NCL board like DIS?

[RedSox68]

Wow, I did not know that the Jade was in dry dock! That's just a bonus. We'll be just touching the Arctic Circle coming out of Iceland. We've gone way past it in Norway (land vacation). I chose this itinerary because it had some ports where we could do some cool "active" excursions since I like to keep my daughter happy. Also I heard Alesund is really beautiful so that's the one I really wanted to see in Norway.

This is our itinerary:

Sun July 1 - Hamburg, Germany (Board ship)
Mon July 2 – Sea Day
Tues July 3 – Alesund, Norway 8-5:00
Wed July 4 – Bergen, Norway 8-7:00
Thurs July 5 – Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland 8-5:00
Fri July 6 – Sea Day
Sat July 7 – Reykjavik, Iceland (Overnight)
Sun July 8 – Reykjavik, Iceland --4:00
Mon July 9 – Akureyri , Iceland 10-8:00
Tues July 10 – Sea Day
Wed July 11 – Torshavn, Faroe Islands 7-3:00
Thurs July 12 – Inverness (Invergordon), Scotland 8-5:00

What a fabulous itinerary -- every one of those countries is on my bucket list. I gotta check that one out. Where does the cruise end?

 

[KashasMom]

What a fabulous itinerary -- every one of those countries is on my bucket list. I gotta check that one out. Where does the cruise end?

It's roundtrip Hamburg. I saw some photos after dry dock and it looks really good!

 

[jenf22]

We did the Baltics on RCI last year. It was a 13 night with 1 sea day. We were so busy on and exhausted from our excursions that we could have been on a tug boat and we wouldn't have noticed! Our experience was great - probably our best cruise ever - at less than a third for what it would have cost on DCL for a shorter cruiser/lesser itinerary. I expect the same will happen on the Jade. It's a fantastic itinerary. We don't do MDR - waste of time for us - and will be too exhausted to care to see any shows, etc. The ship is just a place to sleep. We've just never had that WOW service that everyone talks about on DCL. Came close last year on our 5th(I think) Disney cruise. I would just never, ever spend the money for DCL in Europe (or any port intensive cruise). Everyone cruises for different reasons and different things are important to them on a cruise but Disney is working less and less for our family.

We just got back from our 10-night on the Spirit out of Barcelona and had the same experience as you. We had 8 port days and were so tired after our amazing excursions, we would just have dinner and then hang out in the room reading or relaxing (I would hit the casino some nights while my hubby and son hung out in the room). We ate in the MDR twice and had 4 specialty meals (we had the promo with 5 but cancelled the one on the last day because we were too tired and not in the mood for an hour and a half long meal). We didn't go to any shows either. The ship was beautiful and every person we came across was super nice. We loved our room steward - she was the best of any of our cruises.

As far as NCL nickel and diming goes, we paid for Bingo 3 times (won once!), a couple of games in the arcade, and we pre-purchased the photo package to get 11 pictures for the price of 10. We also pre-purchased the soda package for our son, which was a mistake because we only had maybe 6 sodas on the whole cruise. It would have been cheaper to just pay as we went. We had the 5 specialty dining package and the excursion credits as our promos. We ate at Teppanyaki twice (since it's our favorite) and we did pay for our son there (since the package was just for the adults). He ordered off the kids menu the other specialty nights. I never understand the "nickel and dime" complaint. This was our 3rd NCL cruise and we've never seen it.

We used our roll call on Cruise Critic a lot prior to the cruise and were able to save a decent amount of money by sharing excursions. We did 4 through the ship and 5 private. They were all pretty amazing!

 

[RedSox68]

We just got back from our 10-night on the Spirit out of Barcelona and had the same experience as you. We had 8 port days and were so tired after our amazing excursions, we would just have dinner and then hang out in the room reading or relaxing (I would hit the casino some nights while my hubby and son hung out in the room). We ate in the MDR twice and had 4 specialty meals (we had the promo with 5 but cancelled the one on the last day because we were too tired and not in the mood for an hour and a half long meal). We didn't go to any shows either. The ship was beautiful and every person we came across was super nice. We loved our room steward - she was the best of any of our cruises.

