KeithJenner

One of the things that we appreciate about NCL (and modern cruising reply) is the ability to pick and choose what you want. We don’t sit around outdoors for long, and usually hang around where there are quiet bars, so Vibe doesn’t offer us much. Hate being “pampered” so the Spa is equally uninteresting to us. However, I think a few coffees, we both enjoy sparking water, my wife likes a few glasses of champagne and I like to have a bigger wine selection, so the P+ beverage package works for us. We could certainly cruise cheaper, but we get a lot out of the bits we do pay extra for. It’s a nice balance.

Calls from the UK are routinely routed through to the US, and many of if have PCCs who are US based, so it isn’t that the OP ended up in the wrong place. The location of the call centre shouldn’t be a problem. However you are still relying on the agent having the correct info which we know is not always the case, regardless of location.

It depends whether it is refundable or non refundable. Either can be used on the two things you mentioned though.

The £600 service charge listed is the DSC, and is different from the service charge on the beverage package. I don’t know of any offers whereby this is included in the fare, but I don’t book suites. Assuming it is not included in the fare it is either charged to your room daily or you can prepay it before the cruise. If you prepay it then it is payable along with final payment, so it should be included in the amount due. My documents for upcoming cruises are the same. Prepaid service charge is showing as an amenity but it is also showing on the amount owing. If you do buy any extras (excursions, dining etc) then they will show on amenity invoices as well as the amount due. What you have paid to date (deposits, payments for excursions etc) will then be shown in payments made.

I’d never heard the term Drinkgate mentioned before, but the term fits them all. If you want inconsistency then two NCL ships, both in Santorini at the same time with one serving drinks and the other not probably hits the jackpot.

Various issues that NCL have had in Europe regarding drink sales (and usage of the beverage package). On some Med cruises people have been charged tax on the drinks they consume, sometimes for the entire cruise, but the issue being referred to here is probably where, in some places like the UK, Greece and Gibraltar they haven’t been serving drinks at all whilst in port.

Yeah, as I said, I haven’t got the details of the 2023 itineraries available, and there may have been some that were round trips. But my point is that this isn’t a massive change. They have been offering one way trips for a long time, and I think that in most years lately those have been the majority. Making a cruise a Southampton round trip seems to have been low priority for a while (ie all those Amsterdam to Southampton round Britain cruises). Certainly the Southampton to Reykjavik (and separate return) trips are not new, neither are the one way Baltics trips, both of which I have either done or been booked on in previous years.

These itineraries aren’t particularly new. I don’t have the details with me, but I believe that most Southampton itineraries last year were one way. We have sailed from Southampton on NCL a number of times, and only one has been a round trip (15 days to Reykjavik and back in about 2017). I have also done a couple of transatlantics, which obviously have to be one way and a Southampton to Stockholm trip in 2019. That last one was a particularly good itinerary which couldn’t have been done as well if it was a round trip. Even the round Britain cruises aren’t necessarily Southampton round trip. We did one last year that was actually Amsterdam to Southampton. The logistics to these aren’t easy. For example, on the Amsterdam one we ended up parking our car at Southampton Airport and taking the train to London City for the flight. It’s much easier to just turn up at Heathrow and leave the car there for the duration. There is a fairly big market of UK cruisers who cruise in order to avoid flying. I’d say that about half the people in the UK that I know who cruise do so for this reason. By doing the one ways NCL is passing this segment by. I think that they did go after them to start with (hence the Iceland round trip that we did), but I suspect that it didn’t work. This is a massive generalisation, but in my experience the group who want to do avoid flying are probably a bit more set in their ways than the average traveller. I remember that the round trip we did was mainly full of non UK people and many of the UK cruisers seemed to be struggling with the way that NCL does things. I heard a fair bit of grumbling about some things (like non set meals, changing wait staff, tipping etc). Many of the UK cruisers I know who usually sail from the UK seem to particularly like the dressing up as well. My guess (and I’m very much guessing here) is that NCL tried to break into that market and has struggled. Southampton round trip cruises are fairly restricted in where they can go, so they have made the decision to try to make them appeal to overseas travellers. There is still a fairly large chunk of UK customers, like myself, who will still do the attractive one way itineraries anyway. It does seem that NCL is going more for longer European itineraries, they work fairly well for is (10-11 days is probably our sweet spot for cruise length), but they are excluding some people with these and it does surprise me that they don’t throw in a few shorter ones as well to attract those who can’t take the longer holiday. A couple of Southampton round trips would probably not be a bad thing to offer as well.

