old nutter

Otherwise known as 1 Litre over this side of the pond!

Aft. Has more shimmy

 

Bow has more bounce & slap.

 

.

That accurately describes what we have found on Jade/Star and the big ships. We had a very odd sea crossing the Caribbean from Miami to Carthgena and the ship motion at the front was a sort of corkscrewing - made the juggler in the theatre earn his pay for sure! This movement did not pass down the ship and it was much less noticeable even a short way down and hardly noticeable at the stern at all. That corkscrewing motion was very disorientating and caused a lot of people a lot of trouble for a while.

We have also been in a Jade aft penthouse in a force 10 in the Med and felt little or no major movement. One of the benefits of those aft cabins is that you can leave the doors open when the ship is moving and the extra fresh air is a superb antidote to sea-sickness. At the other end of the ship, the wind is normally much too strong to keep the doors open overnight.

The British electricity system uses 220-240V three-pin sockets. One of the main pins is Live at 220-240V, the other is Neutral at 0V. European and US systems use different voltages and connectors. The odd one in the plug/socket is the safety Earth. These voltages are derived in such a way that the Neutral connector is normally connected to Earth at the main distribution system, so they will normally be at the same potential.

On ships the supply is often floating or balanced with both main connectors live and the supply voltage shared between them. Only the Live is fused with a current limiting fuse that will blow if too much current is passed through it either because too many things are connected to one socket strip, or there is a major fault in something plugged in. That is also the case with surge protectors. Surge protectors also contain electronic components are so are a potential hazard if overloaded and have been known to catch fire.

I have once experienced a serious fire many years ago when the neutral and earth became separated at the suppl;y end and there was a short circuit in one of the lighting units between earth and neutral. Because there was no fuse or breaker in the Neutral or Earth wires, unlimited current started to flow through the light fitting with the Neutral/Earth short circuit and none of the safety breakers cut the supply and the lighting wires got very hot and gave off toxic smoke - nasty.

The surge protectors in power strips do not apparenttly cut-out the Neutral part of the system, so can be a fire risk. Therefore, it is best to have just a simple multi-point set of sockets on board a ship with only wires in it and be very careful of the loading. Do not use the strip for high-power things with heaters in them, such as hair dryers and curlers.

The other increasingly frequent potential cause of fires is the use of non-standard USB chargers (not just for Samsung 7s;)). Multi-USB chargers and power strips with USB chargers are now known to cause the vast majority of electrical fires in homes in the UK and Europe. There are a lot of cheap badly-made chargers for all sorts of portable devices that are used if the manufacturer's charger has failed or been lost. These cheap USB chargers can catch fire or even explode, even if used correctly. And of course there is the now very real problem of non-standard chargers overloading nickel-metal-hydride batteries that burn ferociously if they are not charged correctly (not just Samsung 7s).

So, for everyone's sake, use only basic power strips, don't overload them, only use manufacturer's chargers and most importantly do not leave chargers connected if you are either our of the room or asleep.

Assuming Flamm is a stop, the Flamm Railway is an absolute must. The station is almost alongside where the ship docks. If you got to http://www.webcamsinnorway.com/webcams.php and scroll down to Flamm you can see exactly what the dock and station looks like.

The train track has the highest non-cog gradient in the world and it rises up in and out of the mountain, One of the tunnels actually goes a full 360 degrees inside the mountain. About half-way up, the train stops half-in and half out of a tunnel and you can get out and have a look at the huge Kjosfossen waterfall.

It is certainly possible to book and travel on the railway yourself and just walk to the train station. The only issue you can have is if there is more than one ship in because the train can get pretty booked up and you might not be able to get a ticket to match the ship times. If NCL get sorted and decide what excursions they are going to do on the Fjords it might be worth getting one of the ship trips because you are then guaranteed a ticket and seat on the train.

Bergen is very easy to do on your own and it is easy to walk to the town from the dock and then get on the funicular up to the top of the hill overlooking the town.

