I Wish I Knew How to Quit You

[MsTabbyKats]

32 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

We aren't beach people, so not being able to go to the beach or swim in the ocean isn't a concern for us. I did look up the average high in May for Bermuda and it is 73 degrees, so definitely not beach weather. Especially factoring in that we would be going in early May. Rough seas never bother me. I have taken non-drowsy Dramamine every morning of every cruise I have ever been on and I have been through some rough seas to/from Bermuda before. Honestly, I would be perfectly content to do the Meraviglia itinerary to CA & NE again, despite having just done it in September, but my husband doesn't love the ship as much as I do and we already have the Meraviglia booked for October and January, so asking him to do it in May is probably a bridge too far.

Which day in Jan...we're on the Jan 12 sailing?

 

April and Jan...on Mera...and maybe a Canadian cruise inbetween.  If so...probably Carnival Venezia.  We were on her last month...and were very pleasantly surprised.

[JamieLogical]

12 minutes ago, vacation44 said:

Do you and your husband like the Beatles?   The Beatles show on the Joy, to us, is great.   My husband is not a Beatles fan, but I insisted we go the first time in the Joy and he enjoyed the show so much, we had to see their other shows in the Cavern.     

 

Oh, that's a good call! We did like the Beatles shows very much on the Bliss.

[JamieLogical]

3 minutes ago, MsTabbyKats said:

Which day in Jan...we're on the Jan 12 sailing?

 

April and Jan...on Mera...and maybe a Canadian cruise inbetween.  If so...probably Carnival Venezia.  We were on her last month...and were very pleasantly surprised.

 

We are on the January 23 sailing.

[vacation44]

4 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Oh, that's a good call! We did like the Beatles shows very much on the Bliss.

Glad I could help with your list!   We have not been on the Bliss, but thought the Beatles show was much better on the Joy than the Beatles shows we saw on the Epic and Encore.

 

We also thought Elements was very good and are looking forward to our extended family seeing it on our June Joy cruise.

[Smitheroo]

I sure would like to know what people miss so much about no more "turn down service"  Ok, I get the towel animals. They're cute. But people are upset because someone doesnt come into their cabin before bed and turn down the covers? (I'm assuming that's what it is)  Seriously?   

[JoeTec]

4 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I am working on a list of things to look forward to about the Joy. So far I have:

 

• New (to us) Ship
• Recently dry-docked
• Anytime Dining
• Go-karts
• Waterfront
• Mr. Worldwides
• Manhattan Cruise Terminal
• Easier Muster Drill
• The Local

 

 

You don't need to wear your "cruise uniform" you can wear what you want

You can get toast with butter

your husband can get a hot breakfast 😁

[PATRLR]

6 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

We're just off a RCCL cruise and ate at the MDR nightly (didn't want to pay for specialty dining which is just average). 

 

6 hours ago, graphicguy said:

I've dined at Coastal Kitchen, Chops, Jamie's and Giovanni's.  Out of all of them, Chops was the one I liked the most.  The rest?  Not worth the uncharge.  

I find those comments to be interesting because  I respect both posters and based on our 1 recent RCCL cruise (Oasis, last summer), I thought Chops, Giovanni's, and Park-whatever were much better than any of the NCL offerings.  Chops had good quality rib-eye like Cagney's used to have many years ago, and the other two just seemed to be much better than anything we'd had lately (before or since) on NCL.  

RCCL's MDR we found to be lousy.  At the time we thought worse than NCL.

Oh well, just shows that food is very subjective.

[graphicguy]

4 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

 

I find those comments to be interesting because  I respect both posters and based on our 1 recent RCCL cruise (Oasis, last summer), I thought Chops, Giovanni's, and Park-whatever were much better than any of the NCL offerings.  Chops had good quality rib-eye like Cagney's used to have many years ago, and the other two just seemed to be much better than anything we'd had lately (before or since) on NCL.  

RCCL's MDR we found to be lousy.  At the time we thought worse than NCL.

Oh well, just shows that food is very subjective.

Chops was better than Cagney’s.  

 

That said, Park Cafe was my “go to” in Royal for both breakfast and lunch vs the Windjammer buffet!

[Red-Sol]

58 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Chops was better than Cagney’s.  

 

That said, Park Cafe was my “go to” in Royal for both breakfast and lunch vs the Windjammer buffet!

 

I miss those roast beef sandwiches and fresh salads there! But still not enough to make me want to go back!

[graphicguy]

1 minute ago, Red-Sol said:

 

I miss those roast beef sandwiches and fresh salads there! But still not enough to make me want to go back!

