lfplenore

Great review! We will be boarding the Jewel for the China/Japan cruise shortly. We are currently traveling from Bangkok to Hong Kong.

Regarding passports at the Grand Palace. We were told by our hotel that passports were required; they were not. The only reason you would need your passport would be to rent an audio guide. Passports were not checked at the ticket booth.

As for passports being collected on board, you can go to Guest Services to retrieve your passport at any time. They are collected to make immigration easier; all of that is taken care of by Guest Services saving you time while in port. However, you can get your passport back if you need it for a particular port.

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We booked the same cruise months ago; most cabins were already filled. Keep an eye on things after final payment is due; something may open up then.

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Thank you. Sorry for the change to your itinerary. I will continue to hope that "no news is good news" for our sailing, although there are a lot of ships scheduled in port that day so we will see what happens.....

Good luck. I hope your itinerary isn’t impacted. :-)

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Where did you see the removal of Roatan from the itinerary? We are on the March 25-April 1 sailing of the Pearl. I will be very diappointed if we do not call on Roatan!

The information was posted on our Roll Call. Several people in the group had received communication from NCL regarding the itinerary change. I booked through a TA so have not been notified yet. However, another person called NCL and received confirmation.

The April sailing of the Pearl just had Roatan removed from the itinerary.

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How do you handle your pre booked independent shore excusions if your ship misses the port? Did you have to forfeit your money or get a refund? What are your experiences?

It depends on the tour company. We received partial refunds on several missed ports when the Star’s azipod went out a little over a year ago and made claims through our travel insurance company for any unreimbursed amounts. Some companies don’t require a deposit in advance and have a policy that you will not be charged if your ship doesn’t dock. Check carefully before booking so you know and are not taken by surprise!

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Thanks for the review. You were grandfathered under the old rules, but, did you see others being more restricted?

I think we were on the same sailing as the OP. We booked after the changes in rules and had absolutely no restrictions. If you are interested, my review is on my blog (https://travelswithheather.com/blog/).

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I would have stayed with the shorter connection. You stay in the controlled area, so it is a matter of moving to your next plane. Now you are faced with very long sit times.

Not necessarily true. We changed planes in Paris and were immediately funneled to a non-secured area after leaving the plane. We then had to take a train to a different terminal, check luggage and go through security again. An hour and ten minute would not have worked.

OP, glad you were able to make the change.

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Thanks so much for a great review. We will be in Havana on the Sky in April and now know what to expect.

Happy to be of help! Have a fabulous cruise.

Heather

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A very extensive review and photos! I also did not expect to see a religious statue there.

 

 

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I asked our tour guide about religion, assuming that like Russia, Cuba would have clamped down on religion after the revolution. She said that religious expression has always been allowed and that the revolution did not interfere with that.

Glad you enjoyed my review!

Heather

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I may be totally incorrect, but I think since Trump made changes to traveling to Cuba, I thought we had to book excursions only through NCL?

Not true. I just got back from the Cuba cruise on the Sky. We were easily able to do it on our own; no issues whatsoever. If you are interested you can read about our trip at https://travelswithheather.com/2017/12/15/havana-cuba/

Heather

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I was very worried about visiting Cuba due to the new OFAC regulations. We did not book the requisite 6-months out and were very concerned that NCL would require us to take one of their excursions and that we would not be able to wander around on our own.

Prior to the cruise I contacted NCL who reassured me that their cruises were fully compliant with the new regulations and that nothing would change. Having been given incorrect information before by NCL, I still had my doubts.

I worried for nothing. We were given disembarkation information the night before. We were to pick up disembarkation tickets starting at 7 am; we would be able to disembark between 9 and 10 am.

The first group was actually called at 8 am; by 8:30 group 4 had been called. We had booked a classic car tour with another couple and walked off the ship together at 8:30. There were no lines for customs/immigration, nor did we have to wait to exchange our money. We were walking the streets of Havana by 8:45! There were plenty of classic cars and horse-drawn carriages waiting to offer tours for those that had not pre-booked. We were also able to wander freely with no restrictions on our second day in port.

I have a blog post with lots of pictures and details about our time spent in Havana: https://travelswithheather.com/2017/12/15/havana-cuba/.

Please feel free to ask questions; I will answer them as best I can.

Heather

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We checked 515 565 (b) educational exchange people to people. Also we called NCL & prepaid for our visa’s. $75.00 per person. They will be provided when we check in at the port. I assume you can pay when you check in but I’m not 100% sure.

We were charged immediately. We booked through a TA; the visa shows up as a separate charge from the cruise fare.

