15 MUST KNOW TIPS for Norwegian Cruise Line!!

hi everyone I am Elisa with eecc travels and today we are going to talk about 15 tips and tricks for cruising with Norwegian Cruise Line we just got off the Breakaway and I just started thinking that this is a good time to let everyone know the ins and outs of cruising with NCO we have sailed with them quite a bit we have been on the Breakaway the getaway The Joy the Bliss The Encore the Prima and pearl some of those multiple times and later this year we've got sailings on the Jewel and Viva so we've been there done that know a lot about NCL so the first thing we're going to talk about is the free at Sea this is what a lot of people question how does it work is it really free what am I paying for what am I getting for free and what is the pricing for the freight C versus Sail Away pricing so let's dive into that first off depending on the promo you're going to get items included in your cruise Fair these are an unlimited beverage package specialty dining Wi-Fi short Excursion credits and sometimes buy one get one free air so let's go back to the first one the unlimited beverage package this is the one that a lot of people are excited about because if you pay for a beverage package it can be very expensive if you look on norwegian's website and look at the pricing for this it's 99 per person per day plus 20 gratuities so if you drink even a little bit it's a very good value every adult in the cabin gets the unlimited beverage package so if you've got four adults in the cabin they're all getting it not just one and two so the beverage package is free what about the gratuities yes you do have to pay the gratuities on the beverage package so on a seven day cruise you're looking at around 140 in gratuities that price could go up in the near future but if you look at the grand scheme of things and you look at pricing for an individual drink package paying 140 even 150 a week for an unlimited beverage package can be a very good deal if you're gonna use it so what's included in this unlimited beverage package it's unlimited alcoholic beverages and soda is there a Dollar cap on these yes it's usually around fifteen dollars per drink is your cap so your high-end wines your top shelf Liquors are not going to be included in this you can upgrade your entire package or you can just pay the difference per drink if you're just gonna have a few of those which is probably a good thing to do me and Jason we have Crews with Norwegian a lot we have never ordered a drink that exceeded that limit so we've never had to pay the difference and as far as sodas go I'm a big soda drinker I don't drink coffee so that's my form of caffeine and I literally will go get soda all day long so they will not give you a can of soda it's going to be Fountain drinks or they were going to put ice in a cup and pour the canned soda on top of it so just keep that in mind if you're a snobby soda drinker like I am bottled water is not included especially coffee's not included but you do get a good value in this free drink package okay the second item is specialty dining so depending on the type of cabin you're in and how many days your cruise is will depend on how many of these you're getting this does apply only to guests one and two you do have to pay a gratuity on this as well but you're really looking at about five dollars per person per meal that for specialty dining is incredible this to me is one of the best values in the free at Sea because Norwegian does such a good job on the variety of food on board their ships so about half of their venues are included at no charge and half of them are specialty but you're getting at least one specialty dining meal per you know per person and I think that's great so it gives you the opportunity to go into those nicer specialty dining restaurants without actually having to pay for them I love this what are my favorite specialty dining restaurants you ask well let's see Teppanyaki is definitely my favorite love love love Teppanyaki it's solid always good you get a little show with dinner if you leave Teppanyaki hungry that's your fault because really it's as much as you want to eat Le Bistro is our second favorite love La Bistro again solid good food and then the ship that have owneda that's going to be my third really I don't think you can go bad with any of them but there's definitely some that you're gonna prefer over others all right let's talk about the next one which is the Wi-Fi is it unlimited Wi-Fi no um I think right now the promo has changed a little bit and I think each person gets 150 minutes of Wi-Fi is this enough depends on what you're doing for us who run a social media business obviously it's not we have to upgrade but early on when we first started cruising with them and we weren't full-time in social media it was enough we would jump on check Facebook make a post you know answer an email or two and sign off and that amount of minutes did last us the full seven day cruise so if you really want to disconnect and just every now and then check in on social media that really is free Wi-Fi and most of the ships are being upgraded to starlink so the internet's really good too on Breakaway it was Lightning Fast really good okay the next thing in free at Sea is the Excursion so this one is a little hmm because it says on their website free excursions it's it's a 50 per Port per cabin Shore Excursion credit okay so not per person per cabin fifty dollars per Port per Excursion so if you want to do two excursions in the same port yeah they're gonna give you fifty dollars each one of those it does have to be booked through the cruise line you can book it in advance you don't have to wait till you get on the ship or you can get on the ship and and book it there as