Booking flights for a cruise is not quite the same as booking flights for a normal vacation. When you are flying to a hotel, a delay is annoying. When you are flying to a cruise ship, a delay can become a much bigger problem. The ship has a schedule, the boarding window matters, and a…
Thinking about a Norwegian Cruise Line vacation, but not sure where to start? Maybe you are trying to choose the right ship. Maybe you are comparing itineraries. Maybe you are wondering whether the package is worth it, which cabin category makes sense, or whether the price you are seeing is actually a good value. Or…
We started cruising last year after a friend and co-worker recommended we try the Norwegian Bliss for Alaska. That was supposed to be our “let’s see if we even like cruising” trip. Apparently, we liked it. Since that first Bliss cruise last May, we’ve sailed the Bliss two more times, plus the Escape and the…
Princess Cruises still feels a little more traditional than some cruise lines. That can be part of the appeal. But it also creates one of the most common first-time Princess questions: What are you actually supposed to wear? Princess still uses phrases like Smart Casual and Formal Night, which can make people wonder if they…
Celebrity Cruises is one of the cruise lines we think is worth understanding, even though we are not going to pretend we are Celebrity experts yet. We have spent a lot more time sailing and writing about Norwegian Cruise Line, and we have recently started building out more Princess Cruises content as we continue learning…
Food Republic was one of those restaurants on Norwegian Bliss that we were curious about, but not totally sure would be “our kind of thing.” We are not big sushi people. We are not especially adventurous eaters. And when we cruise, we tend to gravitate toward places that feel a little more familiar, like Cagney’s,…
We had walked by the Speedway on Norwegian Bliss before and thought, “That looks fun.” But like a lot of cruise ship extras, we also had the follow-up thought: Is it actually worth paying extra for? On our recent Norwegian Bliss sailing, we finally gave it a try — partly because Melanie caught a free…
Some cruises are built around the obvious destinations. Alaska. The Caribbean. Europe. Mexico. The Mediterranean. And then there are repositioning cruises — the sailings that quietly move a ship from one part of the world to another when the cruise line is shifting seasons. They may not always get the same attention, but repositioning cruises…
Princess Cruises makes its fare structure look simple at first. You can book the standard cruise fare, or you can add one of the bigger bundled packages: Princess Plus or Princess Premier. But the real question is not, “Which one has more stuff?” The better question is: Which one would we actually use enough to…
There are a lot of cruise lines out there, and each one has its own personality. Princess Cruises tends to sit in a nice middle ground. It is not usually the wildest party cruise. It is not the most formal luxury cruise. It is also not necessarily the cheapest cruise line on every itinerary. But…
