Janetonboard

What I like most about the "free" perks, is knowing up front how much my vacation will cost. By having all the perks added in I know I won't need to spend much else while on the ship. So, while it isn't truly free, at least I know up front the close to final cost of my vacation.

I do not like how the free airfare works in general. I’m okay with it for our upcoming trip but only because we live close enough to only need short flights. It sounds like a good deal because we are saving ~$800 in flight costs, but I’d prefer to book my own flights and transfers and pay slightly less for the cruise. 

We are travelling from Toronto to a Canada/NE cruise from Quebec City to NYC.

Going to Quebec, flights from Toronto to QC are about the same cost as flights from Toronto to Montreal. I would have booked us on a flight to Quebec City with a short cab ride to the port. NCL has booked us on a flight to Montreal, followed by a 3-hour bus ride to the port. The NCL booked flight is going to result in a travel day that is twice as long as one I would have booked. 

On our way home from NYC, delta offers several flights throughout the day. Our ship gets into port at 7 am so I would have booked us on an afternoon flight home. NCL has booked us on a flight out of NYC at 8 pm (13 hours after we dock) So now we have to decide if we take the NCL transfer to the airport where we will have to sit around for many hours, or we skip the transfer (losing the money we’ve already paid for it) and wander around Manhattan for a few hours ( which will be a bit of a hassle with our luggage). With an 8 pm flight, it will be close to midnight when we get home, making for another unnecessarily long travel day. 

So, in this case I’m okay with NCL making the air reservations to save us some money, but if we were going on a trip further from home I’d much prefer to pay the money to make our own air arrangements at times that work best for us. 

If you are nervous and it is bugging you, call. If being on hold for a long time would bother you more, I'd say give it another week. 

I was nervous about mine and at 56 days out my edocs finally popped up, but no air information. So I got nervous and called. I was on hold for a while, but not too long. As soon as I started talking to the rep, he was able to push out my air information to me in an email. He didn't know why it didn't show up in the edocs. Then two days later I did receive my official email from NCL with my air information and it was also in my edocs then. So, if I had just waited until 54 days out I would have received it through the normal email process. 

I was still happy I called because it was bugging me and once I had the air info I was able to relax a bit. 

I was on the Costa Magica out of Guadeloupe last March and loved it. It was my first cruise, so I don't have anything to compare it to, but I found the overall experience a good one. I was with my sister, who has been on many other US based cruises and the biggest difference she noticed was that the passengers are almost all European. We ran into very few English speaking passengers on the ship. I found it to be a great experience but she was frustrated at not being able to make as many connections with other English-speaking passengers. 

Our room steward was top notch and I found the food to be quite good. We only ate in the main dining rooms and the buffet. We did not try out any of the extra fee dining options. My only complaint on the food is that the buffet doesn't change much from day to day, so it can get boring. But, there is a lot of different food on the buffet, so it is possible to build variety into your meals. 

The beverage package we had was Brindiamo. It did include water at the bars and restaurants, but not a full bottle to take back to your room. The thing we most enjoyed about the beverage package was that it included specialty coffees which were excellent. It was an odd package in that you could get all the different liquors and mixed virgin drinks, but there were only a few fancy drink options. In other words, you could get a virgin margarita and a shot of tequila as part of the package, but you couldn't get a regular margarita with alcohol. 

As for the cruise destination, I particularly loved Martinique, Grenada and Guadeloupe. We didn't do much in the way of excursions, but I did love walking around each of those ports. We did visit a couple a couple of beaches - Pigeon Point in Tobago and Pirates Cove in Barbados. Both were stunning. 

My only other thought is don't arrive at the embarkation too early. Due to our overall schedule we arrived at the port by 1 pm (even though official embarkation was 5 pm). They wouldn't let us through the initial gate until 3 pm and there was no space to wait. We had to stand in a very time space outside the gate for two hours waiting to be let in to the check in area. This timing challenge was totally on us, but my sister thought there would at least be a space for us to sit and wait until they were ready for embarkation so it was a bit rough to have to wait two hours to be let into the check in area. 

