melodyesch

Great review. Best wishes for a long and happy marriage.

Congratulations and best wishes for a long and happy marriage! Looking forward to reading your honeymoon cruise review. Have a great time!

I am really enjoying your trip report. It sounds like an amazing time.

you are expected to use the public restrooms of your biological gender.

How do you know this? I have never seen any signage stating that you should use the restroom of your biological gender. If there was a man obviously dressed as a female in makeup and a cocktail dress, I would expect to see them with me in the female restroom. I would think it would be awkward in the male restroom.

I agree with others that river vs. ocean are different animals. DH and I have done about 10 ocean cruises and one Viking river cruise. We love them both.

One of the differences is that Ocean cruises go where we would normally not travel independently. A couple of people we met on our river cruise mentioned that they could have rented a car and toured the river ports independently in half the time. Well, yes you could. You could have looked at a map ahead and of time to know that. But it's more about the experience. We loved it. And we have traveled independently also in France.

Here is a thread I did on our Viking Paris to Normandy river cruise in 2013. It's pretty detailed and might help you. Have a great trip.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1854895

Melody

They charge you immediately.

I (female) do the actual planning. DH and I decide where to go for land vacations but for cruises, I just throw out a few options that coincide with where we might want to spend a few days pre-cruise. Then we choose and I arrange everything.

However, if I were married to a woman, I would still want it that way. I love the planning.

That really sucks that the cruise was cancelled. One thing that I'm not understanding is that they are offering to pay the airline change fee and give you a hotel in Amsterdam for a night. What else would you expect them to give you? You wouldn't be out anything other than the time it would take you to shift around your Spain reservations, right?

My DH had a printed t-shirt ruined. It was beige and it came back with green streaks like it had been tie-died. They tried washing it a couple more times but the green never really did come out. So now if we plan on using the ship's laundry he brings plain t-shirts or t-shirts that he would be ok with being ruined if there were a problem.

We will send out jeans and other casual items that wouldn't kill us to have ruined and they have always come back perfectly done. We've really only had that one issue, but better safe than sorry.

My DH and I did a long trip with 1 medium suitcase each plus a small backpack. We had mix and match nice clothes for dinners on the ship. But after doing more looking at hand washable clothing, we realized that even those medium sized suitcases were too much and we've vastly reduced our luggage to be a 22 inch roller and small backpack each. We would never go back.

I felt sorry for a couple we met in the train station in Paris. We were all on our way to the Normandy area. They each had a HUGE suitcase and large hand-held carry on. In addition, the man had a medium sized suitcase strapped to his larger one. We saw them again at our hotel in Normandy, finally dragging in from walking from the train station. They were so frazzled. We never want to be those people.

So if you can't condense, definitely send all of your cruise wear back home after the cruise part.

We've been to the Fred Meyer in Juneau and it would be a suitable alternative. Hopefully they can arrange some type of transportation there as it is farther from the port.

Was there a shuttle to the Walmart? I can't picture where it is/was.

NCL really needs to get on this. I don't feel like schlepping a case of bottled water on with me. I enjoyed the fact I didn't have to haul it on the Carnival cruise I did last month. I pre-ordered and it was in the cabin upon my arrival. It was simple and painless and the cost was very reasonable. NCL could still make money off a policy like Carnival's but the price gouging going on for bottled water ordered in advance does need to go. :cool:

Yes, this. We also have bottled water on board and NCL is ridiculously expensive. But my DH will NOT schlep a case of water to the port. He insists that we're on vacation and we'll pay the incredibly high fee. Since I am also not going to be the schlepper, we pay it ahead of time and forget it.

This is what we've done, essentially. Remove it ourselves and put it back ourselves. Only takes a couple minutes.

This is what we do, also. Everything fits on the top shelf around the vanity or the top shelf of the closet. We've never actually even told the steward. We just empty it and then restock it when we leave. We've never had a single problem.

