brookie848

49 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

I would recommend asking that question in the following cc forum as there are some real experts in that sort of thing that post there.

 

British Isles/Western Europe - Cruise Critic Community

Thanks. I've been on that board and it's been helpful. I have a few recommendations from there, but I thought I'd ask about this one in real-time. 😁

1 hour ago, marys350 said:

Glad to hear that you enjoyed your half day tour with Adrian from Paragon Taxis. Before Christmas we booked a transfer with him from Heathrow to Southampton with a visit to Windsor Castle on the way for our Prima cruise in June.

Can you give me a ballpark on the cost for this? We are on the Encore TA in December and are staying pre-cruise in Southampton. To keep things simple, we want to hire a car service for the transfer rather than hauling our luggage on trains.

4 hours ago, The P said:

She will succeed as she eyes the goods! I'm keeping the faith....Henry, I'm originally from Amsterdam, NY. Upstate near Schenectady and Albany. We don't have a canal but we have the Mohawk River(!!). No red light district either, LOL.....I visited the A'dam you just left when I was a teen; it looks much nicer now.

Well, we have the Erie Canal where the Mohawk becomes uncooperative.

On 5/7/2024 at 4:52 AM, Fogfog said:

Some thoughts on dining and Bev.

The Haven dining here on a Prima is solid.
Great food and service. Whether a double cut pork chop, panchetta wrapped lamb chops  or surf and turf for dinner, or a Caesar salad with shrimp for lunch, chicken Milanese etc, the dining has been solid.

After 10 days… we are still happy.

So much so that while we have specialty dining in our package and will eat again elsewhere one last time…we have not needed to do so.

We can mix and match..meaning if you want different sides, leave off sauce or have dietary requests, we find Haven staff very accomodating.

 

Dining on Meraviglia in YC had been solid for B2B in early 2020 as was for 4b2b in 22.

Dining on Seashore in YC in Feb was outstanding.

Our March Divinia YC we found the dining weak and wanting in YC. Things weren’t executed well, came out without sauces, poorly seasoned etc. Whomever was running Divinia YC kitchen in March..it was not great…and we had 8 previous YC sailings to compare.

 

We like MSC for the Italian flair and typically are happy with dining with the Divinia exception. 
That said, so far Prima Haven has knocked it out of the park.

Only 1 lunch item was a little weak and that could have been a 1 off 

 

Wines and Bar

MSC prior to Cvd had great prem bar and wines in YC. That dropped off a bit in ‘22 and as of Feb and March we saw a bigger drop particularly on the wine side.

Its a puzzle because the Italian tradition of food and wine, one would think would matter in YC.

We found limited choices in wine..if you wanted a dry white, dry rose, or unoaked chard. Was told none existed in several cases.

NCL Haven prides itself on its Haven mixologists and craft cocktails as well as wine options. We have had no complaints in this area either. We came onboard expecting to have a struggle in this area and that’s not the case.

Also there is plenty of Haven lounge seating in small areas to gather… the online pics of the bar with 4 seats are deceiving..yes there are maybe 6 stool seats on either side..yet plenty of other spaces folks gather. So you don’t have to be a bar fly to get a cocktail 

 

I've been reading your updates on Henry's Live and am enjoying them!

We're not huge fans of the Haven lunch menu, but we're pretty happy with the dinner menu. Like you said, you can mix and match, which is what we do. We've never had issues with any of our requests being met.

I also love the Haven bartenders. I'm a Type 1 diabetic and I tell them that, then tell them how much sugar I want in my drink (low, medium, high). For the past two cruises I've never had the same drink twice and they've all been outstanding. It's also a reminder that not all "fun" mixed drinks have to be filled with sugar.

I'm always considering MSC, but we've reached the point where we really enjoy our status perks on NCL. I'm sure we'll venture elsewhere eventually.

Enjoy your remaining time on the Prima.

2 hours ago, Faulkh said:

My husband got a couple of pairs of sketchers (Amazon) that look like more dressy than sneakers that are slip ons. He has wide feet also and really likes them. Also check out Hey Dudes. My sons swear by them. Comfortable slips that look more dressy than sneakers. 

According to my brother (in his 40s), Hey Dudes are awesome, but aren't meant for a day of serious walking (amusement parks or excursions). Everyone has their preferences, but that is something to take into consideration.

1 hour ago, Dukemstr said:

Do you think we can get two complementary laundry bags, free as platinum latitude members because of the length of the cruise?

We've been told to just write "PLATINUM" on our tag and not to worry about the coupon.

19 minutes ago, Girr said:

Sorry, about the two-part post - computer challenged at times. 

