Sailing12Away

"Sold Out" does not mean sold out. There are blocks of rooms that TA have that go unsold, and there are folks who cancel at the last minute, and there are folks who move into other rooms making their rooms now available to others. Our most recent trip in May was on the Star which has no Haven, but it does have suites. We had bids in for the owners suites and garden villa, mainly because those rooms come with a free mini-bar in your room (we like the convenience of having cans/bottles available to us all the time and not having to carry drinks back through the ship). The suites we bid on were sold out for the last 2 months before we sailed. The night before we flew to Spain for our trip I got an alert from my credit card company about a high charge from NCL - our upgrade bid had been accepted. So even though the garden villa had been sold out for months - we were upgraded into the villa 2 days before we sailed. If you're trying to get an idea of what pricing would be for those rooms so you don't 'over bid' - try a different sail date from your own. It won't be an even apples-apples comparison because prices change based on dates and such, but it will at least give you a ballpark range for what that particular cabin normally goes for. Or just do some regular math: (Price you paid so far + total bid price) / # of days of your cruise = ~$1000/day for a Breakaway Plus class Haven room. (general price of what is 'normal', getting for less than that would be a good-great deal) If it's a Jewel class ship, we aim for much less than that, and if it's for an owners suite or garden villa, we allow for higher. But that's just our own personal barometer of what is 'worth it' to us.

I always keep price checking our cruises to see if/when it's 'worth it' to just outright upgrade our room rather than rely on and hope for the upgrade bid to come through. On our last trip, the price I saw from my own sleuthing would have us pay about $2400 to move from an MA to an SD (our bid at the time was 2K total, hence why we were just going to outright upgrade since the difference was minimal), my PCC quoted me only $1400 for the same move. I confirmed that was total and not per person, she said yes, and I said 'do it'. Not sure how or why, but she was able to get us a better price than what I saw on my own. We ultimately ended up in an S1 after our upgrade bids went through too, but it was definitely a nice surprise when she found that 'deal'. Then for our upcoming trip to Canada, online it looked like my parents could move from an M4 to a family suite for only a $500 difference from what they've paid so far - but when I called the PCC the price was much higher, not what I saw and certainly not lower like in our experience. The difference... my parents have the NCL insurance on their reservation and we didn't on ours. When your cabin cost goes up, your insurance cost goes up with it. So for them, it wasn't worth it (yet) to upgrade and we're keeping our fingers crossed on their bid. For us with no insurance, last trip my PCC got us a better price than what was advertised.

Definitely looking forward to seeing some actual photos of the room & deck as opposed to just the renderings. Also curious about the hot tub and how hot it will be. We're traveling through Iceland, so I'm adamant that I will use it at least one day just because I can... hoping we'll be able to use it more than once though if it's hot enough and I keep the bathrobes nearby.

What was this one? Is that the soup of the day? A tomato pasta something or other?

Also depends on the type of cabin you're looking to book. We sailed Haven with NCL last August, and a month later sailed in an owners suite with RCC (albeit on one of their smaller ships). It was a great comparison since the 2 trips were so close to each other. For suites, NCL wins for us hands down. For us to get a similar experience with RCC we would need to be in one of their mega ships with a Star Class room - at about double the price of what we normally pay for Haven. And even then they don't have that same 'ship within a ship' concept that NCL, MSC and Celebrity's Retreat offer. With RCC we sailed very shortly after the restart, so I'm holding onto hope that played a lot into our experience and we're willing to give them another try if an itinerary and price point suit us. But with RCC the only entertainment on board was trivia. Every. Single. Night. Both cruise lines offer a 'newlywed' style game show - with NCL there's always a line of people who want to participate. With RCC, they had to beg 2 couples to play and one backed out halfway through which made for an awkward 'competition'. The general vibe of the passengers was also starkly different from what we were used to. With NCL we always find folks to chat with. On the RCC trip, we found one couple from the UK willing to chat with us, and another couple who lived 30 miles away from us by chance. Other than that, everyone kept to themselves and wouldn't socialize. Again... I'm chalking it up to Covid concerns and 'stranger danger', but it was so odd for us. It honestly depends on what is important to you. Do you want 100 different food options? Do you want big name entertainment shows? Do you want water slides and race cars for the kids (both in age and in heart)? Do you want top notch spa retreats on board? If you knew which NCL ship you were considering that would also help folks tell you the pros/cons for that particular ship too.

Yeah, but it's hard to provide proper guidance to others who may find themselves in a similar situation when the details are vague or suggest there was human error on the poster's part. The point of these boards is to learn from each other so we don't make the same mistakes and can go into our trips well prepared - but you can't do that when some folks just want to bash the entire cruise industry for things out of their control. Or the folks who say "I want a 5K refund because I only drink Coke products and you don't offer them."

Yeah... you don't have your facts correct. They used to charge $25-50 for a deviation, now they CREDIT you that money because it's easier for them to find flights that will work (more options at least).

You're on before me, I don't sail until 2023. Regarding Vibe if you already have Haven... it all depends on your sailing and how full it will be, and the general population of the cruiser with you. Folks on sailings with lots of kids in a fully booked Haven who are more adverse to children see a value in Vibe.

I meant 2K total price, not the per/person cost.

So Princess is offering a roundtrip cruise from Auckland, but you 'waste' 2 days sailing to Sydney for the day, and then another 2 days sailing back. At that point I'd rather just find a 1-way from Sydney and have those extra 2 sea days to actually see and do things in Sydney before sailing over to NZ.

Enjoy! Can't wait to see more.