Thank you for the warning. I'll check mine now, as we've bought spa passes and Internet.

Oh geez. I had food poisoning on a trip once and it was awful. You feel like you just want to be shot to get it over with. So sorry this happened to him.

Did they actually trace it back to the chicken? I would think if that was it that others on the ship who ate the chicken that night at Moderno would have had food poisoning as well.

My opinion is if both you and your husband are really interested in Normandy that you should NOT do it as part of a cruise. My DH is a military history buff and we did a river cruise in France that included a day in Normandy. It's SO not enough. Well, maybe if your interest is just seeing the American Cemetary and a short stop at the American beaches.

We did the one day that the cruise offered but had planned ahead to drive back to the Normandy area that next week. We hired a professional guide (Stuart Robertson) for 2 full days and it was completely awesome. But even then we didn't see everything. We are going back this coming May and have hired Stuart again for 3 days.

Take the Carribean cruise (awesome), but do Paris and Normandy as a land vacation. The French countryside is incredibly easy to drive and so worth more than the 2 days a cruise gives.

We like the midship balconies. On the Star we had 11118, around the corner from the elevators. We never heard any noise from foot traffic and it was the perfect location. We could walk down the hallway to the spa or just go right up the stairs to the pool deck.

I don't have an answer about the different balconies, but FYI they are now letting you buy the spa passes ahead of time. Today I'm at 90 days out and just bought the spa pass and made all of my specialty dining reservations for my Dec. cruise. I think suites can do all that at 100 days out, but we are just in a regular balcony.

I think the best way to avoid this frustration is to stop looking at the prices after you've book and past the time where you can get price drops. I scan airline prices like crazy before I book. I book at what I think is the best price I can get at the time and then I never look at them again. Well, unless it's Southwest, where you could get a credit.

Same with my cruise. Until final payment, I check the promotions and prices to see if I can get a better deal. Once I'm locked in, I don't look at the prices, the promotion emails or anything.

Check your flat iron tag because it may be dual voltage. A lot of the newer products are. And the Apple chargers should be as well. Then you'd only need the adapter and not also the converter. But Target sells both in the section by the luggage.

Have a great trip!

Great review so far! Your pics brought back memories of our trip last year. And now I really wish we had gone to the Chihuly garden! Beautiful pictures!

We were in LA in May and I think got to the pier around 11am. We had no line for check-in, but then had a wait in the seating area to board.

I think the best advice is to set the expectation right away with your entire party that there will be a wait. Also, when they do call your number, others with that number will jump up and try to run ahead. Let them. You all will get on the ship and you can set the tone by deciding ahead of time not to be pissy with the rude people that are sometimes encountered.

Just have the right attitude, know that there will be a wait and know that you WILL get on the ship so there is no reason to push or get caught up in a race.

And have a great time.

We aren't going to cancel. We always look to see where we want to go and then if Norwegian goes there, it's our first choice. We look at the vacation costs as a whole. Some think NCL is nickel and diming, but for us, it's what all of the nickel and dimes add up to at the end that determine if we think the overall total is worth it vs. the vacation we get.

And yes, they do seem to be making some on-the-fly changes, but they have a new CEO trying to feel is way around. It'll level out soon. Again, as long as the vacation experience is worth the bottom line total, we're in.

But people have to do what they have to do. Everyone needs to find a line that works best with them. So good luck, OP.

What an awesome review! Your pictures are amazing and I can't wait to see more!

Thanks for the review. DH and I have had the UDP twice and can't really think of a time when we've had bad service. We do like Cagney's. It's not Morton's, but we've always been happy with the meal. I think Le Bistro is our favorite and La Cucina has been really good as well. The Tappenyaki is good, but not as good as our local place.

The only disappointment for us the last time was Moderno. I don't know if it was that the meat was overcooked or if it just didn't seem to be as high of a quality of meat or what. It was just ok. We might give it one more try and then will decide to keep it or remove it from the list.