Missholls9

6 hours ago, Trekker954 said:

I'm booked as a solo on the Gem in later this month. I booked that about a month ago. I got a fairly decent inside (free at sea) cabin on deck 11.   I then bid $250 (fair bid) (but remember I have to pay double, so in reality $500.    I happened to see that the price for family balcony cabins were slashed in half.  I called yesterday to see about repricing me in one of those cabins.   I paid an additional $419 and have a confirmed (i was able to choose any family cabin, mid, aft or forward).   The rep was extremely patient encouraging me to pull the deck plan up and choose my own location.  I kept all the discounts and past cruise extra points when I initially booked.   So no need to bid  now.     

We did this same thing with our upcoming Alaska cruise on the Encore. Went from a club balcony to the Haven because it was only a couple hundred more than our bid to upgrade. Three days later the Haven room price dropped even lower (a total of $600 lower). Called customer service and they wouldn’t even offer the normal 25% of the difference in future cruise credits. We felt like total suckers after that. 

On 9/2/2021 at 12:53 PM, The Traveling Man said:

We sailed by the glacier yesterday.  We have done it several times before on previous NCL cruises.  This time was a bit different.  On the Sun, Spirit, and even the Joy we were able to get very close to the glacier.  Yesterday the Encore was at least a quarter mile, and maybe a half mile, farther away than previous cruises.  In the past, the captain would enter the fjord, then slowly spin the ship a full 360 so everyone could get a great view from their balcony.  The Encore just did a 180, so only the port side had a view.  We were waiting on our starboard balcony for the glacier to come into view.  When we realized the ship wasn’t going to continue turning, we headed down to Deck 8, port side. We still were disappointed in how far away we were, but there is an alternative, although it comes at a price of $249 per person.  You can board a tender at the dock inJuneau and sail ahead of the ship to view the glacier up close and personal.  The catamaran they use gets within about 100 feet of the glacier.  It also slows down for views of any bears, seals, or other animals in the area.  The tender then pulls alongside the ship so passengers can re-board before the ship departs the fjord.  A bit pricey, but given the fact that the ship no longer comes close to the glacier, it may be worth it.  As I said, we’ve been there, done that, so it didn’t really disappoint to be so far away, but for first time travelers to Alaska, it surely is something to consider.

I know I’ve seen mention that while cruising glacier bay there’s been narration on the ship. And they serve hot cocoa on deck. With this new format did they still have that someplace? Or was that all part of the experience you have to pay for? 

1 hour ago, UKstages said:

*sigh*

 

call center agents get a bum rap.

 

i know a thing or two about call centers, and call center training, having devoted much of my life to the industry, both on the client and operations side. there are some broad generalizations being made here about contact centers (it ain't just "calls" anymore, folks... it's also chat, social media and backend operations that take place in these facilities)... and NCL agents specifically.

 

first of all, contact center positions are rarely minimum wage jobs and most carry with them a full range of benefits and incentives. there are often opportunities to make significant bonuses based on achieving certain metrics... and many of them are customer satisfaction metrics, rather than just "sales" incentives. call center agents can earn more than cashiers, store clerks and even some administrative assistants or those in managerial roles. so the stereotype of low wage transitory workers just doesn't apply any longer, even if it once did (and i don't believe it ever really did). NCL reps in particular seem to be tenured agents with many years of experience, almost all of whom seem to be based in the phoenix and miami metro areas in the "good ole USA."

 

in off-shore contact centers, these jobs are highly revered positions and some agents support their entire extended family from their contact center job. in the philippines, the contact center business comprises the largest sector of the economy and employs more than 1.3 million people. and while it's true that many outbound sales agents (those are the ones that call you, rather than you calling them) are temporary workers or college students, contact center agents are - for the most part - professionals ranging in age from 18 or 19 years to their 70s. most have a college degree and have chosen to make these sales or customer service jobs their life's work. it's a profession for many. so, again, the stereotype of young inexperienced transitory workers just doesn't apply any longer, even if it once did.

 

with regard to "googling," most companies have their own specialized knowledge bases which display "just in time" relevant contextual information to their agents based on the nature of the call/customer contact... no "searching" pr se is required. the articles displayed contain information that is usually not customer-facing, although agents do generally have access to a company's consumer-facing website, too. search engines such as google and bing have to be specifically licensed for commercial use and are generally not available in contact centers for that reason and for one additional reason... contact centers maintain a "clean desktop" environment for their agents because of the personally identifiable data that they collect on their customers (names, addresses, credit card numbers). this generally means agents have no access to the internet unless the URL is on an approved list. this also means no external email and no phones, cameras, smartwatches or other devices allowed in the contact center.

