BeeeJay

He's gone now. No longer works for NCL.

Probably quit after dealing with all the drunks on my last cruise! ;)

Hopefully, it will be Tyler Gray. He is awesome!

He is fantastic, he looked completely different this year than last year, different hair, glasses etc. He is very entertaining!

Great review---seems like you guys really lived it up and enjoyed a lot of the optional stuff. I prefer to do the same, but wife reigns things in slightly, except in the shopping category.

Also was way less than impressed by the steaks. Sides were small but good. Loved the baked potato soup.

I know a lot of people are annoyed by the nickel and dime charging by NCL, but another way to look at it is they have low base pricing and you can add a lot of exactly what you like while still keeping the price reasonable compared to other vacations---ESPECIALLY for a family.

Also agree the drink package is a solid value (at least when only paying the tip!), but the slow service is really a drawback. My friends and I like to "throw em back" at a pretty good pace, and the slow drink service really deters us from cruising.

Thanks for the report!

Airplane mode: ON

WiFi: ON

Bluetooth: OFF

Cellular Data: OFF ( But will be off anyway in airplane mode).

You will have no problem finding NFL games. They played an NFL game at every routine time slot last month in the Brew House. My only worry would be a competing game in the same time slot would be shown instead but if they stagger the playoffs so only one game is on at a time in each slot you won't miss it.

NFL Playoff games are never played in same time slots,

Normally they have the 4 games each of the first two weekends approx:

Sat 3pm

Sat 7pm

Sun Noon

Sun 315pm

The ship has one international sports channel that features European soccer. You are not in Los Angels any more Toto. You are on an international ship, flagged in the Bahamas, with many international guests who are not interested in the play offs.

 

NCL does not go out of their way to broadcast American sports.

Darn! We were on a Celebrity ship last January and the playoffs were on in one of the bars. I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will be playing somewhere onboard! Lol!

 

 

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Hilarious Response.....all the big screens will show the NFL games, by the pools, etc. Soccer will be on in the brewpub

Platinum boarded first on our cruise.

CAS check-in line had been very short past 3 years, at far left of the lines, so I've never looked past it, just walked right up to the next agent and checked in!

I drink Grey Goose and soda with extra lime and it was covered with no charge. Kettle One and Tito is also available at no charge. I believe they use Absolut if you just ask for Vodka/soda.

$9.95 for grey goose. But flavored is $16.95

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They jacked up all the flavored vodka to $16.95

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completely agree with previous comments, in past years I noticed much stronger pours, seemed pretty weak at times on Escape earlier this month.

I had the best luck tipping early in the cruise, not even tipping heavy, just anything, then they would take great care of me the rest of the cruise.

We had steward do it last trip, was all gone by first time we returned to room after unpacking. Total non-issue.

Yes....7 whopping dollars for missing a port

I was pissed off about $19/person. Funny they never changed the port fees when the ports changed.

Just off the December 16th sailing, Falmouth cancelled again, except we only got 7 dollars refunded for port charges and no extra OBC. Safety first, but extremely disappointing nevertheless.

 

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$7? :o

Also just received the credit card refund from Resorts for a Day for the cancelled Jamaica excursion. Did have to call to request, but it was handled smoothly.

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Gave wife my first class upgrade on way to Miami, daughter insisted I ride with her on return. She didn’t want Mom limiting her intake on her first time flying in first class. [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

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Mini-suite large balcony

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A few more choice pics:

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Now these I need to read... which site? TA?

Most of them are mixed in here, you can look by original poster:

https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/index.php?forums/vegas-trip-reports.11/&order=view_count

https://vegasfanatics.com/index.php?forums/full-las-vegas-trip-reports.13/&order=view_count

A couple additional review comments and pics:

Wife said soda from gun tastes awful.

On Great Stirrup Cay some stuff is free some isn’t. Free drinks I think we’re Bahama Mama, Margarita, Oina Colada. We thought soda was free with UBP, but we got two 0.82 cent charges. On the last day we spent our remaining balance on my wife’s room credit (we had 5 people so had to reserve a Studio for the 5th) in the gift shop and thought we left about $1 in credit. Ended up we owed $0.47 and had to wait in line the last morning to pay it. Major pain in the ass. Next time we would just put a credit card down but didn’t this time since not really charging to that room.

