It's been so great to watch your journey! Thank you for your refreshing and optimistic outlook on the cruise and life! I look forward to getting on this ship later in the summer
Cruising is very affordable if you can stay away from all of the add ons that they are constantly tempting you with, like specialty restaurants, coffees, high end cocktails, excursions, amusement park type rides, spa treatments and on and on and on!
I totally agree, Mitchell! It’s nice to have them but do you ‘need’ them? drinks package is a huge expense and I don’t drink enough to justify it so I don’t need it! WiFi too!
@@mitchellbarnow1709 I mean, I'm going on a repositioning cruise in decembre and the premium drinks package costs more than the ticket alone. So yes, absolutely! :D
Hey Ben, I like your enthusiasm and your positive attitude , like to watch your vlogs, myself did only two cruises, on MSC, one from Dubai and on from Miami to the Carribean…amazing!!!!
I’m trying to get caught up with your videos and reviews! Your opinions whether positive or negative, always keep a positive spin. You can’t over stress the importance of being kind to staff - they are at work and we are not. Thank for always turning lemons into lemon aid!
@@paulknowles8469 you’re totally right, Paul! They’re human beings just like everyone else. Sometimes people forget… thank you for watching! I try and be as positive as I can 😁
You’re welcome! Thank you for the watching and I’m glad my videos have helped you prepare for your cruise! I enjoyed the prima and itinerary very much! 😊
I did the NCL Pride of America cruise around the Hawaiian Islands last year. The islands are amazing! We loved everything about the ports. With the name of the ship and the location, I had high expectations for the ship. It totally let me down. The appearance of the ship was not good, the food was mediocre, the rooms were little, and the staff was a mixed bag. I had a couple exceptional crew members that I wrote compliment cards for. Most of the staff was just okay. Two were bad. Our waitperson at the Italian restaurant totally ignored me. Weird. The bad seed was also a waitperson in the main dining room. A very toxic person who went out of her way to make everyone miserable. I've never experienced anything like it...on or off a ship. Again, the destination made up for it which is what I'm sure NCL is banking on. 😁 I'm glad the Americans made your cruise interesting, Ben! 😂
That's too bad, Matthew! I think a lot of people have 1 bad experience on a cruise and it turns them completely off cruising. Every cruise, ship, itinerary, cruise line, is different so there's always another cruise waiting! Hopefully your other cruise experiences have been great! Cheers, Matthew!
@@TravelWithBen121 Yes, all other cruise experiences were great. Mostly Disney, which is amazing, but also Carnival and Royal were good. I'm giving NCL another chance by going on the Joy next year. Again, the name of the ship creates certain expectations. 😂
Im so happy you did this cruise and showed us all the stuff! I never thought I'd like to go anywhere that cold. But hey, I'm rethinking about going there. And yes that solo cabin looks big compared to other videos ive seen of solo cabins. Going to check my solo cabin for my cruise right now to see location, I think it's a sideways one as well. If not I'm going to check and see if I can change it. 🎉 Thanks again Ben! Love your videos. Where to next? I'm heading to Hawaii with one of my daughters to the NCL Pride of America next month. Then NCL solo end of oct first of Nov for my birthday. It would be so cool to run into you on any of my upcoming cruises. Three more after those two. 😂🤣
You’re welcome! Thank you, Terri! 😊 I never thought I’d do a cold cruise either 😂😂 but I’m so glad I did! I would love to go to Hawaii! It’s on my bucket list so I’ll make it there one day! I’m sure I’ll be cruising anyone sometime soon 😊 you have a lot planned!
I recently discovered your videos and greatly enjoyed working my way through them. Your cruises often have several stops in varies foreign countries. It got me to wondering if it's necessary to exchange some money in varies local currencies and if exchanges are readily available on the ship or ports of call. Or perhaps it's completely unnecessary . I haven't taken my first cruise yet so questions keep popping in my head 🤔. Thanks.
Cheers, Mark! My advice is to get a prepaid debit card you can use in any country, I never used cash in any of the ports because I had a card I can use anywhere I travel to. Maybe you can get foreign currency on the ship but there’s plenty of ATM’s and exchange places in every port. 👍
Well, Ben, most of these crew rely on tip for a living. They were mostly from Indonesia or Malaysia when I cruised. Some of them left their spouses and kids for months. It is nice to be kind to them ! A cruise boat is not the worst unless you find some cockroaches partying in the closets ! Love your program !
‘Most’ positions on a ship are not tipped, David. So there’s only select crew that get tips. They shouldn’t get respected because they’re away from their family, they should be respected because they’re human beings 😊
@@TravelWithBen121 I guess you are right. With the Royal Caribbean, we were asked to pre-pay $150 for the tips to the room servers. This sounds like a a forced tip but it was the rule. We had great service and seemed also to watch the rooms for us !
Super excited to go solo out of NYC on Prima in November. I have what was billed as a solo balcony and I'm hoping I can still go to the solo lounge. It looks really nice!
Just curious, since your cabin was located behind the elevator bank, did you hear regular noise coming from the elevators or people getting on or off the elevators? Great video, thanks so much for making it and I look forward to sailing on the NCL prima at some point in the future.
Ben was the reason that your cabin was cheap was that it was adjacent to a stairwell? If so did you hear anything? I really enjoyed this review - particularly you highlighting how you need to plan your visit to these smaller ports.
I don’t believe being close to the stairs made the cruise cheap, Steve! I think that’s a positive and not a negative 😂 I honestly don’t remember ever hearing noise from the stairwell/elevator area. There’s always things you can do better next time 😁 Thanks for watching, Steve!