 

Check out Skechers men's Slip Ons for dad.  They have a large selection, and even offer wide or comfort fit.  Yes, stretchy pants are also available for men.  I'm not sure which web site DH uses, but he has a wide selection, and just looking at them you'd never know they were pull on.

Just to clarify -- Slip INS. They have slip-on shoes, but the Slip-ins are the ones that have the reinforced heel that make them special. It can sometimes get confusing when shopping for them.

They have a decent variety of styles, even in wide. My dad bought his first two pairs last year and he loves them! My husband and I both have a couple of pairs and the simplicity of them is awesome.

2 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

Was that with dialysis at sea? We've been trying to finagle a family trip for hubby's large extended family, but it's tough between his uncle's dialysis needs, cousin's autism at sea needs, our preference in where we go/when we go.... The only trips I've seen DaS offer were through RCC, so curious to hear they're able to do it on NCL ships as well.

Nope. Just arranged for it ourselves. He did peritoneal, so the first time it was arranged he didn't need a machine (all manual). The second cruise we planned on bringing the machine with us, but we ended up canceling when he got his transplant.

If your family member is doing peritoneal, then it can be arranged with the ship. We had Baxter deliver the supplies to the ship, which were waiting for the cabin for us when we arrived. The only thing we didn't have was a heating pad (not allowed on ships), but my husband just let the liquid get warm by placing them in the windows.

I'm not sure Dialysis at Sea sails with NCL.

Not on the Epic, but we have stayed in a forward-facing DOS on the Dawn that had no balcony. We had great views from the master bedroom and decent views from the living room.

It was the right price for us (it was less than a 2-bedroom suite, plus it came with a few extra perks). My husband did appreciate the forward views from the MBR because he would sit there and look out the windows while he did dialysis on board (that was an interesting trip!).

For us, though, I would prefer a balcony.

4 minutes ago, dhanakorn said:

I never have problem wear shorts to MDR for breakfast or lunch. 

 

The "official" rule is you have to wear pants for dinner in MDR. But the during my previous cruise on Sky in March, I was surprised that shorts were allowed in MDR during dinner since it's a Caribbean cruise. I confirmed this exception with maître d'. And many guys did wear shorts during dinner on this cruise. Other specialty restaurants (except Le Bistro) also allowed wearing shorts for dinner on this cruise.

No. This is not true. It is ship-dependent. I'm looking at the dailies from my Viva cruise. The only place where long pants are required in Le Bistro. Even Hudson's (the more fancy MDR) doesn't require long pants at dinner.

You aren't allowed to wear tank tops or baseball caps on the Viva.

5 minutes ago, ggTexasGal said:

Shorts are fine for breakfast and lunch.  You should be fine for those meals.

Just, long pants and collared shirts for dinner!

But only in the "fancy" MDR. The other dining room you will be fine in shorts. My husband never bothers wearing anything other than shorts for dinner unless we decide to go to one of the restaurants that required longer pants and those vary by ship.

We've sailed in 17010 three times.

We like this cabin because it is the last 2-bedroom port side and it is obvious where your cabin is located by the break in the hallway (it makes sense when you are there). My husband also likes this cabin because it is right across from the Haven private gym.

3 hours ago, STEVE-O said:

Like many others, just got a no update-update from Royal Caribbean.

 

It says work is ongoing and another update should be issued by May 2nd! We'll, we're on a plane to Vancouver on the 1st!

Urrr......

I know it hurts the cruise line, but in situations like this, they should give people on the next cruise the opportunity to cancel and re-book. Even if they just offer FCC that would be better than the uncertainty of traveling for maybe no purpose.

Cabin category would be nice as well so we don't have to go searching the deck plans. The cabins have names (courtyard villa, deluxe owners suite, 2-bedroom family villa).

2 hours ago, Fogfog said:

@mking8288

 

"Second day in a row, more NCL "spam" emails about safety videos on Youtube, just click & let the 90seconds run its course, jump to another tab/browser page and resume.  Maybe they are tracking as to see whether the email was opened or not using AI and placing "cookies" (no, nope, not the edible kinds) when they pushed them to 1,700+ email addresses (# of cabins and/or email addresses, probably more as it's "individually" addressed)  "

 

I had wondered about tracking

We have watched it on the app

We have watched it on the email and we got another..

SOOOOO why the spam? Will we have to watch it on the pier. The email says "to speed up embarkation etc"

 

Honestly- survival of the fittest. 

If someone does watch/doesn't pay attention/doesn't follow directions...it's a Darwin thing.

