MeHeartCruising

What are the hours in port at Ravenna? Perhaps the ship is not there long enough to accommodate travel times to/from Venice plus a reasonable tour.

Some poor crew member is going to be doing a heck of a lot of Access Tours. Yikes.

In my opinion, Bergen is easily enjoyed on foot including the funicular. Unless you have mobility issues, I suppose. However, ships can dock at a pier that is a little further walk than a pier that is closer to the touristy area. When that happens, there is usually a shuttle that takes you part of the way to the touristy area and then you need to walk some more. However, perhaps things will be different this cruise season. Looking at the HoHo Bus route map, it takes care of picking up at that more distant cruise port. So you would not need to do much walking if you used it.

He probably is no longer employed by NCL, then. Hence no replies from his email. Call the main number. In my opinion, if a PCC doesn't return an email within a day, then it's fair game to just call the main NCL number. They could be gone or on vacation.

In the app, tap on the little icon of a person at the top of the screen. It is up there with an icon of a ship and a calendar. Tap on the person, and it shows you the currently selected cruise and link below that says "Select a different cruise >" Tapping on that should show a list of your upcoming cruises.

Since you mention YouTube videos, watch a few of them and you will get a better idea of the site. This one is a great tour and if you focus on how the roads/paths look and how long they are, you can get an idea to the large size of this site. These are the distances that must be walked. Do note that he does the tour in the opposite direction that the tour buses will take you. He mentions that at the beginning. Also, as I was watching this, I was noting where people were, or might sit during the walk. There don't really seem to be any benches designed for sitting, but people do sit down on the many, many rocks and/or steps you see along the way. But as cruisemom mentions, the Terrace Houses are pretty much in the middle of the site. You have to walk quite a ways, maybe 1/4 mile or so before you reach the Terrace Houses.

My only caution on this approach might be…that due to NCL’s cabin Upgrade bidding that now takes place, passengers on that second cruise will be moving into those balcony cabins from their current inside and ocean view cabins. I would expect less balconies to be available by the time you get on board the first cruise. But perhaps there will still be some available.

Here’s the Google Streetview of the major canal tour starting point on the Damrak street I mentioned earlier. I think the tours start at regular departures (like “on the hour”, etc. but there are multiple companies to choose from. As the previous post indicates, there are other possible starting locations. If your ship docks right In Amsterdam, you could walk to this location in about 15-20 minutes of a nice walk. If you dock in IJmuiden, then you will need some other transport. I’m not up to speed on the best options there, I’m afraid.

Are you looking for a small, personal tour? If not, I would not pre-book anything. Just decide when the right time to go is based upon weather and timing when you are exploring the city on foot. There are multiple boats selling tours constantly along the Main Street in front of the train station.

Amsterdam has 2 locations for cruise ports. One is the city-center one that you already know about. The other one is located in IJmuiden, which is a port location very close to the North Sea -- probably 45 minutes or so from central Amsterdam. Essentially, with IJmuiden, you skip most of the canal portion of your departure. You will enter the North Sea very soon after the ship leaves shore. I believe IJmuiden is located outside the locks that stop the ocean water from rushing into the canal. So it is probably less expensive to dock there since they don't have to pay any fees to use the locks or the canal into the city center. I do not know which ships are using which port however. You will need to ask the cruise line if it's not included in your confirmation.

I would think with a guided tour, you will be listening to your guide during the tour and not the phone app. And, I'm sure the guide's narration will not be identical to the recorded audio. They will have their own "spin" on everything, I'm sure. However, you may choose to visit longer than your tour. So you might choose to use the app's audio guide for additional information either before or after your guided tour starts.

I frequently nap on sea days in my cabin. I try to doze off in a shaded lounge chair, but I get too distracted by people watching.

The Joy didn't distribute any special time change notices on a separate piece of paper. It was mentioned in the Daily the day before. It was mentioned in ship announcements if you listened to them. In the past, on some ships (not sure which cruiselines), a separate slip of paper with the time change was included with the daily, but not on the Joy in February.

Honestly, I'd call NCL back 2 or 3 times to speak with different agents to make certain you were given accurate information on your first attempts. I would think since they are selling these cruises as departing from "Venice (Ravenna)" they should be providing transportation from Venice Airport (and/or somewhere nearer the city center) to the ship. Perhaps ask about "transfers" instead of "shuttles". I know that Royal Caribbean's call center staff is proving to be untrained on this topic right now. So I won't be surprised if NCL's is as well. It took me 2 calls to get a Royal Caribbean agent to know what I was talking about.

