mking8288

Mouth-watering, getting hungry looking at those food pictures from Cagney's - isn't it great to re-live those memories post-cruise without shopping, preparing, cooking and cleaning up; just order and eat. Enjoying your two sea days ... something about snow in metro NY area, don't worry - city is going to get 0.1 inch per latest weather forecast, a bit windy and expect seas to be a bit choppy. Here's a "test" for you - can you access and read CruiseCritic contents, i.e. this post and other recent posts, without being "connected" - or just being to ship's WiFi inTRAnet (as if you are just checking your onboard account charges) This could be helpful to Pete ready to embark for the next 12 days cruising the Getaway. *** And, only if you can remain "connected" on CC, a secondary test - can you post something simple (and, not upload any pictures ... just text only) to this post. A question as I forgotten to check and/or look around - anyone including you had seen prime rib on the MDR menu, O'Sheehan's and/or even in the buffet b/c I don't recall, I am pretty sure in the Garden Cafe a/k/a - they served different cut of beef, chicken & pork loin (which was actually edible good)

Sounds good at 48+ hours out, get your NCL App updated/checked, eDocs loaded. ("Pressure") Nay, we'll track the Getaway on marinetraffic and cruisemapper ... and will guess and try to figure out possible reasons for "radio silence" is whether you are conserving or ran low/out of those WiFi minutes from FAS onboard, or whether there's problem with your VZW cellular signals in San Juan or USVI, etc. Ship's gift shop was pretty bare and not much on the shelves. They "hide" a few small items in the duty-free shop on the Joy, behind/near the checkout counter (if I recall correctly - might want to check it out personally & photo-document it). CVS and Walgreens are just 5 minutes across the main road outside the pier in San Juan, if the ship ran low on certain items - buy it there and maybe get NCL to reimburse you or issue OBC ... just kidding. Make use of the contact info & direct extensions of the senior officers, you should meet most of them at the M&G onboard. Seriously, Bon Voyage !

Think for a moment, if NCL has been trying hard to recruit AND retain employees, best of the best - raising the DSC and add-on fees, etc. regardless of how & what it is called, without a doubt, NCL's bank accounts and cash flows should be fatter and better ... and, some of the extras bonuses - minus the required administrative fees & indirect costs, paying off the mega loans for the new ship builts, etc. and refinancing their debt loads - should somehow, trickle down to the rank & files, down to deck 0 or the engine rooms. We haven't really seen a whole lot of happy faces and smiling crews on the decks lately ... and, they are mostly tasked with doing more with less. You would think, that some of them, should at least feel they are dealt a fair hand with the playing cards, maybe even extra pays for their payroll disbursements. Time, time will tell whether the tide is rising for a balanced customer experience onboard. Stories of the ships running out of the basics are not good reflections of smooth sailings - we aren't talking about computer chips and precious metals. Now, am I unrealistic to expect apple juice to be available for breakfast. How about a banana ? My rant for the month.

@Dorhead1230 It sounded like someone onboard the GA possibly triggered a boo-boo in not better alerting and informing all the pax of the CBP protocols and procedures, timing, etc. If I wasn't skimming and reading quickly thru the Dailies, probably would've missed the details - not uncommon for even seasoned cruisers on these milky routes to ignore the details & toss them into the round file, especially on top of all the extra promo flyers. On our 2019 Canada/NE cruise, we're cleared CBP in Bar Harbor on the return as the first port and the disembarkation in NY was supposed to be an easy walk thru the park, express off in the morning ... nope, confusing and madly delayed. Hopefully, this won't happen on Sunday morning with this sailing. Our CAS friends wasn't happy with the casino's payout percentage either, he felt the machines were too tight, and not being "fair" and reasonable - and gave up after Day 3 or 4 as he decided to discontinue his generous daily contributions ... gave it one more try on the return with 2 full sea days and spend more time on their balcony instead. Good luck & let us know if you can beat the odds - he told us he didn't see any hand pays either on the days he played.

