dumbth

My problem is needing to book 2 btb legs at once. If I book the first leg, it wants a nonrefundable deposit due to close dates. But I only want the first leg if there is no problem snagging the second leg also. I had both of them on the brink of booking in separate windows recently, but couldn't risk it. Also for check in I have never and will never use a cell phone or it's texts.

Keep an open mind about which Rome train station to use. As I recall many trains originating from the grim central station area would slowly creep around the congested periphery of Rome before zooming towards port. It can be a great opportunity and time saver to depart instead from Vatican or south Rome stations.

Beware of rush hour times where trains can be packed and you may want to have enough spare time to miss one and take another. I recall one ride from the port where even standing room was in such a crush that they eventually opened up first class to all.

Use a quality (gov't?) train route viewer to see the stop names leading up to the one where you disembark. Your windows may be obscured and not show the final stop you look for. Check ahead of time for scheduled train strikes. Educate yourself far more that what these posts say; there is tremendous opportunity to connect with a more interesting part of Rome and save transfer time. Embrace serendipity...

23 minutes ago, mafig said:

Is it correct I won't know if my bid is accepted until boarding? 

I won my bids days (weeks?) before boarding, always for more than the minimum bid. I always started with a cabin that was painfully spartan, and yearned for the affordable upgrade.

1 hour ago, landlockedTexan said:

Or do you leave your unit at home for a 7-day cruise?

As a new user this complication is likely not essential. Can't you just pop an evening antihistamine to clear airways a bit for this one week? I bet the rest of the world thrives without burdensome crutches like this, and I would try putting it aside at least one week a year anyway to see if no longer needed.

You can try to avoid this great snarl of POA regulation by taking the rare trips on another NCL ship that includes Tahiti with most Hawaii stops. The per day cost is (was) about half as I recall, and what is so bad about a few extra days sea time.

I very much would like to someday cruise Honolulu to Tahiti then Tahiti to Honolulu WITHOUT getting stranded in Tahiti. Am I right that I will probably get bullied off the ship for a day there, and poked and proded for traces of flu? Am I right that since NCL has no such cruises showing in 2023/4 that 2022 may be the last chance to do this B2B? They show one such loop in this spring, and another this fall at twice the price.

I found Tahitian covid rules which may make at least the spring tour impossible. Hawaii plans to reopen ports to NCL: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/29875/DoT-Hawaii-Harbors-Reopen-to-Cruise-Ships . But these rules talk about pre screening in your airline flight, etc, whereas I do not intend to use airtravel at all; simply walk from home to NCL dock in HNL - possible? Thanks!

Enjoy NCL's resumed service of Pride of America while you can, because after it there are archaic regulations making a replacement ship not really economically feasible. Unless Hawaii gets a similar exemption to the US-only routes as did Puerto Rico. Nerdy background info: http://www.hawaiifreepress.com/Articles-Main/ID/29615/What-is-the-Passenger-Vessel-Services-Act

I wish I could just do everything on NCL web pages, but consultants can get some rules bent for you. Like whether credits can be used for deposits, and whether a credit can be split into 2 cruises. Of course this human intervention drives up everyone's costs, especially when folks learn the squeeky wheel can get advantages. Then we gotta get unsolicited call interruptions from them from time to time, altho mine seems to vanished and not replaced.

Folks have pointed out some incentive reward advantages from using separate TA's, especially if they are altruistic and run themselves ragged fielding cancellations and rebookings for no more compensation. Some folks like the human touch, but we all ultimately pay those increased costs and I just wish those folks utilized therapists or 900 numbers and let the rest be efficiently done by web sites.

You should examine your heart to avoid being disappointed if it's rejected. Normally you get more value than what you pay for in a bid, so best not to be super frugal. I think it is a real treat to have this bidding opportunity.

Best not to use the exact bottom number or overly round numbers because you tend to tie with other offers. Come up with a number and imagine it fails - do you feel bad you didn't increase it a bit? I am typically a cheapskate, but bid generously and won all my bids.

Sail resolutely; to cower about the 9/11 date is to reward and give in to evil. Furthermore you would be falling into original intentions of commemorating the attempted conquest of Europe in 9/11/1683, which was averted thru staggering sacrifice the next day.

