afn10305

Thank you for this insight. 👍🏻

@MtnSeaGirl it seems like we have similar cruising sensibilities. 🥰 After so many cruises to the Caribbean we're now thinking like "you've seen one island, you've seen 'em all!" I mean how many monkeys or sloths can I hold, how many times do I want to hear "lady, lady-- let me braid your hair?!" 🤣 Don't get me wrong, cruising anywhere is still our vacay of choice, but we are now on the hunt for something different. We have some Europe/Mediterranean under our cruising belts, but the bucket list seems to be growing longer. Have even been dreaming about a transpacific or Asian cruises. While my husband is still working it's a little more challenging to plan any kind of travel and he doesn't have a job that allows for "summers off". We have some cruising buddies who live in Seattle, so they have done Alaska many times and we asked their opinions too. That's our other *kink* in the thought process of WHERE to cruise FROM since we've never been to Seattle either and we could potentially meet up with our friends there first. OH, the decisions... 🤔

My hubby is usually the one that likes to write reviews. I think we need to book one first! 🤣

I don't know what to ask. My hubby is still working so it's trying to fit something into a certain time frame (for him to take PTO) to start, and then figuring out from where to cruise and whether or not to add a land tour first. I've read a lot about how much time is spent on transport for the land tours so we're already reconsidering that. Obviously there is just too much in Alaska to do just one cruise. We had been shying away from Alaska for many years because for our money and time, it's about equal going to Europe from where we live. I much prefer Europe, but my hubs wants to visit cousins in Colorado for a couple of days either going or coming, and attaching a cruise trip to that made Alaska a natural choice. I guess I would appreciate it if you could come back here after your cruise and give some thoughts and opinions about how it went. 😊

Mary Lou, I would be interested to hear more about your upcoming NCL Jewel plans for the end of April and May. We just hit Sapphire for the Latitudes program and are open to any cruise line really that fits our time frame and itinerary, but have more CruiseNext deposits available.

Ditto for us Florida folks MtnSeaGirl! We are experienced cruisers, but first time considering Alaska, so are having trouble trying to figure out what will work best for us. We're planning for summer 2025 and want to maximize our travel there.

Thank you for this info oaktreerb. We're in the talking stages of our first-ever Alaska cruise and possible land tour for summer 2025, so will be following these forums as well.

Yup. That's why we've been considering. 👍🏻

Thank you. 👍🏻 We just turned Sapphire on Latitude rewards and had been contemplating a future sailing on MSC.

Jamie, so I am curious and would like your honest opinion. With regards to food and drink how does MSC stack up (or not) vs. NCL? We're in Quebec City waiting to board the Pearl on Friday.

@broberts Thank you SO much! Once you told me about format merging, I was able to recreate my document and save it as a PDF. I would not have ever learned that little trick without your assistance! 👍🏻

Hi @JamieLogical We actually met you on the Breakaway two years ago to Bermuda, and right after that cruise DH and I booked a NE cruise on the Pearl which we're FINALLY taking next week! WOO-HOO! Of course, we've been on several cruises since then, but going to the Caribbean now sort of feels like you've seen one island you've seen 'em all to us. So, we Floridians (who are also not pool deck sort of people) wanted to try a different adventure. This one goes from Quebec City and ends up in Boston. We are so excited as we've not been to any of these ports before. I look forward to reading more of your posts about the Canada/New England area.

I'm not at a computer right now. Would you be kind enough to tell me under which menu I would find the Paste Merge Formatting?

Yes, @broberts Thanks for trying. If you can even get it to a point where it's a word doc with regular font and no lines, I can go back in and redo font color, type, and size. I've even tried just snipping in parts as jpgs and pasting to word, but the snips are too big to fit on the page. If all else fails, I may have to end up typing all from scratch, but I'm hoping to avoid that.

Thanks @broberts! If I knew how to paste without formatting, I certainly would try that. Here's the link to the post I would like to copy and paste to WORD, then edit and upload as a PDF. (That, I know how to do.) Post #159 https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2816315-ncl-pearl-october-6-2023-quebec-to-boston/page/7/#comment-66074073

Hello. This might be a long shot, but it doesn't hurt to ask... I'm hosting a Meet & Greet on an upcoming cruise and have already nicely posted information to our roll call forum about it. BUT, I wanted to cut and paste what I wrote on the roll call to a WORD document and be able to save it as a PDF version so folks can print out if they want. The issue is that when I copy and paste from the CC forum, every single time it makes lines around the wording sort of like frames or cells. Does anyone know how to remove whatever these frames are in my draft WORD document? I'm attaching a <snip> from the WORD doc, so you can see the "frames" I'm talking about. (see blue arrows pointing to frames) I've tried choosing "NONE" for borders under DESIGN, and "NONE" under DRAW-- FORMAT BACKGROUND-- RULE LINES, and even NO BORDERS under TABLE DESIGN to no avail. Any help someone can give me to eliminate these lines would be very much appreciated. Next time I'll know to create the WORD doc first. 😝