Can't help with KLM, but BA joined the rip-off word a few years ago and they charge to book seats more than 24 hours out. Then when you do it at on-line check-in. It is £7 each person each way for Tourist seats and 20 for Business.

However, we have done NCL flights before and couldn't get a Locator Code because they had booked in bulk, so couldn't even do on-line check-in.

Good to hear! These threads have left me with the impression this is the norm

In our experience they are most certainly not the norm.

We have had wonderful experiences in the Haven, both when there have been youngsters and not.

The problems seem to be particularly prevalent on the two mega-ships with a roof over the Haven courtyard, Breakaway and Escape. When the roof is closed, the acoustics and atmosphere change dramatically. When closed, the noise is amplified and it turns an open space into a large room - maybe that affects behavior?

I was wondering if you have any recs now. I don't want to start a fire. :)

Butting-in, I would say that any power strip with other than more mains sockets is a potential fire hazzard. A USB socket that did not come with the relevant main equipment is not good practice. Power strips with buillt-in USB sockets in them have components in them to reduce the voltage from mains to the 4-6 volts for USB connections. Those components are vulnerable to failure, even when nothing is connected to them - I have had one blow-up quite spectacularly at home. The power strips tend to be left connected to mains rather than just being plugged in when charging - that makes them a risk. Add to that the problem that that very large country in the Far East produces a huge number of cheap counterfeit electrical goods that do not meet any consumer safety regulations and you have a very bad mix for anywhere, but particularly a ship.

As long as you use extension strips with just extension sockets in them, you should be OK.

We have cruised in both aft and Haven suites on Jewel ships and there are two things that stick in our mind.

In the aft suite it is possible to leave the balcony doors open and enjoy the wonderful sound of the sea. With the ship moving forward there is rarely any wind ingress with those doors open. Also, sail-outs take on a new dimension - the aft suites are much the best place on the ship if you happen to be sailing out of Venice for example.

With the Jewel ships Havens the main benefit over the aft suites is "Space". The courtyard itself expands your available comfortable space massively. You can either relax on a big sofa or sit and have snacks delivered to you by the Haven Butler - great if you want the day to start slowly and have your breakfast out there.

There is also a huge sundeck above the port-side suites where you can always guarantee a very comfortable sunbed without having to worry about any chair hogs!

Why do people seem to interpret "Family" as automatically meaning adults with young people? Those family suites are often used for parents with adult children, adults with grandparents and adults with adult friends. 2-bed suites are extremely rare across all other cruise lines and if you are a couple and want to cruise with odd numbers of other adults who want to combine being with you and still have their own space, any other cruise line is not a reasonable option, be they more or less expensive.

Take the people who have adult children who are handicapped in some way, the NCL 2-bed suite is virtually their only option. There are lots of other categories of people who book the 2-bed suites who do not have young persons with them, so just saying they should go elsewhere is close to insulting.

Finally, let's get away from the idea that NCL market the Haven as being for families with young people - they do not. All of the NCL advertising, quite rightly, pushes the bright and interesting things that are elsewhere on the ship that interest and occupy young people, it never mentions the Haven.

The marketing for the Haven always points to adult people who want a haven away from the hustle and bustle of some parts of the ship, hence the name in the first place. The only mention of "families" in the Haven area is in the name of the 2-bed family suites.

I may not have a perfect memory these days, but I have enough to know that when I was young, I would have been bored to death if I had been forced to have my holiday in somewhere like the Haven. Maybe the new generation of youngsters is not that different, so in the absence of something exciting, they make their own excitement. Annoying adults has always been a massive attraction for youngsters.......

Well... yes. I mean It's marketed to families. Nothing states otherwise.

I am sorry, but if you browse the web site that is not strictly true. The sections devoted to families do not show or mention the Haven on any of those pages. Equally, when you go to the section describing the Haven on the web site, none of the images or descriptions mention children or young accompanying adults and the descriptions all seem to express a peaceful and calm adult-like environment. All of the images with people on show adult couples, so no, it is not marketed to families, but is clearly open to them.

