Hunny15602

I certainly hope so! The attachment indicates I'm not eligible for changes, exchanges or refunds, but I guess I'll know for sure in about a week. Either way, we'll make it work, and I'll update here for future cruisers who find themselves in a similar situation,

From the email: Attached please find your Air Confirmation showing all flights for your travel. Many other cruisers from the roll call received their flight confirmation e-mails 2-3 days before I did.

UPDATE! I received the flight arrangements from NCL over the weekend, which is about 105 days out from cruise day, yay! We are booked on American & United - awesome! Confirming the TA truly sucks - the deviation was not accounted for, so I have an early morning flight the day of the cruise, and flying into EWR, but hey, we have the NCL transfers, so whatever. We sent a message to the TA, who is on a month long vacation. She infers that NCL screwed up the deviation, and she'll call them to see if they can do anything about it, when she returns in about 10 days! I looked up the flights, and I can easily purchase exit row for both flights, but I guess I have to hold off just in case she's able to get the deviation. I now have hotels booked the night before in both NYC and Charlotte, plus a rental car reservation as my contingencies. Travel Insurance too, of course. Last time she gets my business...

You've never met people who don't read the invoice? The surprise is all the extras they don't seem to understand are add ins during the cruise (and never check their acct balance on the TV or app); the final night before dinner is interesting to watch the freaking out at customer service...

I know that, and I try all my options on their site before engaging the TA, and this will be the last time we use her. I'm amazed by how many people don't uncheck the box, and don't realize that their booking price changes so much. I've explained this to people I know, and so many of them assume it's taxes and port fees. I'm sure it's a profit center; so many people don't do any research, don:t read the newsletters on the cruise, and then get a surprise the last night.

I had to review my comments; way more interaction than I expected, and this comment was part of a multi post response. But I do stand by the honest concern, as an over-arching part of their free at sea program. Where the airfare is concerned, even if I walk away from what they provide, it's not the end of the world; I just really want to know if I need to be worried about the carrier, and I had to sift through multiple pages of fine print before I found one that really applied to this program; there are some pages of fine print specifically calling out dates, but not clear if those are booking promo dates or travel dates, 😩! So that's not a great way to handle it, snacks of dishonesty. I did lol at them including the option of a private charter plane though. I would never take the free alcohol program, b/c it's hardly free, and that's one of their most dishonest claims. I understand the math behind it, but to charge everyone the tax on the max # of drinks, regardless of actual consumption? On this particular cruise, it adds a grand to the total price. No doubt some people will utilize it to it's full extent, but most won't come close. Our party probably will have a drink/day/person, and with so many days in port, most of those drinks will happen off the ship. Not to compare again to Princess (their informal dining options are horrible compared to NCL), but their free promos for drinks was exactly that, free. They even picked up the tax, and the only limitation was ordering one drink/person at a time, which is totally reasonable. As for the TA, yeah, not using their service again; I've learned more here than through her, and I may be educating her whenever she responds back about getting the deviation...

Enjoy going to Greece and Business Class! I have joint pain/fibromyalgia, so I understand the concern. In my case, it's the sitting/lying around that makes things hurt, so I am not a fan of flying for a very different reason. I think where we experience the issue is in the qty of meds needed to make this person comfortable with flying. But, if more meds are needed so we don't show up on the news b/c of a freak out, then I'd prefer that to the alternative consequences, but I often find myself getting very anxious en route to the airport, knowing the next 24 hours will require a lot of my attention as this adult can sometimes become a toddler. 😉