We decided to bite the bullet and go for something nicer, price be damned-- 1) because this will be my birthday vacay, and 2) we don't want to be "hauling" anything anywhere! 😅 We decided to go with however, booked on a little less expensive travel site than direct. Harborside Inn Of Boston 185 State St, Boston, MA, 02109 https://www.harborsideinnboston.com/ The visuals of a full-size mattress by a college student does not surprise me since we live in a college town, but it's too much for this retired person to even consider. 🤪

Hello again, GOOD NEWS! I just wanted to let you all know that with some encouragement here and a special shout-out to @casofilia, I finally got through to the right special events person who was "surprised" that when I asked again, that the original M&G request had "disappeared". I suspect the hijacker slunk away quietly and will most likely still be at the Meet and Greet. Because of that, I have since done my due diligence for our future cruises. Yes, it seems crazy to have to do this, and I won't likely get answers from Special Events on the future cruises yet, but at least I have made my requests known. Thank you all for your guidance.

Hi FrostyJoe. DH and I went on the Prima in early December 2022. We ate outside of Indulge several times during our 5-day (too short) cruise-- that's how yummy it was. 😋 Back then we could just order like regular from waitstaff. I personally had no desire to use the tablets anyway, and the service was very quick. Highly recommend the bacon-wrapped dates!

@joyy7403 Joyce, unfortunately, so true. There's also many people who don't understand how these forums work and are disappointed that the forums aren't quite as instant or user-friendly as some other social media sites which shall-not-be-named. We've also hosted a few M&G's over the years and only once got surprised later into the cruise getting any kind of perks like those, and that's when we booked a suite. More often we've gotten nothing else and go in without expectations of getting any "perks" for hosting. That being said, my husband and I have been discussing this ad nauseum since the *hijacking* and he thinks it may actually depend on what ship you're on. I really don't know. What I do know, is this person (whoever they are) is a coward. I've offered them a chance to communicate with me and since I'm trying to be as understanding as I can about this, I'm going to give them until Monday to make contact. If I don't get contacted, I'll be calling NCL again and letting them know this person has been non-communicative to the entire roll call and is unfit to host a Meet and Greet.

Gail, I think that's the best advice I can take today is to use the number 25 as a start and not wait to make the request. Another piece of advice I received today was to ask people to email me (for sure) of their interest in attending or "committing" to a M&G, and therefore, I would at least have their emails instead of just asking them to reply in the roll call. You are a superwoman. I don't want to be responsible for all things, and in fact usually someone will step in and volunteer for other of those type events. I once hosted a M&G and a cabin crawl on the same cruise, and it was just too much for me. I applaud you for knowing your limitations and scaling back. 👏🏼 Like you, if someone else requests first I have no problem, but then it's their responsibility to connect with others on the roll call, which isn't what's been happening. Thank you again for allowing me to be here. Truth is my darling hubby was upset for me, and HE found you all here. 😊 I'm hoping we get everything straightened out too. 🙏🏼

Well see that's sort of the issue too. I am like-minded, and we JUST reached 30, so I felt it was a good time to make the request. I think because the itinerary is from Canada and during school season, there are less people on board.

@ljrfrm Thank you for your reply. I am so happy to hear yours worked out well. That's very similar to my roll call and what happened to me this week. Unfortunately, if you read my other replies here you'll see that is not the case in my situation, as there is no other social media page in existence. The best that could happen would be that this hijacker responds somehow and we go forward from there. The NCL folks I spoke to thus far were not as helpful and actually told me that they could give me no other information and I would have to find out on my own who the other requester is!!! I'm going to call NCL again and see if I get someone different and ask if they can reach out to that person.

@cruiseny4life Someone else mentioned that here about that OTHER social media site, which in our case does not exist. I was told specifically by NCL Special Events that it was indeed for a CC M&G. I even asked them are you SURE it wasn't for another group, because anyone out there can make a request for a special event, but we all know here that a CC M&G is a bit different. Thank you for your good luch wishes. Fingers crossed that someone comes forward.

@MrsTocko Gail, thank you for posting this original thread and allowing me to vent. 🙏🏼 I think the most aggravating thing about all of this is the utter lack of communication by whomever decided to hijack. I have learned a tough lesson, and will no longer wait to make a request-- even if it's two years in advance!!! I wouldn't dare send in a request though, unless I made it known on a roll call, whether I was the roll call starter or not. And since plans and itineraries do sometimes change, it is beholden of the requester to keep people informed. I've seen people who have "handed off" the M&G when they've decided not to book. Anyway, I think COMMUNICATION is everything! EVERYTHING