Obviously, there is nothing to suggest that accompanied young people are not allowed in the Haven, but the Haven is most definitely not specifically aimed at families with youngsters on the NCL web site. In fact about the only bit of the Haven that would seem encourage families with youngsters is the second bedroom, since there can be three single beds in it, one of which, the upper bunk, is most definitely not for adults

This whole "Haven" thing stems in many ways from the differences between the initial style "Haven" on the Jewel Class ships and the new much larger area on the mega-ships.

The initial Jewel ships Haven matched the name and the perception was that it was a quite haven away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the ship. The concept worked for the Jewel ships and the Haven was always well booked, maintained a premium over the normal suites and a very much higher margin than the rest of the ship.

When the Epic was commissioned with a much larger passenger base, it was decided to ride on the success of the Jewel ships high margin area and make the Haven much bigger than the doubling in passenger numbers really justified , thus making a lot more money. What the suits did not understand then was that the reason the Haven had been successful was that it was small and select. Making it upwards of 10 times bigger than the original Havens totally changed the environment.

The Jewel Class Havens are devoid of anything that would entice children to want to spend time there. There is no blaring music, no big splash areas and nowhere near the amount of space for youngsters to run around in. The result was that the children tended to want to spend their time elsewhere, either in the clubs or by the bigger attractions. Not only that, but the Jewel ships are much more traditional cruise ships with much less dramatic attractions such as the plank, climbing frames and water slides, so the whole ship is a much quieter affair all together than the mega-ships.

We have sailed in non-Haven NCL ships, two of the Jewels, Epic and Getaway so can make some valid comparisons. Both mega-ships we have sailed on have open Havens with no roof and both of our mega-ship cruises were sailed in poor-ish weather. The Caribbean cruise we went on had quite a lot of rain and was not too warm and the Epic run we went on was to the Canaries in relatively cool weather. Without the roof, the Haven was not the best place for young people to spend lots of time in when there were much warmer and more interesting places to go, so we had few issues.

When we were on the Epic, the quiet space for Haven guests was the Posh. Unfortunately for us it was usually as cold up there as it was in the open Haven. I don't recall a similar area being available on the Getaway, so equally there would not be such an arrangement on the Breakaway (or presumably the Escape) either. The point here is that there is an area on the Epic that provides something approaching the Haven of the smaller ships. Maybe that was done because the suits were beginning to realize that in their haste to make more money from the space on the mega-ships they had destroyed the idea that the Haven was indeed no longer a haven.

Not that bad behavior is confined to the Breakaway, but it does seem to have more than it's fair share of problems with bad behaving adults and young Haven guests. I do think that whilst the closing roof was a great idea on the smaller ships to keep the Haven area habitable, it creates a completely different environment on the Breakaway because it brings everything inside again and it is a great space for youngsters to have some fun.

Far be it for a Brit to make comments about the demographic on the various routes, but the signs we have been getting from reports are that the clientele on the North-South cruises has many people who spend much more time inside away from the weather than their warmer more southerly cousins. I know that in Europe, Mediterranean nationals are much more laid-back than those of us in the Northern European states. If that happens over the pond as well, then the Northern states are likely to be a mix of less tolerant people to go with the added environmental issues on the big roofed Havens, so conflict is almost guaranteed. Without the roof though, sailing around the North Atlantic would not make for a pleasant cruise down to the warm so keeping it open would not be sensible. (As I am sure the Getaway will prove next year going up and down to the Baltic!)

The new suits are now in a no-win situation. Clearly, whilst the idea of the Haven is still working pretty well on the smaller ships, the greedy idea (came before FDR by the way) of over-expanding the Haven on the mega-ships is not working well on the bigger ships. I doubt if the suits want to have different company themes for different ships, so if they want to continue to sell the Haven as a premium brand on top of a more select brand overall (certainly FDR's stated aim) something needs to be done to restore the Haven to it's former existence.

