DevCruise

I collect the ship ornaments too and you can see from my signature line, that I have been on most of the fleet already. I have never been on one that doesn't have the ornament. :D

I think they're starting to hide them. The last two ships I've been on I've had to ask and they got them out of a back room somewhere. :confused:

Wish I could get my hands on a Pride of America ornament. It was our first cruise and we didn't understand why the gift shops were always closed when we walked by (didn't know the ship in port thing). I've asked on a few roll calls and always get reports back that they didn't have any ornaments.

Wondering if these things are going the way of the ship pins.....:confused:

Here are the ones we ordered with the anniversary package...

Pictures don't show it, but we felt like they took up that side of the cabin. Lasted a whole week and even made it to the hotel. Probably wasn't supposed to do that, but nobody said anything and not like we could hide it.

Why not just put them on their own account tied to their own charge cards?

My suggestion if you're looking to book airfare now. Check all the cruise lines for the week you're planning to be there and see what all ships are going to be in port and adjust your dates so that there are at least a couple ships in port to choose from. Then if your first choice itinerary doesn't go on sale, maybe one of the other ones will.

And like some of the others have said, have a land based backup plan just in case. Unless you're booking something like Southwest that would allow you to keep the money paid as a future credit and you'd be ok with that.

I guess the trick is to wait until the last minute to make the OBC request or at least after you've done any upgrades/rebookings.

You might be able to call NCL and get the soda package added either through a phone rep or the bon voyage dept. As others have said, you're out of luck for any alcohol.

I had a friend IM me today about a cruise over Christmas (yeah, I know). For her family of 4, the 3rd person was going to be like $1200. The first two passengers were about $600 each. The 4th was just under $400 if I remember right. The 3rd and 4th are an 18 month old and a 3 yr old, so not like you could put them in a cabin by themselves.

I don't have your exact same situation, but the manager I work for now doesn't seem to be able to plan more than about a week ahead. I ended up taking out cruise insurance with a "Cancel for any/work reason" clause just because I didn't trust him.

We took our son at 1 yr old on a cruise to Mexico. Included a 6 hour flight each way. He loved the cruise and slept for most of the flights.

My suggestion, if you're going after the baby is born, wait until then to book the cruise and you can see what kind of baby you're dealing with. Then you can decide if you think it is a good idea or not.

That sucks. :(

If you book via the web, it's considered a website booking and the PVP doesn't get credit. The exception is if you put a 24-hr hold on and then the PVP completes the booking. Dealt with this last fall due to my PVP being on vacation.

Just call NCL and tell them to cancel the existing hold and book the same room with today's (tomorrow's) promo.

In between mom and dad. :)

I don't know about SOP, but we used one of the fold out couches on one cruise. They made and folded it up each night/day. If you had one of the ones that came down from the ceiling, I'd assume they'd put it away just to keep someone from bashing their head on it.

I think the cost of the drinks going up is a result of so many people having the beverage package now. NCL has to make their money somehow.

I don't go on my next cruise for 7 months. Heaven only knows what will transpire (change) since I booked.

Agreed. We booked when the Ultimate Dining Program was still offered including gratuities. Not even sure what that's worth now given that it technically doesn't exist and a lot of the restaurants are either free now or a la carte.

2nd option is they cook your food on a fully sanitized allergen-free cooktop, in the galley. This is the safest if the allergy is really severe.

They did this with my dad's celliac allergy. His food came out just as ours was being plated.

\The ability to open the dividers was mandated by law after the Star Princess fire, where the fire teams could not go from one balcony to the next to fight the fire. The ability to open is for firefighting and maintenance only.

Thanks for posting this. I'd always wondered why NCL keeps designing ships with dividers that could be opened if they were going to refuse to open them. Not that I care either way, I never travel with anybody next door.

I'm confused....I thought with early saver it was a $50 cancellation fee and the rest of any money already paid was held for the next booked cruise?

On our last cruise, we moved from a balcony to a mini-suite to an aft penthouse. Each time, we paid the difference between what we previously paid and the current website fare. We kept the 9 month booking bonus and once we moved to the aft penthouse, we also go the suite bonus.

Had we called the upsell dept or they called us, we would not have received the suite booking bonus as their upgrade cost is less than the full website fare at the time of the upgrade.

Thanks for all the replies. On the element of surprise, if I order them say today will it be on my cruise documents thus ruining the surprise part? Will it be on any documents is what I am asking? She doesn't check NCL.com, she doesn't check our cruise online, only I do that.

It's done through the Bon voyage department. Doesn't show up in the cruise docs. Will show up on the credit card as a charge from NCL.

Thank you everyone. I see a lot of people saying about being with them undivided and I agree with that, that's why the other 3 port days each family is taking a day to stay with them while the rest of the family goes of board. But since people are coming that normally don't vacation with us or vacation at all, we wanted to do one thing together. But since there is no option one person will stay on. No big deal. Just wanted to see if there was an option. Didn't need people degrading my family. I thought an 8 days cruise minus 5 hours was enough with everyone together. I want to thank those who were supportive though and actually gave good advice. Thank you.

Is it possible to change the "everyone together" excursion to something like one of the bus tours? Then your parents could come along and it would actually be everyone together.

Lucky you to be able to take the flowers home with you. We weren't allowed to do this when I received flowers from my husband for my birthday, which he waited to have delivered on my actual birthday. I'd only had the floral arrangement for four out of the 14 nights sailing, so they were still in great shape. The crew girls I shared them with were all excited to receive them, thou. This wasn't on NCL but we did disembark in Miami. Next time, I'd want those flowers ASAP to enjoy all week, lesson learned. OP, what a thoughtful husband, hope she loves them!

I'm not sure if it mattered, but that cruise was the Hawaiian island cruise. Never left the state.

We got the dozen roses as part of the romance package and they were very nice flowers and we actually took them off the ship with us. Not sure if you were supposed to, but nobody said anything and it's not like you could hide them.

Anyway, it's one of the times where NCL's price actually seems to match land based prices. At least at a regular florist.

We did this cruise in January in cabin 9050 and given the direction of travel, I'd say we were on the return pass. The views from our balcony were amazing as far as I can tell. It's not like you'll be miles out to sea and not able to see anything.

That year was also just after the Japanese earthquake/tsunami that they blamed for the volcano no erupting, so they didn't even do the sail by on the big island to see the volcano.