MeHeartCruising

There is no place on your cruise confirmation that directly tells how many points you will receive from taking your cruise. From the FAQs on the NCL Latitudes page, you can get the base award details: "You will earn one point per cruise night and an additional point per night if you book in a Suite* or in The Haven™, or if you book with a Latitudes Rewards Insider Offer. *For full fare Suites booked at the time the reservation was originally made. Does not include club balcony staterooms. Does not apply to upgrades or upsells. If you receive a free or discounted upgrade to a Suite or The Haven you will not receive Suite points. Rewards points are not applied for Cruisetour nights or hotel stay nights. Guests sailing with Friends & Family rates, NCLU travel partner reduced rates, and/or Casino cruises will earn points." However, it is possible that there was a promotion in effect when you made your booking that could increase the number of points awarded. Sometimes they offer "Double Latitude Points" or similar promotions. IF that is the case, you will see a PROMO CODE that indicates this in the upper right corner of the GUEST CONFIRMATION pdf file that was sent to you when you booked the cruise. If you booked via a travel agent, you may need to ask them about it. LATDBLX is the code for double latitude points, for example. The code LATREW is NOT a code related to how many points you will get. It simply is a code that indicates you are a Latitudes member who is entitled to the corresponding benefits of whatever level you are currently at.

My taxi experience at Barcelona port is that it works fine. There MAY or may not be much of a queue for the taxis depending on the timing of passengers coming off the ship. I saw once where soon after disembarkation began, there was virtually no line for taxis. Closer to 9:00 am, there was a significant line for taxis. BUT... even with the significant line, the line was quickly moving. The taxis were coming and going as fast as they could arrive, fill, and depart. Multiple taxis would pull up simultaneously, load up and dart off, followed by another wave of taxis to replace them. The line of people never stopped moving. It was much like the taxi line at major, large airports. The walk from the terminal to the taxis is not a long distance.

This was exactly my experience in May 2023 exactly. I paid a little more for a reserved seat on a Freccia train. I walked out of the Civitavecchia station and caught the €6.00 cash shuttle bus directly to my ship. Very easy and low stress.

For My NCL cruise out of Southampton about a year ago, it was not really a specific time that they started taking bags. They started taking them after they completed the unloading and organizing process of the luggage from the disembarking cruise earlier that morning. When they finished that, they took a work break. After that, they came out and opened the luggage doors. It was somewhere around 10:15-10:30 am. My checkin process was fast and efficient. However, when it came time to board, there was no loudspeaker system that could be heard. Just one person’s voice announcing something. The doors opened and the crowd stormed the gates.

As mentioned above, this entire process can vary between ports, ships, and even sailings. Figure out the plan once you get notified of the procedure for your turnaround day. But yes, the OP most certainly will be able to exit the ship and do things at their car if they want. On one of my B2Bs in Rome, my "in transit" card bypassed the entire check-in procedure. I showed it to the first person greeting the arrivals and I literally was shown an easy path to the gangway. The same path that crew that had gotten off the ship were using to get back on. I doubt it's that easy in a USA port, however.

I'm on the January 21st Breakaway sailing from New Orleans. On my Cruise Planner, entertainment is not yet reservable. However, when I drill into the description for "Six", the following message is shown on that page under the description: "Beginning January 26th, 2024, SIX will no longer be offered."

It never hurts to stop at guest services early in the first cruise and double check they have you on their "list" of B2B (often called "through or continuing") passengers. This will help ensure you get the instruction letter detailing the B2B procedure on turnaround day. But, as said above, you should not need to reclaim your luggage. The cabin steward should get it to your new cabin for you. Also discuss this with him/her during the first cruise.

Do you have "cancel for any reason" travel insurance? if not, I'm afraid you're stuck until NCL decides they want to cancel the cruises. They may or may not, depending on how things unfold.

There are a ton of cafe type restaurants with outdoor seating along the streets in the Monistiraki area. I seem to recall a fair number of places that had walk up windows where you could buy a kebab or gyro type handhelds and walk away and then find some place to sit down and eat it. I wouldn't worry too much about it. The area is a center of bustling activity. Lots of places to eat that you can pick from. Personally, I'd take 45 minutes to have a sit down lunch at one of the outdoor cafes and soak it all in. Unless you have a really short day in port, you should have time.

There is no shuttle bus reservations. You line up as best you can (not everyone understands the concept of getting in a queue) and hope to get on the bus. If you don't. You wait for the next one. They do have multiple buses running, but I'm not sure how many, and it will be impacted by how many ships in port at the time. It is much like getting on a rental car shuttle bus at the airport. Get on, find a place for your bags and hope for a seat.