Love those pictures and you know, aside from the long walk on the pier under the hot sun (without a hat & sun protection) - I can see cruising to both/either Amber Cove and/or Taino Bay - both being much closer to Harvest Caye ... and forget GSC as tendering there remains a 50:50 deal. The "free" (tips only) taxi-bike shuttles making it much more accessible friendly ... as a matter of fact, my right knee was acting up again last month, gosh.

Here they are in PDF format, I did not get or keep FSD for Day #8, otherwise nearly the full set. Download & open to browse, others can just skip these pages, used Adobe Scan to prepare & safely uploaded via VPN server Getaway 12 days Caribbean Dailies out of NYC - What's Happening pages (11 of them in 2 parts) only. NCL Getaway FSD What's Happening 1 of 2, 2023.pdf NCL Getaway Freestyle Dailies Jan 2023 part 2 of 2.pdf Footnote: The grass isn't necessary greener and/or better on any other cruise lines. I do many of the grocery & household "provisioning" and retail market prices on food staples are no joke these days. Our next adventure isn't quite around the corner yet, but we just booked and yes, soon. Will try to give those "addicted" to CC onboard reports at least a few days of advance notice to tune in soon. No promises, however 😊 I thank Laszlo (love those videos), Jim and others that cruised the Getaway ahead of ours for setting the pace and giving us the heads up - the current live one is good and I'm sitting back to lurk on the next semi-live, he's ready with his photo gears.

@Jlharvey913 DW would've tossed out those Freestyle Dailies ... yes, got them in a box. I'll scan the "What's Happening" pages only & upload the PDF (easier w/o taking up more CC server space) later on, for you & anyone else as needed.

Standing by for Pete's Getaway adventure next - and the magic number is 3

Doing good managing your limited WiFi minutes onboard 👍 - it can be done, there was a time where I felt that a semi-live report onboard can be done, with discipline & backed with roaming cellular data. Noticed that CBP is clearing the ship today in Miami per Freestyle Dailies, that should make for a quicker & easier disembarkation (oh, no .... 🫣 ) in NY on Sunday - it "should" for those in a hurry. How was tendering yesterday at GSC ? Have a great day in Miami with LM 😊

How are those remaining WiFi minutes holding up ? Miami-bound on cruisemapper at an easy 10 knots - plans in place in the morning ? Had NCL not cancelled the Bermuda stop, getting out might be a little choppy but part of the ride from Dockyard to NY ... looking at forecasts on Windy App - will likely be a roller coaster on water ski. Mother nature always win - besides, not a whole lot happening on the island in the middle of their off-season. Go catch some zzz's & get ready in the morning. With planning & good logistics, NCL should find little excuse to not fully provision and stock up the ship on its Florida stops, including bananas, milk, juice, butter, etc.

@Outta My Work Clothes - Thanks for adding to, contributing and amending "bits and pieces" from your Feb. 6th Getaway. $14 p/o or $28 refunded for missing/skipping DR in allocated port fees seemed typical - another time/ship ... NCL skipped GSC due to weather & with a "fun day at sea" - got about $28 in OBC auto-posted to onboard account within 24 hours. NCL's ships seemed to be late and not able to get ahead of its scheduled port arrival time, not necessary isolated incidents and/or from strong headwind ... I'm pretty sure they "padded" their schedules to allow for delays for both arrival, departure & while in transit - appeared that Getaway hasn't been able to go faster than 21 knots, regardless and no matter what. It's just bad and aggravating when the vessel is 1 hour or more late getting to the pier to dock with some of the already shortened port times, with a fully sold out cruise edging on maximum lifeboat capacity. Well, at least they didn't run out of eggs in the gallery last week for ya ... I joked about this earlier, imagine rationing orders at breakfast ... or sharing butter & jam. It's not easy to just go with the flow, not when the elevator door open & it's full, stopping at every floor on its way up and down.

