pfm18

20 hours ago, Frank12 said:

You can also use Google to find independent tour companies if that interests you.

15 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

I used TripAdvisor for many of our excursions on our Land & 10 day Med cruise last October.  Very happy!!

I typically shy away from non ship affiliated excursions due to the lack of protection if the excursion is late back and misses the ship. I’d rather pay more for an official one.

I had a look on the shore excursions on the carnival website but the only port on this cruise that was even on there was Brisbane (the departure port). Does this mean there are no excursions at all in Airlie Beach, Cairns or Port Douglas?

I am considering booking the Great Barrier Reef itinerary on Luminosa but would only want to do it if Carnival have shore excursions that appeal to us.

Is there any way of viewing what’s available before we book?

First time on NCL for about 10 years next month, very excited. I cruise RC more often than not but with the occasional jaunt over to NCL which I’ve always loved doing.

Does anyone know if there’s a way to view the MDR menus ahead of time on the NCL app? We want to book a specialty restaurant for one of the nights to take advantage of free at sea, but would hate to accidentally miss the best night at the MDR.

3 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

When we did this itinerary last May, we went back 1 hour leaving Miami and forward 1 hour leaving Cozumel. 

Interesting. Does that mean you were 1 hour ahead of local time in Roatan and Harvest Caye?

1 hour ago, neverbeenhere said:

So, you had a unique experience. It will happen.

 

As for a later disembarkation, as long as you a fine with an 8pm embarkation, this could be done for everyone.

Um, no. Embarkation should be done at the normal time but no staterooms available until late afternoon IMO. 

The last morning of any RC cruise is an occasion to be dreaded. Even on the fairly regular occasion that we have a late flight home, we are still forced to eat breakfast before 8am and vacate our room early. Should be a late checkout option IMO, even for a small fee.

However, my recent experience was even worse. I was on the explorer cruise that was diverted to Trieste instead of Ravenna, which I completely understand was a decision made in the interests of safety for both guests and crew. What I didn’t appreciate was the ship docking at 3am and then immediately starting to disembark. Had we gone to Ravenna as planned, the disembarkation would have started hours later and it was unfair to cut short the vacations of people by forcing them to leave the ship at 4am.

Even for those of us lucky enough to have a slightly later transfer (still 8am mind, 3-4 hours earlier than I actually wanted), there was no chance of any sleep because the tannoy was going off every few minutes screaming at people to get off the ship.

Royal really need to adopt a more relaxed final day. 

From my experience they don’t care too much if they’re just sitting having a chat and not bothering anyone, but if they’re being loud and annoying then it will be enforced.

Yeah, I’m not paying for a burger or a hot dog on a cruise when I can get perfectly good ones in the WJ which is about a 20 second walk away. The place doesn’t even have the cool diner vibe it had a decade ago. No thanks. 

1 hour ago, nelblu said:

Just consider the $16 pd as part of the total fare.  No calculations required and pretty simple.

 

First of all, I don't know why Royal allows Paxs to opt out.  Also, for those that opt out and say that they will tip accordingly based on service, this may be a simple excuse for not tipping at all.

 

Maybe they should call it a service charge.

If they aren’t going to allow opt outs, why bother billing it explicitly at all? Just push the price up by $16 per person per day and remove any expectation of tipping at all.

My recent 7 night cruise, I tipped as follows (after removing the auto gratuities)

Room steward - $100 

Waiter - $35 (Would have given $50, but we only went to the MDR four times)

Assistant waiter - $35 (as above)

Head waiter - $20

Two best bartenders got $20 each.

That’s $230 total and the auto gratuities would have been $224 for two adults, so I basically tipped the correct amount but directed it towards the staff who actually served me. 

RCI should just increase the price of a 7 night cruise by $112 and get rid of gratuities altogether. 

Spend twice as much time in the buffet as usual so I don’t catch coronavirus off all these people avoiding the buffet 

Can you take time off and forfeit the pay for it?

In the UK it's normal to get 5 weeks of paid holiday a year plus the 10 national holidays. Usually you would have 2 weeks in summer, 1 at christmas and a couple of floating weeks in between.

I don't think I could physically work 50 weeks a year, but would be happy to forfeit a few weeks of pay to have time off.

There are some jobs where people only get two weeks vacation a year and there are others that get considerably more. My late DH was a professional and ran his office. We used to travel 6-10+ weeks a year. Many professionals do the same. You don't mention your field of experience/interest so it is hard to suggest what might be 'usual' for the sort of position you might seek.

Accountancy

Bit of an odd thread here because it's probably more to do with employment than actual cruising, but this is the best place I could think to post it.

I am currently considering my long term future and have always fancied working in the States. In my field getting a job in the USA is pretty likely however one thing is putting me off.

I have heard that in the USA employees are expected to be in work 50 weeks of the year, sometimes more :eek: So almost no time for any travel.

Anyway, there are many American cruisers on here so seems the best place to ask. Is this just an old wives tail or is it very difficult to take time off work in the States?

I did this route two weeks ago and also loved it

Have you seen people travelling with Picture ID's? Swiss Citizens only need picture ID's for Turkey, and some people of our group only have Identity Cards.

 

Thanks!

I'm unsure about this because they seemed pretty strict on passports. Best to contact NCL.

A bad cruise for me would be if I or my husband got norovirus. So far we haven't gotten it. I did get a sinus infection the last 3 days of a 10 da cruise and then the week after the cruise had to go to Urgent care because it got worse. We were at a timeshare in Florida that week and I was very sick the entire week. I guess I got the " germ " while on the ship.

I have had noro and I can honestly say it didn't affect my cruise much at all.

There are no bad days on a cruise....except when they make you get off the ship;)

This.

There are no bad days. Just bad people. :eek:

Still beats a good day at work :eek:

Gratuities should always be pre-paid.

The reason for this is that NCL is immorally trying to market the tips as *not part of the cruise fare* but then charging you for it to your seapass anyway.

I wish they would just bump up their prices by like $110pp for a 7 night cruise, pay their staff properly and then any tipping can be done at the passenger's discretion.

Pre-paying gratuities creates the illusion that the service are simply part of the fare and that's exactly what I want.

For inside cabins it doesn't matter, for balconies it depends. For example when leaving New York the Statue of Liberty is on starboard side making it possible for people having cabins on that side see it from their balconies etc. Same applies also to other ports where the ship arrives/departs always in the same direction - for some people that matters and some simply do not care.

Of course, were you on the port side you could simply go up to the pool deck to see the statue.

Do ships always dock with the "port" side nearest to the actual port? :eek: I've never thought of it like that

All boobs are good boobs :)

I am leaving for this itinerary this Saturday, June 20th!

Sadly only doing the 7 night cruise but your review has me excited :)

It seems like nearly every cruise has some kind of medical emergency.

In fact, I feel like if you take a completely random cohort of 2000 people over a 7 day period, chances are there would be no medical emergency, yet on a cruise ship it happens all the time.

Not sure if some people just get really seasick or if it's something to do with the disproportionately high number of old people that cruise.