MaggieNY

We went on this excursion with an outside tour group because the NCL excursion booked pretty fast. The tour took us out to the Yukon Suspension Bridge, which was super-cool. It goes over a river with white water rapids. We did the bus ride up, the bridge & museum, then the train ride down. Someone online said that doing it in this order wasn't as nice because the brakes squeal the whole way down but we didn't find that to be the case.

We've always gotten the time change reminder cards in our cabin. But even if you don't, just look at the NCL app on your phone. That always has the correct ship time.

We find the online check-in usually saves us a lot of time at the port. But last trip DH took his own selfie and insisted I use it without cropping and adjusting the color balance. The program accepted the photo but I thought they might reject it at the port and they did. So he had to have his picture taken again. It only added a couple of minutes more to the process so it wasn't bad. I still remember our first couple of cruises where they didn't have online check-in and we had to do everything at the port. It was a lot longer process.

I can definitely confirm this. We don't get the drink package and prefer to bring our own wine onboard. Even with the $15 corkage fee per bottle, it's less expensive than buying a bottle onboard and we know what we're getting. The waitstaff always make comments about what we've brought and will chat with us about the wine. Last December, our maitre d' got a kick out of our bottle of Menage a Trois. He gave us a smile and a knowing wink. Our very first cruise, my husband thought he could get away with stowing a bottle of wine in our luggage. We got the naughty room notice and he had to stand on a long line. He was told he could pay the $15 or collect the wine at the end of the trip. He opted to collect it at the end He's since changed his stance on this and is okay with paying the corkage fee. We usually only bring 2 bottles of wine at embarkation and sometimes buy more when we're at a port. But I don't think there's a limit because 4 years ago we were on line to embark in Boston and the couple in front of us had 2 6-pack wine carriers with them. I really wanted to make friends with them to see if they would share! We usually drink 1/2 a bottle at dinner. The MDR staff will recork and tag the bottle for our next meal. It always works out. We've also shared our wine with other couples if we're seated with someone else during a busy dinner rush. Not everyone will do that.

Ask to smell the natural disinfectant they use to clean the room. I thought I smelled a sewer smell in our room. The next day my husband and I worked out in the gym. We used the disinfectant spray to clean down our machines and it had that same sewer-like smell to it.

We tune the TV to the channel with the bow camera. It gives off a little bit of light during the night, then as the sun rises the light gets brighter in the room. It's like having a window.

We just got off the Sun last Wednesday. It was an okay ship. I prefer the smaller ships as they're more intimate, but it seemed like the offerings on the Sun were more limited than we had on the Gem and Dawn. The buffet area is a little smaller but it wasn't bad. The selection was a little more limited than other NCL ships. We never had a problem getting a seat. We like the Great Outdoors buffet area but couldn't always make use of it due to rain. The sports bar handled overflow from the buffet and they used Moderno for continental breakfast then soup/pizza for lunch. Strangely enough, we had better service in the bigger MDR (Seven Seas) than in the smaller one (Four Seasons). Usually it's the other way around. Spinnaker Lounge has those nice windows up front for viewing. We weren't a fan of the aft Stardust Lounge. The lower area is pretty flat instead of sloped, and you had to get there early to find a seat in the upper area that wasn't blocked by a column. The Bliss Lounge is a nice size for all the games & trivia. Our daughter & son-in-law were on 6A Oslo, which is this weird forward deck sandwiched between decks 6 & 7. At first they liked it because the only people walking those corridors were guests on that deck (no through-traffic). However, it was crazy loud at 5:00 a.m. when the ship was pulling into port. We had the roomiest interior we've ever had on Deck 8 and even had empty drawers and shelves. We were not fans of the shower curtain or the hair dryer, but everything else was great. Because it's an older, smaller ship, we really felt the waves going from Juneau to Victoria. The ship was really creaking and groaning at 11:30 at night and it scared me a little. After a while, I realized the ship wasn't going to break apart and I was able to relax and let the rocking get me back to sleep. My husband, however, got really seasick. They put out green apples in the buffet and had sea sick bags on all the railings on the stairs. The entertainment seemed scaled back to us. Not sure if that was because of the itinerary or the cruise director staff. All in all it was okay. If there was an itinerary that we were interested in on the Sun, we'd probably go again.