Sorry, I've never disembarked in Rome. I have only embarked. My advice was from general knowledge. In May when I embarked, from the train station directly to ship, there was a bus for 6 euros per person. I assume this same shuttle service was running earlier in the morning for people who disembarked from the ship and needed to get to the train station, but I don't have absolute proof of that. The ride between ship to station and vice versa would take about 10-15 minutes once moving. There could be some delay as they wait for the bus to fill up. Here is a link to the port's website about the shuttle bus service (with operating hours). https://civitavecchia.portmobility.it/en/civitavecchia-train-station

I second the above advice to take the Freccia train to Rome. These trains provide you with a specific seat number on a specific car. They are worth the extra price. But there are far fewer of them on any given day. But I would still try to time your departure for one of them. It would be worth sitting around somewhere and waiting for it if you need to. The regular regional trains are smaller, have less luggage room and can be a zoo when it comes to finding a seat. Let alone 2 or 3 seats together. Far more stressful.

Unless it states otherwise, I would expect you will leave your ship on a tender boat and proceed to your docked catamaran somewhere. It doesn’t really matter where. You will do the catamaran tour. And, as it says, you will be dropped off at the port for Fira. There will be tender boats there taking you back to the ship. The port for Fira is located at the bottom of the cable car, so these tender boats will also be taking passengers who have come down from Fira on the cable car back to the ship. Fira sits up on a cliff looking down on its port and your ship. You will not need to use the cable car, because your excursion doesn’t take you up to the top of the cliffs.

Was your scheduled arrival in port 8:00 am like the OP’s cruise?

They don’t always all appear at once either. They sometimes dribble in. Probably as they get contracts signed with local operators.

In the past, when I brought on wine and was charged the corkage fee, it showed up on my onboard account on the 2nd or 3rd day as a bar or restaurant charge. It didn’t even identify it as “corkage fee”. It looked like purchased meals or drinks. I would think any OBC would cover it. Unless things have changed.

And note, If you have the Free At Sea drink package, you no longer will be charged the corkage fee. They changed the policy on that. They assume that you carrying on your own wine is now to the benefit of NCL, since you will be driving your wine rather than getting it free by the glass from NCL.

It looks like the NCL website is getting caught up to the deck plan changes. I was poking around on the Breakaway May 2024 sailings and I see Solo Balcony and Solo Inside cabins available, but only when I specify 1 person on the booking. They have also updated the deck plans to show these as a new cabin category. A Solo Inside shows as about $150 less expensive than a regular inside for one person. A solo balcony is about $250 less than a regular balcony for one person. There are also solo oceanview cabins.

No. It is an industrial port and you are not permitted to walk into town from the port. You need to use the shuttle bus if you're not going on a paid excursion.

I don't recall. I know we paid Euros. This was several years ago, so it also could have changed since then.

With NCL, there is no reason not to book now assuming it's a ship/itinerary you like. Up till the final payment due date, you can call and have them reprice the cruise to current pricing that see online. However, be aware that when you do this, they will replace any promotional terms with what is current as well. So if your current pricing gets the "Free at Sea" package now, if you reprice in the future, they will include the then-current terms of that Free at Sea package. Those terms may or may not be identical to what they are now. But generally, I would buy when you find a price you're comfortable with. Then continue to monitor the price and if it goes down before your final payment is due, review the current promotional terms. If they are acceptable, call to get it repriced. All of this assumes you are purchasing direct from NCL or via a travel agent who lets you make changes. Some travel agents may have their own restrictions on changes. I see you are from Canada. I'm pretty certain that you get the same rules as we do in the US. But you should double check that.

There are no longer any coin operated laundry facilities on Norwegian (NCL) ships. They had them many years ago, but they were removed a long time ago too.

I will add that when my NCL cruise stopped here in 2022, we also actually ported in nearby Portland. Portland's dock is an active military installation and required you to use the shuttle bus to leave the port area. That shuttle bus did indeed take you to a stop at nearby Portland Castle, but it also continued the drive into Weymouth. So you could get off at either location. Looking at Google Maps, the Weymouth bus drop location was near the intersection of Newberry Gardens and St. Leonard's Road, just a little south of Weymouth Harbor. If your situation is the same as mine, I might suggest meeting on the Weymouth Bridge located over the Harbor. The shuttle bus between the ship and Weymouth (with stops at Portland Castle) ran throughout the day in both directions.

Is it possible that Oceania is now one of those cruise lines that sells excursions that include bus transportation back to the second port (Athinios) where you would catch the tender back to the ship? Instead of dropping the passenger off in Fira and requiring them to use the cable car or walking path down to the boat. There have been reports of this being true for some excursions on some cruise lines. If the bus takes you down to the tender boat, then the timing would be more reasonable. Still quite close, however. The OP might want to inquire by calling Oceania.

What does this mean? "Today I was told that since my cruise fair was more than what I paid, there would be no refund of gratuities and fees." Is the "Today I was told that since my cruise fair was more than what I paid," portion of this sentence a true statement? Was your cruise fare really more than what you paid? You paid $900 via the applied FCC, correct? What are they saying your cruise fare was supposed to be and why wasn't the $3300 FCC applied to that?