20 minutes ago, Laszlo said:

Shame your flight is so late. You could literally take a bus back to Toronto and arrive home before your flight out of NYC even leaves Lol

Yup. 😂

We are treating this trip (Canada/NE cruise from QC to NYC) as an experiment to see if my husband and I like cruising. I've been on one cruise before, and he hasn't been on any. Letting NCL book our flights is all part of the experiment. So far, the positive side is that we are saving ~$700 with the free airfare offer. The negative side is that on the way in they fly us to Montreal and then put us on a 3 hour bus ride to Quebec City. On the way home they fly us out so late (when there are several other flights before ours that would work.)  

My only other experience was a Costa cruise out of Guadeloupe. Those people that had Costa arranged airport transfers, could stay on the boat well into the afternoon if that was when their bus left for the airport. And they could come and go from the port area until then so they could go explore Guadeloupe before officially disembarking. Costa provided a supervised area for passengers to store their carry on luggage while they spent their time on the ship or in the port. I do understand why this NCL cruise and NYC port are different, but it would be great if we could have stored our luggage on the ship while we toured around NYC for a bit. 

We will still have a great time though!

Thanks for the ongoing suggestions. Schwartz sounds good, but the location might not be convenient, so Vertoe sounds like another great option. I would never have thought of there being an Airbnb for luggage, but it makes good sense. 🙂 

Thank you everyone for your helpful thoughts! I now have a much better idea of how the day is going to go. 

We've never been to New York, but we are from Toronto so we are comfortable walking around and exploring a big city. That said, we weren't planning to see much of New York on this trip because we feel it is great enough to warrant its own special trip someday. 

We can't send our luggage direct from the cruise ship to the airport (airline luggage checkin, or whatever it is called). Since we are flying back to Canada that won't be an option. 

At this point I'm going to head over to the east coast departures thread, as well as checking out Swartz luggage storage and other options. We are going to mull over deciding between the following:

• Letting the day play out as set, getting to the airport overly early where we will just sit back and people watch or maybe see if there is room to get moved to an earlier flight.
• Or, cancelling our booked transfer and just going out on our own and heading to the airport mid-late afternoon. (But with this option we may lose out on the money already paid to NCL for our transfer. I think we are past the cancellation date to get a refund of our transfer cost.)
• Or, switching from the transfer to the NCL excursion that tours NY and ends at the airport. That has some appeal, but it is costly, especially since we likely won't get a refund of the transfer we've already paid. We'd rather explore on our own than go on a guided tour, but I like the idea of a guided tour where our luggage is stored on the bus. 

We still have almost two months to decide. 

Thanks again everyone for your help! 🙂 

2 minutes ago, stevendom57 said:

I checked an hour ago and no eDocs. I just checked and, like you, I had my eDocs but no flight info. It's getting better.

We should probably both be patient and wait for our official emails when all the information is ready. But waiting is hard....

Hello,

I'm on a cruise in September that arrives in Manhattan at 7:00 am on disembarkation day. The flight home that NCL has booked leaves LGA at 7:50 pm, with an NCL booked transfer to take us to the airport. 

We are completely new to cruising, so I don't know what to expect on the disembarkation day. Can we leave the ship like we would at any other port and go explore Manhattan, and then return to the ship in the afternoon to officially disembark? Or are we going to have to officially disembark in the morning and go straight to the bus to be transferred to the airport where we will have to sit around for 8 hours or so? I'd love for us to get out and see a tiny bit of New York, but have no idea what the disembarkation and transfer process is with NCL. 

We are 56 days out and our edocs showed up this morning. I didn't get an email or message, but when I clicked on download edocs, I found the information including guest details, itinerary, transfers and dining/excursion reservations.

But I couldn't find any flight info nor see where I should look for flight info. So I called Norwegian and asked about it and the rep sent me an email with the flight info. He said I should have been able to see it under edocs, but I still can't. However, at least I now have my flight info. 