Ship - Sun Deck - 8 Viking Stateroom # 8319 Stateroom Category – IA Family Inside Starboard or Port Side - Starboard, slightly forward of mid Quiet Stateroom? – Yes Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? - No Balcony View - N/A Balcony Size- N/A Was wind a problem? N/A If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? N/A Any specific problems with this cabin? - None Any other comments? There were just 2 of us in this cabin and it was super roomy! It only cost a few dollars more than a regular inside room and was worth it. For the first time ever, we had empty drawers and shelves. The bathroom had plenty of shelving. A few small complaints: - Instead of a light or a dial outside the door, you had to hang one of those old fashioned "Do not disturb/Make up the room" hang tags. They were always falling off the handles when other guests walked through the hallway. - We hated the hairdryer in the bathroom. It was hard to direct the airflow where you wanted because of the hose, the hose kept getting hot, and only one person could use the bathroom if someone was drying their hair. - We would have preferred a glass shower door instead of the curtain. It was a little dark in the shower and you had to be careful to be sure the curtain remained inside the shower area or you had a flood on the floor.

There IS tour transportation to and from the theater. But we wanted to go into town earlier so we took the Ward Cove shuttle. There wasn't enough time to take the shuttle back to the port in time to take the shore excursion provided transport right back into Ketchikan. The option I described works for anyone who's already in town.

So we just did this yesterday. Our NCL Shorex ticket actually said "You can meet the tour at the show directly." We took the Ward Cove shuttle into town, wandered around then went to the show. When they took the ticket stub, they gave us a cash register- like receipt with a red line on it and the shuttle time. At the end of the show we exited through the store and we're directed to walk about 2 blocks down across from the Soaring Eagle store. Pretty easy process. As we drove past the waiting area for the port bus around 2:45, the line was fairly long, but not as long as the line in the morning. Last bus was at 3:00 and we didn't leave anyone behind so they got everyone back in time. It was a good plan so I say you should go for it

Okay, this is freaky. We also had a Colonel Sanders on our cruise, same year!

On Halloween Day 2019 on the Gem, there were a lot of Halloween food displays in the buffet but there weren't any other decorations on the ship. When my husband realized we would be on our cruise for Halloween, I gave him carte blanche for picking out costumes. He went all out. We had a slight misunderstanding with the costumes, though. I started putting on my costume for dinner, he thought we were going to go back to the cabin after dinner and put on costumes. I said there wasn't time. He felt a little funny dressing up for dinner, but we had 2 couples who were together beg us to sit with them in the MDR. People were asking for pictures all night. They had a costume contest. We didn't win but it was so much fun.

I had the same problem last night. It accepted my picture but not my husband's. After several tries, I gave up, finished the check-in and told him he would need to get his picture taken at the port. After I logged out of my NCL account, I decided to log into his account and try to upload his picture. It worked on the first try. Go figure.

I don't know the date of your trip, but here's the schedule for the free shuttle: https://wardcoveak.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/2023-Ward-Cove-Port-Schedule-7.17.2023.pdf It looks like they adjust the last shuttle time based on the cruise line's departure time. My family just booked the lumberjack show thru NCL. Due to another scheduled excursion, we picked the 1:30 show, which ends at 2:30 and the last free shuttle is 3:00. I saw online that the lines can be long for the last shuttle. With the $50 shore excursion credit and our 10% Latitudes discount, it cost $97.00 for each couple vs $85/couple with taxes & fees directly through the lumberjack show's website. We figured we'll take the free shuttle into town earlier in the day, see the show, then take the NCL shuttle that's included with our tickets back to the port. Guaranteed seats, no waiting. For me, that was worth the extra $12. YMMV.

My husband and I did the Meraviglia out of Brooklyn back in June. The biggest differences between MSC & NCL for us were: MSC has assigned dinner seating vs NCL's Freestyle dining. We didn't like the 15-minute window to get to our seating. However, we were able to get a later seating one night when we were late coming in from the port. We prefer just showing up at the MDR on NCL when we're ready. Entertainment was pretty okay on MSC and we had different shows every night but the caliber of the shows was lower than NCL. Cruise director staff on MSC seemed a little aloof. They were certainly energetic but seemed to avoid mixing with guests the way NCL's cruise staff does. It might have just been the staff on that particular ship. There were fewer audience participation game shows on MSC. Buffet was okay, nothing horrible, but we felt NCL had a better selection and more variety from day to day. MSC seemed to serve almost the same thing every day. The pizza, however, was AWESOME! No washy washy ladies when entering the buffet, a big negative for me. I've always been a germophobe so this stressed me out the whole week. MSC's private island is really nice. They have their own dock so there's no worries that you might not be able to tender.

