Stevio

14 minutes ago, rachiem said:

Hopefully someone in the booking department has pulled out the wrong plug!

Wow... Just imagine the trouble that employee would be in for stopping a whole country giving NCL their hard earned for an evening. 

1 hour ago, rachiem said:

Is it just the UK booking site that is showing every cruise as sold out or unavailable? It's been like this for several hours now?

Hopefully just a blip?

Confirmed, showing 608 cruises available to UK but my test attempts to try and book any specific cabin category shows everything either sold out or unavailable.

Its just not like NCL to refuse money.

Either glitch or NCL UK gone bust ???😲

Back to the original question.... So long as there is free access to majority of the casino & slots and there is still some form of buffet, self serve or not I would be happy to cruise with all the masks, trackers etc'.

2 hours ago, leblais said:

Where is the original article that is being referenced? 

 

I believe the references to not being allowed to explore on your own first date from last August when MSC refused to allow a family to re-board the Grandiosa after becoming separated from a ships tour.

MSC are being looked to as a template for future European cruises. Face masks, regular temperature checks, wrist band locator tracking and limiting numbers into any one venue etc.

As to how much these rules could be relaxed after full vaccination in all the various countries ports of call at some time in the future is anyone's guess.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/cruises/msc-cruises-family-breaks-excursion-social-bubble-covid-restrictions

9 hours ago, seaman11 said:

Well MSC is sailing is it not?  I heard they handled a recent covid case very well onboard. 

MSC are not currently sailing. Italy has travel bans between their own regions with a national 10pm curfew in operation. I do not think their ports would yet welcome cruise ships after all the hard containment work they have done.

Once fully vaccinated of course a different matter. MSC have pioneered onboard mask wearing, passenger tests, checks and social distancing.

You have mentioned about paying gratuities, but as a fellow Brit I can tell you that as long as you booked in UK the gratuities are included in the free Premium Beverage Package price. It isn't in the US so a lot of advice on here is given for the wrong set of rules.

I would definitely look to "share a taste or two" with guest 3 as the drinks package is exorbitant at around $99 per person per day x cruise days plus 20% gratuity to buy... Have you considered investing in straws?

7 minutes ago, mscdivina2016 said:

I just checked and all my extra 88 points are still there.😁

Steve

Well we are platinum plus so it didn't matter to us. Our May cruise was cancelled and points were added after theoretical completion date but disappeared again around October time.

If you still have those points... Shh don't tell them, maybe they won't catch on.

On 11/23/2020 at 1:15 PM, mscdivina2016 said:

If you did not cancel you would have gotten the points. What many did not realize is that when they started cancelling cruises, you can get a refund or fcc, but .....you still got points for not sailing. 

Steve

That "error" was not only corrected, but around 5 months after my cruise points were awarded they were taken away.

In UK when booking shore excursions in the past online you have had to pay in full in advance...

You could however call them to pre book and get reward discounts applied by going to ships desk. $50 excursion credit applied to account after each excursion completed.

The change that occurred in the last few months is that both shore excursion $50 credits and reward discounts are now when signed in, credited & discounted online and in the app prior to real time payment.. (Yes they increased their prices to cover this).

On our last cancelled cruise the shore excursion refunds turned up un-announced on the credit card way before the rest of the cruise refund.

Do not know if this sheds any light on the above discussion. But I know that NCL definitely fixes the UK £-$ exchange rate at the time of booking for each cruise for the purposes of a later purchase of refundable onboard credit which has been very good for our last Panama cruise receiving $1.35 vs £1.25 just prior to cruising.

This credit was used for purchasing CN certificates onboard which would exactly mirror ged1967's experience of Cruise Next purchased at exchange rate of cruise booking.

This would also apply to the value any issued non refundable credit issued at time of cruise booking.

We usually have the opposite problem in that the Cruise Next certificate is too high so when trying to apply a £204 certificate to a £100 deposit the screen locks and the red banner shows we are trying to pay too much.

The bottom line is the way the UK NCL website is set up it is impossible to use a CN certificate to pay a deposit online. You are forced to call them and make your complete booking over the phone where they have no problem using the certificate.

On the phone in your case they will accept your £198 as a full deposit and add the £2 to your balance due.

27 minutes ago, room with a view said:

What are your thoughts on September cruises in Europe .. any indication that they may go ahead ???

As all September NCL cruises are removed from their website in an apparent prelude to cancellations with reports on other threads claiming September fully paid cruises have changed to balance to be paid status I would guess no Chance of any Sept' European sailings going ahead.

  Edit Ahh.. I am a slow typer and see you already have your answer.

I have an October Getaway cruise booked and am certain that is not happening either.

I too am impatient for cruising to restart... But those crew return dates screenshots posted on other threads look to be more and more likely. (Apart from the year typo on Star)...

Well then it appears that NCL has now given a much clearer picture of a start in August... It will  be in October at the earliest.

Yes, all of September currently greyed out on UK site. I was just posting this info as news on the "August return thread" when I noticed you have beaten me to it..... Now if they could just remove the October 2020 cruises I could look for a return of my Oct' Getaway deposit.

Uncertain if this is a temporary glitch but as of today on the UK NCL site not only has the August cruise disappeared but so has all of September's cruises.