My suggestion, for what it is worth, would be to use the next update to provide two separate areas for premium passengers (expand partially on the Epic's Posh arrangement across the other mega-ships). One could be the big family area and the other could be a more quiet area. I am sure that a little welding at the stern end of the upper floor to add a permanent roof over the area where the food tables are could provide a quieter Haven upstairs for those who like that kind of peace and quiet. Maybe a hot tub could be added there at the same time?

Banning younger passengers is not a solution, but providing areas more appropriate to the needs of all Haven cruisers might enable family groups to exist in an area where they would be comfortable whilst also providing an area for the quieter generation to enjoy the peace and quiet of a restful premium cruise. Perhaps putting an age limit of 16 (NCL definition of minors) would enable families with older young people to enjoy either area depending on their personal wishes.

Attention.

... And your reason for diissing what was said.

For example - are you sure that the hot tubs do not share any common equipment or pipes? And maybe it takes that long to do a thorough clean of everything, get rid of the cleaning chemicals and stabilise the new chemicals. After all it took the Brazilians a long time to get the diving pool back blue at the Olympics and they only had to get rid of a bit of green something!

Isn't it great how people can keep an argument going as long as they use wooly words. The Guest Policy defines who their policies apply to by their age and whether they are on the ship as Accompanying Passengers or there in their own right. Everyone who signs the Terms and Conditions is automatically bound by them. The definitions of minors and young adults is clear and were shown earlier in the thread. These conditions also use the key words "Appropriate Supervision" and "Responsibility".

The bottom line is that is you have any human with you who is aged 20 years or less then you are "Responsible" for their all of their behavior whether you are directly supervising them or not. This means that if one of your accompanying minors or young adults breaks the rules, it is your fault and you could be the one dealt with as the Captain decides.

I have carefully avoided the words "kid" or child", unlike many of the extreme posters here because that definition of these passengers is not used in the rules. Many of the posts in this thread wouldn't be here if the authors knew the difference between direct "supervision" and "responsibility". One is positional and can be discussed and the other is legal and never goes away while the accompanying passengers are aged 20 or less and you are all under NCL authority.

We go on holiday with our child and her behavior is always beyond reproach. Mind you that might be because as well as being our child, she is also a 40 year old adult! :D

I haven't looked at every second half 2017 cruise for Spirit, but all the ones I have checked do not show any cabins available for Deck 10 so I wonder if they are looking at doing something with the cabins on that deck? I would doubt if all of the Deck 10 cabins are sold out alredy.

Another solid vote for The Path Between the Seas by David Mccullough. Superb book - heavy reading in places but it details the whole story of the building, including the early period when the French tried and failed. It also tells the story of how Yellow Fever was conquered on the way to getting it built.

Or hopefully, some 2-bedroom suites up front

Can anyone who has been in a Jade Haven suite in the past few weeks tell me whether NCL have changed from the Lavazza to Nespresso yet please? I have to admit I do like the cappuccino option with the Lavazza. It took me several trips to perfect making the cappo with the Lavazza, but last time I had finally mastered it! Then we went on the Epic and discovered the Nespresso and found out that is going to be the fleetwide suite coffee maker.

We will be back on Jade next month so we would like to know if we will have to re-think our coffee options. Thanks in advance.:)

Lots of places have dangers if you stray away from sensible. A cruise ship can be quite high on the danger spectrum. The ship designers try to make the ship as safe as possible for everyone, but there are always those who see the safety restrictions as a challenge. Excess alcohol can easily blind adults from taking the sort of risks that that would not take when sober.

Children have a really serious problem with danger because they think they are immortal. Supervision is the built-in animal process that counters that reduces that danger. I have to assume that the youngster trying to fly from the balcony into that pool would not be trying it if his parents were around.

As parents it is up to us to educate our offspring how to behave sensibly when we are not around, and it is up to us to decide when to supervise and when to let them explore the world of danger that is growing up.

The Haven actually has two items with fairly deep water that would represent an attraction to any immortal being, so everyone in that category should be properly supervised. So for me children yes, but not without their responsible adult being within sight and awake.