Now I'm trying to select our air plane seats and having no success with that on the Air Canada site (heading to the cruise) or the Delta/Westjet sites (returning). Oh well, I'll figure that out another day. At least I now have our flights. 

57 days out and still don't have ours either. Have booked the free air, so we are waiting to learn what our flight times are. 

That's good. I think I'd be nervous about heading straight to the bus without my luggage. I'm happy to go claim it in the terminal. 

I'm new to cruising and have booked our first NCL cruise that will disembark in New York. We have booked the free air perk, with transfer, so we will be heading to the airport from the ship on an NCL transfer. 

My question is about luggage. When they pick up our luggage from our room the night before disembarking, will it be waiting for us to pick up in the terminal before we head to the airport bus transfer, or will the luggage be taken directly to the bus transfer? 

I'll be sure to follow any disembarkation instructions from NCL while on board, but I'm just curious what others have experienced when disembarking in New York. 

Thanks

17 hours ago, LISAARCH said:

We have booked our cruises through a PCC.  We always get OBC when the price goes down.  Any questions answered promptly.  Our currant booking not yet taken we have been given OBC and a move at no extra charge from a balcony to a mini-suite.  I like that I do not have to always be checking to see if the cruise prices have changed.   For us it has been a win, win.

This seems to be the best reason I've heard to book my next cruise with the PCC. When the time comes I still consider booking it myself, or using a TA, or contacting my PCC (and hoping he responds, or asking for a new PCC if he doesn't). But when I do book I'll be keeping your experience in mind. 

Thanks

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. I'll continue on as I have and not think too much about contacting my PCC. If something changes and I do feel I need one, I'll push my current one or ask for a new one. 

I'm loving all the info on these boards and how much more experienced cruisers are open to sharing with us new people. 😊

Hello everyone - I'm new to CC and mostly new to cruising. I've been on one Costa cruise, but my husband hasn't been on a cruise before. 

We are booked to cruise with NCL in September. For the most part, I'm happy to make all my own reservations. I booked the cruise through the NCL website. I've booked my dining online and I've called and reserved an excursion. 

Because I'm new to NCL, I was pleasantly surprised on June 21 to receive a voicemail and email from my Personal Cruise Consultant. I didn't know there was such a person so I was happy to have a person to contact with questions. I emailed him on June 22 and June 25 with some minor questions. Since then, I've heard nothing from him - no response to either of my emails and it's been two weeks. In the meantime I've discovered these boards and through my reading I have my questions answered, so I'm fine without my PCC contact because I can make all my own reservations and these boards are answering all my questions. 

But now I'm wondering if there is something that would be advantageous to get from my PCC, and if so should I get on the phone and try to track him down or get a new PCC? What information/services do you use your PCC for?

Note - I'm not looking to start a discussion about good or bad service from NCL. I'm quite happy with how things are going with NCL and am confident I'll be happy with the service on the ship. It's just the lack of contact from my PCC that surprises me and I wonder if I should put more effort into establishing a relationship with my PCC.

I'm sure my response is too late for your cruise but in case it helps others, I cruised from Guadeloupe last March. When getting off the ship there were no delays or security/customs issues. We left the ship as usual and our bags were set out and easy to find in the terminal. 

Once we had our bags, we walked over to the taxis that were waiting within the port area. There was no customs or France security checks to go through. We were able to quickly get a taxi for 30 Euros (10 Euros per person for 3 of us) to take us over to our post cruise stay in Le Gossier. I think if you were to take a taxi to the airport it would be a similar rate and take about 40 minutes to drive to the airport.

The big thing to note is that many people in Guadeloupe do not speak English. Our taxi driver did not speak any English and we speak little French. I simply said we wanted to go to Le Gosier and handed him the name of our hotel written on a piece of paper. With some sign language we confirmed the rate. 

The other thing to note is that they are quite insistent on people sharing cabs as they leave the port. We were put into a van with two other couples also going to Le Gosier. We had no problems with that, but if you are looking for a taxi all to yourself, it may be more challenging to find a driver willing to take you.