SouthLyonCruiser

You walk off with everyone else for the carry your own luggage option. You do get priority tags and disembark ahead of most other groups if you want to let the ship handle your luggage.

 

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Thanks, that is what I figured but you never know. I see you are from Berkley; we live in South Lyon. Maybe we will see you at a meet and greet someday.

We've been on 13 cruises and always fly in the day of the cruise. We purchase travel insurance that covers the cost of changing flights or flying us to the first cruise stop. I know it would be a pain but not in the wallet. Take the cost of a hotel room over thirteen cruise and that adds up. We take our chances but are covered if we are late due to weather.

Did you get any of the free perks? Could that $99 been the tax or gratuity on one of the perks?

 

 

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I think you may have hit the nail on the head. When I am pricing a cruise I pick my perks and see what the difference is with the "free" perks and without. Some don't add anything but others like the UBP do.

As they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". As the previous reply stated; there will be people who hate the fare and those who love it.

As a platinum member do you have a priority walk off or do you just get in line with the rest of those who do the walk off?

Alaska, hands down. A balcony cabin is a must as you are in sight of shore most of the time and hugging the rail with a bunch of other passengers is not for me. As to Hawaii; we are from Michigan and have done two Hawaii cruises. The first was Norwegian, where we had to fly to Hawaii with a total of nine hours flight time. The second trip was on Princess round trip out of LA.

If you choose Alaska we found that a round trip out of Seattle is the way to go. If you go out of Vancouver the air fare is a little steeper.

Good luck.

I would much rather spend nine days at sea as opposed to the five hours of flight from LA to Honolulu.

Our post office has the forms.

Ditto. We got our forms from the post office also. The clerk was very helpful as to what the procedure was. No muss no fuss.

This is one of the many reasons that, before I book, I take a good look at the deck plans. We are going on the Jade and the deck plan for the Haven does not have its own bar or restaurant.

There are a couple of things that I think NCL should add to their web site that is already available on Princess.

1. When looking at a cruise and going through the booking process (I am not really booking, just looking) you can get to a point when picking a cabin that will show you is a particular cabin is available or sold.

2. On Princess you can see menus for the restaurants. (granted sometimes for particular ships but at least it gives you an idea of what to expect).

You would think that cruise lines would be checking out their competitors web sites as a way to edit their own.

Be careful of the upgrade. You may find that the upgraded cabin is available because it is in a poor location (below the buffet or near a very noisy area).

Should be noted that all ships with haven do not have restaurant or lounge.

There is no disclosure on the NCL site that Haven restaurant and Lounge may not available on all ships. The NCL Haven page is very misleading. Amenities listed imply that they are available to all Haven Guests.

So, in that case, there is no issue with bringing guests to Haven Restaurant or Haven Lounge. :confused:

This is one of the many reasons that we check out deck plans before we book a cruise. We are going on the Jade and put a bid in on an upgrade to the Haven. The minimum bid for the two cabins we looked at were pretty reasonable for an 11 day cruise. After looking at the deck plans for the Haven I saw that they did not have their own bar or restaurant.

They can be forgiven if they have never traveled anywhere before but, that being said, when traveling ANY important documentation, prescription drugs, cash or valuables of any kind should be in your checked luggage.

Out of the four previous answers only one did not like her. This is the reason I always read tons of reviews on any ship that we are thinking of booking. You are always going to find someone who had a bad experience; and, that experience may have just been an anomaly.

We are going on our 14th cruise and have, all but once, used the same travel agent. If I have any questions or problems she always took care of it. No spending hours on the phone with NCL. I have never had a problem that she could not get solved.

If you don't mind spending the money you should do the Pilots Choice helicopter tour. I recommended it to a couple of people (and one of them is really tight with a dollar and complains about everything) and they all loved it. My wife usually handles the decisions concerning money but, on this one, I did insist and she has never regretted it.

When reading reviews I always look for consistent pluses and minuses, not just good or bad reviews, and make my decisions based on those alone. Sometimes consistent bad or good reviews mark up or down for things that I don't really care about and I take that into consideration.

I am just disappointed that Cruise Critic eliminated the ability to "click" in number of reviews from a reviewer so that I can see whether the reviewer always complains or always compliment. I contacted Cruise Critic about this and never received a reply.

Other than acronyms for companies I hate them and refuse to try and keep up with them. I don't use them and prefer complete and concise words. I would rather not have a "guide" so that I can read a post or review and skip any of them that use too many of them. These are not text that have character limits.

It may also be that those spa suites aren't located in the Haven area itself. Just guessing.

It seems to me that this was added on a cruise we took years ago but because we book about a year out and pay in full we did not have to pay it. It seems at the time the charge either applied to new booking only or to those who had not paid in full. I could be wrong.

I will give you a piece of advice that I have given three other Alaska cruisers and all three took the advice and thanked me for it. I have to mention that two of them were really tight with a dollar.

Book the expensive pilots choice helicopter tour.

When we did it the price was around $400 each and worth every penny.

On three cruises to Alaska this is by far our favorite.

If you do a little research you will find that the water on board most ships meets higher quality standard than most municipalities. I drink the tap water and just add ice from the bucket in my stateroom. I just make sure to tell the cabin steward to make sure to keep my ice bucket full.

Your question is another reason I always recommend that people use a travel agent.

I have used the same travel agent for almost twenty years and could not be happier.

Knowing our taste and past cruises she saved me from a horrible experience when I asked her to book a fifteen day cruise on a cruise line that I hadn't used before and she told me that the level of service and food would not be what I have come to expect.

I have to pick my cabin. If you read the ship reviews on Cruise Critics site you will find plenty of complaints about noisy cabin locations. I imagine that the complainers are either someone who has little cruise experience or a guaranteed category cruiser.

As a previous answer stated; it is just a guaranteed category, not a particular cabin. So you could end up with a balcony below the buffet or some other noisy spot. We bid on a have H5 or H4 but in that category there are no "bad" locations.

We are going on our 14th cruise on the Jade to Panama soon and I was wondering if anyone has ever had trouble with security or immigration with their medications. In the past I have always filled my seven day pill holder at home and have not taken the original bottles with my name on them with me.

Has anyone ever had trouble with this?