AlohaLivin

Ha! It’s just I had taken one too many “no’s” from a SL bartender and I just thought it was absurd. All I wanted was one Mai Tai at night - one! I had gotten that on the symphony the week before without issue. That “no” on Allure was truly irritating and my evil twin came out (my poor husband ). Dexter was a “get it done” kind of concierge, which is why I selected him for the sit down. We probably talked half an hour and he took it very seriously. Even I was a little shocked when it got that kind of action, but I was so happy that it did (I don’t know if I’ll be back on the Allure anytime soon, but I was super pleased that other people weren’t going to go through the frustration I had gone through every time I was on Allure). Sorry about your liver

Yes they did and it was after I had a long sit down with a concierge on Allure in November 2021 about the insanity of that whole “list” they had in the SL. I laid out my case, including the fact that we were paying quite a lot for that short period of having free drinks, that it was not applied on some other ships, and that D-Pinnacles were not restricted to such a list; he went to the upper management and he came back the next day and said as a result this policy would be changed fleetwide. Glad to hear that is continuing as promised. Sometimes speaking up (respectfully) does make real change happen.

Post Covid they have all been requiring reservations for shows for even suites and pinnacles. They are checking at the door (even for the adult comedy club). Note that the “reserved” areas can be in the balcony of Oasis level ships, so not necessarily the best seats for you if and when they return to pre-Covid protocols. Also pre-Covid they would take care of all your reservations before hand, post covid many of them are asking you to wait to do at least the entertainment reservations once you get on board. If you have to do that the process is fairly quick with the concierge during embarkation lunch. Although our concierge was willing to do it for us several days out before our cruise last week, one of the shows got changed around and we ended up arriving up for a show that had been moved 2 1/2 hours later. So in some cases waiting could be better.

@mrcrab2022 Definitely good advice above from Matt. On a November sailing we had 4 different $2 charges from the Solarium Bar. One problem - we did not use the Solarium Bar (and 2 charges were made at times that we were not even on the ship). Mistakes do happen, whether incorrect charges or failures to provide a refund (the latter happened on Symphony last week). Thankfully this was a relatively cheap lesson for you, but it makes sense to check the account on the cabin TV mid through the cruise and then early and later on the last day to check the accuracy (it is FAR easier to deal with mistakes onboard at guest services than through “customer service” later).

It is extremely quiet, little is open. We just did this due to early rain soaking our beach bed The CK was open for us for lunch and the casino is open for slots (but mostly empty). The tables may also be open, I just didn’t notice anyone playing. Great time for a swim in the pool or a long nap though

We are on Symphony currently and during the “backstage” entertainment “up close and personal” the entertainment director said that the production of Hairspray would restart in mid May 2022 (although just prior to saying that he threw out the date May 30?!). He also confirmed the info that we were given a couple of months ago from our TA who was onboard and that is that some essential actors had become ill during the voyage. Due to contractual obligations not just anyone is allowed to fill those slots (and with hairspray there are some very specific personnel types required, even more so than in other shows). As the world was dealing with a pandemic and some of the personnel were having to come in from different parts of the globe all with unique different requirements the lag time was much longer than usual. Now back to my vacation Later!

Eric today from the Symphony saying… come on in, it won’t hurt a bit

When we were on Allure s new cruise friend onboard with her good friend - that friend of hers died during the cruise. They had a balcony and she was left alone the rest on the cruise. We asked if she could have dinner with us one night, just in case they might say yes, but there was a hard “no” (which we understood, if everyone did that there would be issues). The concierge said something to the effect that the Pins would have a “fit.” But truly, it wouldn’t be fair to accommodate one person and not accommodate everyone. P.S. We instead ate with her in the MDR several times and talked to others from our small roll call to help get her “company” during the week.

I will post below the shows for the upcoming week on Symphony, hopefully it will help. If the same itinerary, it should (??) be close

Y’all have some loud A ‘ ‘ cabins!

I will, but it is not on the schedule the concierge emailed us and is unlikely to show up after the fact Likely will be at least late April or May at this point. But never say never!

