Live From the Jade, Nov 13 to Dec 21, from Athens to Cape Town

[Ken the cruiser]

We exited the Canal next to the city of Suez a little after 2 pm, which works about to be about a 10 1/2 hour adventure! Here are some final pictures just before we left. 
 

 

 

Then just afterwards with the city of Suez on the left. 
  

 

 

 
I have no idea what type of factory that is, but it was on the right hand side of the canal opening and looked lonely, so I took its picture. 😁

 

 
Here is a picture of the MSC container ship just leaving the canal that had been following us the whole way. If you look closely in the background just to the left of the dry dock ship you might be able to see the Evergreen Super Max container ship that was following MSC. If you’ve never seen one, they are huge!!

  

 
And of course just as was the case when we entered the Canal at Port Said, there are ships in the queue waiting their turn to end. 
 

Now it’s time to cruise in the Red Sea on our way to tomorrow morning’s arrival in Sacagawea, Egypt to visit the Valley of the Kings and take a cruise on the Nile!! 😁

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, DLSHS_Mom said:

Ken,

Thanks for posting your link on the Princess page.  We were on the Panama Canal cruise with you and are enjoying all your posts for this wonderful cruise.  Have a great cruise!

Thanks for following along! We had such a great time on that Panama Cruise and going through the locks! They didn’t have any locks in the Suez Canal, but it was still an amazing trip, except for maybe the flies! They arrived when we entered the lake midway through the Canal and are still flying around my head while sitting on the balcony! 😂

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

 

Now it’s time to cruise in the Red Sea on our way to tomorrow morning’s arrival in Sacagawea, Egypt to visit the Valley of the Kings and take a cruise on the Nile!! 😁

 

Sometimes CC spellchecker can really be annoying, especially when you notice the error(s) after the 15 minute editing time period has expired. 
 

We are going to Safaga, Egypt tomorrow morning to visit the Valley of the Kings and take a cruise on the Nile, not that other place spellchecker thinks we’re going. 😂

 

Edited November 19, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[DooBop]

9 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Sometimes CC spellchecker can really be annoying, especially when you notice the error(s) after the 15 minute editing time period has expired. 
 

We are going to Safaga, Egypt tomorrow morning to visit the Valley of the Kings and take a cruise on the Nile, not that other place spellchecker thinks we’re going. 😂

 

We knew:).  Happens to the best of us.  Canal shots are nice.  I seem to remember reading that it costs a cruise ship more than $500K to use the canal.  It would be interesting if you could find out how much NCL pays.  Also, for those of us without "special perks" do we have access to "free" laundry service? 

[Yesimapirate]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks for following along! We had such a great time on that Panama Cruise and going through the locks! They didn’t have any locks in the Suez Canal, but it was still an amazing trip, except for maybe the flies! They arrived when we entered the lake midway through the Canal and are still flying around my head while sitting on the balcony! 😂

Aa you've noticed,  completely different type of canal.

 

The "original" plan for the Panama Canal was awarded to the same engineer that did the Suez.  It was an utter fiasco.   There are a couple of very good documentaries on it if you're interested since you've sailed both.

[Ken the cruiser]

29 minutes ago, DooBop said:

We knew:).  Happens to the best of us.  Canal shots are nice.  I seem to remember reading that it costs a cruise ship more than $500K to use the canal.  It would be interesting if you could find out how much NCL pays.  Also, for those of us without "special perks" do we have access to "free" laundry service? 

According to Ms Google’s sources, it costs $138 per berth to transit the Canal. So if you want to figure out how many berths there are, there you go.

 

Now, with regards to the free laundry perk one gets with booking a Club Balcony. I was just told by Guest Services today that they are now (as of today) treating this cruise as a single cruise which means we get 1 free bag of laundry per stateroom rather than 1 bag per person as told to us by CruiseNext yesterday (after correcting the erroneous amount of 2 free bags per person told to us by a new CruiseNext employee two days ago). 
 

As far as access to free laundry services, there are no laundromats on the ship. So you can either use your sink in your cabin or pay NCL. Here is the current laundry price list.