Just my 2 cents here, on our recent Getaway cruise, I mumbled to DW that ... something is missing among the crew, not seeing the usual level of energy, cheerfulness and friendly spirits, unlike nearly all of the NCL cruises that we've been on. We recognized some of them are/were new to ship life and/or recently boarded the ship (required by NCL to remained masked for up to 10 days on a 5:5 rules ... whatever that is, as I was sitting 2 chairs away from the chief housekeeping during dinner with officer & didn't catch the entire explanation) We aren't breaking up with NCL, at least not yet ... has 2 cruises coming up, one of them pretty soon - going to sit back, cruise with an open mind, enjoy the cruise and probably toss in some humor to lighten things up. When it comes to food & the overall dining experience, it's personal and subjective and not easy to be neutral - except when it comes to proper food serving temperature, LOL. That's what food safety inspections do with a calibrated digital instrument, not by walking around the buffet & licking one's sticky fingers. We had 2 crew members to acknowledge & write about - both in the MDR that've gone above & beyond vs. the rest in their department. Our room steward was good but nothing that truly exemplified that Norwegian way & spirit of making us truly feel like being our home away from home ... old-timers surely recognized what I'm referring to. The positives still outweight the negatives but it isn't trending properly in 2023.

@Monica887 Short answer is "no" and that's how NCL's pricing scheme works. They won't offer or sell you unlimited for a day, it's for the duration of the entire cruise (minus day 1 and maybe day 2 at the beginning ... although, on one of our longer 14 nights cruise - I'm pretty sure one can skip the first 3 days and start as late as day 4, if the rules hasn't changed, again, since 2019) If you have 150 FAS minutes, that's 2.5 hours of limited access, which you must remember to logout after each use; and, then login again to resume & start the meter again ... otherwise, it'll be gone before midnight on Day 1.

The upgrade price should be shown under your reservation's "Offered Upgrade" for the basic unlimited and streaming/premium unlimited, and, already priced or factored your trade-in discount/credit 300 minutes ( times 2 users ) As noted above, just help get DW signed into your profile and burn those 300 minutes (6 hours worth) on Day 1 ... and with dinner & other events, get her pretty close to midnight for doing "her's" Day 2 upgrade, after switching the profile & logged out of "your" profile with the minutes already/nearly used up. Checking ours, pricing for unlimited dropped on longer cruises (15 days) to $25 per day or $375 for 15 days. 300 minutes get a trade-up credit of $145 and the full 15 days upgrade to basic unlimited is $230. Trade-up unused 300 minutes on Day 2 to unlimited and save $25 to a total of $205. Trade-up on Day 3, lowered further to $180 for 13 days instead of 15 days < I recall that to be allowed on our last 14 nights cruise - reducing the billable days - by upgrading on Day 3 > Sound confusing, it's okay ... ask about it onboard & do it later, you will save some money and at least won't be paying more on the ship. Kick the tin can here: if you own 100 shares of NCLH stocks, it's worth $250 NR-OBC for cruise of 15 days or longer, unused NR-OBC balance will be either $45 or $70 after adjusting for the WiFi charges for 14 or 13 days.

Details/fine prints embedded from PCC's email - (section on triple points) - check you spam mail filter, was dated Feb 5, 2023 ... Your February Latitudes Insider offers are here! Earn 3 extra points as you cruise to Northern Europe, the Greek Isles or Alaska. Plus, combine these offers with Free 2nd Guest and save on your next vacation. https://www.ncl.com/about/terms-and-conditions/promotions?cid=EM_MKD_NA_PGU_EML_NA_EML_LATOFF_LAT020523_NA_NA#insideroffertriplepoints THREE EXTRA LATITUDES POINTS PER NIGHT SELECT CRUISES Booking Window: February 1 - March 31, 2023 11:59 pm EST Applicable sailings: 3+ night Alaska & Europe sailings in 2023 on the following ships only: Alaska Cruises Norwegian Jewel Norwegian Spirit Europe Cruises Norwegian Dawn Norwegian Gem Norwegian Getaway Norwegian Star Terms & Conditions Not applicable to categories IX, OX, BX, MX (Sail Away Categories). Offer is applicable to the 1st and 2nd guest on the reservation only. Two extra Latitudes points are per person, per night on the reservation. Offer is for new individual FIT reservations. Qualifying new individual FIT reservations can be moved into an existing FS or Traditional group and count towards tour conductor credits. Promotion cannot be held as a new or existing traditional or FS group block. Promotion is not applicable to Traditional Groups/Type: Affinity, Nettour, NettourC, CHARTERS, CMI OP EVENT, CMI OP LG EVENT, INCREG & INCLARGE. Promotion is not applicable to FS Groups/Type: Affinity, Nettour or NettourC (classification type). Offer is not combinable with charter or inaugural sailings. To take advantage of this offer and ensure receipt of Latitudes benefits on board, guest needs to provide Latitudes membership number at time of booking. In order to qualify guest must be enrolled in the Latitudes program and have completed at least one sailing with Norwegian Cruise Line. Offer valid for all Latitudes tiers: BRONZE, SILVER, GOLD, PLATINUM, PLATINUM PLUS, or AMBASSADOR. Following the sailing completion, the Latitude points will be added to the applicable accounts. This is a cruise only offer. This promotion is not applicable on the land portion of Cruisetour packages. Anything consumed above the promotional benefit will be the responsibility of the guest at prevailing rates. Government taxes, port expenses & fees, discretionary onboard service charges and/or gratuities are additional. Applicable to AUSTRALIA, NCL ASIA, NCL BERNE, NCL BRAZIL, NCL FRANKFURT, NCL INTL, NCL LONDON, NCL MEA, NCL MIAMI, NCL OSLO.

