Is priority access worth it for a family with young kids on a full sailing from Miami

[jermeg]

Thoughts on whether priority access is worth is on a full sailing out of miami?  Traveling with two young kids in tow (infant and 3 year old) so considering that it might be worth it?

 

I'd love to hear people's thoughts and if you used it before any tips!

 

Thank you!

[Daruma]

I can't personally speak to it, but every single post I've seen across the internet when I Google that very question says absolutely NOT... YouTube reviews concur as well.

 

 

[www3traveler]

Probably not

Usual Order of Boarding:

 (1) Haven

 (2) Casino At Sea guests

 (3) Handicapped-- Powerchairs, wheelchairs, walkers

 (4) Ambassador

 (5) Diamond 

 (6) Platinum, Platinum+

 (7) Priority Access 

[GrammyLove]

My concern for you with Priority Boarding and young children is what are you going to do after you board early? Your room will probably not be ready for several hours, so no napping space. How will you entertain the 3 year old? If you choose a later boarding time, then you can eat lunch and (hopefully!) not soon after, your room may be ready.

[www3traveler]

You are to choose an "arrival time" to the terminal not a boarding time.  Boarding usually begins once the ship has been cleared from the previous cruise with luck between 11:00 A.M. and 11:30 A.M.  Rooms are not ready much before 2:30 P.M.  The waiting space in the terminal is a very large crowded noisy place-- no where for children to run or be entertained, no food or beverage minus water available.  Yes, there are restrooms but they are crowded.

 

The ONE rule you mind to keep in mind is that You MUST be on board prior to your scheduled departure time from your "Embarkation City" (Miami, New York City, etc-- 2 hour rule does not apply to ports of call).

 

[RocketMan275]

3 hours ago, jermeg said:

Thoughts on whether priority access is worth is on a full sailing out of miami?  Traveling with two young kids in tow (infant and 3 year old) so considering that it might be worth it?

 

I'd love to hear people's thoughts and if you used it before any tips!

 

Thank you!

You might do better remaining in your hotel room until they force  you out, probably around 11.   By the time you travel to the port, the terminal will probably have cleared out and you should be able to board with little or no waiting.

 

One other thing, you said 'infant'.  Are you aware that the infant must be at least six months old on embarkation?  There is no leeway.

Edited November 24, 2023 by RocketMan275

[kitkat343]

It depends.  If you want to embark or disembark early then you might want to consider it because those times are generally preferred.    It's easier on my family to embark late, and by then there are usually no lines.  We also disembark late, which is not generally the preferred time and so we can easily walk off the ship.  

 

Also, what are your plans in port and did you want to get an early start to your day?  For my family, if we have a whole day in port we generally find it better for our kids to start a tour no earlier than 9:30 am,   If that's an hour after we dock, we can easily just walk off.  On the other hand, our last NCL ship was late getting into Puerto Rico, which was an afternoon docking.  Disembarkation was not organized well, and we arrived at the fort 5 minutes before closing and were denied entry.  So a priority disembarkation might have  made a difference in our entrance (we knew it would be close, but the afternoon docking left our options very limited, and we had anticipated that the kids would really like flying kites outside the fort so they had a good day anyway.).  Ship tours also have priority disembarkation so if you are planning on taking those you would have less benefit from priority access.

 

Since you are traveling with small children, please note that ordinarily I would strongly recommend private tours for just your family if you are touring cities or historic sites (as opposed to visiting beaches.  If you are just going to beaches you are probably fine on a ship tour).  We took our 2 year old on a Baltic cruise, and because we were able to control the itinerary (stopping and giving him breaks and ice cream/treats whenever he got overwhelmed we were actually able to see all of the major highlights of St. Petersburg.). But with NCL, you need to be especially careful about checking the cancellation policies for your private tours since there may be issues with NCL cancelling ports.  Also, please check recent cruise critic reviews of your ship to see if there have been any recent substitutions of ports on similar itineraries on your ship.  With small children, you'd need to research backup ports if those have been occurring on your itinerary.  On my cruise, the DR was cancelled, and I'd also needed to research the backup ports of Nassau and GSK so we'd be organized in case we went there (we just had a sea day but those were the substitute ports on similar cruises).  Not all itineraries are affected by this, so researching recent reviews of your ship will show if that itinerary is an issue for NCL.

 

 

 

 

[IAcruising]

kitkat's post is awesome. The answer is no.