I’m glad you had a wonderful cruise. I laugh when you say older people or Americans. Glad you saw even a 90 year old loves cruising. We enjoy watching. Have a great day.
Thank you, Judy! I’m very careful to say ‘older’ and not ‘old’ 😂 I just mean they’re older than me, it’s not an insult! I’m glad you enjoyed the series 😊
Ben, absolutely love the way you cruise. Would love to be your plus one just to experience a cruise through you. New solo cruiser but not as adventurous as you.
I dont understand the title. Why would anyone call it the worst ship? Does NCL even have a worst ship? Some seem different from others catering to different needs. But they all look nice to me.
Depending on where you look online, the Prima is ranked as the worst NCL ship. Of course, everything depends on each person's needs but there must be a ship that is overall the least liked.
Not really. There may be a ship with the highest number of negative reviews. All kinds of possible reasons for that. For example: Let us assume that all ships are liked equally well, that the same percentage of passengers post comments for each ship, and that 10% of the posts for each ship are negative. One might then expect that the oldest or largest ships would be disliked by the largest numbers because more people have sailed on them. The numbers could also be especially misleading for an older ship like Prima that has gone through several refurbishments in dry dock. Older comments may reflect issues that have been corrected. Also, a ship may be uncharacteristic for the line and may therefore attract more people looking for a more typical experience for the line-- for example passengers who don't like older RCL ships because they expected an experience more like the new, RCL mega ships. When researching a ship, individual comments are near useless. One must look to consistency, recency, trends, etc.
@@abrahamclott5604 Abraham, it’s not that serious. You clearly don’t know what you’re talking about because the Prima is the second newest NCL ship. Feel free to not click on a video with a title like this as it’s clearly upset you.
Definitely in Canada you can’t judge it by our capital! As for puffins I did a tour that took us to bluffs they nest on land. We could pretty much walk right up to them! It did smell terrible 😅 but visually was probably better than your sea puffin tour. I camped and went around the whole ring road over a month and ate from Grocery stores, hiked and rented bikes in different towns. otherwise probably couldn’t afford it. $600! For your cruise!!Wow 😮
That’s a great puffin tour! Mine was disappointing but I liked the boat ride 😊 Your ring road trip sounds great! I’d do it the same way too, no shame in that! I got a great price on this cruise, I was very happy 😃
So you only paid $600 for the cruise in a double room. Was the price because you reserved it 2 days before you left? Is it still cheap if you reserve it a week out? And how does that compare to a solo traveler room?
Yes Barbara, I believe I got this price because I booked last minute. The closer to the cruise day, the lower the price will be because they don’t want empty cabins. BUT if they’re sold out, they’re sold out. There were no solo cabins available when I booked, inside cabins were the only ones available. Solo cabins sell out fast because there’s not many of them. Good luck 🤞
I get so mad when people treat the crew like they are not real people. We had neighbors on our cruise and they treated our server so poorly, she really embarrassed us and we stopped talking to them after that.
@@TravelWithBen121Thank you Ben, you set a great example everyone that you go. I have to share this with you: One bottle of wine shared by three couples and one person = 7 people This person wanted to pay 1/7 of the total with each couple paying 2/7 of the bill. Imagine 4 cruise cards to pay for one bottle of wine with fractional payments! This horrible person went on and on and on with the staff and with a manager. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but the staff was so talked down, it was a horrible scene. We said that we would just pay for the whole bottle just to get out of there, but that wasn’t allowed by this person. They might’ve gotten their way, eventually. You can delete all of this if you don’t want it on your channel. I just had to tell the story.
Hello Ben I'm from Bethlehem Pennsylvania and I will be traveling on ncl encore in June of 2025 for the first time solo.ill let you know how it goes wish me luck
If you want to write a nice note about a crewmember, please include the person's NAME. Take a photograph on their nametag. You will make sure the person gets recognized.
Great! I have absolutely no regrets about the cabin at all. Of course it’s nice to have a balcony but it didn’t ruin my experience at all not having one 😊
You had some really gorgeous ports on this itinerary - will need to keep an eye on this one in the future! I agree about them being pretty expensive - that’s the best thing about CRUISING to Norway - you can see multiple parts of the country by stopping in for the day on a cruise ship, without spending a fortune!
Great itinerary, Fraser! I totally agree that a cruise is a great way to see a few different cities in a country more conveniently 😊 thank you for watching!
@@TravelWithBen121 I really wanted to do this itinerary and that was before I knew of the fiord cruise ban coming soon. But in future, I will be looking at last minute offers 😀
Hi Ben - would you be interested in being a 1-day tour guide in London in early Sept - if you are not traveling somewhere. Would I contact you thru your business email ?
Think this chap fun to watch. I pay $4,209 ochean view about $1,400 air. Ncl Prima May 22 2025 Reykjavik departure How get this at $600 Think I pay $400 a day
I believe he booked the cruise just a day or so before ... I had a similar situation in May ... I booked an Alaskan 9 day cruise the week before sailing and paid $400.
Love to know how you got $600 cabin 10 days. Make a video I have over a year to plan. My cruise $4,709 Ocean view Prima from Reykjavik. Air about $1,400. Going few days before stay few in London. Plan on bus at 77 walking still there Wanted Belgium but 4 hours in commute. Burge not Belgium but has things, muscles chocolate, beer old buildings
@@jameshchetwyndjr9739 James, I made a video here about how I find cruises: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BTFWp_CjC9A.htmlsi=_-fruolLGviBWwSJ
