GlamorousGirl

We are sailing on Sensation out of Miami on the 15th. Our hotel is in Orlando the night before (we can’t drive all the way to Miami at once from home and I only wanted to pay for 1 night hotel before cruise.) We will be delayed 3+ hours with this drive and don’t want to be delayed even longer searching for parking. We know there are cheaper places than the port with shuttle service - but they all seem to want advance payment and reservation and warn space is limited. I can’t afford to pay it until I get my paycheck on the 15th. Can you recommend one that is very likely to have spaces available same day, that reservations are not required, and has shuttle service to the port at a reasonable cost? Thanks.

We got “free” cruise vouchers from a land based casino. For our Dawn sailing in March, we were charged over $900 in taxes, fees, and service charges. Needless to say I agree with the title of this thread...

Sounds like my husband. He is clueless in the preparation stage, and after initial payment he won’t pay for anything or otherwise lift a finger. I pay for parking, hotels before and after, all photos, upgrade bidding, specialty dining and spa for both of us ~ and then he complains about how much cruises cost (with rare exception he only pays pays port taxes and fees, service charges, and his own gambling) and that I take excursions without him (after paying for all of that other stuff why should I pay his excursions too!) Not to mention I take care of all document prep, reservations, and packing. I’m upset but I just keep reminding myself it beats not going, and I know he won’t go if he has to pay for more of these things.

If he were a more distant family member or friend I wouldn’t be so reliable. I would not take a second cruise with someone like that and the first time I’d only help them with things that would directly impact my own trip. It’s really inconsiderate to put so much burden on you.

I absolutely prefer Princess. For one thing, ship maintenance is a big deal to us. The less visible wear and tear on a ship the better - and our experience on Princess in this regard has been positive while our experience on Carnival in this regard has been negative. Another advantage, at least to us, on Princess was the quieter, more subdued crowd. Of course, this is a personal preference thing and if you prefer a rowdy, party atmosphere you may prefer Carnival. The drink package also ended up costing us less money, and we were able to book a photo package - ALL photos and digital files from the entire cruise for $100 (must be ordered one month out) on Princess. We got far fewer photos on Carnival for the same price.

I prefer to be my own "travel agent." Nobody knows or understands my travel needs better than I do. If I end up having a question, I go to the local AAA office and ask them, without giving them control over any of my trips. It is efficient to deal directly with the cruise line, and I never have to worry about getting a response from them that "you have to go through your travel agent first." Travel agents can be unreliable - but I know I can rely on myself! It is incredibly easy to book a cruise online, as well as your excursions, dinner reservations, and anything else you'd want to book ahead. The few things you can't the travel agent couldn't either because of company policy or ship policy. And when I have a cruise that is comped and the travel agent is listed as the land-based casino, I use the phone number on the voucher to initially book the cruise and then do everything else online myself without ever contacting them again. Am I missing out on small perks? Possibly, but that is a small price to pay for the piece of mind that a travel agent will never leave me hanging and my cruise will go smoothly since I can contact the cruise line directly with no middleman if there are any issues.

I have sailed on both lines and can tell you emphatically that I greatly prefer NCL. I have liked Carnival better in a couple of categories, but overall NCL is my preference in most categories. I will go through some of them one by one for comparison's sake:

Things I liked better about Carnival:

-The room steward and friendliness of the staff overall. While the NCL crew is very courteous and polite, many of them don't seem to have the enthusiastic, bubbly disposition I found on Carnival (with exceptions, of course). The room steward on my last cruise (NCL) disappointed us. He missed our dirty glasses two days and skipped our turn-down one night, and he was polite but not especially friendly. Carnival staff in general seemed to be beaming with enthusiasm and friendliness.

- Blue Iguana and Guy's Burgers. We loved these options when we were too busy for a sit-down dinner, and I particularly enjoyed the breakfast burritos at Blue Iguana, given I have been disappointed with the breakfast buffets and breakfast dining room meals on both lines. (Princess, on the other hand, was even good in the buffet.)