Tunnels freak me out! I'm marginally better with bridges, but not by much. There wasn't much traffic on the BQE so that wasn't an issue.

I'm going to piggy-back onto your thread. My husband and I were also on this cruise. We've only ever been on NCL so we were curious about MSC. Port: We were not a fan of Brooklyn. Manhattan is so much easier for us. We're not very familiar with Brooklyn and had to watch the GPS because it wanted us to take the tunnel, which we managed to avoid. Then Google Maps didn't know that the entrance to the port parking lot was not accessible from the one side. We asked 3 different guys whose only English seemed to be "go right, go left". After circling 3 times, we finally figured out that you had to go ALL the way down, loop to the next street over, then you could get into the parking lot. No signs anywhere. The NYPD officer we asked was useless. Parking was steep at $315. The cheapest garage we could find online was about $145 but was about 5 miles away and would have cost over $50 to Uber each way, making it $250. My husband complained but I thought it was worth the extra money for the convenience of parking at the port. It was great on debarkation. We did the self-walk off, crossed the street into the parking lot, loaded up the car and drove off. Cabin: We decided to do this on the cheap and took an interior cabin. We realized we're almost never in the cabin so why pay hundreds extra for a window or balcony. The TV was opposite the bed and we set it to the port or starboard channel (depending on which one would show us the sunrise) and left it on all night. We could have used a couple more drawers but we managed. Our cabin steward was great. I'm pretty sure she serviced the room 3 times a day. And even though MSC's website strongly discouraged direct tipping, she gladly took the extra money we gave her at the end of the trip. Ship cleanliness: On past trips, I've heard other passengers make fun of the washy-washy ladies outside the buffet on NCL, but I love that they make sure everyone is washing up. (It's like LOTR: "You shall not pass!") MSC made no effort to make sure people were washing before entering. I would say 90% of the passengers were walking in without washing. There were some sinks nearby but it was hit or miss as to whether you got any soap and the paper towels were so jammed packed it was difficult to get one out. I was a germophobe before the pandemic, now I'm a germ lunatic. There was a lot of open coughing in the buffet area. Yuck. We did the 9:00 stretch and 9:30 aerobics on the pool deck most days. Since it was pretty early in the day, you would think it wouldn't be too dirty. There was always hair and garbage swirling around as we exercised. It didn't look like the deck got a good scrubbing at night. Most of the landings at the stairs were pretty wet, like there was some kind of leakage going on. Buffet: The buffet was okay but the menu almost never changed. We were usually up for breakfast by 7:00 - 7:30, so the crowds weren't bad. I wish that MSC let you get a freshly made omelet or fried eggs to order (like NCL). You could get custom omelets in the dining room but we preferred the convenience of the buffet. I would fill my travel mug with tea and my husband would fill his water bottle. We didn't like that you had to carry around your silverware. The napkins looked ragged. I like that NCL has them on the table because it forces staff to come around and fill them then clean the table. There didn't seem to be much staff cleaning tables. A few times we sat at tables that had been cleared of dishes but not cleaned. We were ready for lunch by 12:00 and found a lot of people towards the back still working on breakfast. Lunch was never too crowded. There were quite a few people who would just shove into the line to grab what they wanted. The pizza was really good. The desserts looked pretty but tasted bland. There wasn't much in the way of sugar free desserts. I liked that the ice cream was served by staff outside by the pool. The ice cream machines on NCL can get a little dirty with people self-serving. There was no hard ice cream like NCL. We never ate dinner at the buffet. MDR: We weren't fans of the assigned seating. We had to make sure we planned our time carefully. We were assigned an 8-top at 5:30 at Waves. We only met 1 other couple, the other 4 people never showed up. The other couple was very nice but I had trouble hearing them with their accents, my hearing problem, and the loudness of the MDR. The meals were okay - we had some really good meals and some that were meh. My husband had surf and turf and turf on Gala Night. I would happily marry the pastry chef who made the Royal Cake that night. I had swordfish that was good but blackened fish that was pretty white and bland. The