barcelonauta

In our case Puerto Arenas ( Chile) stated in the final ncl printed itinerart as a dock port. They changed it into a dock port and at the end we missed it.If P.Atenas is a port likely to be missed , what is the point in changing it into a tender one? So in our cruise Stanley and Punta Arenas were likely tobe missed. So are other ports in other itineraries.... And it would be useful to know which ones before booking. For instance, Norwegian Spirit has an amazing Asian Christmas Itinerary but.. is really NCL intending to really honor all of them ?

I wouldn't say that we are seasoned cruisers but Season cruisers 🙂 We usually cruise at Christmas. Our last destinations were Saudi Arabia (MSC), Canary Islands (aida) and Antartica (ncl) replacing the ANZ cruise after the unacceptable itinerary changes. I told before. Same of you, we also miss a Port due weather conditions (Punta Arena) and they also shortened our stay in ports as Stanley. This Christmas we doubt between ANZ on Norwegian Sun (especially after your wide review) and the Norwegian Spirit Asia (Philipines, Borneo, Vietnam, Malasia & Singapour from Taiwan) Let's say that we are just collecting information about the possible calling ports, allowing NCL more time to reschedul the itineraries before before making our reservation. 😄 By the Way, I haven't noticed any comments/ pictures of you sipping cocktails. ( apart from Wine) just not your cup of tea, weather wasn't inviting? or just most focused on food? thanks again for the extended review!

Thanks a lot for your great and extended review and for the nice pictures you posted! After seeing the pictures you post from Cradle Mountain and Eden and the amazing ones from Sydney harbour I'm more than happy of having cancelled the 1st leg of your B2B cruise last Christmas before ncl graciously replaced these two ports for ane overnight at the outskirts port in Sydney plus one extra sea day. We hope to do these cruises one day and your review of both boat and ports is really useful and inspiring. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Amazing report! Thanks for posting it and for the extended description of your first days on board. Two bucket list cruises put altogether in a B2B mode. WoW Impressive! The itinerariy changes before cruise ( including the shortened stays in port) even if anoying seem to be acceptable this time. Last Christmas they removed 2 Australian ports before the sailing, so we just cancelled our booking.

I'm perfectly aware of being replyimg to an old post but I think it's a very interesting one. We cruised with several european companies such as MSC, Costa, pullmantur, celestyal.. several times and never have missed a port till this Christmas (Punta Arena on Norwegian Star) We choose our cruises primayly for itineraries, so two adverised ncl cruises are in our bucket list: Norwgian Spirit to Asia ( Philipines, Malasya, Borneo & Singapore) and Norwegian Sun ( Australia and New Zealand) We actuallly booked this cruise last Christmas with Norwegian but we just cancelled it wen, before final payment they changed the port callls in Tasmania (Burnie) and Eden replacing them for an extra sea day and an overnight in the outskirts of Sydney to be added to our previous nights at town in a central hotel. According to some ppl. Who did it, it also missed another port: Wellington. So we are relictant to book again with ncl. Does someone know how are the chances of missing ports in these itineraries? I know that it fepends on lots of things, for instance we had 50%/50% at Stanley and we didn't miss it. But I.m starting to think that several ports like Boracay (Philipines) are likely to be missed. Any new comments would be apreciated.

We would really like to do 2 consecutive NCL Sun Christmas cruises ( 2024 + 2025 ) through ANZ because their itineraries are quite different, but we are affraid of itinerary changes plus missing ports, which can ruin our vacation. Changes of course happen but when they impact on the original itinerary, other companies like MSC offer a full refund, while ncl claim that these changes are made for customers enhancement. So, after two attempts to cruise New Zealand with NCL, this year we will wait till October/November before re-considering to book with them.

Changes on itineraries prevent us to book again ncl in advance. We did it last year booking the Spirt from Australia and New Zealand and seeing changed our previous itinerary by an overnight at the outskirts of Sydney instead of Eden and Burnie (Tasmania) so we cancelled it and we went to South America and Antartica with the Star, where we miss a port (Punta Arenas) and other port calls were shortened. And also the Spirt missed an extra port in NZ It doesn't seem to be enough booking last minuted cruises, because I am aware that they rescheduled the itinerary cancelling Paradise Bay and shorten the cruise by through Atartica into one day istead of the two days planned, just by giving the passengers printed notice once at board.

Thanks a lot for reporting it, I am very curious about that. We also are planning to do this cruise next year and expect to visit Al-Ahsa with the MSC excursion when in Dammam. If someone can make a port review of Dammam (I think it will be the first one in cruisecritic)and post the MSC excursions ofered at that port will be very useful. I hope you enjoy youtr cruise as much as we did when sailing Saudi Arabia and Red Sea with MSC Bellissima.

We are thinking about joining that cruise , but we are uncertain about Dammam ( and concerned about VISA), which would be the main reason to do that cruise.