shop LLB virtually later. Waterfront is just an easy 10 minutes walk, good for cardio & enjoy a nice, fresh lobster roll or go for a lobster special. Whatever you do, have a great day ... and Starbucks was open & busy as always. Henry P.S. you'll run into the real homeless, sadly.

Wait until tomorrow morning or afternoon (their I.T. aren't anywhere nearly responsive, if they are "staffed" or attended to during off hours & worst, on weekends & holidays) Depending on the issues, you can try to live "Chat" option after logged into the "MyNCL" account - we had an "Invalid Log-in" issue last week & despite resetting the password, continued to get an error message. Live help meant joining the queue with an extended wait time - live "chat" came on within minutes & the entire matter resolved within 30 minutes, which is well above average for NCL's typical wait/hold time lately. The current system is user-friendly generally, in the absence of 2FA ... which, IMHO, isn't best practices these days as far as cyber security, but what do I know from the days since IBM 270/370 and PC/XT/AT DOS.

Just an update, we saw these $100 coupon on multiple accounts within our F&F inner circles ... able to help apply it on a Prima balcony booking next April - first used 2 CN certificates as deposit. Then, return to the reservation and apply 2 additional coupons, one at a time, successfully DIY without having to call into NCL. Thus, it "reduced" the fare by $200 (as credits ... not shown on the confirmation) plus $500 as deposit ... final payment/cancel date is this December. Not bad, although fares could drop later on - being a new ship, some of the sub-categories already showing as "sold out" or not available anymore, including SailAway rates. Another friend has a CAS (casino) land-based offers and was able to trade their offers and booked, and got the coupon applied by a helpful NCL agent (knowing that it's supposingly not valid for CAS rates) but ... Now, we just have to figure out how to best use the remaining ones in the group as these expire on Nov. 17th with a cruise by 12/31/2023 date.

Dan, it's a beautiful, sunny morning in NY. FlightAware app showed your DL bird landed early ... should be riding Go Airlink's shuttle van by now & on the way - traffic flowing just fine per "Waze" in the area. Wishing you an excellent cruise ahead and bon voyage ... someone else we know (his 7th cruise since last November) also onboard, surely will get lots of great reporting. Hurry as they started boarding but you should be fine whenever you get dropped off.

This is relatively new that rolled out within the last 4 to 6 months for upgrade bids, as NCL's vendor doing the processing & accpetance of bids continued to fine-tune and tweak the selections of bids. Officially, they have until 1 day prior to embarkation to process and upgrade the bids, but continue to hold off on those "sorry, your bids were not accepted" (which used to be pushed out via email at 48 hours). This isn't a "problem" per se and is is just nail-biting ... yes. As you could find out that they upgraded your at the pier and/or until you are onboard on Day 1 - advantage to NCL, they get to "grab" all the money offered by the bidders, whereas you can cancel or withdraw your still "pending" offer up until 5 hours or so before embarkation ... (don't recall the specific wordings used, will look for them & amend this post, if I can) There is still hope and the chance that you bid can go thru ... of course, they also see it as an opportunity to entice & solicit you, to bump your offered bid(s) higher, in hope of winning that last cabin remaining in the inventory pool. On our September cruise on the Joy, we had an excellent "BA" location on Deck 15 and really didn't care for the club ("mini") balcony upgrade - but, put in (quietly & not a word to others on the roll call at all) the lowest, poor "minimum" bid for the sailing - just to see & learn a bit more about the changes forthcoming. We weren't surprised at pier check-in nor onboard the ship shortly thereafter, knowing full well by late afternoon's sailaway time that we didn't have to repack or move to another cabin. Good luck & you still have several days to wait & see how this go ... enjoy the cruise, regardless. # # # This "official" email was issued at 6 p.m. local time on the date of our sailing / cruise ... we're already underway, left the cruise terminal about an hour earlier. Ship was at 70% double occupancies but Haven categories were all filled & sold out ... and, packed upstairs. Unfortunately, we were not able to accept your offer to upgrade to Club Balcony Suite for your cruise below. Sail Date Ship Offer per guest Sep 16, 2022 Norwegian Joy (only the first and second guest will be charged) (Note: Prices shown are in US Dollars.) What happens now? Your original stateroom is unchanged and you need to do nothing. Your credit card will not be charged.

