smashedpumpkins

21 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

are you driving your own cars to the airport and parking there?

We'll be dropped off by family with the car seats. The car seats can either remain in the car or come with us.

20 hours ago, casofilia said:

There are now more and more tourist type buses that have seat belts especially in some countries, Australia for instance, where the driver/guide tells you it is mandatory to wear them.

However young children require a special type of harness in that case as adult seat belts are worse than useless.  Also NCL tends to fill a bus so you may well find that, because they are free, they will not have seats for your children.

I'm going to call NCL on Monday to get their opinion. On a previous call they stated the kids will sit on our lap for excursions though it was a rather off hand comment so I'll verify.

17 hours ago, thatjoeguy said:

Skip the car seats. They’ll just end up taking up space in the room. 

 

Just curious - what at are you doing for sleeping arrangements? We were in a mini suite with one crib, and there was barely any room. I can’t imagine trying to fit two...

We have a family mini-suite and the cruise line said they'll provide 2 pack 'n plays. I do worry about the lack of space but we'll make do somehow.

16 hours ago, don't-use-real-name said:

On a secondary note: Have you cleared your travel and seating assignments with the airline you are flying on ?

Number of seats versus oxygen masks in a given row - bulk head seats OK - emergency row NO - have you considered

about your carry-on luggage and support luggage for the twins. Are you thinking of using forward facing infant back

pack carriers freeing your hands for other carry-on tasks - early boarding is recommended if you get to the gate timely.

A whole multitude of problems to be worked out which no doubt you have considered - is the NCL ships nursery going

to be able to give the both of you some time together to enjoy the cruise - you are going to need it !

Previous poster had a question about sleeping (crib) accommodations - interesting.

 

RE: those car seats would certainly be more of a hindrance than of useful need - but then ? ? ?

• Great response, thank you! We have thought about much of this and so much more.
• I've actually considered the oxygen masks as well. We're flying Southwest and are planning as if we will be required to both sit in aisle seats across from each other. They already have their lap tickets from Southwest.
• Luggage will be tough but we'll limit it as much as possible. We're not bringing a bulky stroller and if we don't bring car seats that helps too. (We have 2 cheap umbrella strollers for the ship) It'll take a couple trips to move it all regardless.
• Our carriers are 360 degrees and can be front or back. We usually set them up on the front side. They're the Ergobaby 360 carrier which are very comfortable. We use them on hikes often.
• This is the first time flying with kids but they usually call for families to board early. That should help. I think I ready families board after the "A" group with Southwest. And Southwest gives you 2 free checked bags so we'll check most of the luggage. For the ship, we're only Gold status, so no priority boarding there but our luggage will have already been checked so it'll be easy enough.
• I haven't heard of any NCL nursery options. We do have a 3rd person with us who may occasionally take the kids for an hour while we go to the dinning room. But for the most part we'll bring them with us everywhere. We'll make it the best we can.

8 hours ago, newmexicoNita said:

you are about on: in fact when I was still a tA I had a few clients come back for Caribbean trips, both cruise and land only, complaining about the lack of seat belts in the cabs and no way to use car seats. OP, I am not sure where or when you would use one on a cruise ship. 

6 hours ago, PTC DAWG said:

Leave the car seats with the sitter.  That would be my choice.. 🙂

6 hours ago, PTC DAWG said:

Leave the car seats with the sitter.  That would be my choice.. 🙂

I believe we may go this route. It leaves me feeling uneasy but it is likely unnecessary to have them with us.

56 minutes ago, Apsalar said:

This is a topic where people feel strongly about this stuff. But in general if you're talking about buses or some kinds of vans, you can't really use car seats there anyway so lap sitting should be ok. 

 

It is a topic to take seriously. However, I also realize I may end up bringing car seats that I cannot possible use even once. I know some non NCL excursions use vans that have seat belts but from my experience NCL usually uses buses. But that is why I'm posting here for those that have children and have found other use cases I'm not considering.