Some more pics:

Miami AirBnB was fantastic, a bit dated but right on Beach:

UberXL barely fit all our stuff and people. 3/4 rides were around $30, but the short ride to the cruise ship was $105!!!! Total ripoff on that one due to art week surge maybe? Or cruise boarding surge? Not sure but didn’t have any options at that point. Will install Lyft as an option for next time.

Miami is well stocked with Corona:

I got a free pizza from Papa Johns for complaining that some pieces had no toppings, the replacement they sent did not improve on the per piece allocation, I almost had to go all DeNiro Casino Blueberry Muffin in their ass:

We locked all the cell phones (except mine for pics) up for the entire week and the family actually spent time as humans interacting!!:

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I'm confused about this -- all ships tender in George Town (unless you are on a tiny ship). You didn't tender into town like all the other ships?

 

I'm really having a difficult time deciding what to do in the ports for this trip. I was initially planning on just doing some shopping in Grand Cayman, but the information posted here is giving me second thoughts.

You are probably right, I couldn't recall how we did it 2 years ago, but I know we were much closer to 7-mile-beach. Guess that was just a closer tender, not a dock.

Are you the legendary beejay that hails from the Windy City and has posted all of those epic Las Vegas trip reports ??

Perhaps......:cool:;p;p;p;p;p

Thank you for your review- enjoyed it and the photos. Unfortunately, we had to cancel this sailing at the last minute (Dec 7th) and were very disappointed so I've looked forward to the reviews from those aboard.

After 20 cruises, I still get seasick -- help ease my disappointment- how bad were the seas? I was also planning to buy coffee in Jamaica but it sounds like that port was canceled.

This would have been our first cruise with my mom having to follow a special diet (no sodium) - that was a concern for us and thank you for alleviating that concern for when we reschedule.

Glad you had a great cruise!

The seas were VERY rough, lot of movement those first couple days. I totally enjoyed it but saw many not. I'm lucky no one in my family has an issue.

Yes, Jamaica was canceled. We were actually happy they closed the port because the weather was going to be awful, and I had scheduled an all-inclusive 3rd party day pass with Resorts for a Day for Hilton Rose Hall, which I did not want to pay approx $500 for if it was going to be rainy. If the port stop is canceled Resorts for a Day will refund. We had prepaid $211, and were to pay $245 at the Hilton. After a few calls to get thru, Resorts for a Day was very friendly in processing the refund. Port taxes of $19/person were refunded as well as a refundable credit by NCL. Seemed a little light as 1/4 of the $131 we paid, and it took them 2-3 days to get the amount calculated and credited.

Didn’t see what was playing in the dinner theatre.

We did a beach cabana which was $125 total so for our group it was about the same as chair rentals would have been. We paid $6 per person for cab from tender spot a ways north of normal docking port. Took over half an hour to get to Royal Palms in heavy traffic. But quick getting back. I had expected to dock at port, not Tender Scott’s Bay.

Had the bucket of Caybrew as well, around $30 with tip for 5 beers. Food was good.

I would do this place every time

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Just got back from cruise on Escape with 15 year old son, severe allergy to a wide array of foods---nuts, wheat, egg, chicken, and many more. We completed the special paperwork ahead of time and packed an entire suitcase of food for him in case we were uncomfortable with the specially prepared food onboard. We packed a note in the suitcase that had the food, along with a full copy of his allergy paperwork completed on the cruise lines forms.

They let everything thru no problems.

We ended up using about half of it as he was able to do breakfast (6 mini-boxes of cereal with milk plus whole fruit) and dinner (2 NY Strip steaks with 2 orders of fresh cut fries). He ate the stuff we brought for lunch and snacks. We brought wheat free bread, beef jerky, pepperoni sticks, bbq chips, tortilla chips, salsa, and cereal.

We were extremely happy with how NCL handled the food allergy situation, from allowing us to bring food on board to specially preparing his meals.

These allergies are a GREAT diet, no

Worries about the “cruise weight gain” for that kid. The rest of us however.....well.....let’s just say we “got our money’s worth”[emoji12]

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