🏴‍☠️We can just climb over them

This is what I learned from watching the safety video a million times:

If there is an emergency, a SMILING crew member will hand you a life jacket.

So if the crew member isn't smiling if something goes horribly wrong, does that mean I get to complain to NCL and ask for a refund?

I find it interesting that they are canceling Tortola. From what I've read, NCL (and Disney) helped pay for/develop the port area, so you think they would want to stop there.

I will say, though, that most of the cruises I've been on that stop at Tortola has been a waste or just not what it could have been. The crappy 6:00-1:00 (or 7:00-2:00 port times) are not awesome. We were really pleased that we actually had a whole day there on our last cruise.

3 hours ago, yakcruiser said:

It looks like part of researching future cruises will be going to all port websites and seeing if the particular ship we are looking at is actually scheduled to be there.

But you can't trust those, either.

You should have seen the chaos on the Roll Call (and other site) of our last cruise. We were on the Viva out of San Juan. Our week was a diversion of the ship's normal itinerary. It obviously told you that when you booked the cruise (you got the warning window).

The only issue was that several port schedules did not show the Viva in that port that day (and the times were all wrong). I think Antigua and Tortola showed the Viva coming in on the "regular" schedule that week, but that's not what was actually happening. People were trying to book excursions for the wrong day and at the wrong times.

People were insisting that the port schedules were correct. They most certainly were not. I knew the port schedules were wrong. NCL and the cruise mapping websites matched each other and I trusted them more than what the local port was saying.

Of course, what NCL provided to us when we booked our trip was our actual port schedule.

I'm not a fan of NCL changing things for "no" or "stupid" reasons -- especially after final payment. I know it is in their contract that they can do so, but it just feels icky. But just don't 100% trust what the port sites tell you. Sometimes they don't have a clue.

On 4/21/2024 at 9:59 AM, schmoopie17 said:

I'm pretty much always logged into NCL's site. I keep checking existing reservations to see if new excursions get added, watch the countdown calendar, etc. Plus I'm too lazy to have to look up my password if I log out. I also do fake bookings/searches all the time (okay, maybe not all the time...but you get the point) and I have never gotten a call. Guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

 

This is us. We have a great relationship with our PCC and he knows that when we're ready to book, we'll call him. I look at cruises all the time -- for us, for family, for friends. I do get those annoying "Finish booking your cruise" emails, but never any calls.

Our PCC tells us he sees us looking, but knows that we'll book with him when we're ready. He also knows that I'm the researcher in the family!

On 4/16/2024 at 4:36 PM, JIMESOPUS said:

@Travelicious, Holiday Inn in Southampton will allow you to check in early since you are an awards member. In case there isn't anything open they will hold your luggage, also no washcloths at the hotel, so bring your disposable flannels.

Are no washcloths a British thing? It's been years since I've been there. We're staying two nights in Southampton before our Encore TA later this year.

We're also booked on a February Viva cruise (end of the month). I just checked and it is showing as available (both cabanas and the regular passes).

Get off the app and go on a computer. The app is decent, but it doesn't show everything. I've had this issue before booking things. I can't do it on the app, but have zero issues on an actual computer.

Just wow with the logistics of all of this!

Where are you staying in Southampton? We just booked the Encore TA and I'm looking at hotels for a couple of nights before we embark.

Enjoy your trip!

7 minutes ago, dexddd said:

Our experience in NY was same as cruisen.  No different than any other trip through that port other than less in person now days.

 

You didn't say where you flying to, but last trip to LHR it was also agent less for US citizens.  Stand in long line that moves well, go inside gated spot, scan passport, on your way.

We do plan on flying into LHR. Our next decision will be which NY airport we decide to fly out of -- this will my first trip overseas since moving to NY.

It seems like we should give ourselves a little extra time, but we will hope for the best.

41 minutes ago, JIMESOPUS said:

On our last TA, customs/immigration was done aboard the ship in St Thomas, once we got to Miami we went through facial recognition terminals. 

Our last port before Miami is the Azores, so Miami is definitely going to be where we go through the process.

We're planning our first transatlantic and trying to figure out the timing of our flight home.

We're docking in Miami (on a Sunday). I'm assuming customs is a bit more rigorous in situations like this. We're in the Haven, so we'll have priority, but how much time should we allow? For reference, we've easily walked off with our luggage on "regular" cruises and made flights at FLL before noon with no issues.

Thanks!

Compared to other ships I've been on (Escape, Epic, Viva), I am not a fan of the Getaway's Haven. I find the lounge/restaurant area to be too small and there is no roof over the Courtyard.

However, it is the Haven and still great. It just wouldn't be the first Haven I'd choose.