As far as NCL nickel and diming goes, we paid for Bingo 3 times (won once!), a couple of games in the arcade, and we pre-purchased the photo package to get 11 pictures for the price of 10. We also pre-purchased the soda package for our son, which was a mistake because we only had maybe 6 sodas on the whole cruise. It would have been cheaper to just pay as we went. We had the 5 specialty dining package and the excursion credits as our promos. We ate at Teppanyaki twice (since it's our favorite) and we did pay for our son there (since the package was just for the adults). He ordered off the kids menu the other specialty nights. I never understand the "nickel and dime" complaint. This was our 3rd NCL cruise and we've never seen it.

We used our roll call on Cruise Critic a lot prior to the cruise and were able to save a decent amount of money by sharing excursions. We did 4 through the ship and 5 private. They were all pretty amazing!

Those port intensive cruises can be hard. The one on DCL in the Med almost took me down LOL. When we did the 12-night British Isles on Princess, we had 10 ports in 12 nights -- and we ended up with the routine of just getting back on the ship, taking everything with us to the buffet and collapsing, enjoying our dinner and then dragging back to the room. We never did eat in the MDR and that's how we discovered what a great buffet Royal Princess had. Needless to say, the exhaustion was well worth it as we saw so much and we'd do it again if we could.

 

[amberwc]

We just got back from our 10-night on the Spirit out of Barcelona and had the same experience as you. We had 8 port days and were so tired after our amazing excursions, we would just have dinner and then hang out in the room reading or relaxing (I would hit the casino some nights while my hubby and son hung out in the room).
We used our roll call on Cruise Critic a lot prior to the cruise and were able to save a decent amount of money by sharing excursions. We did 4 through the ship and 5 private. They were all pretty amazing!

Those port intensive cruises can be hard. The one on DCL in the Med almost took me down LOL. When we did the 12-night British Isles on Princess, we had 10 ports in 12 nights -- and we ended up with the routine of just getting back on the ship, taking everything with us to the buffet and collapsing, enjoying our dinner and then dragging back to the room. We never did eat in the MDR and that's how we discovered what a great buffet Royal Princess had. Needless to say, the exhaustion was well worth it as we saw so much and we'd do it again if we could.

Were your excursions all day? 8 hours? what do you think made you guys so tired?

 

[RedSox68]

Were your excursions all day? 8 hours? what do you think made you guys so tired?

Yes, most of them were all day excursions and started very early. The ones on the Med were the worst -- 10-12 hour days of exhaustive sight-seeing and stops. But like I said, all worth it considering what we saw. We had 6 ports in a row at one point and I thought I'd hit a wall by the end of that one, but it was acutually the last day at Eze (I think) where we had to climb a straight up staircase and my legs refused - just wouldn't do it. I had the group go ahead of me and I finally did make it up the stairs, but boy was my body mad LOL

 

[jenf22]

Were your excursions all day? 8 hours? what do you think made you guys so tired?

Most of them were. Some were actually 9 hours. We also "sprang forward" on our way to Rome (I guess they do it later than we do. It wasn't a time zone change either, we never got that hour back). I think the Rome and Florence ports were 7am-8pm days. So we had a lot of long days and most of our excursions involved a ton of walking. We had near perfect weather - sunny and mid-60s. I can't imagine these ports in the middle of summer when the temperatures soar. Those people must be truly exhausted

But like RedSox68, I would do it all again. It was such an amazing cruise!

 

[Pens Fan]

Just saw this on CC, concerning the NCL Jade refurbishment for anyone interested:

https://www.ncl.com/press-releases/..._BRA_TWI_LRN_TWT_SHIPJAD_33117DRYDOCKPR_NA_NA

https://ncl.app.box.com/s/d7e2nj11k5zw3w465rxgerc1go9n0gyk

What a beautiful ship!

 

[cadien]

Fish extenders are a uniquely Disney Cruise Line thing.

Roll calls on NCL do often include a gift exchange. It's much more low-key than fish extenders and happens at the meet and greet. People usually bring something that represents their town or state. Maybe a quarter of attendees participate. Nothing for kids at all.

 

[mevelandry]

But you get hit with the gratuities for the drinks and dining packages. So they're not truly "free".

You'll have to pay gratuities when you get drinks amd when you go on specialty dining. They just make you pay gratuities in advance for something you'll end up buying anyway... It's pretty much the same as pre-paying gratuity for your cruise. I like that.