11 days transatlantic on Prima

[Grimix]

18 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

I'm sure the above will be interrupted by a show or two. Seems there is only one show on Pr1ma. I don't count Syd Norman's. Sorry y'all, but Fleetwood Mac doesn't excite me, although "Landslide" is quite lovely. I'll continue my "why can't NCL performers sing modern songs" rant. Seriously, not all of us want to hear music from fifty years ago! Nothing against anyone that enjoys that music. I just don't and wish NCL would cater to all passengers. 

Everyone like to say food is subjective and music probably even more so. Just had to comment because Fleetwood Mac is one of my wife's all time favorite bands so I'm sure she would be dragging me to this every time it was offered. I've considered booking a cruise on a ship that has them, but we're still mostly itinerary driven. We've got the Beatles again on our upcoming cruise. Don't get me wrong. I love some of the Beatle's songs, and consider them to be the most influential band of 'modern' times, but a lot of their pop stuff is not my cup of tea.

 

I think why they play more of the old stuff is because of the average age of cruisers. Being north of 50 now I feel I can look curmudgeonly  on my kids music. (Not a big fan of most of the new stuff, and if you need auto-tune to sing you should get another job...) My wife likes to say music is the thread that goes through the tapestry of your life. She goes back to certain times in her life when a song comes on. (Oh, I was in college studying for a final when I first heard this song... etc)

 

Off the main topic, and now back on? but I've  always like sea days, but they've only been one-offs between ports. I've never had 2-4 strung together in a row. I'm not a pool kind of guy, but I do enjoy reading. My wife is a pool kind of girl, and doesn't really enjoy reading. We'd probably end up in a fight. 🙂

[JGmf]

2 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

I'm planning some sea day traditions:

 

- breakfast, I'm hoping in the room a couple of times

- thermal suite morning routine

- lunch

- watch the view from the balcony/sundeck if it's nice out

- thermal suite

- dinner

- thermal suite

 

 

@cruiseny4life I would die of boredom in the thermal suite: the ol' short attention span, can't sit-still problem.  (My wife loves the thermal suite and thinks I'm crazy).

 

I think my sea day activity routine on some future TA would be leisurely meals, check-in/donate to casino, hang out at bar for drinks and meet people....repeat.

[Laszlo]

2 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

I'm on this cruise too! That's a lot of NY'ers, though I suppose it makes sense as that's our final destination. Were any of those movies filmed on a cruise ship? I hope not! 

 

I'm planning some sea day traditions:

 

- breakfast, I'm hoping in the room a couple of times

- thermal suite morning routine

- lunch

- watch the view from the balcony/sundeck if it's nice out

- thermal suite

- dinner

- thermal suite

 

That's the basic outline of my day. No trivia. Does NCL even give out prizes for trivia? It seems not. Why bother. I'll have the unlimited WiFi so check in on the news and life back at home via social. What can I say? I lead a boring life. 

 

I'm sure the above will be interrupted by a show or two. Seems there is only one show on Pr1ma. I don't count Syd Norman's. Sorry y'all, but Fleetwood Mac doesn't excite me, although "Landslide" is quite lovely. I'll continue my "why can't NCL performers sing modern songs" rant. Seriously, not all of us want to hear music from fifty years ago! Nothing against anyone that enjoys that music. I just don't and wish NCL would cater to all passengers. 

 

I suppose I could hit the night club and hear somewhat modern songs, but my bedtime is like 9 PM....oh, it's tough to be me! 

 

And, hopefully the comedians will be good! 

 

Quite a few posters suggested books/Kindles. I wish I had the attention span to read still. I might hook myself up with a book or five, but each time I try reading on a cruise I'm distracted in ten minutes. 

 

Good luck finding ways to pass your sea days! I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. 

The Fleetwood Mac show on the Getaway last January was pretty lame. It was a 12 day cruise and the "Band" preformed 3 times I believe, that was it.

[Turtles06]

3 hours ago, Grimix said:

My wife likes to say music is the thread that goes through the tapestry of your life. She goes back to certain times in her life when a song comes on. (Oh, I was in college studying for a final when I first heard this song... etc)

I like your wife’s description. And she’s of course in good company.  It’s well-recognized that music can trigger very powerful memories, especially from when the person was ages 10-30.  See, for example:

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/202109/why-does-music-evoke-memories

 

 

[Trappedontheboat]

6 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

I like your wife’s description. And she’s of course in good company.  It’s well-recognized that music can trigger very powerful memories, especially from when the person was ages 10-30.  See, for example:

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/202109/why-does-music-evoke-memories

 

 

Ah, I feel so sad I am entering this age...