NCL doesn’t require a picture (at least not always). Last year we had to upload something, but we didn’t this year. From memory there was an option to have then taken at the port.

I don’t have any specific info, but you shouldn’t need to use your minutes as access to NCLs website is free.

Rhodes old town is a very short walk from the cruise port. If the walk there is a problem then you aren’t going to get far in the town.

Yes. We have done both and I have no particular preference. The tender trip is not that much different from the various options to get from the port (and is obviously cheaper). The only issue is if you want to get off quickly after arriving, as there is usually a bottleneck with early tenders.

Taking an excursion to avoid the cable car mess is a good option that many of us use. We have done the Oia tour a few times for exactly this reason. However it still doesn’t avoid the problems in getting back down again at the end of the day. Last time we were there there were 4 ships in port and we went straight to the cable car after being dropped off in Fira to avoid the worst of the queues. From memory it was about 30 minutes for us, but anyone who wanted to spend a bit of time in Fira ended up queueing for hours to get down. We sometimes stay onboard to avoid all that, and will certainly never go ashore in Santorini again if there are more than three ships there. If ever a port needed a restriction in numbers of cruise ships they allow it is Santorini.

There are no circumstances where you just get one meal. On a 4 day cruise it goes down to zero. The details are all on the latitudes section of the NCL website.

So it is. Well spotted. 🙂

The number of meals for free at sea depends on cruise length and cabin type, for us it is almost always two.

The only restriction with the bottle of wine is that it isn’t available in certain restaurants that have a different wine menu (on Prima and Viva I believe). Basically it is now two meals wherever you want.

It was reported on here a few times. Not something I particularly look out for, so can’t say if people have reported being able to recently. From memory, this was upgrading the drinks package rather than taking free at sea plus. Edit: sorry for some reason I was thinking you were referring to upgrading to the premium plus package. I think that people have been able to just get one drinks package, especially if they can demonstrate why the people who aren’t getting it have a reason for not doing so. I would assume that was buying it outright though, as I don’t think you can add free at sea once onboard. At current prices that single price would be more than free at sea for two.

Most restaurants on NCL are a la carte. If you don’t have the dining package then you pay the prices on the menu. If you do have the package then you only pay anything if you buy an upcharge item (stated on the menus) or if you order multiple items (ie two appetisers, assuming they actually charge you). Teppanyaki and Moderno have a flat fee, which is paid if you don’t have the dining package. If you do have the package then you don’t pay anything. The only time you pay anything when booking is if you book Moderno or Teppanyaki and have already booked as many meals as you have dining credits for.

They could book one for every night if they wanted. There isn’t a restriction to the number of meals you can book.

With free at sea and free at sea plus all meals are individual credits shown against the accounts of the people who quality or have purchased. So, if you book a balcony for 7 days then each of guests 1 and 2 get two free at sea meals. Those are individual meals and, whilst most people take them together there is nothing to stop them from being used individually. However they must be used by the people whose account they are on, so you can’t use them for a meal for 4 people. The same goes for free at sea. Everyone who upgrades gets another two credits, that must be used by them. So in your example, there is no way that you can use credits on two peoples accounts to pay for a meal for 4 people. The extra two have to either pay a la carte or get their own packages.

You can reserve any meals online 120 days out. How they will be paid for is irrelevant. That is decided at the time you actually eat. As most restaurants are a la carte there is no charge for reserving them regardless of whether you have any packages etc (the system has no way of knowing what you will eat and therefore what the charge is). There are two restaurants, Moderno and Teppanyaki (or whatever it’s called on the Prima and Viva), that have a fixed charge and the system does try to charge you the cover charge when you book. However, as long as you have dining credits to cover them then it doesn’t actually charge you. For example, if you have a two meal dining practice with free at sea and book Moderno first then there is no charge. However, if you book Cagney and Le Bistro and then try to book Moderno the system will charge you as you have reached the number of included meals. How you ultimately pay for the meals is irrelevant, this is just for the purposes of deciding whether to charge you when booking.

Yes, same here. It may not show on the earlier pages, but when you get the checkout, latitudes and free at sea discounts are applied.

And you pay the gratuity on the packages which we don’t. The charge in the UK is basically there because NCL can’t charge us gratuities on a free package. The two are fairly similar in value.

Or just not looking at these offers. I just search the website for current prices when I need to book a cruise. Any games that NCL play are totally irrelevant.