 

[jermeg]

9 hours ago, kitkat343 said:

It depends.  If you want to embark or disembark early then you might want to consider it because those times are generally preferred.    It's easier on my family to embark late, and by then there are usually no lines.  We also disembark late, which is not generally the preferred time and so we can easily walk off the ship.  

 

Also, what are your plans in port and did you want to get an early start to your day?  For my family, if we have a whole day in port we generally find it better for our kids to start a tour no earlier than 9:30 am,   If that's an hour after we dock, we can easily just walk off.  On the other hand, our last NCL ship was late getting into Puerto Rico, which was an afternoon docking.  Disembarkation was not organized well, and we arrived at the fort 5 minutes before closing and were denied entry.  So a priority disembarkation might have  made a difference in our entrance (we knew it would be close, but the afternoon docking left our options very limited, and we had anticipated that the kids would really like flying kites outside the fort so they had a good day anyway.).  Ship tours also have priority disembarkation so if you are planning on taking those you would have less benefit from priority access.

 

Since you are traveling with small children, please note that ordinarily I would strongly recommend private tours for just your family if you are touring cities or historic sites (as opposed to visiting beaches.  If you are just going to beaches you are probably fine on a ship tour).  We took our 2 year old on a Baltic cruise, and because we were able to control the itinerary (stopping and giving him breaks and ice cream/treats whenever he got overwhelmed we were actually able to see all of the major highlights of St. Petersburg.). But with NCL, you need to be especially careful about checking the cancellation policies for your private tours since there may be issues with NCL cancelling ports.  Also, please check recent cruise critic reviews of your ship to see if there have been any recent substitutions of ports on similar itineraries on your ship.  With small children, you'd need to research backup ports if those have been occurring on your itinerary.  On my cruise, the DR was cancelled, and I'd also needed to research the backup ports of Nassau and GSK so we'd be organized in case we went there (we just had a sea day but those were the substitute ports on similar cruises).  Not all itineraries are affected by this, so researching recent reviews of your ship will show if that itinerary is an issue for NCL.

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for all of that really helpful info. Some of it I had not considered so I appreciate it!

 

When you board later, do you find it harder to get reservations for entertainment like comedy shows and the go karts?  We are on the encore and apparently it’s full or close to full.  Without that issue, boarding late does sound appealing! 
 

We are sailing to DR, St Thomas, Tortola and GSK.  I’ll research the back up ports for those!  Thank you!

[www3traveler]

Remember that GSK is a tender port which will be difficult to do with very small children.  You have to be able to descend down a metal staircase on the OUTSIDE of the ship to loading platform.  Then you have to step across and down a couple of steps into the tender.  You probably would not be able to manage carrying a stroller down the stairs or back up.  Might be a good day to stay on board.

 

Also remember that NO SWIM DIAPERS are allowed even in the Kiddie Aqua Play area. 

[jermeg]

18 hours ago, RocketMan275 said:

You might do better remaining in your hotel room until they force  you out, probably around 11.   By the time you travel to the port, the terminal will probably have cleared out and you should be able to board with little or no waiting.

 

One other thing, you said 'infant'.  Are you aware that the infant must be at least six months old on embarkation?  There is no leeway.

Thank you!  She’s just about to turn 1 but I appreciate the information! I’ve heard some horror stories about people not knowing that!  Including someone who as able to board and then kicked off (can’t recall if that was NCL or not)

[jermeg]

4 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Remember that GSK is a tender port which will be difficult to do with very small children.  You have to be able to descend down a metal staircase on the OUTSIDE of the ship to loading platform.  Then you have to step across and down a couple of steps into the tender.  You probably would not be able to manage carrying a stroller down the stairs or back up.  Might be a good day to stay on board.

 

Also remember that NO SWIM DIAPERS are allowed even in the Kiddie Aqua Play area. 

Thank you!  We are prepared that the baby won’t be able to swim.  
 

Great points about the GSK tender though.  Perhaps I could use a carrier for her instead.   I’ll do a bit of googling to visualize it.  I have done that port before (without kids) but I have zero recollection of the details lol. 

[kitkat343]

4 hours ago, jermeg said:

Thank you so much for all of that really helpful info. Some of it I had not considered so I appreciate it!

 

When you board later, do you find it harder to get reservations for entertainment like comedy shows and the go karts?  We are on the encore and apparently it’s full or close to full.  Without that issue, boarding late does sound appealing! 
 

We are sailing to DR, St Thomas, Tortola and GSK.  I’ll research the back up ports for those!  Thank you!