[UKstages]

10 hours ago, cruiseny4life said:

hopefully the comedians will be good! 

 

one can certainly hope. and the comedians were all excellent on my TA from new york. outstanding, in fact. i was onboard for a B2B and there were no comedians on the second cruise. the prima cruise director told me that NCL doesn’t book comedians on cruises that originate outside the USA. she said that comedy is not universal and nobody understands the comedic premises outside of america. (I disagree.)

 

so, traveling on the prima to new york from europe… there may not be any comedians at all.

[cruiseny4life]

11 hours ago, UKstages said:

 

one can certainly hope. and the comedians were all excellent on my TA from new york. outstanding, in fact. i was onboard for a B2B and there were no comedians on the second cruise. the prima cruise director told me that NCL doesn’t book comedians on cruises that originate outside the USA. she said that comedy is not universal and nobody understands the comedic premises outside of america. (I disagree.)

 

so, traveling on the prima to new york from europe… there may not be any comedians at all.

Noooo! Say it ain't so, NCL! 

 

Ok NCL, you've got 100+ day warning. This American, traveling from Europe wants comedy. Make it happen! Please. 

[JeanKC]

11 hours ago, UKstages said:

 

one can certainly hope. and the comedians were all excellent on my TA from new york. outstanding, in fact. i was onboard for a B2B and there were no comedians on the second cruise. the prima cruise director told me that NCL doesn’t book comedians on cruises that originate outside the USA. she said that comedy is not universal and nobody understands the comedic premises outside of america. (I disagree.)

 

so, traveling on the prima to new york from europe… there may not be any comedians at all.

Given that one of the "plenty of programming and entertainment options on board" listed by NCL for our upcoming European Viva cruise in which Beetlejuice is no longer featuring, includes "a number of musical talents and comedians to fill your days at sea", I hope that your Prima CD was talking out of her .... Based on what she said, no comedy would ever be successful outside of the country it came from - I think many touring comedians and TV/film producers would disagree. 😕

[slakko]

On 8/3/2023 at 3:31 PM, cruiseny4life said:

 

That's the basic outline of my day. No trivia. Does NCL even give out prizes for trivia? It seems not. Why bother. I'll have the unlimited WiFi so check in on the news and life back at home via social. What can I say? I lead a boring life. 

 

Most one off trivia on the Prima in May had little or no prize value, just bragging rights. However, the sea day progressive trivia (totals combined over the 5 scheduled sea days, 12-1 in the Metropolitan lounge, teams of up to 6) did at least have a little something, even if it was branded merch mostly. As the winning team we each received a T shirt, coffee mug, deck of cards, voucher for 1 Galaxy Pavilion ride, and the very silly laminated certificate. We also won 3 bottles of prosecco between the three of us.  None of this had been announced upfront.  It's not much, but wasn't completely nothing 🙂

Edited August 4, 2023 by slakko
Typo

[mugtech]

             Most TA's have sessions of bridge on the sea days , for experienced players the duplicate bridge is a great challenge, and they usually have bridge for beginners.   Also not extensively advertised there will be 12 step meetings.

[cruiseny4life]

2 hours ago, slakko said:

Most one off trivia on the Prima in May had little or no prize value, just bragging rights. However, the sea day progressive trivia (totals combined over the 5 scheduled sea days, 12-1 in the Metropolitan lounge, teams of up to 6) did at least have a little something, even if it was branded merch mostly. As the winning team we each received a T shirt, coffee mug, deck of cards, voucher for 1 Galaxy Pavilion ride, and the very silly laminated certificate. We also won 3 bottles of prosecco between the three of us.  None of this had been announced upfront.  It's not much, but wasn't completely nothing 🙂

Well....that's something! I'm glad you mentioned this. I'm watching an influencer's Pr1ma series right now. They participate in the progressive trivia. We might try this out, but gosh, that's an awful lot of commitment right there! I honestly don't know if I can get to that many trivia sessions. But! Better than the Atrium trivia I've experience on Getaway and Joy that seems to be never ending mundanity. 

[Mommapadraig]

On 8/3/2023 at 10:01 AM, mking8288 said:

LOL, on re-loading again our iPad mini (used mainly by DW) and my Fire HD tablets (64 plus and extra 128 GB mSD card) with Kindle ebooks, music & videos in case we get bored or run out of things to do on these long cruises, TA and otherwise.  

