14 and 7 Nights - Norwegian Cruise Line (Southampton, UK to Lisbon, Portugal)

Sept. 2026: Back to back cruises
14 day North Europe (Great Britian, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Great Britian) Sept. 13-Sept. 27
7 day London to Lisbon (Great Britian, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal) Sept. 27-Oct. 4

While on our 2024 Asia cruises we bought six future cruise credits. The future cruise credits cost $250 each but only end up costing you $125 after onboard credit of $125 each. The credits do not expire so we are confident we will use them. We booked these two new cruises while they had a sale going onboard and were also allowing you to use two credits per cruise, for any catagory of room. We booked an inside room and got a catagory upgrade due to the sale. The cost for the first cruise was $6,355.62 (including Fare, Taxes/Fees/Port Exp, Air w/taxes going and transfers). The second cruise was $3698.06 including the same with air back. So, we owe about 9k due May 2026.

We first booked cruises to British Isle and North Europe Norwegian and transferred them to Costco, but then Norwegian leased the Norwegian Sky before our cruise and cancelled our British Isle cruise. So, we had two 10% of vouchers for future cruises on Norwegian, due to the cancelled cruise and an itinerary change on a past cruise, so we rebooked with Norwegian for a little better price and included airfare through Norwegian. We put down $500 on each cruise as a deposit, we used our future cruise credits (2 each per cruise) that cost us $125 each. So, we will still owe around $9,000. This is about what we owed before but airfare and transfers are included. It is 4 less days than before.

Ship

Norwegian Star was built in 2001 and last refurbished in 2021. It holds 2,298 passengers, 1,031 crew, and we are booked in an inside room, 10593

September 13 - September 27, 2026,
North Europe itinerary map1

September 27 - October 4, 2026
Europe itinerary map1

Ship excursion, insurance

The excursions are generally good as you have a guide who shares local knowledge and they don't require a lot of planning effort. The downsides can be cost, as they usually range between $79 to $250 per person, per excursion and sometimes you feel like cattle being herded along. We do get a 15% discount on excursions, one of the perks of being Sapphire latitude members. We usually try to explore cruise critic information and other resources before the trip, to decide what to do at the stops, balancing cost, effort and safety.

On this cruise we get 300 minutes of internet on the first cruise and 150 on the second. We will purchased travel insurance for this.