well so just keep that in mind it is not free excursions but you are getting a good discount on these excursions the only time I think I've used this where an Excursion was completely free was in Juno and it was really just the the tram so the tram comes in at like 35 or 40 dollars per person so one of us got a free Excursion but for the most part fifty dollars per Port discount okay on to the next one and that is the flights buy one get one free airfare then can be a great value flights are very expensive right now I mean right now if you can drive to the port you're probably better off because the flight costs are so high but with this you're getting a good value but you're giving up some control so basically you're saying okay Norwegian for this cost that you're offering you're gonna book my flights so Norwegian is going to go in and book the flight that's best for Norwegian that means you're gonna get to the ship on time they're gonna make sure that you're gonna get there in plenty of time and you're not going to miss your cruise I mean some things are out of their control but for the most part they're going to do the absolute best they can if you want to fly in the day before they'll actually give you a discount they will give you a 25 discount to fly in the day before you can fly in up to two days before or stay up to two days after your cruise which is called an air deviation I definitely recommend coming in for your cruise always I've always said this it doesn't matter if you're booking your air or if NCL is booking your air come in the day before it just takes so much stress off of you that you know you're at your port and you're not going to miss your cruise so when I say you're giving up control that means that your two flight is gonna be good timing your back flight might not be so good so I've seen people that get off the ship at 10 o'clock in the morning and their flight isn't until 10 pm at night it doesn't happen often but keep in mind it can happen we just used um the NCL air for our Jewel crews in April and our flight times are fantastic I mean we leave here in Alexandria at 6 a.m we're in San Diego by noon and then the flight in I mean the cruise ends in Vancouver and we're on our flight at 12 45 PM I mean really I could not ask for better flight times but it is hit and miss just keep that in mind okay I think that pretty much covers everything on the free at Sea let's talk about free at safe pricing versus Sail Away pricing so if you don't need any of that say you live really close to the port and you're gonna drive you're not a drinker you're not going to use Wi-Fi and you feel like you know I don't need this freeancy I just want to go get on a cruise just what's the cheapest way to get on that's what the sail away rate is so this is something you can't book way in advance so if you're going to cruise two years from now you're not going to see a sail away rain but within the year of the sailing then you can find those Sail Away rates and the closer it gets to the sale and usually the sail away rates dip down so that is something to keep in mind if you book the sale away right you're not getting any of the free at say you're not getting a drink package no specialty dining no Wi-Fi but you do 50 per Port Shore Excursion credit so that's nice so once you understand those two pricing points with the free at C without the free at Sea then you can determine which is best for you okay Cruise tip number two freestyle cruising this is what we absolutely love about Norwegian there are no set dining times and people that are used to other cruise lines and having an early dining or late Diner like what what do you mean there's no set dining time there's not you can go into any of the main dining rooms into the buffet into oceans or the local anytime you want and you have dinner specialty you need to make reservations for because they're very small venues and they will book up quickly but as far as if you just need to go eat one night and you don't know what time or you don't know what you're gonna feel like doing that day or what's on the schedule that's what's fantastic also there are no formal nights no formal nights I love this me and Jason are not big dress-up people we go on vacation to be comfortable to enjoy ourselves so we don't like to put on a dress or a suit or anything like that so we absolutely love love love that aspect now can you wear a t-shirt shirts and shorts all the time no you're going to have a couple of restaurants that have a minimum dress code really the women can kind of get away with anything just look nice you know no shorts no t-shirts no tank tops but you don't have to wear a dress and it's pretty casual for the men pants closed-toed shoes collared shirt I mean really that's pretty simple most people are going to wear that anyway so freestyle cruising is awesome I love that aspect of Norwegian tip number three is food I mean cruising and food kind of go hand in hand that's one of the highlights of going on vacation is trying new things so I touched on the specialty dining in the free at Sea everyone's that has that frequency offer has some specialty dining do some research look at the menus pick out the one or two restaurants that you want to eat at make those reservations as soon as you can that way you're getting what you want okay indulge enjoy these the specialty dining is really really good but also the other food on the ship is pretty darn good too to me Garden Cafe is one of the better buffets out there in cruising I can consistently go to Garden Cafe doesn't matter if it's breakfast lunch or dinner and get something I'm gonna like I mean let's talk about eggs for a second okay a lot of cruise lines I will not eat the scrambled eggs they're just runny they're nasty I