Even in the event of an emergency it seems unlikely that we would either have the car seats with us or that they would be necessary if we were on the ship.

We are bringing 2 infant chest carriers but I've also read that these are dangerous in buses/planes/cars as you may end up using your baby as an airbag.

My wife and I are bringing our 9 month old twins on an NCL Caribbean cruise. When will we actually be able to use the car seats?

• Drive from home to airport with car seat.
• They will sit on our laps for our flight.
• Cruise line coach from hotel to port (Pretty sure no seat belts and thus no car seats right?)
• Our excursions are all thought NCL for this trip. The kids were free for all of our excursions. Will we ever be able to use a car seat or does this mean they must be on laps? (Since they were free)
• No plans to take taxi cabs anywhere but I'm sure we would be looking at lap use as well if we did.
• Port to airport will be through the cruise line again after an excursion.

I'm wondering if we will ever need the car seats other than from our home to the airport. Am I missing an obvious reason to bring them?

We booked a hotel through NCL for a surprisingly bargain rate at the Marriott Orlando Airport hotel. This included transfer vouchers for the 4 of us from the hotel to the port. I see the transfer vouchers in our edocs but there's no listed time. Is it assigned later? If there are multiple busses, how can we ensure we are on the first bus? Do we need to call ahead to schedule the time?

Another random question, is there any way to add the hotel stay to my Marriott account? My guess is no as the voucher makes it seem like the hotel doesn't have our info yet.

Thanks!

Not to be rude, but I'm not sure what kind of validation you are looking for here. You already pay 20% gratuity on the packages and then you say you tip a buck every couple of drinks and then you give more to your favorites. That's really nice.

 

 

 

So, how could that be in any way be considered insulting? If you want to tip above the already added gratuity do what you feel is appropriate for YOU and your budget.

Well gratuities that are only apparent on a paycheck are less appreciated at the time of serving. They begin to appear like regular wages. However, small tips in the states can be perceived mockinlgy in the states.

To be clear, I am against the idea of tips in most circumstances in the states but I understand there are differences with cruises.

I'm trying to maximize the level of service we receive.

We usually try to book our cruises with a promotion that includes the drink package and thus gratuities as well.

For the last couple cruises I usually tip $1 about every 2 drinks with the same bartender. We drink plenty. (We tip more for our favorites at the end)

I'm curious if such a small amount would ever be considered "offensive" or even laughable? In the states it very well could be. Some seem to honestly appreciate the tip and I would say service has even better.

What are your tip amounts? Do you drink close to 10+ on a sea day? Thank you.

I suspect, in this case, because they were using credit card rewards points to book the cruise, they had to "pay" in full at the time of booking.

If thats the case which it sounds like it is, how do you get a refund for a price drop if paying with points?

You are correct. For whatever reason, they will only apply points once per itinerary. If I partially used points as a deposit I would be forced to pay cash for the rest. This is the same reason I had to pay $56 cash for the upgrade instead of points.

I can't say for sure how the points refund would work other than what occurred for me on a previous cruise. I booked the trip with points, paid in full, but forgot to apply a CruiseNext voucher. I called NCL directly and they applied it and refunded my credit card on file with them. I did not call the travel agency who handled the points usage.

You were lucky to gain things. For us to get a small reduction in the cabin pricing before final payment, NCL took back free bottle of wine and strawberries (Platinum). My point of view was that it was worth the give backs since we do not drink and would have given the wine away and we can always get strawberries on board. All of our other perks remained.

 

To explain fuirther, we have 3rd party insurance which is based upon passenger's age/total cost of cruise. So when the cabin pricing went down, so did our insurance cost. This is another reason why we decided to wait until we are on board to pay the daily tips at the now higher rate so that the tips did not push the cost back up!!!!! Paying the daily tips on board will result in an additional charge of about $6.13 per person. No big deal.