If my landlord says it will go up if I don't pay by 'xyz' date, then yes, I would. For the cruise, we're not talking mega bucks here folks. What was this most recent increase, $3/day depending on the cabin type you're in? It's truly just personal preference. When I walk on board, I like knowing I have a negative balance and can splurge for those Louis XIII tastings and $300 bottles of wine when the mood strikes. If I don't prepay, then my 'splurge' fund goes down. When our sailing schedules finally align one of these days, I'll be sure to buy @ChiefMateJRKa taste of something fancy. If you can swing it, the 🐀 cruise on Prima 9/2023 will have a very heft splurge fund... just saying...

It's not about the top bid, it's about the total cost paid. So if I paid $3K for my balcony cabin and put in a bid of $2K to move into Haven = $5K But if my neighbor paid $4K for their mini suite and put in a lower bid of $1500 for Haven = $5500 = they win, not me. Other things that I've heard go into effect is the demand for your current room. So if I'm giving up a mini suite that there are 500+ bids on, they'll bump me and then bump someone else to my mini suite. Which then bumps the regular balcony to the mini, and the inside to the outside, etc.

Please let me know if you find the company that offers that tour. It would be a nice break from driving for 10+ days.

No worries... you're on the same deck as us. So it will be super easy for you to come hang out and party in the 🐀 room.

Scroll through this thread, there are videos and pictures. Or, click here: https://cruisedeckplans.com/DP/deckplans/youtube.php?id=11858

We'll be on the Joy this September headed to Canada. My folks are joining us as well (in their own separate cabin), and while they're planning on doing the Anne of Green Gables and various other low-key tours, we're planning on bar hopping as often and frequent as we can. With any cruise, it's as fun as you make it be. Our enjoyment doesn't depend on our fellow travelers, and we've been able to make friends from all walks of life and age groups when we were in the mood for making friends. Or, just keep to ourselves when we didn't and invent our own fun.

My thoughts exactly too, and the question has not been answered. No, they did not. They said "IF" they booked the premium air.... not that they in fact did that. Many folks don't realize there's a difference between the white glove premium air, and the free at sea air promotion. Huge difference and the results here would have probably been different if the correct air program was used.

I prefer to prepay. They never go down... there's always a chance they'll go up. And as someone else already said, I prefer to have one less thing to be charged for.

Thank you, this was exactly the type of thing we were looking for. If we can't get a larger cruise ship option to work, we wanted to explore a shorter type of trip like this but were struggling to find companies that offered it. Princess & Celebrity have nice 10 day trips to the Great Barrier Reef for when we return just for Australia, but limited options for a shorter one-way that would take us around NZ. I'll keep looking for other options for a short 1-2 day trip and figure out how to get out there.

Our trip to NZ & Australia has been cancelled 2x now due to Covid, so we're starting over again with our plans for a 2024 adventure. Before anyone says it, yes, we would need many weeks to 'properly' see and do everything, but we're unfortunate to only have ~20 days total due to work and time off restrictions. So based on that, we've abandoned the idea of doing both NZ & Australia together and will have to make it 2 separate trips. The original plan was a 10 day cruise from Auckland to Sydney which hit the key stops we wanted to see (for the most part) and cruised through the sounds. Then spend 2 nights in Sydney, fly up to Port Douglas for 3 nights, then down to Brisbane for 1 night before heading home to the states. That cruise got Covid cancelled, so we then planned out a self drive from Auckland to Queenstown for about 11 days, and were going to fly over to Sydney for the other half of the trip. Now we're forgetting about trying to squeeze in Australia and just going to focus on New Zealand for now. Still looking to do a self-drive across both islands, but I also want to try and find a way to see the sounds and such. Hoping folks that either live there or who have been there have some ideas and options for us to look into where we could do a short cruise along the coast. The bigger name brand cruise lines all seem to either start or end in Sydney, which for us would be silly since we're short on days and don't want to 'waste' 2 days just sailing to Sydney to fly right home. I looked at P&O, but didn't see anything that was what we're looking for. Essentially it would be perfect to find a short 'cruise to nowhere' that leaves from somewhere near Queenstown. Or a one way from Auckland down to the South island that doesn't transfer all the way over to Australia. Does such a thing exist?

Yes, there is one in 2024

It's the "free" airfare that's messing it up.... it's now charging 2 million to fly from JFK to Tokyo on this and another cruise I was looking at. Oh NCL... why do you make it so hard for me to spend money.

Was pricing out a new itinerary that caught my eye for a one way trip leaving out of Paris. It looked decent for a 12 day cruise, until I added in the flights. Flights themselves are ok, but they're charging 3.99 million dollars for the ground transportation. Are they going to have little French children wearing berets going and lining the streets with croissants for us to step on the whole way? What are some of the funniest goofs you've come across? Seems to be happening way too often lately, they need a better IT department for sure.

Sailing into Le Verdon with NCL Star next month and we've been trying to find some wine tasting trips because we can't go to Bordeaux and not have wine. The NCL excursions are very limited and only visit 1-2 places. We found a few private tours, but since we're docking in Le Verdon the price is extremely high (~700 euros for 2 people). In speaking to the private tour companies, they've told us that there is no public transportation in Le Verdon. I find that a bit hard to believe, but what do I know... For anyone who has sailed into this port before, do the cruise ships typically have an option for a 'city transfer' that will bring you into the city proper? When we sailed to Palma NCL had an option for a $5 bus pass that took you from the port to city center, and then when you were ready you caught the bus back. It ran every hour or so on a loop and that was perfect for us. Since those are not expensive tours they typically don't advertise them online ahead of time, but we've found that as an option with both NCL and then again with RCC when we were in Crete. So can anyone confirm if such an option was available on your trips? Or if public transportation is an option? We're fine with just getting into town and wandering to a few wine bars instead of a vineyard visit, but would need to figure out how to get to city center. Or we just suck it up and do a 'lesser' NCL tour, or pay the hefty price for a private one that is more inline with what we wanted to see/do.