That's. a very good question about the shows and go karts.  Our ship didn't have go karts and we didn't see any shows.  If no one answers here, it would be good to start a separate post to ask that question.

 

Also, on your first morning, go to the buffet and get yogurt, fruit and cereal boxes for your room.  If your kids get hungry, it's good to have snacks on hand.  And the cereal boxes are very helpful when you go on tours to have snacks on hand to avoid meltdowns (kids tend to cheer up when they get to choose cereal).  please note that fruit is strictly forbidden to take off the ship, and I'm not sure about yogurt but you can take sealed cereal boxes off the ship.

 

I haven't been there in many years since my cruise to the DR was part of the myriad of NCL DR cancellations last year (they appear to have hopefully resolved their issues in the DR), but we chose that cruise partly because Ocean World is really good for kids.  Also, there is a monkey reserve about an hour away, and (I believe) a small monkey place in Taino Bay.  Taino Bay is Carnival's port in Puerto Plata, close to where NCL usually docks.  I haven't been able to determine if you can make advance reservations to play with the monkeys at Taino Bay but haven't thoroughly researched it since we chose a cruise that doesn't visit the DR next.    

 

I have never been to GSK, but on our other tenders the crew was very helpful about helping our children get onto the boat (they would pick up our children when they were 3 and carry them over for us.  But it appears from the description above the GSK tender is much more significant than a normal tender).  You might want to discuss this issue with he people actually running the tenders (send one parent to speak to the crew at least an hour after docking when everything has calmed down and there are no more people lined up to ask them how physically difficult it will be for your family to utilize the tender and if they can help you with the children and/or stroller).  Thankfully you don't really need to plan GSK, so you can either go or have a nice quiet day on the ship depending on how difficult this will be.  I've only been to Labadee, and on RC there are trams running across their private island, so someone might be able to give you further info on whether that is the case for GSK and if it would be manageable without a stroller - it could be a long walk to the trams if they exist.  But it's possible that if you wait until everything calms down for the tenders, they may be able to accommodate a stroller.  

 

Good luck - it's a really wonderful way to travel with kids!

 

 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2023 by kitkat343

[kitkat343]

3 hours ago, jermeg said:

Thank you!  She’s just about to turn 1 but I appreciate the information! I’ve heard some horror stories about people not knowing that!  Including someone who as able to board and then kicked off (can’t recall if that was NCL or not)

On my cruise, the cancellation of the DR after final payment made our cruise go from 2 sea days in a row to 3 on the way back.  There was a family with an 8 month old, who were the only one allowed to cancel because children under a year are not allowed on cruises with 3 sea days in a row.  They were thankfully notified ahead of time, but if they'd been denied boarding it would have been awful since it totally wasn't their fault (the cruise only had 2 sea days at the time of their booking).

[cruiser2015]

15 hours ago, jermeg said:

Thank you so much for all of that really helpful info. Some of it I had not considered so I appreciate it!

 

When you board later, do you find it harder to get reservations for entertainment like comedy shows and the go karts?  We are on the encore and apparently it’s full or close to full.  Without that issue, boarding late does sound appealing! 
 

We are sailing to DR, St Thomas, Tortola and GSK.  I’ll research the back up ports for those!  Thank you!

They don't do reservations for comedy shows, just a couple of the major productions in the main theater.

I can't speak about the karts. I'll know more in 6 weeks, on the Bliss. 

[RocketMan275]

21 hours ago, jermeg said:

When you board later, do you find it harder to get reservations for entertainment like comedy shows and the go karts?  We are on the encore and apparently it’s full or close to full.  Without that issue, boarding late does sound appealing! 

Are your kids large enough for the go-karts?

[jermeg]

6 hours ago, cruiser2015 said:

They don't do reservations for comedy shows, just a couple of the major productions in the main theater.

I can't speak about the karts. I'll know more in 6 weeks, on the Bliss. 

Oh I didn’t realize that!  Thanks so much!

[jermeg]

44 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Are your kids large enough for the go-karts?

The younger two are not but my oldest is.  He’s 14 and very excited about it 

[RocketMan275]

17 minutes ago, jermeg said:

The younger two are not but my oldest is.  He’s 14 and very excited about it 

BTW, they have two person carts.

[COcruise]

On 11/24/2023 at 10:44 AM, jermeg said:

Thoughts on whether priority access is worth is on a full sailing out of miami?  Traveling with two young kids in tow (infant and 3 year old) so considering that it might be worth it?

