July 2024. Steve and I are cruising on the Norwegian Getaway, a Breakaway class ship by Norwegian Cruise Line or NCL. Interestingly, our stay on board happened shortly after the Getaway paid a visit to the dry dock for some refurbishments. The route? Piraeus, which is the port of Athens in Greece; followed by Mykonos; two days in Istanbul in Turkey or Türkiye; then Kusadasi or Kuşadası for Ephesus; Rhodes; Santorini (Thira or Thera) and back to Piraeus. Oddly enough, the itinerary offered no sea days.
The time had arrived! Sunday, 14 June 2024. Time to check in on our ‘7-Day Greek Isles Round-trip Athens: Santorini, Rhodes & Istanbul‘, as NCL marketed the cruise.
Before that Sunday
But let’s start at the beginning. We booked this cruise over a year ahead. On my birthday in 2023 to be exact. We had to pay a small deposit upon booking. We also quickly paid for the service charges (tips), a drinks package, shore excursion discount, an internet package and a specialty dining package.
“When you pay your holiday in advance, it’s free”, the ‘vacation maths’ say.
After booking the balcony stateroom with access to the spa facilities, we also quickly booked some of the shore excursions.
After booking, it is recommended to download the cruise line app and link your cruise booking to the app. I regularly opened that app to see for updates on excursion and entertainment bookings. Cruise vloggers on YouTube (sometimes called cruisetubers) do recommend to book activities in advance not to miss out.
January 2024
From January 2024 on, we received more mails. “Important information”, they said. And sometimes it really was relevant and important. Such as when on itinerary was changed.
Originally, the itinerary was Athens (actually Piraeus), Kusadasi, Istanbul, Mykonos, Rhodes, Santorini, Athens. It changed into Athens, Mykonos, Istanbul, Kusadasi, Rhodes, Santorini, Athens (Piraeus).
We had booked one excursion externally: Ephesus. We cancelled that. Shore excursion for Ephesus were now available with NCL, so we booked one of those.
Online check-in
21 days before sailing, it was time to check in online. This means filling in many pieces of information such passport number, credit card information for the on-board account and uploading a photo. Steve’s photo was rejected at first. No smiling at all!
Safety video
Part of the check-in process is watching a safety video. Fair enough. We duly did and we did pay attention. We watched the video via the NCL check-in site, assuming it would register we had completely viewed it. The same technology as not being able to skip commercials.
But no, it turned out. After checking in, we received multiple mails to view the safety video. It just linked to YouTube. We could have been quizzed on the video and we would almost be almost be able to re-enact the video.
Anyway. NCL made it all look and sound so complicated. “Do this, don’t do that. Don’t forget this…”
Embarkation Day
And then came Embarkation Day. After a sweaty walk from the hotel to the cruise terminal, we arrived at a setup of many ‘party tents’. We were greeted by NCL staff bringing cold water. How nice.
We had duly printed out our bag tags so we could just drop our bags with some attendants.
Afterwards, we entered this huge party tents which was organised as an airport check-in area. It was quickly our turn and we received our cruise cards. To this day I wonder how the attendant, not someone from NCL but a someone from a contractor, found our cruise cards.
A cruise card is your alpha and omega on a cruise ship. It’s your ID, it’s your stateroom key, it’s your payment device. Don’t lose it!
The next step was security, as in an airport.
After security: time to board the ship.
Incredibly, from dropping our bags to being on board, this process took no longer than 30 minutes. So efficient.
First exploration on the ship
What do you on day 1? Well you wait a) for your stateroom to be available and b) for your luggage to be delivered.
This means you should have some overnight bag with all the essentials to pass the time. Swim gear, sun cream, a book, a power bank…
We used the time to explore the ship, have a first Aperol spritz and eat.
Our room was officially ready at 3 PM, but we were in just before that. In our stateroom we found many pages of information.
Steve saw a better shore excursion than we had booked for Istanbul, so we went to the Shore Excursion desk to have them exchanged. Policy says you must do this 48 hours prior arrival in port, but exchanging wasn’t a problem.
This meant we had to change or specialty dining reservations, which we had done months earlier before the itinerary change. We also asked our stateroom steward to separate the bed. Steve and I are friends, not lovers and sleeping separately is nicer.
Our luggage
While Steve’s suitcase came quickly, very quickly, mine didn’t. It really took a long time. Only when you don’t have your suitcase after 8 PM, you should go and inquire. But as the Norwegian Getaway left Piraeus at 5 PM, I didn’t want to wait that long.
I was showed a bunch of tagless and nameless pieces of luggage, but mine wasn’t there. I tried tracking with the Apple AirTags but its last connection was several hours old and only showed the cruise terminal. I also checked my photo album. Yes, I did drop my suitcase at the right spot.
Once on the Aegean Sea, I rechecked and I could at least see my suitcase was on board. Still, I only had my suitcase after a nice, upscale dinner at Ocean Blue. I wanted to change into a nicer outfit for that dinner.
So having to wait so long for my suitcase was a major downer for the day. But apart from this major setback, Embarkation Day went very smoothly.
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