taszmom

I didn't notice any lounge chairs on the beach on Ocean Cay??? I rented an umbrella for my Mom so I was wondering where the chairs are?

I tried calling 3 different phone numbers for MSC today and all the calls hang up.  Last week I called on a Saturday and was on hold for an hour before I could speak to a person.  The website is trash.  I can't complete the web check-in and I can't view my booking from my account no matter how many times I added it.

Well this was my whole beef with Freestyle Cruising... I don't always know where I want to eat each night. We would check the MDR menu and decide where we wanted to eat. I will tell you that even though you dont have reservations at the SDR, you can probably still can get in without a reservation as long as you didn't have a big party.

I think its a question of getting up and around the loop. The green slide for me slowed down a lot compared to the blue so I could see if you didn't have enough weight to work your way up to the twist, you could get stuck and ther is now going back!!!

You can book an interior for $399 on MSC Divina and get as much lobster as you want in the MDR at no charge. I've heard their Yacht Club beats Haven hands down. Time to vote with your wallets people...

Sorry was on the Divina twice and the food is disappointing. The ship is impeccably clean but the food was subpar, even the pasta.

We chose the UBP and SDP we got 3 nights. We had booked the Teppanyaki and Moderno before the cruise. I think they have a flat fee. I don't know what ship you are on because the restaurants vary. Be aware that Bayamo is a la carte so we either used that as our 3rd and pay the $15 service charge or pay the a la carte price of $90 for what we ordered that night. It took us a few days to figure out the restaurants. We had also went to Margaritaville for lunch a few days and they asked us if we wanted to use this for the SDP and we chose not to and pay a la carte. Not all specialty restaurants are included on the SDP.

They also served Lavazzo coffee up on the Waterfront where you get Gelato I think it was the Carlo's Cake Boss' cafe.

The weather is what it is this time of year, chill. The captain will cruise around the bad weather. And if you dont get to do your excursions you will be reimbursed.

Sailing tomorrow on a 6 day western caribbean on the escape...heading to Roatan, Belize & cozumel...checked out the news and saw theres a 60% chance of a storm developing in the next few days in the WESTERN CARIBBEAN!

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.php?basin=atlc&fdays=5

 

How does NCL handle these situations?

 

Was so looking forward to snorkeling and our private tour with Ronys tours in Roatan and Cave tubing in Belize..worried these wont happen now.:eek:

Join our Roll Call for 7/31

I'm also starting to feel anxious for the first time about going alone! Logically I know I'll have a blast but I have all sorts of butterflies! Hopefully some sleep on the plane and a bloody in the morning and I'll have more pep in my step!

 

 

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As a former Travel Agent I have cruised many times on my own, you will do fine. AND as I am on the same cruise as you, will see you at the Meet n Greet on Monday.

They do offer Resident Rates sometimes. The state varies depending on who they are trying to target, i.e. last minute from Miami they will promote to FL Residents because they can easily drive there. Sometimes they will offer Resident rates with an air promo because they can get a low price on the air from various air cities. It's always a good idea to enter your state, that's why they ask.

First NCL cruise and I have a couple questions.

1. I know it's Freestyle dining, but there are 5 of us and wondering if we should make reservations in the MDR? I assume the food is the same in both, is one better than the other?

2. Does anyone know which night is the White Hot Party on the 4 night?

3. Was thinking of renting cabana on GSC, but saw that they have clam shells.

Can they be reserved ahead of time or do I have to wait until in the ship?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice/tips.

Menus are same in both dining rooms, same items in the buffet as well. You can make reservations earlier in the day for a time, dining room and table size if you think you need to. Understand that 7pm is prime time and sometimes there is a short wait. We also have found a waiter that we liked and requested their section each night.

As I recall we had the White party on the last night.

You can rent the cabanas in advance. If you haven't already done so, go to http://www.ncl.com/myncl Create a login and you can view your reservation, book exursions, cabanas, order items, etc. If you don't see any cabanas listed, they are probably sold out. Just an FYI, if you need it for shade, there is plenty of trees for shade all over the island. Lots and lots of lounge chairs. Love GSC!

Another tip for GSC, make sure you get to the BBQ no later than the posted hours. They shut it down quickly because they have to tender all that equipment back. And they start shutting the bars down about an hour before the last tender.

Have fun!