Good news for the UK... As of 14:00 NCL has sorted out their link and now goes to an honest to goodness refund form which we have filled out.

As I write this the wife has just shown me 4 identical E-Mails confirming that my request has been submitted successfully (please allow 90 days etc) all sent at 14:09hrs. So I guess that they have received it.

*WARNING* As of 13:30hrs... The Link that has just appeared on the UK site for a refund actually connects to "Suspended Sailings – Request to Keep My Future Cruise Credits" "This form can only be used if you are removing the request for a refund for all individuals on a reservation".. And not the refund links posted above.

I too have been trying to find a definitive answer to onboard credit and the casino for a while now and even after 20 + NCL cruises have not found one. However the following is what I have found to operate on NCL ships.

Refundable OBC  is used to pay your final room account bill at the end of the cruise (just about everything you spend on board is charged to the room account), be it casino, shopping, etc’ and if there is any left over refunded.

Non Refundable credit “officially” cannot be used in the casino. It again is set against the final bill and should be used up before any refundable credit (though not for casino or service charges etc).

If you go to the casino cage and ask for cash to be charged to your room account it will be charged to your refundable OBC or credit card with the addition of a 3% fee at the end of cruise.

If you use your room card or casino card in any slot machine there is a keypad to charge your room. You just enter the last two digits of your year of birth and date and tap in the amount you want. It warns you of a 3% charge and transfers that amount to the slot machine for you to play or cash out. This charge however I have found can be paid with non refundable OBC.

So in my experience,  if on the final evening of your cruise you have $100 non refundable credit left in your account and go to the casino desk and take out $100 in cash you will be billed an end of cruise £103 dollars on your credit card and lose the $100 in expired OBC.

If however you go to a slot machine and withdraw $100 which you cash out without playing and present the resulting printed slip to the same casino desk you will have $100 in your hand and be billed an end of cruise $3.

and there is also the possibility that NCL could have their computer systems updated/fixed (or whatever word you want to use and this whole "rant" could have been a waste of time and energy. :confused:

the point of my post was a heads up for silver latitudes & above who booked their cruise before Feb.17 & then go on to book their NCL shore excursions online at a later date will be able to claim at a refund of least 10% of that cost in the form of O.B.C. when aboard.

Looking forward to our first Platinum level cruise booked more than a year ago to the Baltic on the Getaway. So tried to book NCL excursions (I know, money to burn). NCL faq state 10% discount for Platinum when booking online or on the ship……But no 10% online so called the dedicated excursion number on the NCL webpage.

The nice NCL excursion lady told us politely yet firmly that since we booked before 3rd Feb 2017 we would not qualify for the “New” post Feb Platinum excursion rewards, either online or onboard.

Suitably enraged, we immediately contacted our regular cruise consultant who apparently now has a new full time job pacifying enraged customers who had previously phoned other departments of NCL. The problems are caused by the old pre- Feb system bookings not being recognised by the new one.

The good news is yes we will qualify for the 10% off, but we will have to stand in line at excursions to claim it aboard & it will appear as OBC… Our consultant added that the Platinum free 30 WIFI mins will also be missing & we will have to stand in line for the internet café manager to claim them. This is of course in addition to the lining up for the ship tour, cocktail party etc, etc and has to include all platinum members separately with their identifying key cards.

My beef is, how come the new system knows I am platinum online, when issuing a room key card, or giving bottled water or chocolate covered strawberries… But conveniently has no knowledge of my status when it comes to something that costs money & especially when there is a sales pitch at the end of it? And what leads my cruise consultant to suspect that no one in NCL is going to bother to correct the system before my cruise in three months time?

I should however be able to save a few dollars on the Berlin & Tallinn tours as by my calculations, if all goes smoothly we may well be finished standing in lines by around day 5 when entering St Petersburg.

Rant over, feel much better now. Carry on everyone.:D

Horoscope *** Scorpio for May….. I forsee long queues in the atrium.

The Majesty bar price list photos I took at the start of May 2016 are on posts 4 & 5 on the following link...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2357352

Guess the prices are still about the same.

Yes, 3 tables is what P&O have for ships of a similar size. I did find an image online at travelmole which has a photo of part of the new casino showing at least two tables so maybe no need to panic.

The Travelmole review referred to "two or three tables & a couple of machines in the corner" ... Sounds to me like less casino than the Dream :eek:

Cannot reason why Thomson believe Brits do not like casinos when every time I am on an NCL ship I meet a small army of Brits at the slots that have been exiled from Thomsons due to their lack of casino facilities.

Hoping to see reviews with some photos of the Discovery casino and an actual slot count.

Will certainly not be booking any ship with a smaller casino than the Majesty. :mad:

. apparently the germans basically don't gamble.

They do in great numbers on NCL ships.

1/... Pics of Majesty's bar list from April 2016 to be found by scrolling down to post 4 at this link http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2357352

3/... For four people of any age you will need an inside plus cabin.

6/... The Majesty is our favourite Thomson ship & is very well maintained.

Dronnygirl has admirably answered all your other questions. But I would emphasise what shot2bits & glynandcath say about standard inside cabins... They are small even for two & the plus cabins are definitely the way to go.

Well that worked OK

Phew, there is someone else that can see it.

Came out a bit bigger than I thought, but hopefully readable & up to date for a while.