In February, on the Joy, we experienced the once-a-day service. But, our Freestyle Daily would still appear in early evening on the bed, usually while we were out to dinner. However, I noticed that many cabins on our floor had them stuck on the wall outside the room. I guess our steward would only take the time to put them inside for people who took the time to change the room status lights so that it was obvious we were not in our cabin. Either way, we had them the evening before to browse what was happening the next day.

This has been my experience as well, except it happens DURING the cruise, not just at the end of the cruise. However, during the cruise, it can be confusing to figure out what is going on with these 2 OBC types when you look at your bill on the TV screens in your room. If you can't figure that out, go to the Service Desk and ask for a printed copy of your charges and ask them to clear up any questions for you. You can do this during the cruise, if you like.

Correct. With NCL, OBC (both types) must be spent onboard. Some cruise lines, like Royal Caribbean, allow you to buy things pre-cruise with your OBC. But NCL does not.

I'd happily sail in March. I would not count on using your balcony much while the ship is moving, but perhaps you'll get lucky. Or take a sweater/jacket, just in case. But while the ship is not moving, the balcony could very likely be pleasant. Go for the itinerary/ship you really want. European trips are all about the itinerary, in my opinion. I'm going in May for 2 weeks. I won't likely ever go in July/August again. Too hot. And too crowded.

I can't comment on which countries which need to be avoided for this purpose. However, I would like to point out that there are far, far fewer cash machines (ATMs) in these countries than you are familiar with in Europe. It sounds like you plan on getting US dollars? That strategy will likely work well. Most of these places will accept US dollars in tourist locations. I would probably suggest to just bring enough dollars for what you think you might want to spend. If needed, you could get cash from the ship's cash machine, but they charge a service fee of $5 or more to do this. But it might be worth $5. Honestly, I don't spend much money at all on cruises in these countries. I usually book a ship excursion or just walk around the local town/port area. I will advise that any tour guide will be expecting a tip from you at the end of the tour. They may even suggest it in a nice way. The American tipping culture has become an expectation in these countries from tourists. I tip in US dollars in these countries.

The primary tour route through the Ephesus ruins is a gradual downhill sloping walk on uneven stone roadway. I have attached a picture of this from near the top of the "hill". If your tour includes a visit to the Terrace Houses, that is more strenuous of a walk in that there are multiple metal stairs that must be navigated. Unless they have changed the route since I was there, you enter the covered pavilion at the bottom of a hill. You view the excavations while walking on the metal walkways and continually walk up steps to the next level of "the terraces". You climb quite a few stairs. At the top, you exit the covered pavilion and then must walk down a paved walkway. This paved walkway was much more steep than the Main Street slope you see in the first picture. I have attached a picture of the Terrace House metal stair cases. There are more than in this picture, I think. As for places to sit during the tour, I don't recall much of anything. Near the end of the walking tour, you likely will visit the Amphitheater. There are usually people sitting on the stone seats, but it will depend on your tour guide if there is time to do this.

ANYONE can turn on Wi-Fi and join the ship network. You can do this for free. This permits people to use the NCL app to make dinner reservations and see the daily activities and review your account balance. No purchase of anything is required. As mentioned above, some people have found they can also use Apple iMessages in this mode. But others report it does not always work. NCL does not officially support iMessages in this mode. You only have to sign in and out of your internet plan (done by navigating to a specific webpage in your phones web browser after you have connected to the ship Wi-Fi) if you have limited number of minutes. If you do not, the clock keeps ticking and you will lose all your minutes. If you have an unlimited internet plan, you can stay signed in for the entire cruise if you want. And yes, this is how it has worked for me in Europe.

Never mind. I was confusing the posts.

If you read the full context of the posters previous comments, I think you'll see that she most likely made a typo in her posting. She was previously discussing Solo discounts and then later made the post about Senior discount. I think she intended to type "solo discount", which would be in line with her previous posts.

Be aware that Viator is a broker of tours. They are not the actual tour provider. Basically, they re-sell other companies' tours worldwide. Many people use them and they are quite well known. I have personally used them as well, years ago. However, I have now found that it is better to research and find the actual tour provider in the local country. This way you will have a direct contact line to the actual provider and not via a broker's call center communications. Usually, the broker price will be more expensive than the local tour provider's price because the broker needs to make some money on the deal.

I assume you still are dealing with solo cruise searches and not "senior". Either way, I can confirm that when I just tested the Canadian https://www.ncl.com/ca/en/ website it does NOT offer the same ability to search for solo discounts as we see on the US ncl.com site. I have no idea why, but you are not crazy. It is not there for the Canadian site.