I might be in the minority. But I enjoy watching kids enjoy themselves. I like to see them smile, laugh and play. I want all kids to be happy. I remember all of my family vacations as a child. Great memories. Of course I was always a perfect angel.

 

I am in my 50's. No kids. Love being "Aunt Donna" to my sister's kids, who are now young adults.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Agree completely. We have had some superb times in the Haven when there have been kids around. We have only sailed once on Getaway and Epic, so most have been on Jewel Class ships. The only issue we have had was where some kids were splashing over some of the seats, but a sharp word or two soon solved that.

Clearly there are some adults who shouldn't be allowed out without close supervision, but we have found them few and far between but if they or their offspring impacted on our enjoyment of the Haven, I would not hesitate in getting staff to sort it. The Haven is a beautiful shared space but it only works if everyone appreciates others wishes in there. You have paid to be there, so have others and if you or your offspring can't get on with your fellow cruisers, then you should expect to be sanctioned by the staff. There are enough cameras in there for the senior staff to see if the place is being abused.

By the way Tasm3n, the Jewel Class Haven pools are quite deep (at least 4-5 feet), so parental supervision is vital in there. It is nothing like the shallow mega-ship Haven pools.

During my many years in management information and process software I have discovered how good software behaves in relation to badly managed process change.

When a large company software package is designed, it fits the range of management processes in being at the time. The best the software is designed to provide everything the management wants and the designers will unconsciously build in a lot of features that support those management processes. I have often found that enhancements to large software packages will be a lot easier to implement when the enhancements are in line with the original management processes. Even major changes can be accommodated in these systems as long as they are based on the original business process thinking. The down side to this unconscious intelligence in good software is that if major changes are made that are contrary to the original processes, the software will actually fight the designers all the way.

A few years ago, NCL had very good customer facing software and users had to face very little disruption and things stayed where they were. From the way the current management software support is clearly falling apart, it seems to me that recent changes to the way the company is being run are not in line with the way it was run before and whenever the IT people try to implement sudden lurches in the business, the system is fighting the designers all of the way.

The other way in which software and management diverge is if changes are being made by designers who cannot see how it was built in the first place because the corporate process memory has been destroyed by staffing reductions or redeployment over time.

The NCL software suite is very complex having to deal with multi-national consumer regulations and pricing that has to deal with all sorts of different currencies and a very wide range of different product offerings. I recall that it used to be quite nicely balanced and always seemed to give us what we needed as customers at the same time as obviously feeding management with all they needed to run the company.

Something has gone seriously wrong with the balance over the past few years. I am not sure if it is the personnel changes around the upper echelons or the fact that it is now a public company, but it certainly looks as though the management and the software have lost touch with one another. I am not sure that the upper management fully understand just how much damage they are inflicting to NCL software and what this is doing to their company image. They seem hell-bent making changes that the software clearly cannot support without any thought to how it looks from the customer's end when it all falls to bits every time they throw the navigation system to a new course. Management seems to put out PR releases with unrealistic promises and then lay down outrageous deadlines to the IT people that they constantly fail to meet. Why on earth these poor communications issues keep happening is beyond most of us, but I wish they would sort them out pretty quickly so that we can get back to booking cruises that actually happen when are where they are supposed to. If nothing else, the savings in the number and frequency of customer service contacts would prove most cost-effective!

Think they should sack whoever updates the NCL UK website. In addition to still having the brochure which says Epic is sailing Europe year round until next April they are now promoting the 2016/17 brochure which has the old Jade itineraries which appear still bookable! Lol

Not sure it is just the UK website that is in another mess following yet another "seems like a good idea" edict from on high to the IT team.

Our 11 Jun Norway trip on the Jade is apparently unchanged, but it had disappeared from all of the world web pages when they first announced the changes. At that point, our My NCL pages for that cruise also went into meltdown and I updated some of my log-in details that had gone walkabout in the mess-up. The My NCL pages have slowly come back, but interestingly, the changes didn't. I suspect that someone had deleted all of the Jade pages for the summer 2017 cruises. The recovery on the 11 Jun cruise in My NCL had all of the information from before the changes but didn't have any of the changes made while things were in a mess.

