jean87510

I have been asked as well and my card was taken. More than 1x on same cruise.

Are their passports expiring in 1 week or closer to the 6 month date? Bring birth certificates with raised seal just in case. I think you should be fine. If not, based on experience with a sister traveling to England and never checked her passport date, you can renew in person at a regional office if travel is less than 10 days. Just remember to renew when you return!

We found the bars at the Spice and Buffet were not very consistent with making drinks. The bar on 8 midship had excellent friendly bartenders. We rented a Roadster at Moorea to explore on our own. When we were at Belvedere, we actually saw a giant tour bus park at the car park!.

not where we were. Usually good snorkeling does not have decent beach or any.

Or you can purchase a lounge pass which was what we did about 2 months out using Air Tahiti Nui. The website had it on their a la carte menu.

This is not a tender port. Golf carts are about .25 mile walk. You can reserve or get when you arrive. Price is ridiculous imo $150 and they are not well maintained. There is bike rental available. Taxis are $5. Bimini is not a favorite port of mine but there are snorkeling excursions separate from ship. Only thing is they are expensive as the Bahamas always is but you don't have the hordes of inexperienced ship snorkelers who don't know what they are doing.

Is this new? Because normally I have selected a time then gone back in later to add my other info. Both on app and tablet. Try updating app or reinstalling app.

We had an inside with a pull down bed from ceiling which we used to put a lot of our stuff and theirs (4 lifejackets from closet). We did love the showers.

We were just on. I liked the carving stations. The PHO like soup was excellent at lunch. Pasta station was good. Salad station was pretty weak. Breads were not great all the time. At breakfast they had special K plus a lot of different granolas and bran.

lol we were on deck 6. We always had to go up and over! Hint - A good short cut to Spice is deck 10. Any elevator will get you there!

I did post about the snorkeling in the Pacific Islands threads. Ship wise we were on our 2nd NCL cruise and in an inside. On sea days we sat up on 13 in the shade. Spice H20 was full of chair hogs. I saw them monitor 1x. The tender situation (we had 5 tender ports) was ridiculous. No one honored the numbers. People with #14 were getting on with #3. We didn't do any shows or casino or any activities. Onboard we read, worked, went to gym, watched downloads or slept. Food wise, buffet was fine. Did have a decent breakfast set up. Salads and vegetables on their own were not very good. Salad bar was pretty sparse. We ate once in Taste and a comment was made about my husband's shorts by a fellow passenger. We just laughed. Ice cream was great. There is a soft serve and real ice cream Free coffee was not very good. The ship always seemed to be out of ice. Towels occasionally were out. There is a Starbucks onboard that can be used for free only with premium drink package. We visited Onda, Cagneys and Teppanyaki plus Silk. Cagneys was really good the 2x we went. Not a fan of Silk as they gave me food I have a reaction to even though I explained I couldn't have it. Onda was ok. NCL air was absolutely terrible with the flights. It was the cheapest alternative (2 for 1) but the timing was ridiculous. Regardless, we did make it to and from. I do have to say I will try to avoid PPT airport in the future. Dress code was pretty casual. Since it was husband's birthday cruise and since he is always in suits, I said to just be comfortable. Bring polos and dress shorts. A lot of our fellow passengers did the same it seemed. Except the one blowhard in Taste. The gym was well equipped. I was able to do my daily runs without incident. The staff does frequent it a lot which is annoying when machines are tied up. My husband and I enjoyed walking on the promenade in the afternoons for speed walks as there is no jogging there. It's on deck 7 and goes around ship. We contemplated the thermal suite but decided not to as there is no pool. Overall we enjoyed the islands tremendously. The staff were really nice. Our fellow passengers were extremely friendly. We loved Sydney and want to go back.