- Specialty coffee and sparkling water are included in the unlimited beverage package on Carnival. On NCL they are not, and we are heavy coffee drinkers so this was a big deal to us. (Carnival has a 15 alcoholic drink limit and NCL does not - but this doesn't affect us since neither of us can chug down 15 drinks in one day, but, again, someone who can may prefer NCL's package.)

- Cheaper service charges and fees, and cheaper excursions.

Things I liked better about NCL:

- Ship maintenance and condition. This is the absolute, single biggest difference in my opinion, and it's the biggest reason I may not book on Carnival any more after I complete the cruises I'm already booked on. I have seen appalling ship decay and wear and tear on Carnival. Although I had a good time on my last cruise with them, I would almost call the ship a rustbucket. It was a shame because she had so much potential. As for NCL, I do not detect even wear-and-tear let alone major cosmetic issues like I experienced on Carnival. That is a big, big deal to me - I find it inexcusable, may not be a big deal to someone else.

- The specialty restaurants. They are outstanding on NCL and there are so many to choose from. I had one of the best meals I've ever had in my life on an NCL ship.

- The entertainment. Night after night the shows were amazing on NCL. Carnival had fewer that I enjoyed, and the ones I did enjoy weren't nearly as entertaining as the NCL shows.

- The crowd. I find the crowd to be less rowdy and rambunctious on NCL. For me a more laid-back crowd is a huge plus, but to others it may be the opposite if they want a party atmosphere.

- The ability to bid on an upgrade. After having a balcony once (an accepted upgrade bid!) it's going to be hard to stay in interior cabins in the future. With NCL I have a shot at getting one even when I can't afford to initially book one.

- The cabin. I found that NCL provided more space in the sleeping area and a smaller bathroom, while Carnival provided a bigger bathroom and less room in the main part of the cabin. Again, this is a matter of personal preference, but I prefer the smaller bathroom where I spend a lot less time.

Given all of this, I think you will be happy on NCL if you are used to Carnival. Of course, your experience may vary depending on the specific ship. Now that I've tried NCL I'm not going to be booking any more Carnival cruises, although I will probably book on Princess again which I also preferred. (I will take the cruises on all lines that are already booked.)

I am not 55+ but I have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis and fibrolmyalgia, and I travel with my 67 year old husband who suffers from chronic pain and neuropathy and has been classified as "disabled" by the Social Security Administration for over 20 years.

We just got back from San Juan. We took a taxi from our hotel to Old San Juan - the historic district. The fort you see on all of the tourist brochures is here, and is right smack next to the rest of old town. The fort is run by the U.S. Park Service. There are quite a few benches throughout the fort, so my husband and I were both okay touring it on foot and taking our time. If you are disabled admission is free, so with his social security disability he had free admission. I paid $7. After the fort, which we both loved, we walked around in old town at a leisurely pace. We stopped for a drink and a snack when we needed to sit down. There are many beautiful pastel-colored colonial buildings very close to the fort.

I do recommend Old San Juan even for people with mobility challenges. As for other excursions, I usually take one through the ship so that most transportation is provided. The different tours usually list how much walking is involved, and we choose accordingly. My husband sometimes prefers to stay on the ship for a spa day, but we have gone on island sightseeing tours and "beach break" type excursions together successfully. Hope this helps.

Green Monkey & 4x4 Experience in Barbados. Horseback Ride & Swim on Grand Turk was second favorite.

I saw it advertised on the last cruise that if you earn 2500 tier points in the casino they will comp you a cruise. But it does not give any details: how long is the cruise?; is it only on certain ships?; is there a time limit to take it?; What kind of cabin do you get? Has anyone earned the tier points and redeemed it? What options were you given?