 

 
FWIW here’s a link that describes what you get with Club Balcony suite. Fun fact about the treats. You only get them on day 2 (candy) and day 4 (cookies) regardless of how long the cruise is. I tell ya, we’re not impressed. 
 

http://www.ncl.com/why-cruise-norwegian/cruise-accommodations/minisuites-and-balconies

 

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, Yesimapirate said:

Aa you've noticed,  completely different type of canal.

 

The "original" plan for the Panama Canal was awarded to the same engineer that did the Suez.  It was an utter fiasco.   There are a couple of very good documentaries on it if you're interested since you've sailed both.

When we were on the Caribbean Princess cruise last May, we received some very good lectures about the construction of the PC, to include the initial failures of SC engineer. It would be so great if NCL offered lectures about the awesome places we will be going on this cruise. But sadly, that’s not something NCL offers.

[www3traveler]

4 hours ago, DooBop said:

We knew:).  Happens to the best of us.  Canal shots are nice.  I seem to remember reading that it costs a cruise ship more than $500K to use the canal.  It would be interesting if you could find out how much NCL pays.  Also, for those of us without "special perks" do we have access to "free" laundry service? 

"Free" laundry also depends on your Lattitude status (Gold, Platinum, Sapphire, Diamond and Ambassador).

[Ken the cruiser]

After watching the sunset

 

 

we headed off to the La Cucina Italian Restaurant where we had a tasty dinner. Then we headed to the early show to watch our CD Danny sing some songs. Let me tell you, his show by far was the best show we’ve seen so far on this cruise! We were quite impressed, and he sang songs that everyone knew! What a concept!! 😂

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

34 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

"Free" laundry also depends on your Lattitude status (Gold, Platinum, Sapphire, Diamond and Ambassador).

Here is the Latitudes breakdown for free laundry. 

 

 

http://www.ncl.com/latitudes-rewards-program
 

[bedfordmom]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

According to Ms Google’s sources, it costs $138 per berth to transit the Canal. So if you want to figure out how many berths there are, there you go.

 

Now, with regards to the free laundry perk one gets with booking a Club Balcony. I was just told by Guest Services today that they are now (as of today) treating this cruise as a single cruise which means we get 1 free bag of laundry per stateroom rather than 1 bag per person as told to us by CruiseNext yesterday (after correcting the erroneous amount of 2 free bags per person told to us by a new CruiseNext employee two days ago). 
 

As far as access to free laundry services, there are no laundromats on the ship. So you can either use your sink in your cabin or pay NCL. Here is the current laundry price list.

 

 
FWIW here’s a link that describes what you get with Club Balcony suite. Fun fact about the treats. You only get them on day 2 (candy) and day 4 (cookies) regardless of how long the cruise is. I tell ya, we’re not impressed. 
 

http://www.ncl.com/why-cruise-norwegian/cruise-accommodations/minisuites-and-balconies

 

They used to have fill a bag partway through the cruise for 19.99 it’s probably more like 29,99 now maybe they will do that. 

[DooBop]

2 hours ago, bedfordmom said:

They used to have fill a bag partway through the cruise for 19.99 it’s probably more like 29,99 now maybe they will do that. 

I do remember someone on a similar cruise a couple of years ago reporting that they were surprised halfway through with the $19.99 offer which I would be happy with. It would be nice to know these things ahead of time tho.   Being at the “Bronze” level doesn’t buy much. Maybe next time. 
 

Looks like the cost to NCL to cruise the canal could be around $345k based on 2,500 possible berths and a larger ship would be over $500K. Definitely a “cost driver”:). 

[Crazy planning mom]

On 11/14/2022 at 7:39 AM, Ken the cruiser said:

Here is a picture I found up on Deck 12 of all of the officers on the ship. As you can see, there are quite a few! The main ones are:

 

Captain - Frank Juliussen

General Manager, Vesna Radar Campos

General Services Manager, Humberto Abarca

Food & Beverage Director, Adrian De Kock

Cruise Director, Danny Turner

Executive House Keeper, Christopher Wright

Executive Chef, Menino Sebastian Luis

  

 

Yes, we did the laundry special midweek thought our cruise last month.  I think it was $29.99 or 25.99

[Ken the cruiser]

We’d definitely be happy with the $29.95 laundry specials. We did the math and an average bag with 25 pieces every 4 days will run about $65 each. So any little bit helps! 🤞

[Sailing12Away]

 Every cruise I've been on with NCL they offer the laundry special. Used to be 19.99, now it's up to 29.99. So yes... it's there.... just check with your cabin steward for the day. You still need to itemize everything, but just write 29.99 special on the top of the form. It will come back in about a day all pressed and folded nicer than I would do myself at home.