Admittedly, this is my first cruise in nearly 6 years, and I have at least 14-ish in my past. We like NCL best b/c of freestyle cruising, but had stopped cruising because our last NCL cruise had us feeling that there were issues we weren't comfortable with. I have high hopes for this trip, but if the air travel continues to be a concern (due to general issues with flying and my guest's reticence with air travel, not this promotional flight issue), then we'll be limiting our air travel to the bare minimum. My next cruise is booked on a close second cruise line for us, RCCL, and we picked it b/c the Baltimore terminal is an easy drive, and the itinerary is round trip. I'll save the flight hassle for the places we both want to go see, like Greece, and make sure we have ample time, ample medication, and ample funds to fly the friendlier skies of business class! 😜 Since you deal with this issue, do you find it burdensome to travel with your wife when air is involved? On a recent trip to Mexico, the first 24 hours were challenging, and I was seriously wishing I had a wheelchair or a leash to help make my way though the airport, baggage claim, locating the transport company, etc. The timeshare people seemed to sense an opportunity and took full advantage... 🤦

Overall, I'm not a fan of all their "free" promos. It's clever marketing, but often makes the entire package more expensive, by muddying the waters. Don't even get me started on their "best prices of the year" proclamations. I booked this trip during that proclamation, and a few months later, they price matched it down nearly 1/3, while still keeping all my so-called perks. Still a bit overpriced on the whole package in my estimation, but MUCH better than what I originally signed up for. It's really more of being honest than anything else. A Princess promo I used 3x, said free airfare, up to $xxx. So they covered the published prices (I compared it against the airline website the same day; prices were the same or $20-50 higher, pretty nominal).

I know, and I think it's horrible! When I've booked with other cruise lines, that was the whole point! Booking the airfare through them, at the same price or even higher than you can book elsewhere, meant that they would take the risk and ensure that you would be on the ship before it left port. This was pre-pandemic however, and I'm not sure if anything has changed across all the cruise lines, or just NCL. I'm waiting to hear back from my TA, and if she gets the deviation for me, the next step is absolutely going to be a good travel policy...

Right; that's the whole point of the survey; see if anyone has actually used the program and been booked through those airlines. So far, it doesn't appear to be the case, and given how badly those airlines tend to be w/delays, I'm surmising that NCL wouldn't want risk it either, but I promise to keep everyone posted! I've already been looking, the ticket prices are absolutely going to be more as of now, and will get worse. I'm 119 days out as of today, so at worst, I'll need to wait 29-59 days before knowing for sure. I've got a rental car reserved too, so that's probably going to be my contingency for the outbound if airfare becomes crazy.

I'm about the same from Raleigh or Charlotte, but I did pick Charlotte, since they had more options. The price I paid for the airfare promo is a steal, I just didn't see the fine print and my TA, who is related to the person with the flying issue and is aware of it, never mentioned it. Still a good lesson to learn, and hopefully it does all work out in the end. It's been a long, difficult year, and I don't want anything to ruin this well deserved and expensive trip!! 😉 Yes, the TA is calling NCL for the 1 day deviation on the outbound. That may affect hubby's limited PTO with work, which is why I was hoping to book a later flight the day before, or bail the airport and drive through the night as a backup! We'd be flying a week after Thanksgiving, so weather is a concern, but also holiday travel; if we see a mess like memorial day or the 4th of July, we could be flying along with a bunch of people screwed by travel woes from the holiday. I have a ton of points for the hotel, and family from NY is joining us on the trip, so worst case scenario, we could ask them to stop at our hotel on the way to the pier. We'd miss out on the transfer, but the transfer from Galveston is the more useful one. I lived in TX too, I used to drive to that pier for cruises nearly every year, lol.

One week past final payment, so I started booking all the other fun things, then started looking at trip insurance, & the dates on those quote forms made me go hmmm. 😉 I'm a native NYer, so I know how to handle just about anything once I land, but traveling with someone who is so sensitive about flights is a huge challenge.

I wasn't aware of that; my most recent experience was on Princess, the airfare was free*, and I was able to select some flights on my own, and other flights at an additional cost. If memory serves, I believe I was able to book it right when I made the final payment, so the process was seamless. Thx for letting me know about the other option NCL offers.

It's the repositioning cruise in December; we'd be leaving from North Carolina, headed to NYC (LGA, JFK, EWR). Return from Galveston (IAH or Hobby).