 

Compared to other cruise lines, NCL's system is more complicated. For them, it is easier to charge Guest 1 for everything rather than splitting the cost among the total guests in a cabin.. On our last sailing, we spent so much time at Guest Services trying to straigthen everything out with the final result being that we needed to work it out between us and pay each other. They either could not or would not billl the charges correctly. Lesson learned, we will wait untill we are on board with separate accounts to book shore excursions with the appropriate discount due me as Platinum and have them post the tips daily. The whole purpose of prepaying the shore excursions, etc. prior to the sailing with a credit card along with the daily tips with each guest being charged accordingly simply doesn't work with NCL.

 

 

MARAPRINCE

I agree that their pricing system is strange. You receive different pricing information all the way to the final checkout where it eventually lays it out correctly. When using credit card points, it makes the most sense for us to prepay gratuities and pick some of their promotions like beverage and dining.

You have me wondering actually if I could have packed a few tours into the bill before paying with points. While the credit card travel agency cannot add the tours directly, I can book through NCL, add all the extras and tours I want, then transfer it as a whole to the travel agency. (Within 10 days I think it is) Maybe next time I'll experiment.

For insurance, my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card provides adequate coverage as a benefit for no extra cost. Sure it's not as comprehensive as travel insurance but it has already covered us for several claims in the past. It's an expensive card, but the perks pay for the card in savings usually in just 1 trip.

Here's an update to my question a few weeks ago. What happened was different than I explained above due to more changes.

I called NCL and was told to speak with the travel agency. I made the call after another price and promotional change. I'm not sure how travel agency's usually work but with Chase they spoke with NCL on another line for 15 minutes to work it out.

The price had now dropped for our cabin, $100 of onboard credit was added, and we gained all promotions with their "Take 5" promotion. (Yay to the dining package) We should also receive the "Past Guest Offer" though I didn't confirm it like I should have. Instead of keeping our cabin we upgraded from a Family Balcony to a Family Balcony Mini-Suite. The mini-suites are mid ship which is also great for less rocking.

Like I said above, the cruise was paid in full from a few months ago with credit card points. We booked the cruise with Chase Bank Ultimate Rewards who uses a 3rd party travel agency for cruise bookings. When everything was all said and done we only paid an extra $56 but the upgrades and onboard credit far exceed the cost. To clarify, we paid the $56 in cash, as they only allow points redemptions once. Our old cabin would have resulted in about a $150 to $200 savings (not counting the onboard credit). Really pleased!

Our next cruise increased slightly in price but now it offers a considerable amount of onboard credit that drops us below our original price point. More tempting is the "Past Guest Offer" that has now been added also. (Almost platinum)

We paid in full using credit card points months ago and the final payment wasn't actually due until August. Does a payment in full prevent us from taking advantage of price changes? If not, do we need to call our credit card company or NCL to try and switch our rate? Thanks!

Sometimes I like to take a dip in the pool, sometimes I sit in the hot tub, but usually I like to listen to an audio book while eating french fries and a burger in the sun. To each their own really. We all vacation for different reasons. Some to sight see and others to escape and relax.

The weather of course matters.

It also depends on the ship. I was on the Sky, which is notorious for a younger crowd, and we had 20 people performing a cannon ball at the same time with others rotating in. It was a blast.

Here's a bunch of data for the curious like I always am.

• 10/27 Sailing 7 Days NCL Dawn Bermuda
  
• 10/20 booked an inside cat IF guarantee for $649 (Sail away was $499 at the time but we wanted the ubp - 10/24 it dropped to $399)
  
• 10/22 placed bid of $115/pp for balcony - this was in the high "poor" range
  
• We have silver status and first time bidding
  
• Balcony guarantee was $749 at the time of bid and ended at $699
  
• 10/24 assigned inside cat IA midship accessibility room (Might be noisey below the buffet but we'll take it! Better than deck 4 front)
  
• 10/25 received rejection notice for balcony bid
  

Best of luck bidding!