On 2/15/2020 at 8:03 AM, Suskies said:

No cruise is perfect, of course. Our big disappointment was the noise outside Cabin 4606 and the time it took to resolve it, which left DD and DSIL sleep-deprived for part of their vacation.

That must have been propeller cavitation, where vacuum bubbles are created and collapse with a bang because they are bubbles of nothing rather than air. Strange they weren't tuned out by designers, unless they had to run with unusual thrust to push against waves or timetable. I would pay extra for the chance to listen to them, even all night.

I wouldn't miss the first Napali cliff sail-by even if it meant pushing your illness to the point of fatality. Murphy's law will inevitably try to stymie your shore excursion there or first or second sail-by, and maybe all three. It is a world wonder that dwarfs other HI sights

From which port? CT is very over rated due to the Steves publicity. Probably you weren't targeting the hikes themselves which can range from ankle-breaking to trivial to closed for repairs (otherwise always mobbed), but you can find a more scenic yet fairly level coastal hill hike from the Abbey to Portofino. Best to connect those 2 by miniferry to nearby train towns.

Same thing for CT where mini ferry connections let you see the village panorama the best, altho their service is unreliable and must be supplanted by train. There are really about 8 special towns in a string; the 5 is a marketing ploy. The most ghastly is Ricks favorite V.; anyone with fond memories there should see recent youtube ultradef walkthrus such as from prowalks - time to switch to lesser known villages nearby.

On 5/30/2021 at 6:20 AM, RocketMan275 said:

You're not booking directly since every avenue requires a person to sit at a computer and input your request.  Does it really matter if that person is employed by the cruise line or by a TA?  It's really the same thing.

Not true, even in the previous century I preferred to deal directly with reservation computers via my laptop and not use any person as intermediary. Computers are obedient and patient for endless queries. I once spent 40 hours exploring and setting up a miraculous chain of ferry arrangements, and no meat puppet is gonna handhold me thru that.

It's hard to get a diet formula to taste good, so those of us no longer mainlining the corn syrup stuff have a right to be picky. But onboard you aren't gonna cross the coke/pepsi products line because they give a special deal to stay exclusively one family or the other including more than just drink products. And those combo dispensing machines give incredible variety of dozens of diet flavors within a family, but seem a nightmare to keep in service even on land.

Everyone here is overlooking a huge way to spice up mediocre sugarless drinks - those super concentrated "liquid water enhancers" like Mio. I was very skeptical but tried it for the first time today in seltzer water and it was a blast. Very sharp complex tastes from just a couple squirts from tiny squeeze bottles that don't have to be refrigerated. I tried this after finding my diet coke bottles enhanced from a squirt from the spigot of box red wine. Something like Mio will turbocharge ho-hum colas, lemon limes, or even water over the course of a cruise.

Almost the only liquid that touches my lips is diet coke, and only that let me pull away from the brink of diabetes. You all who can tolerate corn syrup or booze may have to consider the diet stuff later in life. Most diet flavors are ghastly, but with repetition diet coke tasted to me like chocolate. I may even switch to seltzer with these squeeze flavors because in spite of the price they up your flavor satisfaction so dramatically.

P.S. Kudos to NCL and folks helping here who just cashed me out of 4 cruises worth of FCC and deposits.

I hate phone transactions like the plague - is there no button for cancelling on the NCL site where I originally made the reservation? They should be able to give a cancel confirmation # so you can be confident in clicking into an alternate reservation. I reserved under the program of free and easy cancellations or whatever they called it thru October.

Otherwise it looks like they are fighting revenue loss simply thru inconvenience, like the way you have to talk to a backroom thug face to face to cancel a gym membership. Or wrestle with endless phone menus and argue at length with a flunky to cancel newspaper subscriptions. Nobody is gonna not cancel a cruise due to these tactics, so what's the point? Just makes me want to avoid signing up with these operations.

I am still twisting in the wind, having been 1 day behind others in getting prelim approval. I imagine only on the last day of every month they will check to see if there is any cash to disperse, if the refund program hasn't been cancelled by then.

If I get a refund, I plan to hang tight for a few years for the demand bubble to settle down, then catching up with some back to back cruises.

I always had good luck bringing delicious specialty sodas on board NCL at the end of port stops. Six packs galore, for instance of hyper caffeinated "Antarctica" which looks exactly like forbidden beer if the reboard staff can't read the Portuguese label. If chilling is a problem, a lot of diet drinks can be surprisingly good tepid.