As a former cruise consultant, it is not unusual to not know the details of the air and hotel arrangements this far out from departure. They negotiate contracts with the hotels in all of the departure ports and its possible they have not done that in Barcelona yet. Contracts may run calendar year. In regards to the air, you can request Premium Air now so you can select the flights you want ahead of time. They charge a custom air fee to do this and you may have to pay for the flights in full now. You also may pay more than the quoted rate they gave you (air differential). NCL contracts with the airlines so the prices are locked in now, they just don't have the exact arrangements because you cancel your cruise up to final payment without penalty, so then you would not need the air at all. Anyway, call your TA and ask these questions. When you book the air & hotel with the cruise line, its a seamless process because they know all your travel arrangements and it includes all transfers but you are at the mercy of their arrangements, i.e. air lines chosen, number of stops, flight times.

If he is alone in the cabin, then no. He would have to cancel and absorb the penalty. The penalty gets higher the closer to sailing, so check the Cancellation Policy and Penalty Rules and see how many days out from sailing it is and cancel before the penalty increases to 75%. Another option, but not necessarily a good one, is he change the date to a later sailing as long as it is within the same cancellation penalty period they will sometimes allow that.

Insurance is insurance, a passport is a specific travel document that is needed for international air. Even with a passport there will be delays and extra expense involved if you have to leave the ship early.

It was a joke. I was a Cruise Consultant for 15 years and I've seen situations where people were "stranded" by the cruise line and left in a foreign country to fend for themselves. Even though a passport is "not required" for closed-loop sailings, the cruise lines don't go as far as explaining the what-ifs scenario that might occur when you will need your passport. So like insurance, you don't know that you will need a passport until the sh*t hits the fan.

Also, if you do have a passport and you are NOT doing the cruise line's excursions, I would take the passport on the excursion. If you don't get back in time, they will not wait for you. It happens.

Passports are like insurance....you don't need it until you need it! LOL!

A friend told me about this one, plan on trying it once onboard. PB&J : Frangelico, vanilla vodka and cranberry juice.

We are sailing on the Escape 7/31 and received an email about the policy change about 2 weeks ago.

In October we tried to bring on 2 bottles of wine for our cabin, but since they were going to charge us $15 per bottle, I opted not to bring them onboard and we got it back at the end.

We usually just bring empty water bottles and fill it at the buffet for use when going off the ship.

Pepsi, no Coke! LOL! (SNL John Belushi)

https://video.yahoo.com/olympia-restaurant-000000640.html

So glad we got to sail on the SS Norway in June of 1, the first sailing right after the boiler explosion. It was our daughter's first cruise, she was 2 1/2. We had a tiny inside cabin on the Viking deck, the longest deck. You could see clear down with no obstruction, I think it was about 1/4 mile. Every time the dropped down the tender boats, it sounded like the roof of our cabin was going to cave in! LOL! What we remember most is the outstanding entertainment and food. Yes everyone did dress formal for dinner and there was a high tea at 4pm of course the midnight Chocolate buffet. We feel fortunate to have experienced what is was like to cruise on an ocean liner and how cruising used to be.

I think she was taken to India to be dismantled.

He will probably learn 'Skirt Chasing'.

What????

Price is a good indicator. It's all about filling berths. If there are empty beds, the price goes down. If there are very little, price goes up. You can go to the website and check each category and look at the list of cabins that are available but that could be very time consuming. Our 7/31 Escape cruise the price dropped and we upgraded from a balcony to a mini-suite at no extra cost.

That's exactly how I feel about it too. While it may be true that you can get by without reservations, and while it's true that there is still plenty of free dining and entertainment, it does seem like the new emphasis on reserving things is a lot less laid back and not as "Freestyle" as before.

 

Many of these changes have come about since our last cruise on NCL, and we're headed out on the Escape next Saturday, so it will be interesting to see if the changes really have made difference.

Please post when you get back and let me know how it went! Thanks!

My advice, go with Celebrity. No reservations except for specialty restaurants. That's the only reservation you make. Everything else you just freestyle.

But only if they would sail in the Caribbean in the summer, I would definitely do Celebrity!:D:)

You can still "wing it" without a reservation. The CC members here may be more likely to make a reservation but the majority of passengers go without reservations.

Well that makes me feel better. I was stressing out about having to pre-plan everything or miss out. When I go on vacation, I don't want a schedule. Thanks! :D

I remember when NCL came up with the Freestyle concept. My DH loved the idea of going to dinner at whatever time we wanted to and not having to dress for formal night. With our upcoming Escape cruise, my TA suggested, and from what I have been reading here on CC, we should make reservations in advance for dinner and entertainment BEFORE we even get on the ship. It seems like this defeats point of being flexible and free while on vacation. I don't want to pre-plan every night in advance, just not my style. We like to be more flexible. We like to see what's on the MDR menu for dinner and then decide where to eat that night. Same with the entertainment. So if we don't pre-plan in advance does that mean we are going to miss out on having dinner in some of the restaurants or missing the entertainment we want to see? Are there any others out there that just like to "wing it" with success? :D