cruisencrazy

We were on the 12 night Southern Route at the end of November. Here's some good info (I hope!):

 

#1 - there are two formal nights...the 2nd night of the cruise and the 2nd to last night of the cruise. The last night was also lobster night in the MDR.

 

#2 - I found the beds to be very hard the first night or two, but after that I was usually too exhausted to notice ;)

 

#3 - MTD can't really address that BUT whenever we were in that area, it always looked busy. If you can make reservations, I would suggest it :rolleyes:

 

#4 - Make sure to do the Puzzlebreak room! It was awesome!

 

#5 - there were two Silent Disco nights on the trip - you can bring your own wireless headsets if you have them :)

 

#6 - For Spectra's Caberet; the Gift and We will Rock You reservations are strongly suggested. They will check your card to make sure that you have reservations before they let you in. If you don't have reservations, you have to wait until about 15 minutes before the show begins to find seats..sometimes can be good (i.e. suite area is virtually empty) but most of the time, not so good.

 

#7 - Re: #6 - if you don't make reservations before leaving, there will be a 'Box Office' (pop up table on the Esplanade the first two days or so) so all is not lost ;)

 

#8 - For Northstar and Ripcord you can only reserve one time, but you can go standby for additional times

 

That's all I can think of off the bat. If you have any specific questions, let me know :D

 

Thank you so much. Great info. We always book everything we can as soon as we schedule the cruise.

Have not been on Anthem yet. Doing the 12 day from New Jersey next month. I have been scouring the boards, but am getting conflicting information. Are there formal nights and if so, how formal are they? Are the balcony level beds hard and if so what were you able to do about it? We have my time dining, any tips? Anything else you wish you had known ahead of time? Thanks so much in advance for your answers.

I checked with the Matre D. She informed me that NCL is taking the Freestyle to the dress code. We didn't dine in the specialty restaurants, but I did see people in line for those in shorts as well. For the record, I didn't say I was unhappy with the service I received on the Escape. The staff was wonderful. As for me, I spend my week in workout clothes as I enjoy my exercise classes several days a week. On Sunday I dress for church, my choice. When I go on vacation, half the fun, for me, is dressing nicely and looking my best for my husband, my handsom date. I personally feel that the Manahattan room should not permit shorts and the like. My opinion....

I haven't sailed NCL since last year, as we sail on several different cruise lines. We were in the Haven last time and just a balcony this time. The Escape is a very nice ship and very clean. NCL now permits shorts, t shirts and flip flops in ALL of the diniing rooms. It will be much easier to pack if I decide to cruise on them again. We enjoy dressing up a little bit for dinner and it felt strange to have someone next to me in a baseball hat, long board shorts and a t shirt with flip flops for dinner. In addition, as others have posted, the smokiness of the ship was so bad that we will not sail on Escape again. The casino is open to everything and on certain decks, the only way to get from one end to the other is to go through it. You cannot "escape" it. If you have asthma, this is NOT the ship for you. Remember the "old" days when people dressed nicely to fly? Everyone treated everyone with respect. Now, everyone looks like they are going to the gym and it is a me first mentality. Now it's on your ships. This cannot go well. No more joking about Carnival; they may be a step up....

Have a wonderful time. I have to wait until November for my next cruise fix.

 

May I ask in what respect your butler fell short?

 

The hairdryer in our suite was broken. He wanted me to hold the button down and it only blew cold. Finally our cabin steward got me a new one. We did not get our afternoon "snacks". We always had to call for coffee pod refills. Dirty glasses, coffee cups were not replaced or taken away..... Waited forever if we needed something small.... Overall, bed was worn out and shower leaked (design flaw) a lot. It was still a really fabulous trip; these things didn't ruin it for us, but it wasn't right.

We had a Haven spa suite on our med cruise last year. It was not an upsell. We liked it, but didn't love the Haven. We had a lazy butler and kids messing with our do not disturb sign. We are cruising Saturday in a balcony and I think we will be just fine. Someone shared very wise words with me on a cruise. They always book inside cabins. She said: I really don't care what kind of cabin we have, we all arrive at the same time.

If you have to rely on the staff to have a good time, then you will probably need to be in the Haven, but it would be a whole lot cheaper to just give a nice tip to your bartender :)

Very Very Very easy to catch a tour after you tender in. Go to the right of the tenders and buy a seat on the boat that takes you to the other side of the island. This is a tour. They bus you back to the same side as the ship. You can either ride the cable car or a donkey down to the pier. You can also walk, but we enjoyed the cable car. This is the island you see in all the postcards. Enjoy.

We cruised on both the Skyward and the Norway. We had a window on the Skyward in May of 1988 and the Owners suite on the Norway in 1991. We still love to cruise.

 

We had purchased pictures from NCL on both cruises and they accepted those as proof that we sailed with them for latitudes points.

We booked a guarantee Bf on Escape for 17th of Sept sailing. Got our assignment faster than ever to a BB mid ship balcony. Not bad. We have a week til sailing and there are plenty of larger/nice/better cabins available. Anyone get an upgrade on their upgrade without asking for it? The only upsells are to Haven and been there done that, not interested.

