Thanks for sharing your observations, we agree with them all. We took this same cruise back to back the last two weeks of March (Cosmopolitan casino certificates). Being upgraded to the new "VIP" treatment for being Gold in Casino at Seas was very nice. We too cruise a lot and we found the special VIP breakfast and lunch in the steak house a life saver. Rocky and the staff are great up there and we got spoiled on French press coffee. Cruise line buffets have gotten so bad over the years (the food is so old, greasy and cold) and the one sit-down breakfast and lunch restaurant menu never changes for those meals and not very diverse.
We had one problem that we have never encountered before on NCL or any other line. Our (normal) mid-ship balcony was on deck 11 right under the very noisy buffet. For 14 days we couldn't get a decent nights sleep. It went to after midnight and started up at 4 am every morning (actually twice they started at 2:30am). The workers evidently start rolling heavy carts around there non-stop. We are going to be on the same ship and only 5 rooms away from this one in a mini suite for a 23 day Northern Baltic cruise in September/Oct, so we are pretty concerned. We went down and talked to the nice couple that were in the room we will be in for the 23 days and they said they had the buffet noise also, but it seemed from what they said it was not as bad as it is a little farther from the main aisles. A friend of ours had a room on the opposite side and had the kids play room over her mini suite and it was noisy, but at least not during the overnight time frame. On this ship all mini suites are on the floor under the buffet so we can't switch rooms and avoid them. NCL also refused to even swap us down to a balcony down another level for the 23 day without paying them a bunch of $'s more for the downgrade. Obviously we are not happy and I may try writing the CEO of NCL.
My point here is watch out booking rooms under the buffet. It must just be dumb luck but we just never ended up being booked there before on any cruise line.
On Gambling, played too much and had zero luck and lost a ton, lesson learned! Our friend who was on the second week of our cruise hit big on VP during the first 24 hours was up $50K at that point. (she plays $25 - $125/hand DB). Of course she didn't cash out then, but still walked away with $25 at the end of the week. Pure luck, but nice!
Dave