We already get cruises comped from land based casinos and I am wondering how this deal is in comparison. Total Rewards casinos give us 7-day cruises with time limits, interior cabins (up-gradable to window with 2 vouchers), and Caribbean only. Another reason I am asking about this is that I don't want to bother with the Carnival vouchers a different casino is comping us anymore because we have been disappointed with Carnival compared to Norwegian. I want to go ahead and take the ones already booked and focus on earning more NCL cruises instead. And there are a couple of ships and itineraries I would love to try that land-based casinos are not giving us.

Also, any idea what kind of bankroll I should expect to have to earn that many points on one trip? I like to play the electronic table games (where you play a table game but rather than a live dealer there is a video screen and virtual dealer.)

Thanks for the help. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth going for on the next cruise in March.

i noticed Carney’s is priced Ala Carte. How does it work with the specialty dining plan?

They will ask you when you show up if you want to use one of your dining plan instances, say yes, and in our case the only limitation is that you can only order one entree. My husband ordered more than one dessert (!) and multiples of other courses are okay too. Drinks not included but if you have the unlimited drinks plan it will cover your drinks (under $15) in there also.

Please be aware reservations fill up very fast here. We reserve online (it costs nothing) as soon as our cruise is booked. Today we just booked for a March cruise and the 7:00 slot on the first sea day is already fully booked, 3 months out! La Cucina is another excellent option for steak - my husband and I enjoyed the steak there even more than at Cagney's.

i haven’t sailed on NCL for quite awhile. I just received a email asking for bids on upgrades is their anything I should watch out for? I believe in let the upgrader beware.

Be advised the window cabins could be fully obstructed. I did not even bid to upgrade from interior to window because of this since those cabins are only helpful if you want natural light and don't care about the view - and that is not us. I only bid to upgrade to balcony and my bid was accepted. I found out about a week before sailing.

The Dawn only sails out of the Northeast during the summer right now and then out of Florida and San Juan during cooler months. What ship will be sailing the Florida/San Juan itineraries? Will that change too?

I was amazed when I started reading this thread, because we just got off the Dawn and we absolutely loved it. Most beautiful ship we'd been on yet. I was shocked to hear it is "so old" and a "huge downgrade." It's age doesn't show at all - I couldn't detect any wear and tear and everything looks renovated and new. I've been bragging to everyone how awesome it is since we got back. We are booking another cruise on the Dawn today for March out of Tampa. I can understand losing some amenities being upsetting, but some people are making the Dawn sound like a rustbucket. And the only amenity I missed and wished it had was the new go karts (going to book the Bliss next so we can try that), although we were so busy on the Dawn I'm not even sure we would have had time for anything else.

If there's anyone reading this post right now who has not sailed the Dawn and is mortified that it's a giant hunk of scrap metal after reading these threads, please don't panic! Rest assured it is a beautiful, modernly renovated ship with many (though not all) amenities, and it was the best ship we'd ever been on. I will be happy with either ship sailing out of Florida and San Juan in the winter, but curious in case anyone knows how this will affect the winter sailings?

If I don't want to sail on a particular ship I just drive to another port and sail on the one I want. Luckily Boston is not that far from NYC. We usually drive from the DC area to Florida to cruise. It could be worse.

I still wish they would just charge the gratuities for the drinks you actually consumed instead of 20% of whatever amount they decide the package is worth. That way even if you only drank 1 drink a day it would still be a worthwhile perk to take and nobody could complain that it’s “not really free”. There would definitely still be people complaining that there’s automatic tips added to their drinks though.

This is an excellent point. You are being charged service fees for service you may or may not even be using. I am surprised this does not bother more people. Not surprising however considering all service charges need to be paid in advance regardless how good or bad the service is or whether or not you even use them. Even if you leave your "do not disturb" on the door for the steward the whole time and dine only in the buffet you have to pay the same "service charges" as people who receive the maximum services. And even if you receive terrible service you pay the same charges as someone who received excellent service. The service charge system is really illogical.

... you could also gamble the price of the ubp and get free drinks in the casino no gratuity and it works for a year. And if you do that enough you can get premium drinks in the casino...

