Bermuda with NCL ?

Jean O'Boyle wrote:
"Sue and Kevin Mullen" wrote in message
...
Our group heard about some very good prices on the Journey and found that
by going on the labor day weekend the Journey prices were excellant. We
have switched from the NCL Crown to the Celebrity Journey, sailing on
labor day weekend.

If you can sail on labor day weekend or later, you might be able to find
some very good prices on the Journey!!


The prices are even better for the week of Sept. 8th, so they must be coming
down even more.

It seems that starting with our sailing on sept. 1, the rest of sept and
oct prices are coming down. You know who we are sailing with and 9/1 is
the latest they can go. Also we have another cruise on 10/14, so we
can't go any later then the 9/1 sailing.

sue

John & Lola wrote:

I've checked around and I can't find a better price than what we paid.

Lola, our source ususally has the best prices around.

sue

"Sue and Kevin Mullen" wrote in message
...


Jean O'Boyle wrote:
"Sue and Kevin Mullen" wrote in message
...
Our group heard about some very good prices on the Journey and found
that by going on the labor day weekend the Journey prices were
excellant. We have switched from the NCL Crown to the Celebrity Journey,
sailing on labor day weekend.

If you can sail on labor day weekend or later, you might be able to find
some very good prices on the Journey!!


The prices are even better for the week of Sept. 8th, so they must be
coming down even more.

It seems that starting with our sailing on sept. 1, the rest of sept and
oct prices are coming down. You know who we are sailing with and 9/1 is
the latest they can go. Also we have another cruise on 10/14, so we can't
go any later then the 9/1 sailing.


Whoa! I seem to remember that I'm the one who steered you all from the NCL
Crown to the Celebrity Journey because of this price for Sept.1st! And I do
know why you have chosen this sailing...all I am doing is mentioning that as
the later dates in September and October are getting closer, the prices for
one of those, Sept.8th, are now lower, so there is a good possibility that
the others will drop depending on demand during those dates.

--Jean

LVTravel wrote:

If you have been on Celebrity and HAL you will probably not
like the service on NCL. The food has gone downhill in
recent years and with "freestyle" cruising you will not have
the same waiter or busboy at your meals.

Our experience with NCL's food says otherwise. The food on last month's
cruise on the JEWEL was not significantly different from the food on our
5 Celebrity cruises, our 2 Princess cruise, our 3 HAL cruises, and our 2
Oceania cruises. Of course, we may be discussing apples and oranges. On
our recent NCL cruise, we only ate two meals at the buffet restaurant.
The steak restaurant on the JEWEL was every bit the equal of the steak
house on Oceania. The French restaurant on the JEWEL was only marginally
worse than the Normandie restaurant on the SUMMIT. (And frankly, the
food at the Normandie is so rich that my husband and I always feel
uncomfortable after our meal there.) On the JEWEL, the food in the Asian
and Tex-Mex restaurants included some really appealing dishes and some
indifferent dishes. The only item that was really awful in any specialty
restaurant were the sushi rolls because the chefs used too much rice.
The food in the dining room was absolutely the equal of other cruise lines.

You're right that freestyle dining results in multiple waiters.
However, I'm more than willing to tell new waiters what I want and how I
want it prepared. As a trade-off, I have the luxury of being able to eat
when I want with my husband at a table for two. That's a trade-off I'm
happy to take. Even though Oceania claims to function the same way, it
does not. There are too few tables for two to offer true freedom. I'm
not interested in having the maitre d' greet my request for a table for
two with a long face and the statement, "We can seat you immediately if
you're willing to join other cruisers." That's what we routinely heard
on Oceania. We never heard that on the JEWEL.

Was on NCL ship last year and 8 other NCL previously, along
with 7 other cruises and this was the worst cruise yet.
Food and service really lacked and no one seemed to care
about their passengers.

With the rare exception of the waitress one night in the steak
restaurant, the service on NCL was not so different that it interfered
with our pleasure on the cruise. Service might not be quite as crisp or
eager to please as on other cruise lines, but I wouldn't consider it a
deal breaker. Probably the biggest negative about service was the fact
that the steward was responsible for too many rooms. As a result, our
room often wasn't made up until close to noon. It's not that we didn't
care about this, but we didn't let it gnaw at us since we were usually
on our balcony, walking about the ship or in port during the messy hours.

"Jean O'Boyle" wrote in message
et...

"Sue and Kevin Mullen" wrote in message
...


Jean O'Boyle wrote:
"Sue and Kevin Mullen" wrote in message
...
Our group heard about some very good prices on the Journey and found
that by going on the labor day weekend the Journey prices were
excellant. We have switched from the NCL Crown to the Celebrity
Journey, sailing on labor day weekend.

If you can sail on labor day weekend or later, you might be able to
find some very good prices on the Journey!!


The prices are even better for the week of Sept. 8th, so they must be
coming down even more.