have to go to The Omelette station and get eggs made special if I'm gonna eat eggs but on Norwegian consistently on every ship we've been on the eggs are good I mean that's just something little I'm talking about but it means a lot you know whenever you're hungry and you're ready to go get something to eat also you've got you've got a good variety here so every ship's gonna have two to three main dining rooms again you could go to any of these you want multiple specialty dining offerings some ships have other um venues included I know for instance on the the jewel class ship so the Pearl The Jewel and the Jade they have like um an Asian restaurant that's included no extra charge you can just go in there and eat on the Breakaway there's the Shanghai noodles so there's other venues as well and then there's oceans and the locals so this is going to be the pub the 24 hour Pub is it 24 hours technically know if you're there at three and four o'clock in the morning you might you know not get to order but for the most part it's a 24 hour venue that you can go and get solid Burgers wings hot dogs um fish and chips desserts salads if you're wanting something healthy and then they also have a dining room area where you can go at night and they'll have like a special um actually you can go in there for breakfast and order a nice breakfast so this is a venue that's open all the time it's included and it's a sit down nice venue so that's something that we really like there is room service as well the room service is free they just charge a delivery fee so I think it's like 10 12 for a delivery fee anything other than a continental breakfast and you know you can order as much as you want you just have to pay that one delivery fee so I think that's a pretty good value as well when you are looking to choose which Norwegian ship I'm gonna go on look at the features of the chefs so so you're going to look at the size of the ship because some people don't like big crowds some people like the big with a lot to do you're going to look at what each ship has to offer for entertainment for activities for food venues you're going to look at the itinerary so there's a lot that goes into this and so we're going to talk about new ships versus old ships some people say it always cruise on the new ships they're always better you're not going to get as good on the old ships and then you've got some that say well you know what I really like that Jewel class I like that smaller ship and I can say we have done both we have done every one of the new shows and we've done the Pearl which is a jewel class it's an older ship we absolutely loved the Pearl we had a great experience on the Pearl the size of the ship was nice the venues were great it felt like there was plenty to do on the ship the entertainment was really good there was plenty of activities we loved that little Asian restaurant I was talking about earlier we ate there quite a bit um so don't say you have to do the new ships or the new shows great heck yeah I love Prima I mean I think there's you know everyone's like there's hit and misses on Prima but overall I think they knocked it out of the park with Prima I love that ship it's gorgeous it's modern it's got the food Hall the food Hall is a fabulous idea so they cut down the size of the buffet but added this food haul where a lot of items that used to be specialty like Q um on some ships are now included in the food hall and then that beautiful waterfront on Deck eight is just amazing so every ship has something to offer don't just look at the newer ships take a look at the older ships it's also I'll say pricing on that older ship than you will the brand new ship so take that into consideration too when you're looking a book okay this next tip is a very quick tip fish swim forward so not every ship but most of the Norwegian shelves when you're on the cabin decks you know how it is you get on a ship and you're like oh my God everything looks exactly the same where is my cabin look down at the floor and there's fish on the floor and the fish are swimming forward so now you know this way is forward and this way is out okay tip number six get familiar with your ship so there's a lot of ways you can do this once you've picked out the ship you want there are videos on YouTube that will completely walk you through the ship there are deck plans get familiar with everything your ship has to offer and where it is that way when you get on board this massive cruise ship you're like I don't know where anything is if you've done your research you know exactly where to go what to do and you're going to have a more enjoyable experience knowing what to expect when you get on board this leads into tip number seven download the app so we talked about deck plans once you have that app downloaded there are deck plans on there so you can get familiar with the deck you're going to be sleeping on okay it's best to go through that door near that elevator and it's that's the closest point to my cabin or okay I'm forward on the ship what's above and below me how quickly can I get to the gym or how quickly can I get to the pool or the spa or the buffet or whatever is your interest knowing where things are on the ship is very helpful not only that the app is great because you can see kind of an overview of your cruise you can look at what specialty dining restaurants are on your ship you can make reservations once you get on board the app changes so you can still see a lot of what you could see before your cruise but you can make specialty dining restaurants on board also you can make show reservations on board depending on your ship activity reservations um you can see those deck plans and then once you're on board you can see your daily schedule so they don't print