 

 

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I just got off the Dawn this week, and you needed 1500 casino club tier points to earn free drinks. I don't know about you, but in my experience in Casinos at Sea I need to spend a lot more than the ubp to reach this level of points.

They talk about throwing in dining, beverages, internet, excursion, etc as a freebie or a choice of several.

 

But the beverage fee at $89/day, which they calculate service charges on, is a absolute joke. Well over $30/day more than what Carnival and Princess charge per day. plus they add 20% gratuity (other line add 18%) as a service charge. So in essence you pay $60/pp extra in gratuity/service fees for the bloated beverage per diem price. Sad thing is the program is no where near as inclusive as Carnivals.... As I've learned...nothing comes for free. Another example of Norwegian finding away to nickle/dime and over price their so called freebies!!

The service charges do end up being much higher than Carnival and Princess, and unlike those other lines the NCL drink package does NOT include specialty coffee or sparkling water, both of which are included on the other lines. This was a huge downer for us as we are heavy coffee drinkers. I paid $5 for a large iced coffee that looked more like a small. You get less for your money than at Starbucks. It seemed so ridiculous to me that they were charging for a less expensive drink than the alcoholic beverages I was getting for free that I refused to pay for any more after that. Because of this policy I ended up costing NCL more than I would have if the coffee had been included because I ended up drinking earlier in the day than I would have - and ordering more expensive drinks than coffee drinks.

All that being said overall my experience was as good as my experience on Princess and far better than my experience on Carnival, so these outrageous charges will not stop me from booking Norwegian again.

Thank you for posting this. I am studying Mandarin Chinese in college and thought this may be an amazing way to hone my language skills, but I wasn't considering these other factors people are bringing up.

Do you know it is not going to staff? I'm sure none of the staff wants the minimum wage and works hard for those extra dollars. I agree, if folks think something shady is going on, instead of having an issue with it on here, go to another line. For me, I've got no issues, so I'll continue to enjoy NCL.

If it does go to staff, and customers are automatically charged these charges at the cruise line (not the customer) discretion, what incentive does the staff have to "work hard" when they know they're getting the optimal 20% tip regardless of the quality of their service? Seems they have no incentive.

You could take the inside and hope they give you an upgrade bid offer and then bid whatever it's worth to you.

Boring??!! I find it impossible to be bored on a cruise - to the contrary I feel too busy! If anything there is too much to do! I don't know what ship they cruised on but it wasn't one that I've cruised on! I actually craved a little bit of boredom to relax!

I certainly wouldn't believe the £170 drink limit just because some NCL phone staff have told you about it. In fact, given their reputation for inaccuracy, it could almost be taken as evidence that no such limit exists. They weren't getting mixed up with the gratuity charge were they?

 

I've heard stories of watered down drinks before, or bar staff being slow to serve you with the UBP. My experience is so far the other way that it's ridiculous. Sometimes I'd much rather they just slowed down a bit. :)

 

As for the go karts, this is just the sort of high demand, low throughput thing that was always going to have a charge involved, to limit the demand. It isn't particularly an indication of any change in policy as they have always had charges for other such things like the Bowling, Ice Bar etc. Personally, I think it's not a great thing to have onboard, but I'm surprised that anyone was expecting it to be free.

I hate to say it but a fee to use the go karts is something I am actually ok with, because I hate waiting in long lines to do things and I'd rather pay if it means less people will be lining up to do it, and it is something I enjoy and would be willing to pay for. I wish the ship I am sailing on in 2 days had it.

What I'm baffled by is paying "service charges" not once but twice to the tune of over $200 per person (once on the drink package and then again on a "general" service charge.) That is a lot of money for "service charges." I also don't like the specialty coffee not being included in the drink package. I have said this before and people have responded but even after reading their counter-arguments I still don't think it makes sense, and the other lines don't charge for them if you have the drink package. The liquor as an ingredient costs them more but they will give you that but not the drink that costs them less to make... I still say it is completely illogical.