It really can be more of an opportunity rather than a constraint because you don't know what you are missing from abroad. It was a thrill for me to guzzle blackcurrent soda in my cabin, scarce in my own country because growing that berry has been banned for most of my lifetime due to false concerns about it spreading disease to forests.

And somebody has to pay the ever increasing costs of downtime when they don't have zero wage, dockage, and fuel bills, let alone carrying costs of however they finance the ships.

1 hour ago, Gracelyn said:

We were thinking maybe doing the Hawaii cruise only. But I don’t know anything about that ship. It may be more doable and then do the Tahiti cruise at a different time.

I had switched from the Hawaii loop to the original Hawaii-Tahiti run due to the poor value of the Hawaii only loop. The Tahiti run used to cost far less per day and made most of the same Hawaii stops. This is because of special stifling regulation of the Hawaii-only run making it super costly and possibly less satisfying.

I looked forward to the long equator crossing journey at sea bookended by exciting stops at both ends, and was going to ride it in both directions. I was disappointed by NCL dropping the most interesting far flung stop in the Marquesas recently, and what was at first a modest price rise. Now my strategy is to check price a couple weeks before every (rare) departure.

It might be they only issue at end of months. I got prelim approval 4/15 but FCC is still stuck in my account. I hope NCL comes thru in time (or at all) for some big dental charges reaching my cc. I committed to having elective work done after making a quick killing in crypto, which I lost soon after. 😝

Day and nite in majestic Rome or scruffy little Civita.? Always consider the train, which won't be so bunched up with cruise passengers as in the other direction. Also don't robotically choose Rome central station for departure; from there I think it slowly orbits around southern Rome stops which make for intriguing alternate departure/visiting places and faster trip.

If you are allergic to Rome itself, maybe spend the day right near the airport and the magnificent archeo site of Ostia Antica which is like a peaceful version of Pompeii. Maybe hotel at adjacent (scruffy?) beach town Lido de Ostia.

4 hours ago, jonbgd said:

So a port day onboard a ship isnt a bad day either

If idle or even cruising along a scenic coast, a nice investment would be the latest generation of stabilized binoculars. They apply anti-jiggle technology like on a gopro to make high magnification practical. Very expensive, so better value on a monocular. I got an earlier generation monocular using gyro stabilization and nonrechargeable batteries.

9 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

masks are required everywhere. Walking to your spot on the beach requires a mask (and there are police on segways at popular beaches enforcing with a $5,000.00 ticket). Once you are seated if you are six feet away you may remove mask. There are some work arounds, but people will absolutely challenge your family if you are not all wearing a mask in public.

This is the opposite of my experience on Oahu for months. I walk to the main tourist beach as one of the few masked people and rarely see enforcers and never any in action. Not wanting to leave my gaiter on the beach to be swiped so that I can't legally walk home, I get it wet in the water and then nearly die of asphyxiation when refitting the wet clogged thing to my face on return.

I will admit my stretch of beach has weird conflicting jurisdiction issues, sort of like a nearby marina where you can't call the police but apparently only some rarely available kind of marine police. Hawaii is full of rules, but very unevenly applied.

There was recent news about the Lt Gov doctor aiding interisland travel with vaxx passports or a bunch of similar measures for folks who may have lost vaxx card or whatever. Meant for residents but should have wider effect. They stupidly paused local J&J vaxx even tho it should be recipients judgement call about infinitesimal risks, but other vaxx campaign is progressing well locally.

5 hours ago, michele.westphall said:

AND it also states " FCC currently assigned to a reservation"...

So I had rebooked to a cruise in December. Not sure if we can cancel booking and still get money back for the 2 of us....

So you applied FCC to Dec cruise? It wouldn't even let me apply FCC to a down payment or whatever it's called, and there was no reason for me to spend FCC before much later deadlines. Even my down payment seems to be refundable under the pre-Halloween sailings promotion. Probably my luck will turn sour and have a snag on a technicality anyway.

PS later edit: I have to enthuse that as I typed NCL gave me prelim FCC refund approval, bless their hearts. A potential obstacle is the cc they would refund to no longer exists; that is I had to have at least the acct number changed due to attempted charges by online thieves. Lucky I didn't cancel the account as was my first inclination.