 

BTW, nice prices on the Viva's planned TA crossing on a southerly route, along with the Prima on the northern path ... plenty of sea days on both to relax.  Expect to see more solo cruisers onboard ... our recent Epic TA was at 95% occupancy with very, very few children & teens but a substantial number of oversea cruisers, apparently booked last minute package deals via a TA (which we found out post-cruise).  

We were also on the Epic TA this year. Did you happen to get the name of the travel agent with great last minute deals? The Epic TA in December is looking good to me. 
We were never bored. . We are bridge players and found games every sea day. I was surprised they didn’t have the Bridge instructors  on the April cruise. We had been on it the previous year and enjoyed the instructors and the duplicate game. We also loved the Bliss lounge for both the entertaining Karaoke and fantastic bartenders. 

[mking8288]

@Mommapadraig Weren't you a little bit surprised at the crowd size in the MDR and those lines, LOL.  Has to be one of the smoothest extended sailing in our books going across the pond.  Could've swear that they're running a private mahjong tournament daily, dawn to dust, in the card room & across in LeBistro (until they shut it down for dinner services)   Got the name of the TA, apparently their HQ isn't far from us (NYC with a 212 area code but not in NY County) ... on TripAdvisors & highly rated, claimed to be among the largest tour operator and wholesale TA in North America, booking 400,000 room nights.  Going to respect & honor CC guidelines to not mention name here.  Did a quick lookup, not showing anything specific to this Dec's Epic TA and other NCL ones around that timeframe.  With current DoubleUp promo, valid for any category of cabins thru end of month, prices for Viva & Prima crossings later this year looks good as is - flexible, maybe take a chance to wait & see, never knows.  

[Mommapadraig]

8 hours ago, mking8288 said:

@Mommapadraig Weren't you a little bit surprised at the crowd size in the MDR and those lines, LOL.  Has to be one of the smoothest extended sailing in our books going across the pond.  Could've swear that they're running a private mahjong tournament daily, dawn to dust, in the card room & across in LeBistro (until they shut it down for dinner services)   Got the name of the TA, apparently their HQ isn't far from us (NYC with a 212 area code but not in NY County) ... on TripAdvisors & highly rated, claimed to be among the largest tour operator and wholesale TA in North America, booking 400,000 room nights.  Going to respect & honor CC guidelines to not mention name here.  Did a quick lookup, not showing anything specific to this Dec's Epic TA and other NCL ones around that timeframe.  With current DoubleUp promo, valid for any category of cabins thru end of month, prices for Viva & Prima crossings later this year looks good as is - flexible, maybe take a chance to wait & see, never knows.  

We played bridge in Le Bistro. It was so loud we couldn’t hear each other bid. We were on this TA in 2022.If I remember it was 60% occupancy and no Mahjong. I assumed post COVID travel restrictions were lifted  so many took advantage of a great cruise. Thanks for checking on the TA price. We are booked on the Dawn next April with friends who have never been to Europe. I’m trying to talk them into a TA instead. We love TA’s and all of the sea days. 

[Cruising Lynne]

On 8/1/2023 at 8:35 PM, Trappedontheboat said:

My significant other is dragging me on 11 day transatlantic cruise on Prima. We will have 7 days at sea. Is there enough stuff to do on Prima so I won't die from boredom? It is just does not seem there is a lot to do on a ship. Maybe I am missing something... any suggestions...

Thank you!

People have mentioned playing cards and reading but what about all the other activities like go-karts, mini golf, slides, Galaxy Pavilion, pickle ball, ping pong etc.? If it were me, I would do thermal suite in the morning and some of the other activities in the afternoon. Maybe some time by the infinity pools weather permitting. Maybe actually take the time to go to the fitness center., which we never do on trips with more ports.  Drinks, dinner, and a theater show at night. Fill in the gaps with trips to the casino and listening to live music in one of the lounges or atrium.

 

Like cruiseny4life, I don't care about Fleetwood Mac. I am the right age for it, but heard it enough when I was young. I would not stand in line to get a seat in Syd Norman's to hear just Fleetwood Mac. Would prefer a band that plays more of a variety. There is still other entertainment if you do not go there.

 

 

[dexddd]

I guess the Prima CD was correct that they don't book comedians on non US sailings as the show we went to on Prima TA out of Europe was not funny at all.  

[mking8288]

2 hours ago, dexddd said:

... Prima CD was correct that they don't book comedians on non US sailings as the show we went to on Prima TA ... was not funny at all.  

If the CD was fun enough, maybe go on stage and perform to a smaller audience 😁😁😁 like some of the crew talent shows then 😆