tallyho8

I have always felt very safe in OSJ but have never been to the La Perla area. The first couple of times we went to OSJ years ago, it seemed like everyone we met there warned us to stay out of that area because of all the crime there and much of it involving tourists.

For many years tourists were warned to stay out of the La Perla neighborhood in San Juan because it was a major area for Heroin dealing and your life was in jeopardy for going there. Then it became famous after it was featured in the video of "Despacito" a song released in 2017 by Puerto Rican singers Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. Yesterday 3 more American tourists were stabbed for taking photos there. Only year before last another couple were taking photos there and chased down and one was caught and set on fire and killed while the other was beaten but survived.

I don't think anyone on this forum should recommend others to go to La Perla for restaurants or anything else.

How many of you realize that La Perla is a notorious drug dealing area and that tourists have been stabbed, shot and burned to death for taking photos there? It sure is not a place I would go to for dinner.

3 hours ago, actuarian said:

This is a problem that I have seen several times. If you do not want to be moved, it is important to make sure a reservation has "no upgrades" in the notes. Otherwise, the cruise line is free to move you to any stateroom that is in a higher category that the stateroom originally reserved.

When I booked online I found nowhere to put "no upgrades" anywhere. What I don't understand is how they can change my cabin but can't change my cabin back from the person they gave it to. Maybe they would have preferred the "upgrade" they gave me.

The same thing happened to me on Norwegian a few years ago. I had a cabin right by the elevator because we have some trouble walking long distances now and shortly before the cruise they "upgraded" to another cabin which gave us a long walk to anywhere.

We asked for our original cabin back and they refused saying "it was already booked". I said "Mine was originally booked too, but you took it away from me and gave it to them. If you can take mine away and give it to them, why can't you take theirs away and give it back to me? I was Platinum then and expected a little more than a first time cruiser but they refused to give us another cabin.

On 1/28/2023 at 3:23 PM, crewsweeper said:

On board the Mardi Gras. Just under way. Heading to San Juan, Amber Cove and Grand Turk.

Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with gout just before we left for the cruise. So good thing I didn't spring for  Cheers. I can still drink wine, in moderation and coffee. But the visions I had of sampling all the recent drink recommendations at Alchemy, Fortune Tellers and my fave Brass Magnolia as well as the P&A brews, are not to be.

Nevertheless, we're cruising and that's the main thing.

This is our 2nd time on MG. DW wanted a spa cabin, so we booked a cove balcony on Deck 5.

It's tiny. Barely bigger than an inside. Balcony doesn't even hold 2 chairs comfortably.

We were on the Mardi Gras in August 2021 during the pandemic. We had booked a regular balcony, 9341 in the curve of the ship so the balcony was twice the size of a regular balcony and the cabin was a fair amount larger than the cove balconies. It was almost impossible to get a seat at the Alchemy bar where I went to get my favorite, which was not on the menu anymore but they still make them, the Fiery Tropical Passion Martini. They just don't light them on fire anymore like they used to probably from insurance regulations.

The ship was only 50% occupied as most of the ships we took during the pandemic were but it was still crowded and hard to find seats everywhere you went. I told myself that I would never cruise on one of those large new Carnival ships again once they started filling up again. 

I had gout twice but got on allopurinol the second time a dozen years ago and have never had it again. 

21 hours ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

Thank you very much. We are going June 25th. Really not expecting much after continuously reading these bad reports about the Meraviglia. 

 

What's the point of having the drink package if you can't get one or it takes 30 minutes every time you want one?

The Meraviglia isn't the only ship slow to serve drinks. Norwegian is notorious for closing most of their bars during the day to slow the flow of drinks to people with the beverage package which they convince people to buy by making their drink prices so high.

It is much easier to get drinks while you have the package on Celebrity and Holland American.

To answer the original question, I have cruised a lot and paid attention to the sales and it seems that most of the times that kids are free are during anytime except summer, when not many kids sail because they are in school.

Saint Greg I am sorry but I have to stop reading your posts. I have been trying to lose weight but the posts with food photos that you have are completely ruining my diet as I have to try them all out and the result is that I have to buy all new clothes for my next cruise. Could you please just post some of the worst meals you have ever gotten though I am sure that none of them will be in New Orleans.

I think it was an accident by the travel agent and not by HAL. I was on the same cruise where we were promised $300 OBC, $150 to each of us. The same day I booked the cruise I received an invoice from HAL showing the OBC so there could be no mistake. Fares and offers change rapidly and people booking the same day frequently pay different fares for the same category cabins. Your TA may have booked after the offer ended or misread the offer in the first place. Did you go to HAL's website when you booked the cruise to see if it said the same OBC your TA said?

Below is a copy of my invoice for that cruise showing they offered $300 OBC and that we received it.

According to Google Maps, it's a shorter distance to Native Choice from the port than it is from the ship to the port.

Having cruised very many times and read thousands of forums, I have learned to see how many posts a person has made and read some of them before I determine if they are a regular poster or a spammer. When I see a person writing a very negative post, and it is the only post they have written,  when many others have made positive posts, I tend to think that person may be working for the competition.

10 hours ago, Alfisti said:

It's sad that some people can't be bothered to check the luggage tag to just ensure they have the right one.  I double-triple check the luggage tags because I've seen so many duplicate bags over the voyages - some even missing the same emblems that fall off etc... 

It's not just people who fail to check if it is their bag. I'm sure you have read reports of the high government official who was just fired for stealing bags.

Does MSC offer any shuttles from Fort Lauderdale airport to Miami cruise port and back? If not, do they offer any excursions that bring you to the Fort Lauderdale airport at the end.