 

as for training, it's sometimes assumed when there is a performance gap that poor "training" is to blame. it often isn't. there are a host of factors that affect performance and influence expected agent behaviors. what typically happens in a contact center is that there is a constant battle between training and operations and marketing. ops tells the agent to do one thing or places a restriction upon the agent based on call duration or some other metric that ops never told the training team about. training teaches agents to do things the "right" way, which somehow conflicts with what the agent is told on the production floor. marketing introduces programs, policies and procedures that they somehow forget to communicate to both the training and ops teams. so when an agent is telling you they are hearing about that promo from you for the very first time, they probably ain't dumb and they probably ain't lying.

 

and then there is this: because of the length of time it takes to run the entire enterprise through the training program, these programs are often created long before marketing or the executive team has made final decisions... consequently, agents are trained on an early concept of the idea, business practice  or marketing program because the final content was not available when the training was developed. 

I spent 5 years as a call center trainer developing and delivering content to call centers across the US for a financial company. Your explanation was the long version of what I was trying to convey. I love and respect my call center reps. I have met some of the most amazing people doing call center training. Of course there are bad ones too. But there are also bad doctors and lawyers and financial planners and bad people in every profession. The difference is, they don’t get yelled at multiple times a day for a living. I would also happily volunteer to deliver training to NCL’s call center in exchange for free cruises! (Joking of course) 

For the record, I just want to say, I don’t mean to speak ill of the call center. Years ago, I got my start in a call center so I have a tremendous amount of respect for call center reps and always treat them kindly. I think they have some of the toughest jobs out there. I just think there’s a lack of direction about what the Club Balcony Suites actually provide. And lack of direction usually points to a lack of training. You certainly can’t blame the individual for that. You don’t know what you don’t know. 
 

on a side note, I recently discovered there’s a club balcony suite on the Encore deck 8 (8136) that has a slightly angled yet much larger balcony. However they can’t sell it as a large balcony because of the angle so it’s just sold as a regular club suite and goes for less than the other rooms on that floor. Highly recommend. Shout out to the call center rep who told us that secret. 

I’m sailing on the Encore on 9/11 and when booking I specifically asked if they were sailing at 100% capacity. They said no, that it would be anywhere from 60 to 70% max. Although we all know that customer service isn’t always the most reliable source. 
 

One interesting thing I noticed too. At one point the 9/4 sailing was showing as sold out except for the Haven and then one day a TON of rooms opened up. I find it highly unlikely that hundreds of people cancelled over night so I suspect that they increased their capacity limits and opened up more rooms. 

You have to be a little careful with the early booking of shows perk. We booked a club suite and we were really looking forward to being able to prebook our show on the Encore. Come to find out, this wasn’t an option for us. Not sure why our sailing wasn’t given this option but I even called to try and book and was told this was no longer a perk of the club room. I also got conflicting information about the sparkling wine. One person told me it was only if you were a returning guest in the club suite and the other said we would get it. It seems to me since the naming of the room, they aren’t all on the same page about what you do and don’t get. In the end it was moot because we decided to upgrade to the Haven. We will regret that later when we realize we can’t sail any other way…. 

Just now, julig22 said:

And what were your promos?  The stickler seems to be the airfare promo.

That might be the issue. We didn’t have airfare. Just the free at sea. It did take them talking to a supervisor though. When I first ask she said no. And I pressed a little bit and she said, “well let me just ask my supervisor” and then she did it. I wasn’t mean or nasty about it. Just asked her nicely if she could double check. Gave her lots of nice feedback too and thanked her often. 

1 minute ago, MeHeartCruising said:

When is your cruise?

Sailing 9/11/2021 on the Encore 

I don’t know about other people but I literally JUST upgraded my room, resulting in a refund. We were in a balcony suite. Noticed that a club suite was cheaper than our balcony suite. Called and they upgraded me and I’m waiting on my $50 refund. She did have to put me on hold and talk to her supervisor but it can in fact be done. On top of that, we then noticed that Haven room prices dropped. I called and upgraded again (that was Friday). Just watch your promotions. When I upgraded to the Haven they accidentally dropped all of my free at sea promotions and I had to call back to sort that out. Took them 30 minutes to fix it and some how I got a $9 refund.