Have a pleasant, safe and on-time flight into LGA tomorrow by Delta ... and a prompt pickup by SS. Ground transportation area is just outside at Terminal C/D - it's a huge area, often with hundreds of for-hired, car services & black cars/limos waiting + assorted shuttles, drivers looking for their riders and vice versa. Just be prepared and have their local/toll-free # handy (which I'm sure you do ...) Not merely doubled-parked but triple-parked in this holding/staging & waiting/pick-up area as I passed by on our city bus ... over to Hertz. Have a wonderful cruise, will be following along - we decided to not go on this last minute, despite great prices, promo & deals, etc.

Refer to Post #98 - which stayed unchanged toward the end of September ... many of the officers and crew, apparently had came back from their vacation/time off/home leave. Captain in charge of the Joy was Hakan Svedung (he was either going to take his vacation or just assume command, relieving the duties of the other captain for vacation.) On a related note - per indirect source - FYI only (no further info/discussions hereon) due to an isolated, recent incidents ... NCL crew members are not permitted to go ashore for leaves while their ship docked in NYC - until further notice, conditions per CBP limited to NYC only that was previously allowed. It's a privilege that many looked forward to, even if it's just for 3 or 4 hours, as they can rush to pickup comfort food, personal items and/or do errands, etc. etc.

These are port side views of the Joy - mostly of the mid/aft section ... feel free to zoom in yourself for a closer look. There are no PrivaSea balconies anywhere, not from what I see (I stand corrected, please help & point it out if you can - find and pinpoint them) Sorry, don't have a closeup of starboard side - we stayed previously both on Deck 10 and more recently Deck 15, close to the elevators and locations are fine, as far as we are concerned. Relax, go with the flow and enjoy the cruise ... the cabin is only yours to enjoy for x number of nights anyway. Explore the rest of the ship, plenty of places to stretch out, i.e. Observation Lounge. It is a GTY balcony assignment 🤔

They are 500 ml or 16.9 oz. - tall & slim, should fit many pouches & pockets used for EDC, like daypacks and backpacks, etc.

Joy was running a special of Buy 3 get the 4th free last month on our Canada/NE run, for about $145 in total, which we purchased using part of our non-refundable OBC as gifts (not that we endorse or encourage the smokers to continue ...) Here in NY, each carton with sales is about $125 from what we heard.

Traffic is, usually, lighter on a weekend morning from NYC's cruise terminals to nearby airports ... including the busy, summer weeks. However, one of the reasons that Google recommend and put in 1 hour for travel time from Red Hook, Brooklyn to LGA is - because, there is long term constructions on the primary highway - known as BQE or I-278 that transverse thru Brooklyn to/from Queens, connecting the dots - with 2 highway lanes narrowed & merge into 2 lanes, in both directions of the elevated roadways, due to decades of pounding from heavy truck & commercial/bus traffic on the patched pavements, with the resulting bottleneck. Even at this hour (8 p.m. Saturday evening) - live "Waze" traffic GPS guidance showing a 40 minutes travel time from the waterfront to LGA's newly expanded central terminal (and, it has been a very short & quick walk to reach most of the airline's gates, after clearing TSA/security checkpoints). It doesn't take much for traffic to come to a grinding halt with a minor fender bender, let alone a major crash with fatalities that's been known to shut down the highway, sometimes for hours. Best to leave a little extra time for those unpleasant, unwanted & unexpected surprises - the terminal has free WiFi & numerous food courts, etc. should you get there much sooner than expected ... it's not the old LGA anymore. Not all "pro" drivers are good in using alternate bypass and/or local streets to cut thru the neighborhoods, along the waterfront (Kent Ave) to jump ahead to re-connect with the BQE, as that's a lot of traffic lights & stop signs ... not to mention, that we are a city full of speed cameras & bike lanes, and 25 mph speed limit on local routes strictly photo-enforced these days, summons by mail. I would suggest checking the roll calls for updates starting a few weeks before your planned sailings, to see how others ahead did with their ground transportation, taxi & Uber availability and similar encounters, to adjust & finalize your plan. Perhaps, recalibrate your own walk-off time earlier by 15 to 30 minutes. Fortune tellers find it uneasy to predict how things might look like next August ... given how the past 3 years had been. Happy cruising and make the best & most out of it.