Lol not even close!!! Only places maybe is parts of St. John like Waterlemon Cay, Klein Bonaire, Culebra, parts of BVI and Saba. But even they aren't even in the same ballpark. Yes, we were speaking with folks onboard who frequently travel to the area and they said as well it's better to stay pre and/or post. I will have to start planning with the tip you gave me re the south pass.

Thank you. Yes, we knew we were just touching the edge of the snorkeling. We definitely are coming back, just on a much smaller ship or a land vacation. What we saw was so much more incredible than the Caribbean.

We just disembarked the Spirit for the March 28 cruise from Sydney. I was going to post about our experience instead of a live thread. Have fun!

Home now and thought I'd jot some more notes. We really enjoyed the intercontinental. The shower is an outdoor shower though which was interesting. The food was really good but drinks not included in the day pass. Took cab to airport which was hell on earth. I read many reports on this and knew what to get prior which was the priority pass for the line and the lounge pass at the airport. Boy am I glad I did! We were stopped at immigration and patted down which was fine, it happens. We were in lounge by 845pm which was about 3 hrs before our flight. The lounge does have showers and towels with shampoo and soap but I packed a sample bottles pre cruise as I knew about this. Food was ok. There is coffee, wine, soda, water. Typical airport lounge food. Places to recharge phones snd batteries. Plus it is air conditioned. I did upgrade my seat to the level above economy. Got 2 meals plus drinks from the cart. Chair was not very comfortable but at least was roomy. We loved the French Polynesian islands but think when we return we are going to do a windstar or paul Gaughan. NCL was a bit out of their league there. We want to return to Australia and try New Zealand as well but with Royal or Celebrity. We are hesitant about Hawaii because our son lived there and shared some stories with us about Hawaiians feelings about cruisers. We would rather stay there then cruise. I am afraid the underwater world has forever ruined me for the Caribbean and Bahamas! Absolutely no comparison.

Currently at the intercontinental hotel in Tahiti. We disembarked this am around 9. NCL arranged for those of us who had their air to go to the Pearl resort (sorry the name is escaping me). We thought our original day pass was here so we were happy to get a ride. We quickly realized after at least 300 people with suitcases, that it may be better to take a cab to beat the rush. When we got there we discovered we went tothe wrong hotel! So we arranged a cab to the Intercontinental which was the correct resort with the day pass. As we waited, we saw bus after bus pull up with sweaty, hot, aggravated cruisers. The intercontinental is very nice for the day pass. It is $50 pp which includes a limited lunch and they will hold your luggage. Our flight is so late, I said let's just hang and relax. If interested, do pre-book the day pass! There were quite a few turnaways. They have snorkeling available here, a giant pool, showers, towels, and a place for rescued turtles and baby turtles.

It weighs 3 lbs

Klein Bonaire is definitely a tent place. We got this one off of Amazon. We set it up in Klein Bonaire and were there all day. Brought a cooler with our protein bars and a couple of sodas plus water bottles for the day.

We were stranded there once in 2014 when we forgot to ask cab driver to wait! The owner took us back in her pickup. Now we use a car rental when we go although we have seen the cabs wait or return.

Curacao definitely Tugboat beach. Playa Piskado for turtles. There is another area called Directors Bay. You snorkel out then to the right around rocks. Best snorkeling. You have to have a rental car or this won't work as no cab or bus will go there. Klein Bonaire hands down is the best. For turtles, the salt flats. You can't do both though. If you do Klein, just get water taxi. Invest in a portable tent as we did or bring an Umbrella for shade as there is none. If you want to do the turtles, they are on Klein Bonaire BUT definitely at salt flats. I prefer a car on this island as I like air conditioning and speed to get to more places quicker.