I suspect that either the IT guys were not given the right story when the Management did another of their sudden changes or they did something really stupid when trying to sort things out and lost loads of data. My updates bore all of the hallmarks of a database recovery from old data to correct an IT SNAFU.

Getting all of the new itineraries into the databases seems to be taking the usually long lead time that we are having to get used to in this new world of sudden managerial panic lurches. And getting them into the UK website will again take the longest lead time for some reason.

Like many others I never thought for a minute that the cross channel ferry cruises with that ludicrous spin that the Jade was docking in or near the European capitals would attract enough cruisers to make them viable all summer. I suppose we should be grateful that someone has seen sense and added some decent itineraries in their place (unless of course you had booked one of those oddball cruises).

Not too sure what is going on with the June departures out of Southampton next year. Currently we are booked on the 11 June Norway out of Southampton but the "my NCL" is a mess for it, but really hoping it is still on as booked because there are no other dates we can make.

I am really confused now. I know NCL are famous for having no links between left hand, right hand and corporate brain, but I have had an email flyer this morning pushing both 2nd and 11 June 2017 Fjords from Southampton!!!!!

What on earth is going on.

Not sure what the system is in the USA for you to be able to claim if you want to cancel due to unrest. In the UK, the system is very clear. If the UK Foreign Office say a place is considered safe then you will not get any Insurance Company to pay out.

We were due to travel to Kenya a few years ago when they had real problems after disputed elections. The UK advice was that certain parts of Kenya were not safe, but if you avoided these places all was OK to travel. We had taken the precaution of booking the trip with a local TA and took their advice and went. We had the best time ever because the local people depended on our money for them and their families and they made us so welcome.

The current UK FO advice for Turkey today is to avoid going anywhere within 10 KM of the Eastern Border with Syria and to avoid some areas of Istanbul and Ankara. The tourist areas that are over 400 miles away from there are seemingly OK. If you are interested, the full up-to-date info is at: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/turkey

If you want to put all of this stuff into perspective, have a look at the UK FO advice for some of the Caribbean and Central American countries and compare your experiences with that advice. If you are still not happy, don't go, but please don't forget just how many of the normal people in these countries depend on our spending for their livelihood.

Much of this issue is down to perception, history, understanding and the fact that the media is only interested in bad news.

Most Americans would be amazed if Europeans did not want to go to Miami because of something happening in Chicago. Europe is often portrayed to Americans as small, yet just taking the EU countries covering north of the Med that alone is half the size of the USA, and that does not even include Turkey. The main tourist port that NCL used to go to is Kusadasi and it is almost twice as far from Istanbul as it is between Miami to Orlando. And to give an idea of how Europeans feel about going on holiday there are apparently around 50,000 Brits alone in the Turkish holiday places in the west the country as we speak today,enjoying their sun and beach time.

The only time I can say that I have been really scared in a foreign country was when a couple of us accidentally came up out of the Washington Metro a couple of stops before the downtown shops. So I do understand what it is to be frightened when you are away from familiar surroundings at home.

I agree entirely that risk is very personal, but it is a real shame that the American people seem to getting the idea that Europe is not safe for them at present. There are issues, there are nasty people around, just like everywhere, but in Europe, they really are no worse than most other cruise destinations. Come and see for yourself.

A couple of things off the wall, so to speak.

Must buy in Dubrovnik is one of their superb ice creams. Best in the Med if not the world.

In Kotor, you can walk and climb into the old town but if you go a bit further, the old capital town of Cetinge is about an hour drive up the mountain on a superb scenic drive - a bit hair raising but worth the views. The museum in Citenje has the most wonderful collection of historical artifacts from the main period of Russian history before the revolution. On the way back you can stop in Budva - very beautiful Adriatic coastal town.