the schedule anymore if you ask for a printed one you can get one but for the most part it's all in the app there's also a chat feature I think the chat features about ten dollars per person but then you're tapped into the ship's Wi-Fi Ai and you're not worried about signing in and out to Wi-Fi you can just use that chat and leave your phone you know leave the Wi-Fi for other things so that's really a good feature and we have used that a lot tip number eight make reservations so we've touched on this a little bit but specifically if you want specialty dining make it in advance as far as you can so typically after final payment date not when you've paid in full because some people pay off early but after the final payment date then it opens up for specialty dining reservations if you know that specifically you want this reservation on this time make it as soon as you can if you wait till you get on board you can still make reservations but you're not going to get those key times so a lot of times when you get on board you're going to eat at five o'clock or 8 30 9 o'clock and most of us want to have that more you know 6 30 7 o'clock dinner time so just keep that in mind shows pre-covered you could book entertainment and shows before the cruise right now you have to wait till you get on board to book those things so watch that that could change at any time but as soon as you get on board make those reservations actually you don't even have to wait till you get on get on board when you're in the terminal and you can see that ship you can log into the ship's Wi-Fi and start making those reservations little tip for you tip number nine take advantage of all the outdoor areas so the Waterfront I think is a great concept it's not on every ship but it doesn't almost and it's usually on Deck eight and it goes either all the way around or almost all the way around the ship you've got some great areas out there there's just some areas you can just go sit and chill and enjoy watching the ocean and then a lot of areas from the inside extend out so the restaurants have outdoor seating the bars have outdoor bars and outdoor seating the views are spectacular if you've got good weather and you have dinner at one of the specialty restaurants go eat outside or even on Prima the local extends outside we had one of the best lunches ever at the local on Prima sitting outside right where the water slide comes down not the water slide but the dry slide comes down beautiful views out there and that's what we cruise for right we cruise for the ocean to be outside to see everything that is out there you know the waves the weather the as you're approaching land or sailing away from land so take advantage of that Waterfront area and spend some time out there okay tip number 10 you saw us do it on Breakaway we've done it a bunch of times on previous cruises this is something for a newbie Cruiser you're probably not gonna do but if you've cruised a lot and you go to these ports quite frequently our tip is skip a port and go to the spa Norwegian has some of the best thermal Suites and if it's a port day sometimes you can get a good deal so when we were on Breakaway a friend of ours she did a massage treatment and they gave her the thermal Suite pass for the day how awesome is that now me and Jason will either depending on the itinerary and what's going on sometimes we will get a spa pass for the week sometimes we'll just do a day pass but if there's a good thermal Suite on any ship we're gonna be in there because to me that again is part of cruising that rest and relaxation and Rejuvenation and the spa does that for us I don't necessarily I've never gotten massage I've never done anything like that it's the thermal suite for us we love it so to me instead of spending money on an Excursion take that Excursion money and get a day pass to the spa and the reason I say do it on a port day is because most of the people are off the ship in Port and you've got that thermal Suite almost to yourself so on Breakaway a ship of 4 000 people there was about 10 people in the thermal Suite it was nice so that's a good good tip from us to use tip number 11 book a sailing that has a stop in one of norwegian's private islands they have two there is great syrup key in the Bahamas and harvest K which is off the coast of Belize these islands are both beautiful they both have a lot to offer I will tell you that Great Stirrup key does everything extends from the ship so you can get lunch for free and your drink package extends for free onto the ship so you're gonna get a little bit more bang for your buck out of Great Stirrup K Great Stirrup key whichever you want to call it um that is going to be an Eastern Caribbean itinerary for a Western Caribbean itinerary you're going to get a stop at Harvest K and they do call it K here for sure because of the arrangement that Norwegian made with the country of Belize to buy this island everything does not extend off and this is this is not norwegian's fault this is the country of Belize wanted the people from the Norwegian ships to come to their Island and buy local food and buy drinks from them so there are restaurants on the island there are bars on the island but these will all be at an extra cost now the ship is right there if you want to hop back up on the ship and have lunch you absolutely can do that I love both of these islands but I will tell you I love the pool area at Harvest K it's this big massive pool there's plenty there's usually plenty of seating there we've never had a problem getting a lounger unfortunately we didn't miss it on this last Cruise so I'm really bummed about that because I was really looking forward to spending the day on harvest K but take a look at that both of their private islands are really