Moorea. We had a cute rental car from Moorea Fun Roadster. We were picked up by the owner at the tender dock. We first went to Tipanier and Tipnautic to rent 2 single kayaks for $40 for 2 hours. We went into a cove and snorkeled with some rays, sharks, turtles,and beautiful coral. This was very easy to do. We then headed to a public beach with showers to clean off our snorkeling stuff and ourselves and get some pictures. Beautiful area and not far from cruise tender dock Next we decided to go to the lookout at Belvedere and check out some walkabouts near there. Then we headed around island stopping for photo shots everywhere. Got one of the Sofitel beach resort and just love the view they have there! Moorea was simply delightful. From the people to the island itself. We are adding it to our list of places to come back to. They did a great job with our ship. In the morning, there were many taxis and tours available. When we returned, the tours were gone and locals were selling the usual suspects. Our international plan worked well there. I hate to bring up Bora Bora again but the difference of handling the cruisers was a lot different. I personally wish we had stayed with Raiatea, our original stop instead of a substitution for Bora Bora. But, again, jmo. If you like snorkeling, I do suggest doing what we did with the kayak. It was really easy. We pulled it on an island and just headed out. Just make sure to have a buoy with you for the boat traffic.

Agreed. I didn't pick the itinerary. This is only to FYI those who may be in a similar predicament. And there were a few of us who did have private vendors who either left, or no showed. Some had vendors who went with the cruise ship and didn't tell them. Regardless, this is a sharing for the rare traveler who may be at Bora Bora who may be interested in an advanced inexpensive snorkeling excursion or one who may arrive on a large 1900 passenger ship to have a Plan B. We are getting ready to tender in Moorea and I have already reached out to our E car rental to please whatapp and call and stay in touch with us as I definitely don't want the same situation. He has been wonderful with emails and responses as Maohi Nui definitely was not.

The island was not offering anything at all - kayaks, taxis, tours, bikes, scooters, SUPs...etc... to walk offs. It was bedlam. We ran into the cruise director who had a similar issue in even getting a cab and went to Matira with us to and from. Almost everyone was back onboard by 3pm. Scheduled onboard was 730. Even the captain commented on the situation. They were not prepared for that size of ship.

Bora Bora - we were scheduled to go with Maohi Nui tours but were stiffed by them. They have terrible communication skills via email. They do not respond to phone messages. We had told them it would be difficult to get the first tenders and it was. We actually jumped on a tender that was earlier than our number. They abandoned our group and took off rather than answer our calls that we were on our way or call us. Will never recommend them for a cruise our size. Actually the island was terrible for any plan B for a ship our size. No taxis. No tours. Our situation happened all over as tours just took off rather than wait. People were so angry they went right back to the boat. Finally after an hour, they brought buses in and dumped everyone off at Matira beach. Luckily we had read Maohi Nui had done this to others before so we were ready just in case. We researched how to get to the Aquarium and the coral gardens on our own and we did exactly that. We walked to the Intercontinental and hid our snorkeling bags in some rocks. We then with our buoy, snorkeled and swam the .75 mile out to the area. Strong current but shallow so we could stand at areas. We saw amazing stingrays and eagle rays. Also went all over the Aquarium and the coral gardens. It was tiring but exhilarating. I would only recommend this if you are a strong swimmer and/or have snorkeling vests and buoys as there were tour boats everywhere. After about 1.5 hrs, we swam back with the current. We found a shower at Matira, cleaned our stuff off and us and returned to tender area via bus. The bus was $5 pp each way. We did go to a convenience store where I practiced my French to purchase water and soda. Whole day was about $30. We were actually glad that it ended well. We were not happy with the tour company as it was a first for us with the terrible communication and was definitely a warning sign. I'm sure others have had no issues with this company and had delightful times. However, if you are like us and at the mercy of 1900 people trying to get ashore, this company may not be for you as they clearly didn't care if they took us out or not. Snorkeling wise, I have to still give American samoa the edge. Island wise, the same.

I will add I prefer the Baltimore port as it's closer to us and parking is cheaper than Bayonne. I just don't like the itineraries because most of them have CocoCay and Nassau or other Bahamas which I despise. If I missed an itinerary without these, and have the Southern Caribbean, let me know.