 

I'd love to hear people's thoughts and if you used it before any tips!

 

Thank you!

Probably not? I would say if haven is in the budget (no idea what ship you’re on) the upgrade may be worth it with a baby. We did 10 days with our 10 mo and had a great time. The priority embark, disembark and then priority disembark at the ports were great, along with the other amenities. 

[BirdTravels]

On 11/25/2023 at 10:45 AM, www3traveler said:

Remember that GSK is a tender port which will be difficult to do with very small children.  You have to be able to descend down a metal staircase on the OUTSIDE of the ship to loading platform.  Then you have to step across and down a couple of steps into the tender.  You probably would not be able to manage carrying a stroller down the stairs or back up.  Might be a good day to stay on board.

 

Also remember that NO SWIM DIAPERS are allowed even in the Kiddie Aqua Play area. 

Tendering with kids/infants is not difficult. You're walking down a few stairs... like you walk down stairs at home. Getting the kids to the beach would be the highlight of the cruise for them. 

[Yesimapirate]

Short answer is no. 

 

Long answer is please let us know which sailing you're on as it will avoid me be cranky about kids. I don't want to ruin your hard earned vacation.😁

[ColdCruise]

On 11/25/2023 at 2:23 PM, kitkat343 said:

On my cruise, the cancellation of the DR after final payment made our cruise go from 2 sea days in a row to 3 on the way back.  There was a family with an 8 month old, who were the only one allowed to cancel because children under a year are not allowed on cruises with 3 sea days in a row.  They were thankfully notified ahead of time, but if they'd been denied boarding it would have been awful since it totally wasn't their fault (the cruise only had 2 sea days at the time of their booking).

I don’t think that is true about the prohibition against kids <1years and <=3 sea days. There were what I would call babies ( definitely under 1 years) on the Viva transatlantic… 5 consecutive sea days. At least 2, maybe more (they all look like … babies, ie the same to me).

 

maybe there’s an exception for either cruises from European ports? Or maybe transatlantics are treated more like transportation (eg flight)?

[kitkat343]

13 hours ago, ColdCruise said:

I don’t think that is true about the prohibition against kids <1years and <=3 sea days. There were what I would call babies ( definitely under 1 years) on the Viva transatlantic… 5 consecutive sea days. At least 2, maybe more (they all look like … babies, ie the same to me).

 

maybe there’s an exception for either cruises from European ports? Or maybe transatlantics are treated more like transportation (eg flight)?

 

I don't know if this has happened on NCL, but I know there was a family that was denied boarding with a child under one year on Princess recently.  NCL is pretty clear about their regulations on their website.  the issue is that if a child gets sick they can get sick quickly, and if you have 3 sea days in a row you could be too far from land to medivac out a sick child.  

 

From Princess' experience, their computers didn't catch the fact that the family should not have been allowed to purchase the cruise, so it would be up to the agents at check in to deny boarding to a child too young to sail.  It's possible there were children under one year old on your sailing, but they should have been denied boarding.  Thankfully it seems like everything worked out but parents are risking being denied boarding without compensation if they book a cruise the child isn't eligible to sail.

 

https://www.ncl.com/fr/en/cruise-faq/requirements

 

What are NCL's age requirements?

 

All requirements stated below apply at the time of embarkation. Infants sailing on board a Norwegian Cruise Line vessel must be at least six months of age. However, for voyages that have three or more consecutive days at sea, the infant must be at least 12 months old.

Edited December 16, 2023 by kitkat343

[jermeg]

Thanks for the help all!  We really appreciated all of the helpful info!  We are home and had a great time minus the COVID I got as a parting gift!  

My youngest turned one a week before we cruised so we were set for her no matter what in terms of sea days!

We took the wonderful advice on waiting to board and arrived at the port maybe 11:40?  We basically walked on minus a small line at security.  We had no problem booking reservations while on board including changing our dinner plans last minute. For those curious, it was really only reservations for specialty dinning, the show (choir of man) and the escape room.  The rest was first come first served sort of thing.  The escape room was really fun though!
 

Also we did stop at GSK and it was fine.  It was a ramp to get on/off the boat and while we didn’t use it, there was an elevator to get between the two levels on the tender.  I held her in a carrier and my husband had the stroller folded up.  Next time I wouldn’t bring the stroller to that port at all though as it’s mostly sand.

 

cruising with kids was fun and we will do it again,  but I think our next one will be just the adults 😂