My inside room on the Dawn for 10/27 was just assigned to a midship deck 11 accessibility room. Now I need to decide if I should cancel my bid to balcony. Other than some foot traffic it sounds like an awesome room. We are always on deck 4 or 5. I also wonder though if us being assigned a room means we won't win the bid anyway.

I just received the bidding email after only booking the cruise 2 days ago. First time for us so a little exciting.

Believing all promotions fall under the same over inflated pricing leaves missed opportunities. I can only really speak for NCL but there are diamonds in the rough rates to be found. You may pay an extra $300 in fare, taxes and gratuities but that $300 savings is more than enough to cover comparable costs without the promotion. Build a spreadsheet and track your pricing for fare, taxes, pre-paid gratuities, drink gratuities and drinks. If I can find rates for about $200 a night for 2 I usually find it worthwhile.

Celebrity offers a free drink package as one of the four perks you choose when you book. You can upgrade to two perks or all four perks. Sometimes, they offer two free perks as a promo.

 

The four perks are: Classic Drink Package (includes alcohol); unlimited internet; OBC; or pre-paid gratuities.

The internet package would be a huge plus. We need it for work and NCL charges $30 a night for unlimited. I'll toy with their numbers and see what I learn.

There is no such thing as a free lunch...or free drink package :). The packages are essentially marketing promos and always come with a price. For example, if you know how to shop around (with some high volume cruise agencies) you can usually get a price for a cruise with or without drink packages. In most cases, the cruise lines simply increase prices to cover drink packages and other amenities. They muddy the waters by offering all kinds of benefits and packages. Less then 2 years ago we booked a long ( 38 day) HAL cruise at a pretty high price....which included their drink package. A few weeks later, by watching pricing, we were able to rebook that cruise (the same cabin) for about $10,000 less! The major difference was that we gave up the drink package. I seem to recall when we did the math that drink package was costing us over $130 per person/day! Since our average bar bill on a cruise averages about $40 per passenger day....the drink package (at over 3 times that cost) made little sense.

 

You will see a lot of this kind of marketing with lines like Celebrity and RCI....which routinely run promotions. Sometimes the promos make sense...and other times they are a complete rip off. So what to do? Always cost out your cruise at a "Real Cost per Passenger day." To do this simple calculation simply combine your total cruise price (including taxes and fees) with the "real" value of any amenities. So if a cruise line gives you a drink package....forget the value they put on the package and value it at what you would normally spend on drinks per passenger day. So that Celebrity Classic Drink package that might be value at $59 per passenger day (by the cruise line) is likely worth something less to most folks. Of when Celebrity gives me a free dinner in an alternative restaurant which they value at $50 per person...it is actually worth less to me...since we seldom pay full price for those restaurants (we usually can negotiate 30-50% off).

 

Hank

I agree and I always price the cost out at (cruise fare + pre-paid gratuities + beverages + beverage gratuities) / nights. The promotional rates with NCL often inflate prices but at times they end up remarkably low too. Our last cruise was an 11 day Mediterranean cruise. Our total cost was only $2,065 in an ocean view midship after all gratuities and beverage package. (For 2 people) $187 a night is hard to beat.

Norwegian Cruise Line offers an unlimited beverage package as one of their "Free at sea" promotions. Even with the gratuities cost for the UBP, and if you find a bargain fare, the rate is unbeatable. It's kept my wife and I going back to NCL.

Carnival has some cheap fares but their $50 per day/per person for their UBP seems to crush any fare deals.

We would love to float some other boats. Do other cruise lines regularly run promotions that offer similarly free or discounted packages?

