luv2kroooz

We have followed your advice!! Thanks for giving us that option. I didn't use the words anger, never, or drama to describe my state of mind. Did you? Happy New Year!!

All ashore is usually sometime between 930 and 1030. I think you booked the correct flight. If one thing goes wrong such as weather, man overboard, medical emergency, crash on I95, etc., You could be delayed and miss your flight. Why add unnecessary stress to your life for a couple of hours? You have a much greater opportunity to make a 240 flight out of FLL. If all goes as planned, have a leisurely morning onboard while others line up as early as 630 to be the first off the ship. Then, at 1000, when all ashore is called, walk off casually, without stress and long lines.

Thank you for sharing your opinions about my post, Joebucks. Happy New Year.

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Sorry to hear about this. Vista class ships continue to be hit with these types of issues.

They'll probably charge $1 per person per day plus a 20% service charge if you want to select AM and PM. Otherwise, they'll just pick it for you based on staff availability. They may eventually offer a premium plus turndown service for $2 per person per day plus a 20% service charge if you want AM and PM service. But read the fine print, which will state that turndown service is not guaranteed and they have the right to change, alter, or remove the program at any time without notice or reimbursement.

From the fine print attached, if you have the plus package, you get a 40% discount off the list price but you pay on a per drink basis. So, yes, they are now charging per drink for things that used to be included in the plus package. See attachment from 12-9-22. NCL is changing their experiences by the day. I am not a travel agent, but even travel agents are having difficulty understanding the constant evolution of the brand. Beverage_Packages_12092022.pdf

Good point. They could just copy Christine Duffy over at Carnival when they made cutbacks..... "We have all experienced the impact of inflation, higher fuel prices and supply chain challenges. The food supply chain challenges have been further complicated by global politics and a myriad of laws regarding how we source products and how crops and animals are farmed and handled.” “At Carnival, we have worked very hard to minimize the impact on our guests, committed to our promise to make Carnival the most memorable, fun, and best value vacation option on land or at sea. We have reached a point with our food costs, however, where we must take some modest but specific actions, which we know most of you have done yourselves, whether with your dining out patterns or shopping to stock the refrigerator or pantry.”

We are here in the US Midwest, right on one of the Great Lakes.

Yes, Mr Del Rio appears to be a consummate micro-manager, fine tuning every detail over and again in order to maximize revenue. All cruise lines are experiencing changes and revisions to the product, but we don't see the ongoing, recurring changes and revisions on other cruise lines.

Expect nothing from NCL but a response via email thanking you for choosing them, they value you, they've read your complaint, they will do nothing to help, but hope to see you again onboard We resolve all issues on onboard before departing the ship.

Educate yourselves! There are so many great vacations out there right now outside of the cruise space. I am typing this from a land based resort where we just spent three nights. Live entertainment every night including comedy, dealing pianos, singers. Christmas decorations everywhere. Indoor pool and hot tubs. No surcharges, surcharges, etc. It is wonderful and compares very favorably from a pricing perspective. We have enjoyed cruising in the past. I can't see us booking a cruise on any cruise ship in the near term. Someone else will have to subsidize their COVID losses. It ain't going to be us.

@seemoreroyals that is a very good point. Even if only a fraction pay the higher DSC, NCL is still better off cash flow wise. All cruise lines need cash at this time and are evidently stopping at nothing to increase cash flow.

I can confirm what debenson0723 said above. Just call NCL. Simple, easy process.

For solo rates, better to look on MSC or NCL. Carnival not usually very solo friendly. Of course, you can't sail from Charleston on MSC or NCL and you wouldn't get the Fun Ship experience.

Bingo. Their high priced "market to fill" strategy is currently achieving 80% capacity. That means 20% of cabins are vacant and are not contributing to the service charge pool. Therefore, the per person contribution has to be higher which can only happen by increasing the base price and then collecting 20% of the higher price. This is why the daily service charge increased by like $4 per person, per day.

Us too. Beware it gets better....in addition to their industry leading DSC of $20 per person per day, NCL recently raised the price of the most restrictive drink package at sea to $109 per person per day. When you apply their industry leading 20% beverage service charge, the daily per person rate for the beverage package service charge is now $21.80 per person per day for their "free at sea" beverage package. No thanks.

Sorry this is happening to you at this late date. Based on the number of posts I've seen regarding "unforeseen port congestion", it sounds like it would be well to either make sure your trip insurance covers missed ports or sail another cruise line. Itineraries are always subject to change, but, in my experience, Norwegian Cruise Lines has a significantly higher level of "unforeseen port congestion" caused by its own fleet than other lines.

Hi. I looked for an answer to my question, but didn't find one. With all of the bundled fares and pre cruise purchases, we are having difficulty spending our shareholder OBC. I am wondering if the Princess Plus package can be purchased onboard the ship on embarkation day for the cruise duration. If so, do you know if I may use my SH OBC to offset the total cost of Princess Plus? Thank you.

I certainly can understand why that would be unpopular, but I also wouldn't disagree with you for making the very personal and intentional choice to do so. Unfortunately, the shi* rolls downhill. If you are faced with a situation where you believe you haven't received a substantial portion of what you paid for, you either have to eat the cost or try to recoup your potential losses. If it is a supply chain issue, I imagine no substitute product would even be available onboard. What is interesting to me is that I read on the Celebrity board or on here is that there were no supply chain issues on a recent Celebrity sailing, so who knows, maybe it is ship and homeport specific. I do know there are limits on quantities of spirits here in our local stores.

I don't blame you and would probably do the same. I certainly understand that there can be supply chain issues NCL may not be able to control. However, it is not the customers fault either. If they can't deliver the product, then refund the money. I don't understand why any company would expect a customer to pay for a product that is not deliverable. And putting an asterisk with a disclaimer subject to availability doesn't change my opinion. Deliver what is advertised or refund the money paid, instead of under delivering and keeping the money.

It is becoming harder and harder to spend the shareholder OBC on Norwegian. We used to buy cruisenext with ours, too. Oh well. Carnival corporation brands allow you total flexibility to use SH credits on specialty dining gratuities, daily gratuities, casino, etc. Which can result in true savings off the overall cash outlay on the vacation. On Norwegian, we have to spend it on things we rarely need like overpriced shore tours, specialty dining and spa services.

For clarity, I am Diamond level and have been for many years. I rarely sail on Carnival, though. I would focus more on perks that matter to passengers....in my opinion, a free pin or logo item is a nice gesture, but they really don't have any value to us and we never know where we are supposed to go to get these. A lunch in the middle of a steady where the busy senior officers and cruise director have to attend is also not important to us and probably not to them. The free drink is a start, but I feel like it's use is limited to a dining room during brunch. Just load a couple drinks on my card each day and let me use them at my convenience and give me a dinner in the steakhouse to use any day, and an hour or so of internet and I'd be happy.

I think you will find similar complaints from repeat passengers on all of the lines. I think change is good thing and we sail lots of different lines because we like the variety. Well, actually used to....with all the cutbacks, price increases, etc, we have been doing land based vacations. Much better value for us. Carnival is definitely not Celebrity, not do I think it pretends to be....different target market, different price point, different customer base. In the end, I think you get what you pay for. We sail Carnival for Caribbean fun in the sun, in your face cruising. But, yes, Celebrity is a more refined, experience with a variety of itineraries. I hope to sail Celebrity one day to check it out for myself.

Probably true about customs in NYC. I recall a cruise out of Galveston, we pulled up to the dock at like 4am and none of the pierside workers had started their shift. So, we just hung out pierside waiting to be tied up to the pier around 6am.