The sale included two for one airfare and our price was $8,225.28 (cruise $5,816, airfare $1,208 and transfers $250, Gov tax/Port Exp/Fees $951.28). Tips and excursions will be in addition later. The person we were working with said we both have multiple accounts and they needed to merge them before we could put down a deposit. Our last Norwegian cruise, they said the same thing, so this was a little frustrating. Lynn got a call Nov. 25th, following up on our original hold and Kathy, who was more knowledgable, was able to put our cruise credits (we purchased on our last cruise) as deposits for each cruise. It was nice to use our two $250 prepaid cruise deposits that we purchased on our last cruise. Now we are set until final payments (7725.28), which are due in July 2024.

A few months before the cruise they allow you to bid on upgrading to balcony rooms (depending on if there are some available). We put bids in for both cruises at about $40 per day, but it said low chance at that bid. To book a balcony room instead of a inside cabin was almost double when we originally booked. We will see if we are lucky but will be happy with or without an upgrade, and only have four sea days (it was originally only two sea days, until they changed the itinerary).

With less than three months to go we started booking some excursions. They probably average about $250 per, so our bill will increase but this is probably the only time we will be to these destinations.

Airlines going were all on Delta (Korean Air):
Miami 11/13/24 7:05 pm to New York at 10:08 pm (3 hours)
New York 11/14/24 12:50 pm to Seoul Incheon 11/15/24 6:30 am (Incheon is 13 hours ahead, this is about a 15.5 hour flight)
We paid $75 each for transfers to the ship going.

Airlines returning were all on United:
Hong Kong 12/10/24 9:05 pm to LA 12/10/24 5:45 pm (13.25 hours)
LA 12/10/24 9:21 pm to Washington 12/11/24 5:09 am (5 hours)
Washington, DC 12/11/24 9:00 am to Miami 12/11/24 11:52 am (2.75 hours)
We paid $50 each for transfers to the airport coming back.

We reserved parking at Pullman MIA Hotel - Shuttles, 5800 Blue Lagoon Drive, Miami for just under $230 from Nov. 13th until Dec. 11th. It is self park, uncovered parking but a better cost and more convenient than ubering back and forth from Key Largo.

This will be interesting for me as my parents lived at: 390 Futoo-machi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Japan in 1957 (may have changed names to: 390 Okurayama, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Japan) while my father was in the service. I remember a story of my sister wandering off and ending near railroad tracks, with someone giving her an octopus leg to eat. Hopefully we will be able to go see the area when we are at one of our stops.
Map of area
Photo links

NCL Spirit is an old ship, built in 1998. It was refurbished in 2022. Our last cruise was on this ship and it was fairly nice, but you could see its age. We also investigated transfering our reservation to Costco travel as they also give onboard credits or cash cards when they are your travel agent, but Lynn read it is not possible when airfare is booked by Norwegian.

NCL revised the itineraries three times before we left. The current itineraries are below. Second map update to come?
November 15-26, 2024


November 26 - December 11, 2024

More to come, when we return...