CruiseMH

There are a few other ships that also have no own tender boats. I personally don`t see it as a problem if you use the ship in a region where you can garantueed dock in every port. So the problem is not the missing tenderboats but sending the prima into a region where there is a realistic chance that you need them.

Every price(including cruise fares) is subject to offer and demand. it`s called market economy. Every cruise line has a modern IT system with a lot of algorithms so that based on current demand an current occupancy the cruise fare is updated regularly. This is ALWAYS your risk if you book early. Apart from that i never understood the problem of you guys. You were satisfied with the price at the time of booking, otherwise you wouldn`t have booked.

I would at least prefer Europe to Hawaii. Pricewise it shouldn`t make any big difference.

On all my cruises i have been on so far and on all cruise lines the breakfast times varied. It simply depends on the port schedule. If ship is in port at lets say 6 am in a port with many 8-9 excursions (e.g. in Italy) then breakfast usually opens earlier and closes earlier and on a sea day the breakfast opens later and closes later.

"should"..well,maybe. But it`s not a must. Cause they tell you to make a port stop there and they do a port stop there. Apart from that the docking/tender information on NCL is unreliable anyway. Because there are some ports where NCL mentions "DOCK" whereas it is very likely that it is a tender port. So i would do my own research anyway. Actually it is sad because this should be done by cruise line.

Well..as there is not a single port left from the original itinerary i would say,yes,this is a change. A very big one. In this case you must have the right to cancel it without rebooking onto another cruise.

Last year in the caribbean i booked a total of 9 excursions ( 7 half day and two full day) and paid a total of 109 USD. I don`t think i would have paid that without the discount. 😉

It is not against the EU law if you don`t inform passengers about dock or anchor. I know which regulation you are referring to but this wrong information alone is not a violation of it. Otherwise there would have been many lawsuits against european cruise lines already. 😉

The question is when the itinerary information is put into NCL system. I assume that the information is put into System only once and is never updated. And many months or even years in advance nobody knows whether they will be docking or tendering.

Just FYI, there are a lot of ports where there are piers but not for all calling cruise ships. Kirkwall for example has a pier for one cruise ship,but sometimes there are two ships in port. Some ports handle it first come first serve, but others do have different criteria and so it might be that NCL itself doesn`t know whether they will be tendering or docking until only a few days in advance. I assume that their system only allows them to mention EITHER "dock" OR "tender".

ON my last trip on the Epic in Jan 2022 they had at least Pilsner Urquell at some of the bars. not the best,but way better than the US stuff or heineken or warsteiner.

I flew from Frankfurt via Charles de Gaulle to Raleigh-Durham in May this year and one hour fifteen would have been too short. You have to go through passport control (yes, i was surprised as well ! Never had this when leaving the EU ) and depending on which terminal you arrive you have to use shuttle busses twice to get to your new gate.

the problem with the cruise ships is that they displace a lot of water. Even when they go slowly, all the water is pressed into the poles where the whole city stands on. When the ship has passed all this water is sort of sucked back to where the ship was. And this pressing and sucking produces a lot of damage to the poles where the city stands on. Thats the reason why they already move so slow and only one ship at a time. Apart from that there are of course the emissions during their stay in port. Venice doesn`t have any shore power options.(and most cruise ships don`t have either)

I will be on an Italy,Greece and Malta Cruise in November on the Breakaway and i pre-bought the drink package(free at sea). I definitely know that there is no VAT or any other additional tax applicable in this case. And if they dare to charge it to me i will be at the guest services and discuss it with them.If they refuse it`s gonna be a lawsuit. It might sound hard but i don`t like being fooled. I will of course enjoy my cruise anyway for sure. 😉

As long as i know that i am below the limit of my CC i wouldn`t be embarassed at all cause i know the mistake must be on cruise lines side. I can understand that NCL/ CC companies are very strict, so the first time it happens i can understand NCL: But when solving the problem at guest services this should have been solved completely. NCL should have informed him how the CC has to look like to be accepted.

If it is for fleet redeployment it is very likely that simply another ship will takeover the itinerary. So to avoid an insane amount of rebookings, NCL decided to cancel all sailings in general. So if i were you i would wait with cancelling the flights cause there is a realistic chance that the itinerary will be offered by another ship soon. Maybe not on the exact same dates but at least same region.

Well, you had one year of time to use it and you knew it from the beginning until when you have to use it. So in this case to me it is very clear. And also these rules should be valid for all customers.Why should higher status customers have the right to bend the rules wheres as lower status customers don`t ? If i were the responsible person at NCL i would have made an exception(customer service) but at least i can understand NCL`s point of view.

I can assure you they do the exact same with everybody. 😉 If you are american,german, spanish,your own car,rental car...doesn`t matter. If you don`t have paid the toll they will charge you a fine. there are very few special agreements(e.g. between Austria and germany) to collect the fine from you once you are back. But in 95 % of the cases you have to pay the fine right on the spot. We germans have the same issue in Switzerland. The problem is that they for sure have heard thousands of stories and explanations in the last decades. So they simply don`t care any more about any exception. So,important tip for all visitors to Europe: EVERY country is taking the toll issue serious. France, Switzerland,Austria,Slovenia...doesn`t matter.

You can be sure that the financial authorities in the EU will collect every single cent which a cruise line owes them. 😉

They just charge you the local taxes. Same like when consuming in US ports. Usually this doesn`t matter cause the ship leaves the port in the evening and so is already in international waters when most of the drinks are consumed. But if they are in port overnight this is nothing unusual that local taxes will be on top. The only interesting question is whether this was communicated directly with your booking confirmation. I guess not.

It simply depends on how much is the cruise fare. 😉 For a cruise which they sell for extremely low rates to fill the ship the percentage is much higher than for a very expensive cruise.And i guess it also depends on the itinerary. Northern Europe is way more expensive regarding port fees than e.g. the caribbean. But you are right,70 % was way too high. 20-30% is more realistic. But anyway, you won`t get a free cruise voucher from your casino which might be worth 3000 USD if you visited this casino only once and spent 150 USD. 😉

Cruise next certificates have nothing to do with the casino stuff. 😉 I know that you can save some money with these certificates.

thats exactly what i mean. 😉 I don`t want to ruin anybody`s fun. If you have fun with playing in the casino...all fine.

the cruise fare is covered. Port fees and service is not and that makes 70% of the total cruise price. You can believe whatever you want but they will not give you anything for free. It might be that there is a situation where you save more than you actually lost before in the casino, but in average the savings of a "free" cruise a way lower than the losses you made before in the casino. To believe anything else is simply naive.

I do a lot for entertainment and i spend quite some money on entertainment and for sure i spend money on things that other people find crazy or useless. But thats not the point. The point is that the statement "free cruises given by casinos are a bargain" is simply not true.