All in all though there are good and bad things about every line. This will be the first time we got to have a balcony thanks to NCL's bidding program, which I haven't seen on the other lines I have sailed, for example. So while I don't like some of these charges I am excited about trying NCL for the first time in a couple days.

I was surprised. They upgraded have us from interior cabin to mid-ship balcony 6 days before the cruise. I had given up on them upgrading us and there it was. I honestly wasn't expecting it because of my bid. Don't want to give specifics but let's just say the dial they use to "rate" your chances of getting upgraded based on your bid did not make my chances look especially promising.

Pardon me but I follow Emily Post when it comes to etiquette and tipping thus I haven't any issue. Should your steak arrive overcooked do you stiff the poor waitress? Or if the kitchen is backed up is it her fault. Lastly most tables of 6-8 or more are already have gratuity added in.

I grew up with Emily Post too. I never said I refuse to tip for bad food, I said I would not tip a server for bad service. If a steak were cooked improperly I would not go to that establishment again. My husband would outright complain to the manager. But I wouldn't stiff the server. If the server is outright rude, repeatedly forgetful, clearly ignores us when we are trying to get their attention and they are clearly not busy, or spills food or drink on us - then I will not tip them. As for automatic tipping of larger tables - they should not be forced to auto-tip either.

If you reward everyone equally, then I guess you penalize everyone equally. How they get paid is their business and their choice but personally my hard earned money won't be given out if I have a bad and less than desirable experience.

 

To each their own.

I agree with this response. I actually did in fact work in the service industry for 12 years, and in my field most people just "rounded up" to the nearest dollar. I rarely got 20% even from people who made a point of requesting me repeatedly because my service was apparently so good. I didn't complain because I knew what I was getting into accepting a job in a service industry. I decided the advantages of that job were worth this downside.

I'm not going to tip someone who provided poor service just because the tip may be shared with someone who doesn't deserve the shaft. If that is happening, the problem is NOT with the customer, it is with the other employee providing bad service. The "shafted" employee should take it up with them, not hold the customer responsible.

There's an easy solution to the sharing problem. Always give your tip in cash to the specific, deserving, server. They won't lose the percentage the credit card companies take out and they can pocket it.

As for others who have responded to my posts, even those of you who said you "almost always" tip 20%" you confirmed my argument because no one has said they would tip 20% no matter what, even for terrible service. The customer should be able to decide what the server deserves based on service that was received, not have it automatically charged to them before even being served and at an amount determined by the establishment.

We are cruising next week and having paid these tips twice - once for the beverage package and a second time for the "general" tip pool - to the tune of over $400 for two of us - we will not be tipping cash to any servers on board no matter how good their service is. It's a shame - because if we didn't have to tip this much across the board we would have more to give to the servers who really deserve it!

Hiccup, I thought it was the hole in my lip. Just kidding.

 

It's common practice to tip 20% on land why not at sea? I remember when I used to wait tables a lifetime ago the tax man used my sales as a guessstimate on how much in tips I really received and not reported. I also recall not receiving tips from many of foreigners as they were not accustomed to this practice. Boy did I hate working near the airport! But when we turned nightclub at 10....I'd bring in $300 a night.

It is not common practice to tip 20% - it is common practice to tip 20% for good to excellent service. I don't know ANYONE who just automatically tips 20% no matter how bad the service is, and I certainly don't know anyone who tips 20% before they have received any service before they know how well they will be served. A tip is supposed to be a reward for good service. Better servers should get more and worse servers should get less - and really bad servers should get nothing. I give 20% to the best servers, and 15% for "ok" service. But that's not how it apparently works in this case, so the servers have no incentive to improve their customer service (or to not be bad servers!) Tips are supposed to be at the customer's discretion, NOT pre-determined by the establishment!

I find it mind-numbing baffling that the specialty coffees are not covered by the unlimited beverage plan when it costs the company MORE to give you the alcoholic beverages which are included. It is completely illogical. They are encouraging people to cost the company more money by ordering an Irish Coffee or Bloody Mary instead.