 

We're headed on a Panama canal trip in February. For comparison our port taxes/fees for that 15 day journey is $542/person. Our last 10 day to Canada was only $253/person, and an upcoming Prima to Iceland (10 day) is only $203/person. Hard to imagine 5 extra days would make the fees double.

[lumley]

21 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

FWIW here’s a link that describes what you get with Club Balcony suite. Fun fact about the treats. You only get them on day 2 (candy) and day 4 (cookies) regardless of how long the cruise is. I tell ya, we’re not impressed. 

We had an upgrade to a Club Balcony Suite as well.  Agree 100%.  Certainly wouldn’t pay the difference over a standard balcony in future.  Also we are on deck 11 below the pool deck and the noise starts around 4:30 most mornings and goes on until 6am.  Really loud thuds and plenty of scraping.  Even earplugs don’t stop the thuds waking you up.  Haven’t had one nights sleep in a week.  And you can get the coffee machine in a standard balcony if you ask.  Live and learn I guess!

Edited November 20, 2022 by lumley

[Ken the cruiser]

We arrived in Safaga this morning about an hour late around 8 am due to some delays last night in getting the fuel bunkering completed.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, no problem, we still got to go on an awesome excursion to Luxor today and I have quite a few pictures to load. So I’ll be loading them up in separate posts as the internet is a little slow this evening, even though it’s about 11 pm. The reason is probably all the below folks that went to Luxor on various excursions today also just got back and are trying to send their pictures to friends and family as well! 😂

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

We were finally on our bus at 9 am and got back on the ship around 9:45 pm this evening. It was a 3.5 hour drive to Luxor with about 2/3 of it riding through the desert! Luckily we were the first tour that got called. But by the time we were on the bus and leaving, the line had definitely grown waiting to get through terminal security before being able to get on their tour buses.

 

 

For us our bus was only about 60% full which worked out great as we had a lot of places to visit!

 

 

But on with the show! First, it was a very relaxing drive through the desert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the first security check point of 20+ that we encountered, but they always allowed us to pass through without any issue. If nothing else, I can say without a doubt, the Egyptians are very security conscious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

We then entered Qena, which is located in the first green area we came across. We travel through its two lane roads through the city before we finally arrived at Luxor.

 

 

 

 

Families build their homes upwards, a little bit at a time until their child reaches adulthood and can finish their apartment above mom and dad’s. There were a bunch of homes like this, with empty floors and rebar poking out the roof tops waiting for the next level to be built.

 

 

 

 

 
Notice the horse drawn cart on the far end of the bridge. There were plenty of these around as well.

 

 
If you look close you can see a camel! The first one we’ve seen on our trip so far! 😁

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

We finally made it to Luxor and immediately headed to our first stop, the Karnak Temples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
This was an example of the ancient Egyptian numbering system.

 

 

 
This is a statue of a scarab. The story goes if you make a wish and walk completely around the statue, it will come true. I’ll let you know if mine comes true in about 30 years! 😁

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Then it was time to drive over to the hotel who had prepared prepared our awesome lunch to eat while we cruise down the Nile!

  

 

 

 

 

 

[ringers0815]

We were in Luxor many years ago. It is such a wonderful place. Hope to go back one day. Enjoy!

[Ken the cruiser]

Once lunch was over we drove for about 10 - 15 minutes over the the Valley of the Kings. These were some of the sites we saw along the way.

 

 

  

 

 

 

The holes in the walls are actually tombs for some of the higher up back in ancient times.

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Valley of the Kings where King Tutankhamen lies in rest.

  

 

 
There were only two areas in his tomb.

 

 

 

 

The king himself! 

 

[1emerald1]

Thanks for the great review and pics!  So how would you compare NCL dining and entertainment to Princess?