What are Haven Perks, disregarding the Free at Sea? I know about Haven restaurant, Haven pool and sun deck, concierge and butler. I've sailed in Haven before, but it was a med cruise and we barely utilized what was available plus we had a really bad butler.

NCL doesn't provide OBC for price drops after final payment, all they will do is move you, and if they move you, they do not give you the perks that go with the new cabin, all you get is a different cabin.

 

I got obc after final payment

Can you translate that to English and/or dumb it down for me? NCL newbie here and if there is a possibility for an onboard credit, I'd love to figure out how to get that.

 

And there are a ton of balconies open on my cruise....even the angled ones are still there.

 

The nitty gritty: paid $799 per person. Price dropped to $649. $75 obc

Yes, I'm dealing with this exact thing right now. I got a BX at $649 and now they're down to $399, but because I was "upgraded" to a BC, they're saying that they won't compensate me in any way for this massive price drop because I already received an upgrade. This is for the 9/17 Escape sailing and the prices just keep plummeting.

 

We are on same sailing. We booked a bf guarantee and were given a bb. Bf price dropped and bb increased. Took two phone calls but they gave us an onboard credit. It's 25% of the total reduction. We were ok with that. They did offer to move us, but we are kind of happy with our assignment. The ship still has a lot of vacancies.

[quote name='Buckeye fans']Which one has perks?[/QUOTE]

BF has perks. It was explained to me, by NCL, that they let you book a category that is sold out as a guarantee. I'm sure this only applies to the lower categories and would not be applicable in the Haven.

[quote name='WashyWashyHappyHappy95']Not true. Perks are only excluded if you take a GTY "Sail Away" rate. Otherwise you could book 2 days before and still get the perks if you pay the necessary rate.[/QUOTE]

Not totally true. There are two guarantee rates...the lowest one and the one above that. For example on Escape, BX and BF are both guaratnee balconies. One comes with perks, the other does not.

We sail on the 17th and what we paid was reduced 150 pp. They offered me and on board credit (25% of discount) just the other day. It took 2 calls for someone to be "helpful"

Doing a Mediterranean cruise and wondering if this pass would be worth it with the long days spent in port...

 

We stayed in a Haven spa suite for our med cruise. To be honest, if it didn't come with our room, it would not be worth it. We had to make a point of going there. We left the ship early and came back late, so didn't use it as much as we would have liked. Only good thing was soaking our feet after walking all day. Enjoy your trip :)

+1 for Sapphire, did that last year and found it beautiful.

 

Ditto..Sapphire beach is one of the prettiest beaches we have been to. You can snorkel right off the beach. Enjoy

 

Did you use them for Rome or Barcelona? OP's title says disembarking in Barcelona but then post mentions Rome twice, doesn't mention Barcelona.

 

Used them in Rome. In Barcelona I would do the hop on hop off double decker bus. Only trick would be where to put your luggage.

We used a tour company called cant be missed tours. They were very good

You actually booked a BF guarantee. That means you can only check prices for BF categories as that is the original category you booked in. You cannot check prices for what you have actually been assigned. The other problem with booking a guarantee is you agreed to take whatever they give you without question. Period!

 

Harriet

 

To be clear I don't have any issue with the cabin we were assigned. I only checked the bf price. The change in price was large enough that it prompted me to make the call. If I had not yet received my cabin assignment, she said they could have done something. This is why I have the issue. The ironic part is that I've never received my cabin assignment this far out before.

Did you ask if you gave up your BB cabin and went back to BF if they would give you the price drop? I can see them not giving the drop and leaving you in the higher category. Worth a try if you don't care where your balcony is. If you like your assignment then I think you're out of luck

 

Offered to move to lower category. They said that if I hadn't been assigned a cabin, it would be different.

Completely misunderstood how the pricing works. If I buy an airline ticket and Delta reduces the price, they will honor the new price. Holland America and Princess also work with you so that you are happy with the price you paid. I really don't care about the cabin, we didn't have an option to book a cabin. We didn't book the low guarantee rate, we just weren't that picky about the cabin. I ordered an expensive piece of clothing yesterday. When I looked up to see if it shipped yet, I noticed it was marked down. They gave me the new price, no questions asked. That's how customer service works. I am platinum with Norwegian and have never had this happen before. I usually book closer to the sailing date, so keeping these rules in mind, that is what I will do in the future. I also usually use a travel agent and this time booked on NCL's web site. Learned my lesson.

We sailed on the Epic twice. We liked it so much that when the ship moved from the Caribbean to the Med, we sailed on it again. The first time we had a balcony guarantee which turned into a mini suite. The second time we booked a haven spa suite. The entertainment on the ship is the best. There is so much to do. Other than the lifeboat drill, it never felt crowded. Love love love

We booked a BF guarantee on the Escape for September 17. We were already given our cabin assignment, a BB; same category, but higher up. The BF was discounted today to $150 less per person than we paid. I called NCL, and they said sorry, but the room we were given is more than we paid. I don't care about the BB. As long as we have the basic balcony we paid for, we are fine. Im not planning on spending the vacation in my room, but I do like to hear the water. Is this worth a fight?