@Two Wheels Only Maybe, just maybe for a 10+ nights itineary with sea days. Was just looking at the "current" or most recent Le Bistro menu (Jan 2023's) and OMG, they butchered that menu, worst than a thousand cuts, left & right - hardly anything left worth dining there for, aside from possibly the Dover Sole - the starter/salad/soup options are just OMG, pathetic, yike and hopeless - half of it probably fit right in Ocean Blue's menu (except, not a choice on many ships) Although we're never a big fan of Le Cucina - some of the popular dishes stripped and gone. Coming up next, got 5 nights of SD (3 plus 2 Sapphire's) and that's plenty, heck no as a whole in doing more SD nights.

That's one of the "catches" and gotcha with the internet packages - wouldn't hurt to ask on embarkation day. Sailing out of NY (and, most ports for that matter) - usually has cell signal until 5 to 6 pm and it's then dinner time. By the time we've finished, it's late already especially if going to the "welcome abroad" show - wait 2 or 3 hours and then go live, all (late) night long, midnight onward - not as difficult as it sound. Upcoming sailing, ship not scheduled to sail until 7:30 p.m - almost certain to still get cellular coverage until 8:30 or 9 p.m. from the balcony as ship leave the port's harbor.

I don't have "this week's" current or latest rates/upgrade info but as of last month, I'm pretty certain you can upgrade on Day 2 of a 7 Day (Nights) cruise, apply the 150 FAS minutes - unused - and get credit for trading up, and paid for 6 day's worth of unlimited, priced at $30 per day (higher for the streaming "premium" unlimited ... which might work better for some with the optimized device(s) or hardware that's WiFi6 or at least WiFi5+ higher / 802.11.ac) Basic formula that I've used over the years to calculate (rounded to nearest dollars for simplicity) $30 per day x 6 = $180 less $100 trade-up credit = $80 for 6 days vs. $109 ($29/$30 for 1 less day). If there is 2 of you, once you've done the upgrade after 00:01 (midnight after sailing is Day 2) - the second pax's 150 minutes remained usable & can be used and shared, gifted to someone else traveling with you and/or go online on a 2nd. device at the same time, etc. Unconfirmed but once you started using those free FAS minutes on Day 1, the option to upgrade is gone for that user - it might, I am not sure, the option to upgrade for 2nd person with FAS remains valid or not as long as zero airtime minutes were used. Otherwise, once you've upgraded the first person's plan to unlimited - the second person's plan minutes are good & go ahead, use it on a different device. Remember to check your unused balance of minutes and do the login and logout commands on a browser (iCafe has a printed written guide) I always recommend doing this upgrade onboard instead of prepaying ahead, as you can sometimes get "unexpected" or "unforeseen" changes resulting in non-refundable OBC being issued or posted against your onboard account, to offset & paid for the upgrade. Do this ahead or pre-cruise, charges must be paid for using one's credit/debit card immediately. As for the Latitudes minutes, those're long gone unless one has an very "old" booking that remained unchanged, thus grandfathered in and possible to stack on top of FAS minutes - those were given little to zero values for the uptrade (30 minutes p/p when we're Platinum then and 60 minutes p/p when we reached P Plus, all pre-Covid) Latitudes discount (Sapphires, Platinums, etc.) does not apply to these trade-ups and not stackable. If going on the Bliss again, might also be worth waiting to see if Starlink will roll out to the ship by embarkation time, as terms & prices might change (upward ... LOL) and maybe they'll run "specials" to promote the "expected" & promised superior connectivity.