other couple at our table frequently had a couple of appetizers and entrees most nights. Our waiters were great. We had hot tea the first night and it tasted heavily of coffee (my husband and I hate coffee). We had to leave for a show and didn't get to tell the waiter there was a problem. The next night, he asked if we wanted tea (he remembered what type we each wanted). I mentioned the problem with the water. He brought water in a carafe that hadn't been used for coffee and made sure he did that for the rest of the week. The dress code is not enforced. We went to Waves at 5:30 when we were in Port Canaveral to see if we could get a later seating. We were sweaty and obviously had bathing suits under our clothes. They would have seated us as we were, but we went back to our cabin to shower and change into dress clothes. We like to dress up for dinner. It just makes it feel more special. Shows: We pre-paid for both of the carousel shows before sailing at $12 each. It was $18 on the ship. We figured since we didn't get the drink package, the $12 was for the drinks. The drinks were not great and the shows were okay. Not as much with the acrobatics as we thought there would be. A lot of the acrobatics were repeated in both shows. Singing and dancing were pretty good. We could NOT use the app to book the time we wanted (you only pre-pay but you can't schedule). We had to stand in line 45 minutes to schedule our shows. There was a different show each night, as opposed to a few better quality shows as on NCL that were repeated. The shows were pretty good but I thought they were a little lacking. The musicians (piano, guitar, bass and drums) were AWESOME. I noticed them in the first show. Then in one of the later shows they were featured during a costume change and we were blown away. The Conjurers were okay. I liked the comedian - he wasn't bad. His show in the carousel was funnier. We loved the guest and crew talent shows. The audience was super-supportive of all the performers. The dome shows were hit or miss. I missed the Silent Disco! I wanted to do it but my husband pooh-poohed it. I was hoping they would repeat it. I've seen posts that they sometimes do it twice but they didn't. The MSC for Me App: This is where MSC came out a little bit ahead of NCL for us. I loved that we could pre-book our shows (except carousel). I loved that we got a reminder about 30 minutes in advance for shows we tagged. There were nice descriptions of most of the events. The ship map, however, didn't work at first. It finally started working a few days in - after we already knew all the nooks and crannies in the ship. I wish they had PDFs of the daily program - there were some things listed in there that weren't on the app. Ports: We hated that Port Canaveral was at 1:00. We wanted to see Kennedy Space but would have only had 3 hours or so to see things. We opted to take a shuttle to Cocoa Beach. Ocean Cay was very nice. We went to the buffet early and the line wasn't too long. The food was pretty good. There was someone making sure that guests didn't try to cut in front of other guests on line - which almost happened to us. The lighthouse show was underwhelming. They made such a big deal about it but we could have given it a miss. We've been to Nassau before and were not really looking forward to it again. The new port is nice but it looks like they pushed out some of the local stores. Internet, specialty dining and drinks package: We opted not to take the internet. We had a few times that we regretted that. I understand that it's unlimited, not by the minute like NCL. A lot of my push notifications still came through on my phone when I had on Wi-Fi for the app. We never take specialty dining or drinks packages. I like that NCL lets you bring wine on board. I used to hate the $15 corkage fee but I missed it this trip. I usually buy $10 - $15 bottles of wine. We ended up paying $40 for a bottle of wine. Games/activities: We found the cruise director's staff to be a little less warm, welcoming and engaging as NCL's staff. The activities started exactly on time and ended on time. There was no buffer between if you wanted to run to something else. The TV studio was too small for some of the events. The Love and Marriage show was similar to NCL's Not So Newlywed game, but they only interviewed the women - not the men. The gym isn't as big as NCL's. Library: The "library" is just a small area with seating, lots of shelves and (I kid you not) 3 books. There were also 2 jigsaw puzzles, 1 which said there was a piece missing. That's it. Boo. Final thoughts: We didn't love the cruise but we didn't hate it. It was pretty nice but we kept saying, "This is good, but Norwegian does it better." We might go MSC again if we get a good price like we did for this one.