We benefited, but we really weren’t able to recoup all the points we lost due to cancellations. That’s okay, we sincerely appreciate the bonus points while they lasted to help cruisers make up for the losses to some degree

We head to Miami tomorrow morning and we board Saturday. While we love the small ships, Symphony has been our favorite among the large ones. 4.5 mo’s is just far too long to not have been on a ship!

@searayboater A friend asked me about this just today. When I checked on the website it shows that key purchasers have “priority boarding,” but does not state anything about their time being not earlier boarding than other priority groups like Suites/Pins. It says they have priority within their specified boarding time (which could be at any time depending on the assigned time at the point they made the request for boarding).

2000% better. Have fun.

Our experience has been at the Miami port is a lot better than Fort Lauderdale in terms of ease and time. In the suite’s line, it took us maybe 8 minutes to be onboard for Symphony in early November, but a week later for Allure (same line) tedious and much slower (every part). Since we are sailing out of Miami this Saturday, we are hoping for a replay of that eight minutes (or at least 20)

We love Vancouver; when we sail out of there we try to take an extra five days just for that area. You will love it, have fun!

I will do my best to remember. If I don’t, feel free to PM me or post a reminder I will say that the concierge emailed the entertainment schedule and it is not on there (but that doesn’t mean it is impossible for it to be added back).

Absolutely. Om the face of it it doesn’t make sense why the concierges just can’t schedule entertainment for us the way they did before the pandemic. It truly was such a big part of why we felt it was worthwhile to us. If it’s that the entertainment is so unstable they truly don’t know until we get there, they probably need to say that. But with some doing it and others not, it it doubly difficult to understand.

So odd, it was not the case in November on Symphony or Allure. They did send out the entertainment flyers to guests when we were on those 2 cruises in November 2021 and even for this sailing a week prior. Perhaps it just depends on the particular concierge. I did get an email about an hour ago letting me know that everything we requested had been taken care of, so I am grateful for that I do hear that Jennie and Nadja are great, I will definitely find out for myself before too long!

No it doesn’t We love Canada! My brother-in-law is from BC and one of my favorite humans. But like all countries at various point governments and the zillions of people under the umbrella make decisions they don’t make a segment of people happy and don’t seem to make sense.

Good question So we took the tour via NCL - https://www.ncl.com/no/en/shore-excursions/SGY_05/Yukon-Territory-Scenic-Drive I have looked for the last 30 minufes to try to find the name of the tour company but have not located it yet unfortunately. It is the one that is approx. 6 hours with a drive up the Klondike Highway, stops at various Yukon sites including Caribou Crossing, a visit to Emerald Lake, and then lunch at the Spirit Lake Lodge. I will keep looking an update this if I can locate the tour company name.

I was basing this on something I had heard on a video yesterday regarding the train, and why they had those restrictions at this time. This Canadian travel vlogger had stated it was a Canadian requirement. But regardless of why, a mask would be required and that was what I was trying to point out. Since the tour that I was talking about is coming out of the US the Canadian regulations that he was discussing would not apply. I was just pointing it out, it wasn’t deep

We used an independent tour operator and did a tour on a small bus, the kind that has the asile between seats and the high backs seats. We had heard that the train was rather uncomfortable due to the slatted seats. Honestly, we were so thrilled that we did the bus instead. The train doesn’t stop along the way, but on the bus we had some amazing experiences at various stops (including a rather close encounter with a small brown bear and a stop for a close view of amazing lakes and vistas). And it was 50% of the cost of the train. Note that recent reports state that on the train you must wear a mask the entire time because the train is part of the Canadian transport system; that should not be the case on a private bus (and the trip to the Yukon is not a short one).

Thank you @1978bucketlist and @CruisingOz - we have never had an issue with it before (in years prior to the shutdown or sense). The email (will attach the portion here) seems to say they won’t, but there would be no more onboard than prior to the shutdown, it just wasn’t making sense to us. As you point out Cruisingoz, the ability to prebook is definitely part of the value of a suite in our opinion. I have not heard back from the Sydney concierge yet, although I did hear back from the concierge friend that I had contacted to confirm what I was wanting before he forwarded it to them. Of course it still doesn’t tell me what’s going on and why. Hopefully I will learn more before long.