Agree!

 

I just can't find a fare on Royal that makes sense.  Lord knows I've tried.  Add in the drink package and  I have "Oh My" moments when figuring out how much the entire cruise will cost.

[Red-Sol]

6 minutes ago, graphicguy said:

Agree!

 

I just can't find a fare on Royal that makes sense.  Lord knows I've tried.  Add in the drink package and  I have "Oh My" moments when figuring out how much the entire cruise will cost.

 

My beef (No pun intended) with Royal is that the passengers that were on the sailings I was on (and crew as well) all seemed very disinterested in even being there. People on NCL know how to make their own fun no matter what it is...as does the crew.

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, Smitheroo said:

I sure would like to know what people miss so much about no more "turn down service"  Ok, I get the towel animals. They're cute. But people are upset because someone doesnt come into their cabin before bed and turn down the covers? (I'm assuming that's what it is)  Seriously?   

 

As I explained above, I nap in the afternoons on cruises, so having my bed remade in the evening is a nice treat. Also, when I go to the pool/hot tub during the day or have a particularly hot/sweaty day in port and need to shower a second time, having fresh towels for my morning shower is great. Do I *need* those things? Of course not. But I have been on 23 cruises now where I had those things and I will certainly miss them on my first cruise without them.

[graphicguy]

13 minutes ago, Red-Sol said:

 

My beef (No pun intended) with Royal is that the passengers that were on the sailings I was on (and crew as well) all seemed very disinterested in even being there. People on NCL know how to make their own fun no matter what it is...as does the crew.

Can't argue any of what you state and agree wholeheartedly.

[PATRLR]

11 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

As I explained above, I nap in the afternoons on cruises, so having my bed remade in the evening is a nice treat.

I think those words perfectly describe it.  It used to be a nice treat after an evening "out" to come back to a room that had been picked up, bed ready, mint on the pillow, linens refreshed, etc...

Will lack of evening turndown ruin my vacation?  Of course not.  That doesn't change the fact that it was something special.

[JamieLogical]

7 minutes ago, PATRLR said:

I think those words perfectly describe it.  It used to be a nice treat after an evening "out" to come back to a room that had been picked up, bed ready, mint on the pillow, linens refreshed, etc...

Will lack of evening turndown ruin my vacation?  Of course not.  That doesn't change the fact that it was something special.

 

Right, and it's all those special little things that make vacations enjoyable over real life. If cruise lines start taking them away one by one, then eventually I'll be making my own bed, cleaning my own toilets, and cooking my own food like I do at home! Okay, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but the little things definitely do add up over time. It's particularly galling that MSC still includes evening turndown service at a much lower price point than NCL.

[PATRLR]

28 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

If cruise lines start taking them away one by one, then eventually I'll be making my own bed, cleaning my own toilets, and cooking my own food like I do at home! Okay, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but the little things definitely do add up over time.

It's not that much of an exageration.  If they aren't careful, the cruise ship will become little more than a means for transportation.  Just think about how often we read right in these forums that people choose their cruise based on the ininerary, not the ship.  Back in the 80s when I first started crusing, the itinerary was an after thought, we just wanted to be on a cruise!

[Ozzieru1e]

2 hours ago, PATRLR said:

It's not that much of an exageration.  If they aren't careful, the cruise ship will become little more than a means for transportation.  Just think about how often we read right in these forums that people choose their cruise based on the ininerary, not the ship.  Back in the 80s when I first started crusing, the itinerary was an after thought, we just wanted to be on a cruise!

I’m one of those people who choose a cruise based on ship and embarkation/debarkation location.  I’ve only cruised four times with NCL (2016-2019) from Manhattan port and was pleased with majority of my cruising experiences.  I would hate the thought of trying a different cruise line and finding it didn’t measure up to NCL. I’m scheduled to cruise on NCL Joy in May and looking forward to it even if I can’t eat all the free lobster tails I want😎

[UKstages]

i've been on ten different NCL ships. I keep coming back to the joy. It is one of the best ships in the fleet. there always seems to be a harmonic blend among executive management, crew and passenger interests. things just seem to "gel" properly all over the ship. dedicated crew, good food (within NCL limitations) from specialty restaurants and MDRs and lots of things to do.

 

of course, you'll likely experience the NCL cutbacks that have become legendary on these boards, and whatever new ones rear their ugly heads before your cruise, but, overall, you could not pick a better ship for your return to NCL.