As others said above, the menu is the same at all 3. No matter the ship, my husband and I prefer the smaller MDRs over the large one. With Taste or Savor, we started by picking whichever one had the shorter line. After a few nights we would pick the one that we felt had better waitstaff. The larger MDRs like the Manhattan Room are just too big and overly fancy for us. We found service to be slower in the Manhattan Room. I'm not sure if that's intentional. Maybe they want to give you a leisurely dining experience but to me it seemed like the waitstaff was just overworked. Also, the smaller MDRs seem better able to accommodate a quicker service time if we wanted to made a show after dinner, which for us is every single night.

I pulled out my Freestyle Dailies from Dawn December 2022: General Manager: Vitor Da Silva F&B Director: Ionela Oprisan Cruise Director: Jeimy Caro, AD-Bruno Guest Services Manager: Carol Macapagal Restaurant Manager: Luminita Mihalache Beverage Manager: Ferdinand Pascual Executive Housekeeper: Misiel Bulaon Executive Chef: Prakash Correia CruiseNext Manager: Glenn

We're about 10 miles east of Poughkeepsie. The first time we left out of NYC in 2015, we got to the port around 9:30 and made it onto the ship around 11:00. That was back in the day when the check in took a lot longer because they took everyone's pictures, took the credit card information, then had to print up the key cards. We were constantly moving so there was no time to be bored. The 2nd time was in 2021, after everything started opening up after Covid. We uploaded our pictures and credit card information about 3 weeks in advance, so the pre-boarding check in was very fast. The longest wait we had was waiting for our Covid test results at the port. We made it onto the ship by about 11:00. Last year, we left out of Tampa. Again, we uploaded our pictures and credit card information before we even left NY. We had a 12:30 check in time but we got to the port at 9:30. We dropped our luggage off with the porters, saw the line was really long, so we went for a walk on the riverfront park and then out to Publix to buy a few bottles of wine. When we got back at 11:00, the line was much shorter. We checked in - it only took about 10 minutes - then we were on the ship by about 11:30. The lines seem to move pretty fast so I don't think you'll be stuck in line for hours.

I'm with @Langham1865, get there early. When they say ##-day cruise, they're counting the embarkation day. Get on board early and get your money's worth! You don't say what day of the week your cruise leaves. We've gone out of NYC twice, both on a Sunday, and we got down to the port around 9:30 am. Traffic is much better earlier in the morning on a Sunday. We have a 90-minute drive from north of the city. If our cruise had departed on a weekday, we would have waited for rush-hour traffic from our area down to NYC to clear up before driving down.

My husband, that's who! He goes to the gym every sea day and everything gets that sweaty funk to it.

The NCL website still shows Norfolk on the itinerary. I've been trying to talk my husband into booking that cruise. We've done the 2 days out/1 day back and this one appealed to us because of the stop in VA. He prefers the extra port instead of a sea day.

I like to pack some of our clothes in those plastic space bags, the ones with the ziplock on top. You zip it shut and squeeze out the air to compress everything down. Once we're on the cruise, I use them for our dirty laundry. By zipping it shut then squeezing out the air, it prevents dirty laundry funk from filling up the cabin.

I have to echo the no scooter rental plea. My husband has his motorcycle license. We've rented scooters on Block Island & Martha's Vineyard with me riding on the back and had no issues. So we didn't hesitate to rent a scooter in Aruba when we were there over a year ago on a cruise. It had rained the night before. Coming out of the parking lot of the rental place, we went through a puddle that turned out to be really oily. With the combination of oil on the slick tires on the scooter and being at an angle from the turn, we had a low-speed crash. My husband ended up with a bit of road rash. I ended up with road rash and my right ankle was broken on one side AND sprained on the other. Fortunately, that was the extent of our injuries. I didn't need surgery and I got a cast at the HOH for only $675 (a bargain!), which my insurance reimbursed me for. I spent the rest of the cruise in a wheelchair. All in all we were lucky. I won't do scooters anymore. My husband suggested renting a scooter on our last cruise but I flat-out said no. He wasn't the one with a broken ankle, dealing with a wheelchair and then crutches. The sprained side took a year to heal. It just wasn't worth it. This December we paid $20 for Arubus day passes. It was a lot cheaper than a scooter rental and hospital bill.