good tip number 12 planned for the themed parties Norwegian does a great job at themed parties so there's going to be an 80s party pack your 80s gear we had so much fun at the 80s party some friends of ours went all costumed out we didn't but we had the the glasses we had the little shimmy um like Madonna gloves it it was so much fun so we had a little bit of a costume going not a whole lot some people went all out so much fun if you grew up you know I was born in 1978 so my childhood was the 80s and know that music loved that music had a great time at the 80s party there's also going to be a glow party so they do have glow items that they pass out but if you want to bring your own um we did one Cruise where some friends of ours brought enough bracelets that they were handing out bracelets that was a lot of fun and they had glow sunglasses that you have to kind of put together ahead of time and then you know you've got your face glowing there's also white parties white night parties so if you know these are there and you want to pack special outfits for them then you're you feel like you're even more of the party so take a look at your sailing on the seven night sailing you should have all three of these they're a lot of fun tip number 13 this is something that I've taken advantage of before and I think is a great great value and that is bidding to upgrade your cabin so after you've booked your cabin you're gonna get this email about bidding to upgrade and depending on what type of cabin you have booked will vary on what you can bid for so for instance um we have a cabin booked on the jewel which is an interior cabin and we have the options to bid to upgrade to an ocean view or a balcony so I did put in my upgrades bid for balcony fingers crossed I get that but that is also a money-saving option if you're okay with an interior cabin book the interior bid to upgrade and possibly you can get that balcony cabin for a whole lot less if it's peak season and you know the screws is probably going to sell out you're probably not going to get your upgrade but for instance on the sailing we're doing it's a repositioning cruise from San Diego to Vancouver looking at the ship doesn't look like it's real full yet so fingers crossed we will get our bid we have also booked a standard balcony and bid to upgrade to a spa balcony we did get that one and on that one I put in a minimum bid but we were selling off season the ship wasn't full I got the bid and I was so excited because then we had the thermal Suite all week for a lot less than if we would have gone and bought that thermal Suite package so take advantage of those here's another tip for you you should be booking through a travel agent if you are booking through a travel agent call your travel agent say hey how full is this ship because I can go in and look I can't get an exact number but I can see oh there's a lot of balconies available or there's a lot of this available or specifically Spa cabins I can tell you exactly how many Spa cabins are available so then that kind of gives you an idea of if you want to do that upgrade do I need to put in the can I get away with the minimum or do I need to up my bed a little bit I love this idea I think it's great and we have definitely taken advantage of it and gotten really good value out of it tip number 14 if you are a solo Cruiser Norwegian is probably a great cruise line for you all of their newer ships starting with Breakaway and above half Studio cabins the studio cabins are really a fantastic thing for solo Travelers for two reasons one you've got a cabin that's made for one person so you've got a bed that's not taking up the entire space you know you've got storage and things like that that is good for one person and because it's a solo cabin you're not paying that double occupancy rate for a standard cabin you've got a little bit of a break on your cost also the studio area is completely locked off you can't get into the studios without your key card so ladies if you're traveling solo this is a safety measure so you no one can get into your cabin area unless they are also in that area the solo Studios also offer their own Lounge so you can go have breakfast or afternoon snacks or there's even a bar in there just for the solo Travelers they put on special events for the solo Travelers I think it's a great great program and I can't think of any other cruise line that takes solo cruising to this level it's really great last but not least my final tip if you Cruise Norwegian a lot this is going to be a good one for you and that is to buy Norwegian stock right now stock is at an all-time low I mean we're still seeing those covid stock prices um we bought stock we should have weighed it we bought stock around twenty dollars a share which at the time I thought was great but then covet happened and it nosedive from there but I'm still happy that I have that 100 shares of Norwegian style because we do cruise with them a lot and every single time we cruise with Norwegian we get onboard credit so it's something like I'm going to invest anyway um I didn't pull it like out of my pocket I just went to I have Investments already and just moved some of the money over to buy Norwegian stock and then I've got that great benefit out of it so I hope these tips were helpful for you I hope that if you haven't sealed Norwegian you will soon I am also a travel agent if I can ever help you in booking a cruise with Norwegian or any other Cruise Line just let me know my email is down below it's travel eecctravels.com and I hope these tips have helped and we'll see you next time happy cruising [Applause] [Music]

Channel: EECC Travels

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Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 23 2023