 

i do find your enthusiasm for the manhattan cruise terminal somewhat misplaced. i love cruising out of there, too, but mostly because i can walk to the terminal. (i live a few blocks away.) i find the terminal itself lacks services and the contract employees who work there to be particularly clueless and many of them are on some sort of power trip, inventing and enforcing rules that don't exist and ignoring well established rules that do. most check-in agents insist on retaking your photo when you arrive, even though there is nothing wrong with the well lit one, with a clear background that you painstakingly uploaded and that was previously accepted by NCL during online check-in. when i asked about this on my last cruise out of NYC, the agent told me "taking a new photo is at my discretion and i don't like this one!"

[JamieLogical]

23 minutes ago, UKstages said:

i've been on ten different NCL ships. I keep coming back to the joy. It is one of the best ships in the fleet. there always seems to be a harmonic blend among executive management, crew and passenger interests. things just seem to "gel" properly all over the ship. dedicated crew, good food (within NCL limitations) from specialty restaurants and MDRs and lots of things to do.

 

of course, you'll likely experience the NCL cutbacks that have become legendary on these boards, and whatever new ones rear their ugly heads before your cruise, but, overall, you could not pick a better ship for your return to NCL.

 

i do find your enthusiasm for the manhattan cruise terminal somewhat misplaced. i love cruising out of there, too, but mostly because i can walk to the terminal. (i live a few blocks away.) i find the terminal itself lacks services and the contract employees who work there to be particularly clueless and many of them are on some sort of power trip, inventing and enforcing rules that don't exist and ignoring well established rules that do. most check-in agents insist on retaking your photo when you arrive, even though there is nothing wrong with the well lit one, with a clear background that you painstakingly uploaded and that was previously accepted by NCL during online check-in. when i asked about this on my last cruise out of NYC, the agent told me "taking a new photo is at my discretion and i don't like this one!"

 

My preference for the Manhattan cruise terminal is that it is simply a lot easier for me to get to (coming from Rochester, NY), as I don't have to drive through as much of the city and somehow the parking is cheaper there than the Brooklyn terminal.

[egurbi]

I wish I could dispel the rumors about the Joy.   I am sailing on her right now. Eliminating the Broadway show and passing off "Elements" as a premier show just doesn't cut it.  Food is subjective, but there really is a big difference at the buffet between what it used to be less than a year ago and what it is now. Fewer options, poorer food quality. On the plus side, staff remains very friendly and overworked.  But the cutbacks are obvious.

[gizfish]

I thought of a quasi plus to NCL.  Their starting bids for upgrades are much lower than MSC's.  I know, I'm grasping here. 

[vacation44]

6 hours ago, egurbi said:

 Food is subjective, but there really is a big difference at the buffet between what it used to be less than a year ago and what it is now. Fewer options, poorer food quality. On the plus side, staff remains very friendly and overworked.  But the cutbacks are obvious.

We thought the same thing when we were on the Encore two weeks ago.   

[Ticatraveler]

12 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Right, and it's all those special little things that make vacations enjoyable over real life. If cruise lines start taking them away one by one, then eventually I'll be making my own bed, cleaning my own toilets, and cooking my own food like I do at home! Okay, maybe that is a slight exaggeration, but the little things definitely do add up over time. It's particularly galling that MSC still includes evening turndown service at a much lower price point than NCL.

I agree with you. It is not one thing but many small ones.

[JamieLogical]

7 hours ago, gizfish said:

I thought of a quasi plus to NCL.  Their starting bids for upgrades are much lower than MSC's.  I know, I'm grasping here. 

 

Ha! You get an A for effort! I agree about the upgrade bid prices on MSC though. We have never even bothered to bid. Almost every time I have looked at bid prices, the minimum bid is higher than the difference in just booking the category directly. Not sure what their strategy is there.

[graphicguy]

19 hours ago, PATRLR said:

 

I find those comments to be interesting because  I respect both posters and based on our 1 recent RCCL cruise (Oasis, last summer), I thought Chops, Giovanni's, and Park-whatever were much better than any of the NCL offerings.  Chops had good quality rib-eye like Cagney's used to have many years ago, and the other two just seemed to be much better than anything we'd had lately (before or since) on NCL.  

RCCL's MDR we found to be lousy.  At the time we thought worse than NCL.

Oh well, just shows that food is very subjective.

I think that's why it's been a couple of years since I bothered with Royal cruises.  They just couldn't seem to get their act together regarding MDRs, Windjammer and Specialty Dining venues.  

 

It also seemed like their crew, while not unpleasant, just didn't care.

 

Add in their crazy fares these days, and it's tough for me to book another Royal cruise.