We booked tours in Marseille, Naples, Rome, and Florence with ItalyTours.eu on our 11 day Norwegian Mediterranean cruise. Our stop in Marseille was cancelled due to weather and we were quickly refunded after a short email. The other 3 tours went off without a hitch. 2 of the tours we were in a smaller minivan. The 3rd was in a small bus with maybe 20 people max capacity? In each case we were picked up an dropped off at the port. My wife and I especially enjoyed the smaller groups. It was easier to ask questions, easier to hear the tour guide, far more social, and you get better views of what they're talking about. The smaller vans also easily fit the small Italy streets. The guides were excellent and the price was much lower than Norwegian's price.

I would absolutely recommend these guys for anyone visiting Italy. I suggest you visit your roll call section and spread the tours so they book quickly and you end up with the same cruisers on each tour.

Really awesome, thanks.

Thank you everyone! I really appreciate all the replies. It is a private tour but it's a group of us from roll calls. So it's all ship passengers. In both cases, even Civi, we're being picked up at the ship. In Civi they're shuttling us in mini-vans to our tour van.

So it sounds like we should be able to get off the ship pretty quickly and in time. I'll be early either way. I was afraid it would take an hour plus like disembark day. Thanks again!

As mentioned when you posted this same question on the NCL board, you should be off within 10 -15 minutes of docking. It is a very quick process.

If you're being collected at the pier, it shouldn't take more than 10 - 15 minutes to get off the ship, even if it's at the same time as the rest of the herd.

 

But Civi is a big port, and if you don't have transport meeting you at the pier you take a (free) shuttlebus to the port gate - and if there are long lines for the buses that can delay you.

 

Is this a private tour, or one shared with others on the ship?

I'm guessing you'll be collected at the pier, but you need to find out.

 

Or is it shared with others from hotels etc? :eek:

It might be problematic if your pick-up point is in town.

 

JB :)

Thank you. It is a private tour but it's a group of us from roll calls. In both cases, even Civi, we're being picked up at the ship. In Civi they're shuttling us in mini-vans to our tour van. So it sounds like we should be able to get off the ship pretty quickly and in time. I'll be early either way. I was afraid it would take an hour plus like disembark day. Thanks again!

May I suggest you post your question under the NCL section.

 

You need an answer from someone who knows the Spirit.

Will do, thanks.

My wife and I will be on the Norwegian Spirit in February touring around the Mediterranean. Normally we sleep in after a long night but this time we booked some tours with ItalyTours.eu. One of the days we arrive in Marseille, France at 7 AM and the tour leaves from the ship at 7:30 AM. (The Rome port at 7:50 AM)

This feels kind of early. Having never actually lined up in the morning, is there long waits to get off the ship at a port? Should we plan to get in line early or is it normally quick to disembark?

I've been on many forums wondering this same question. I've looked it up before and forgot. I just figured it was my spouse some how. Good to know though, if I can remember!

My wife and I will be on the Norwegian Spirit in February touring around the Mediterranean. Normally we sleep in after a long night but this time we booked some tours with ItalyTours.eu. One of the days we arrive in Marseille, France at 7 AM and the tour leaves from the ship at 7:30 AM. (The Rome port at 7:50 AM)

This feels kind of early. Having never actually lined up in the morning, is there long waits to get off the ship at a port? Should we plan to get in line early or is it normally quick to disembark?

My wife and I are heading on our third cruise leaving tomorrow to the Bahamas. All 3 have been met with their own issues.

Our first was one to remember. (Linked in my sig) I wish I could recall the height of the swells. It was our honeymoon so we had a balcony. My poor wife was sick the entire trip as well as 1/3rd of the crew. Standing on the balcony and looking out was unbelievable. It felt like I was in a live action of "The Perfect Storm". The waves were gigantic. You would walk the hallways and everyone would sink sideways to the wall and then back the other way. They closed the top deck but even from a lower one I could stand in the wind at an incredibly sharp angle.

We're ready with the patch and meclizine for tomorrow. Luckilly I dont get sick and my wife has had no side affects from the drugs. I just hope its enough.