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Educational Exchange - People to People (515-565b) is what we checked in August. We went on NCL excursions. Has NCL updated their instructions since the new OFAC “rules” came out?

 

 

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I contacted NCL regarding our upcoming cruise to Cuba on 12/11. This is their response:

All of our cruises to, and shore excursions in, Cuba are in full compliance with regulations set forth by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC"), and the new guidelines set forth.

We are delighted our guests will continue to have the opportunity to experience the wonderful culture and incredible history of Cuba along with the warmth and friendliness of the Cuban people through OFAC-compliant shore excursions that help promote people-to-people contact with the Cuban people, an opportunity that was restricted for over fifty years.

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Abayas were not required when we visited last year. Long sleeves, long pants and headscarf were sufficient (although if the pants are too tight who knows?).

Interesting. It may depend on which mosque you visit; the Grand Mosque was the only one where abayas were required. They have them for rent there. Men need to make sure their shorts are long enough. There are "clothing police" at the security checkpoint and one of the men in our group was told his were too short. They must completely cover the knees.

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Our B2B cost would be $1400 more than when we booked if we rebooked. No thanks!

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For some of the mosques, women need to wear an abaya; just a headscarf is not sufficient. Many of the women on our tour (including me) got the "opportunity" to purchase an abaya as a souvenir in Abu Dhabi in order to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

I highly recommend doing an evening safari in Dubai; it is a not to be missed experience!

We did a Rome to Hong Kong cruise last year. I have written in depth about the ports and experiences on my blog if you are interested

(website is in my signature).

And, to reiterate what everybody else has said, no visas are necessary.

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The bags rip really easily. I have heard that some people slip them inside a pillowcase and then stuff them really full. Tightly rolling clothes works well for us.

As for losing clothing, they put little (itchy) tags inside your clothes to ensure you get back what you put in. You also fill in a laundry slip where you itemize how many of each type of clothing put in. That being said, on our Alaska cruise in May, they lost one of my socks. The cabin steward attempted to track it down for me, but a white athletic sock is kind of hard to identify, I guess!

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It really varies by ship, in my experience. Most likely the laundry special will be offered twice, but no guarantee. We have been on NCL cruises where it has been offered twice/week. On our last 14 day cruise, it was only offered once. We usually bring enough clothes for a week or so no matter how long our cruise is, we have clean clothes.

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Not true.....we have done four B2B's and had to attend Muster two times out of the four....and in all four instances we were NOT moving/changing cabins....as that would be a pain in my opinion...

 

 

 

It may depend on the Safety Officer in charge on each ship? Just a thought....but we just now wait and see....and ASK! Although once were told that we did NOT have to attend and then rec'd the "bad cruiser" letter in our stateroom the next day and had to attend the makeup drill...

 

 

 

Always hard to know what to expect as although we do love NCL for the largest percentage of our cruises.....they DO seem to have a problem with communication and being consistent across the board....

I guess we have been lucky on our B2Bs so far. We embark on another in a little over two weeks; here's hoping our luck holds!

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You do NOT have to do the muster drill for your second cruise.

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This is an absolutely wonderful cruise. I can't imagine having a Jewish last name would be an issue; there were several people that we did excursions with that were Jewish and there were no problems whatsoever.

I wrote detailed information about our trip in my blog (http://www.TravelsWithHeather.com). Posts about this trip are found in the archives for November and December 2016.

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We are sailing on the NCL Sun next week and have the free 250 minute internet package as part of the Free at Sea promotion.

 

 

 

I've never had internet on any cruise before, let alone on NCL so am wondering...if we reach the 250 minutes will our service just shut off? Or...will we have to worry about going over our limit and getting charged for the extra time?

Be careful to log off every time you use the internet. Otherwise, your 250-minutes will be gone in a flash. And, NCL will be happy to sell you more minutes if you use up the minutes in your package[emoji57].

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Well at least he's consistant? This was my third time setting one up and yes, the group coordinators were always awesome. Not this guy.

 

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I "worked" with him on a Meet and Greet as well. We had too many people for the venue he reserved for us so he tried to change our date to a port day. It was a huge hassle and he made things very difficult. He wouldn't even help find a way to notify the 150+ people that there would be a new date/time. Our compromise in order to keep the original time was that I had to stand at the door and turn people away if it "got too crowded". Pitiful.

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If you need any emergency pain relief or prophylactic they have a vending machine right outside the port restrooms on 6 between the casino and the theatre.

 

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I have never seen anything like this on any of the NCL ships I have been on[emoji16]. Do the other ship's have them and I just haven't noticed?

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