We keep our suitcases well marked so that the wrong person won't pick them up. Of course that doesn't prevent someone from stealing them as a high profile person has been seen doing on the news lately. But even so, this is the suitcase that was lost and not returned to us for over 6 weeks.

On 12/31/2022 at 8:23 AM, jb008 said:

UPDATE:

And.... FedEx has now lost my bag. I spoke with customer service and they originally said it didn't leave the drop-off location (FedEx pack & ship) but I pressed them because the tracking info on their site says that it got to a regional depot in FL. The rep mentioned that sometimes scans get missed, so the bag might be in transit but just not tracking fully in their system. I shared that I have an AirTag in the bag, and it is continuing to ping at their regional depot address.

 

Based on that, the phone rep called the depot and they've determined the bag is presently missing in action at the depot and they've opened a "tag" to track it down and get it back to its regularly scheduled travels.

 

I'm sorry to sound like a salesman, I promise I'm not. But, the hero of this story continues to be the AirTag as I was able to tell a day early that there's no way the bag is getting to me as scheduled and that was the prompt that allowed the phone rep to push the depot staff that the bag is already late and in limbo.

 

 

Getting off our cruise in Vancouver, our 2 bags were nowhere to be found. We reported them and had to catch our plane home, to New Orleans with no bags. Three weeks later Celebrity found our bags and sent them to us Fed Ex. We were thrilled that they were on the way because we had another cruise booked in 2 more weeks.

Well, Fedex delivered one small bag a week later and we found out that they "did not know where the other bag was. They would not say it was lost because when they declare it lost they have to pay for it. Weeks were going by so we had to purchase new luggage and new clothes for my wife to go on the next cruise. A couple weeks after we returned from the next cruise they delivered our lost bag. No compensation was offered because they never declared that our bag was lost even though it took 6 weeks to be delivered.

I have been on excursions going into cathedrals and churches where the rules were written on the wall:

No hats, no barefeet, no shorts, no tanktops, no flash photos.

And yet, seen other Americans, in shorts, wearing ball caps and tanktops, taking flash photos inside.

This is simply rude and where the term "ugly American" comes from. At these times I am embarrassed to be an American.

13 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

Was this your first cruise from NOLA?

It sounds like most of these issues were caused by NOLA port personnel who do not work for NCL.

I have cruised from New Orleans over 20 times. If these people in the NCL uniforms are not direct employees of NCL, they most definitely are taking instructions from NCL.

We were on the Breakaway last week and Bulleit and Buffalo Trace were on their Premium Plus list.

My wife is handicapped, on a scooter, and when we got there we saw no place to sit. I asked an attendant and she pointed to 2 chairs in the rear next to the roped off Haven area and said that was the handicapped section. We sat there along with several others who were in wheelchairs or had walkers.

About 20 minutes later an attendant came by and said that we had to move because the Haven area was full and they needed that area for Haven passengers to sit and that the handicapped people would have to stand up and wait. Nobody moved. She kept telling us we had to move but everyone refused. They could have gone to another area nearby to ask people who were not handicapped to move.

A few Haven passengers came into the area and told us we had to move because we were just regular passengers and they were "Haven". This was our 57th cruise and even though it was the first cruise for some of them, they thought they were too good to sit among us "regular passengers" even though there was a special area for the Haven passengers, roped off, with signs, and we were sitting in an area that we were told was for handicapped people.

After threatening to call security and still no one moving to let the "high class" people sit, the attendants gave up and instead let the Haven people go directly on the ship. It used to mean something when you achieved the status of being a Diamond member, with your own waiting area, but now you are just one of the "regular passengers" compared to a first time cruiser in the Haven. I think this was our last Norwegian cruise.

53 minutes ago, crewsweeper said:

You get a chance to do a quick hop to Fernandos?

No. I have never seen Fernando at his store that early in the morning.

I was in Costa Maya Wednesday with 4 ships docked. I saw the pier shuttle running off and on during the day.

At the last moment Norwegian Breakaway changed the times on Costa Maya from 11AM to 7 PM to 6AM to noon. This ruined all our plans because the sun rise was at 7:20 AM and most places did not even open till after 9AM. Most people had to cancel their planned shore excursions. We had 4 ships in port with the worlds largest, Wonder of the Seas and there were so many people we did not even bother to go ashore. A very disappointing day.

We docked downtown this cruise so I did not try to get a taxi to the Blue Taco Truck but I was reluctant to try a truck because it doesn't seem like they would have enough room to make the real Al Pastor tacos. Next time we dock at the Carnival dock so I will try them out then.

My wife can't negotiate many steps so that leaves out some places we can't go to. We just went to Novena Ola restaurant in the Museum and were happy they had the handicap elevator working. No tacos but good food and 2 for 1 drinks at happy hour.

10 hours ago, YVRteacher said:

If it helps, when we were on the NCL Jewel in May 2022 on the second leg of a cruise from Seward to Vancouver, Alaska Airlines cancelled a flight from Seattle to Seward which impacted 40 people who were scheduled to board the ship in Seward.  Shore side NCL staff were in frequent contact with ship management and the passengers who were affected boarded in Juneau.  NCL crew even helped them carry their luggage up the gangway!

 

On these boards, one person will say “no, that can’t happen, these are the rules…” but then someone else will say “it can happen.”

 

I wonder if your friends could contact the general manager of the ship in advance?

 

Best wishes to both you and your friends.  I truly hope it works out well.

That is probably because they booked the flight through NCL.