It seems that starting with our sailing on sept. 1, the rest of sept and
oct prices are coming down. You know who we are sailing with and 9/1 is
the latest they can go. Also we have another cruise on 10/14, so we can't
go any later then the 9/1 sailing.


Whoa! I seem to remember that I'm the one who steered you all from the NCL
Crown to the Celebrity Journey because of this price for Sept.1st! And I
do know why you have chosen this sailing...all I am doing is mentioning
that as the later dates in September and October are getting closer, the
prices for one of those, Sept.8th, are now lower, so there is a good
possibility that the others will drop depending on demand during those
dates.

--Jean

Hmmm, I checked those prices for Sept 08 and they were still a bit higher
than Sept 01 when you added the taxes.

Lola in Hamilton

"LVTravel" wrote:

If you have been on Celebrity and HAL you will probably not
like the service on NCL. The food has gone downhill in
recent years and with "freestyle" cruising you will not have
the same waiter or busboy at your meals.

I do not see the advantage to having the same waiter at your meals,
and also you CAN have the same waiter on NCL if you want to - with
traditional dining, if the waiter that you have is poor then you have
no chance of change, and if they are good, you can request that
waiter's table on Freestyle.

I gather that the advantage of the same waiter is that the waiter
knows your preferences. But my preference was to have the waiter know
that I don't drink coffee, but would sometimes like tea, and while our
waiter could usually remember that we didn't want coffee (although not
whether the other people at the table wanted de cafe or not), they
almost never remembered to ask about the tea, even though I had tea on
the first night. I would sometimes also have liked iced tea, but I
wasn't asked (after the first night), so I mostly just drank water
(which was OK also)

Was on NCL ship last year and 8 other NCL previously, along
with 7 other cruises and this was the worst cruise yet.
Food and service really lacked and no one seemed to care
about their passengers.

I think the service on all lines must be declining as the bean
counters push the employees to take care of more and more people.

Jean O'Boyle wrote:

Whoa! I seem to remember that I'm the one who steered you all from the NCL
Crown to the Celebrity Journey because of this price for Sept.1st! And I do
know why you have chosen this sailing...all I am doing is mentioning that as
the later dates in September and October are getting closer, the prices for
one of those, Sept.8th, are now lower, so there is a good possibility that
the others will drop depending on demand during those dates.

Yes Jean you are the one who alerted our group to the lower prices and I
am aware that you know all about who is cruising with us etc. After you
alerted us to the lowering prices, we found a very good price for sept.
1 and grabbed it.

I was just trying to agree with your information about the prices coming
down and at the same time I was trying not to mention names, reasons for
the date we picked etc.

I just wish you were able to join us on the Journey!!

sue

"LVTravel" wrote:

If you have been on Celebrity and HAL you will probably not
like the service on NCL. The food has gone downhill in
recent years and with "freestyle" cruising you will not have
the same waiter or busboy at your meals.


In the last year, we have sailed on Celebrity Infinity, Celebrity Mercury,
Norwegian Dream, Carnival Conquest, and HAL Volendam.

To our surprise the Norwegian Dream had some of the best food we've had in
years onboard (especially the French Bread). The service on NCL was always
prompt and courteous even though we were served by multiple wait staff.

We found the food and service to be inferior to what we have expected from
Celebrity on both ships, and the general cleanliness was sincerely lacking
on both the Infinity and the Mercury.

Also to our surprise, considering that we have sailed on HAL numerous times
before, both our room steward attendants, and dining room staff were about
the worst we have experienced on any ship in 44 cruises since 1984 on most
of the cruise lines.

We are leaving in March for a second Trans Atlantic crossing on the Oceania
Regatta. Our first experience on this ship was a Lisbon to Miami crossing
in November, 2004. We found the staff, food, and service to be superior to
any of our other cruises to date. They also do not charge extra for their
specialty restaurants and we especially enjoyed the Polo Grill (their steak
house).

We found it easy to tip extra for the GREAT service on this ship.

Tobieon an Island in the Pacific

Sailed the NCL CROWN,we made the best of the cruise,but did not like the
ship,they cut back on too many things,little inconsequential things like
using 1/2 a paper napkin in the buffet


cruise lover

NCL Crown is an older vessel that was not designed for FreeStyle ...
ergo, it has been retrofitted with limited dining options. However, it
offers a great Bermuda itinerary and is a very acceptable product. And I
like FreeStyle and think it's especially great for Bermuda [as it gives
the flexibility of doing exactly what you want in port without dining
time constraints].

As an aside, does anyone know if Celebrity Journey will be
open/unassigned seating [as it is on the "same" vessels of Oceania] or
traditional Celebrity fixed seating.

As a general remark, I am always puzzled about negative comments about
FreeStyle seating which, after all, is really the same as coveted
open/unassigned seating on much more luxurious vessels such as Oceania,
SilverSea, Seabourn, QM2 Grill/Princess, etc. I feel NCL provides an
excellent value and great dining options for a less-expensive albeit
mass market line.