Great pix of San Juan & thanks ... although we've cruised there several times, it's mostly those 4 pm scheduled arrival ... can only see that much (little) as it often gets dark quickly and some of the attractions closing up. Don't mind a full day visit or stopover there ... oh well, next time - perhaps but not a "strong" excuse to cruise just to see PR.

Quick look at Marinetraffic's data on Encore's AIS tracking data today, she did appeared to sailed into Taino Bay (and, not Amber Cove) and left there, currently reported underway & enroute to St. Thomas. Perhaps, work at the Bay has completed and mega ships cleared to use the city/downtown pier.

Generally speaking, the booking confirmation served as your tender ticket, not necessary priority per se but you & rest of your group don't need to get tender ticket. Depending on the ship, not sure if it might become digital ticket, check onboard with all the welcome envelopes in your stateroom. Each tender can take up to 400 per trip, including crews & supplies on the first run to the island. Not everyone go ashore and those in Haven usually get escorted down from the designated waiting or meeting location ... and when we use our "priority" privileges, had usually joined the first or second tender, skipping the lines on the stairs and corridors leading to the tender dock's gangway. Haven't read any issues of clam shells being sold out, even if you join the line for tenders later - might missed out prime locations and the vented ones

@DZ77 Savor & Taste are basically mirror image of each other, port & starboard side ... smaller & more casual vs. the bigger Manhattan MDR - all 3 use the same menu in its daily rotations and serve the same food - services tend to be a click faster in the 2 smaller MDR. For a group of 15, MMDR probably better as they do have more large tables, long & round ones that can easily seat 8 to 10 per table (most likely split into 2 tables) For a large group such as yours, if nearly everyone plan to dine together nightly - call ahead and see if they can link up the reservations and pre-book tables at a set time for each evening, then, adjust it ahead onboard by working with the host/ess on the arrangements. All 3 are open nighly for dinner, with the 2 smaller ones open for breakfast and also for lunch on sea days ... Manhattan isn't open for lunch or breakfast, unless the ship is close to max lifeboat capacity.

Turtles06 - well done, been waiting for your report. You nailed it on a # of the points about the newly "refreshed" GEM with the uncomfortable chairs & furniture with the improper height. Our friends rode her back to NY on the T/A in December and they couldn't believe it. Perhaps, NCL's designers were trying too hard to be accessible friendly. Yet, they left those bathtubs with the high step-over height, totally inconsistent. They mentioned that the chairs & loungers outside the bar & lounge area next to Le Bistro as among the worst. BTW, welcome home !!

Hundreds of blue clam shells on the island (if not thousands) and they are mostly near the beach - find one with the vented sides as they are best for cross ventilations. Find your favorite spots with the shells, pick an unoccupied one and it's yours to keep & use for the entire day - show the "attendant" nearby your receipt or proof (should be in your stateroom - if not, stop at the Shorex Deck) as that's also your tender ticket to go early. Bring suntan lotion for UV & sun protection and something colorful that you can tied or mark your clam shell in a sea of blue, they all look alike. Good luck on the next tendering attempt, always 50:50 as you know by now, especially if the north wind is blowing ...

Shipmate is a free App on Android and iOS - we use it to store, offline, our upcoming ship's cruise info, deck maps, itinerary and other details for use without broadband access. Saved under the "My Cruises" tab - there is also a handy cruise packing checklist to use. NCL's App ... still digitally "work in progress" after all these years.