lixogab

I booked 3 days Bahamas cruise sailing next weekend on Sky and now it shows up as sold out. Will see if it’s really fully booked or they still have some kind of capacity control.

Back in March on Epic I saw an entire deck  closed down.

Also depends if you want to choose your cabin or are fine with a guaranteed cabin. The price difference for 7 days cruise between GTY and regular cabin is $100 pp. If you add $20 pp / day drink package gratuities and $20 pp restaurant gratuities, you’ll end up paying $100x2 + $20x7x2 + $20x2= $520 per couple for 7 days cruise.

For that money you get:

- Drink package 

- 2 speciality restaurants ( Interior and Oceanview get just 1 saving $10 pp)

- 150 min of Internet pp

- You can choose your cabin

Does it worth for you $500 or so? Up to you.

Ketchikan. Back in time we booked a seaplane tour through an independent vendor ( both CC an TripAdvisor reviews were very good to excellent ).

At the designated time they simply didn’t show up.

We waited 20 mins or so and went to their hangar and were told that the plane left with another customer. ( The company later apologized claiming a computer glitch and refunded the deposit).

We activated a plan B and went on a rainforest trail hike. After all it was free!

AFAIK the “50% in FCC” policy applies if you are past the final payment. In that case technically the can just say “No” and you are out of options.

However, if you are still within the free cancellation period (that applies to US customers only) you can always cancel and rebook. Or just cancel and may be book with another company.

To avoid the hassle NCL usually refunds the difference. Or at least used to do it before Covid.

Give a call to your TA ( or NCL if you booked with them) and ask for a refund.

1 hour ago, YVRteacher said:

It seems to be inconsistent.  I am Diamond and in the first week of a recent back to back there were two 500mL cartons.  On the second week there were none at first then when I asked (twice!) I received 4 cartons that were each 1L.

 

There was also a larger-sized carton in the fridge for sale for $5 but I don’t pay for water!

It looks that the website lists 1 carton for gold for gold/platinum and 2 for anything above that.

Now it clearly states that it’s per member. So a couple of Diamond members with the should get 4 bottles.

Because there could be mane days between flight boarding and embarkation day.

Our cruise is on Wednesday, but we leave on Friday so, under that rules we could take PCR test on Tuesday, 8 days before the embarkation.

The best approach is the company to provide the test on embarkation day. 

12 hours ago, disneylover89 said:

How long did it take before they got back to you with a reply?

9 days ( 7 business days). 

Ok, just got the answer few minutes ago:

"...Upon review of your request, we are, unfortunately, unable to provide any offer for a future cruise credit.
Please note that your reservation is ineligible for any consideration, your sailing is less than 6 days in length."

The ugly part is that the NCL rep on the phone didn't know that the < 6 days is ineligible for FCC.

But now we all know.

Will wait for the price to move little bit  and will try an upgrade.

I have doubts if it works. Did anyone actually get the FCC for price difference after final payment day on or after March 1st?

19 hours ago, julig22 said:

Prior to last summer, the upgrade policy was pretty lucy-goosey and you could often get a different result by calling back or asking for a supervisor.  Now, from what I've experienced, it's not up to the PCC or NCL rep anymore.  They can screen your request (and tell you why it's not going to happen if you obviously don't qualify) but ultimately they email a request and it is handled by someone else.

How exactly is handled?

I called NCL rep last week and she told me that she will make a request (mentioned "competitive <something>" ) and in  7 business days I'll an email explaining how all that will work and what amount I will get.

So far after 6 days I got no email.

Did anybody recently (After March 1st) got an FCC or something  ?

Encore has 5 engines totaling 76.7 MWt

A standard solar panel is about 300 Watts.

So you need around 256000 panels., not mentioning the batteries, their weight and the cost.

12 hours ago, Acadie said:

That is exactly our situation.  Upgrading from sail away to free at sea would be a $140 difference.  They want us to pay over $700.  Occasionally having a glass of wine at dinner and going to Le Bistro once will not cost us $700, so it's a no go for us.  NCL will not budge.  Makes no sense to me, but I'm chalking it up to learning! 

Weird. Is it for 1 week cruise?
Usually the fare difference between sailaway and regular cabin is $100 per week, but for some itineraries I saw as much as $200 for 10 days. That’s per person. On top of that $20 pp p/day beverage package gratuities plus $20 pp dinner package. Still it’s hard to understand how they came out to $700. 

Called today and asked if I can get some FCC. The price difference is $100.10 per person.

The lady asked to hold while she is communicating with a team mate.

After few minutes she came back and told me that I will get the FCC but after the cruise is complete. When I asked how much, she told me I’ll get an email with details within 7 business days.

Sounds weird but will see how it goes.

10 minutes ago, mscdivina2016 said:

$20 per person per day??? Where?

Beverage package gratuities.

Just of curiosity…

From what I understand the upgrade must be “paid” meaning that you have to pay at least $0.01 to NCL.

Does it cover situations when the base price is less than you paid but after adding gratuities you end up paying some money.

For example, let’s suppose I purchased OX for $700 pp. No beverage package because of X rate.

Then after final payment day, OF went down to, let’s say $600.

It is less than what I originally paid, but after adding drinks and restaurant packages gratuities ( $20x7 + $20 = $160 ) the price totals $760, so I actually do pay $60 pp to NCL.

Will it work?

NCL drink package is $20 p/ day p/person. But you can’t get it with IX/OX/BX and have to overpay around $16 p/ day pp to get a non-guaranteed cabin. That totals $36, roughly 3 cocktails or 1 bottle of wine or   5 beers. 
If you ( and your significant one) drink less than that and you are fine with guaranteed cabin - consider skipping the drink package.

Also, if you get shareholder benefit and free drinks it could be hard to find where to spend the benefit OBC ( prior to Covid I used to buy CruiseNext, but now the benefit can’t be applied to CruiseNext).

As log as you have any Internet package, you can use Whatsapp, Viber or Telegram instead of texting. 

What are the advantages of the eMed / iHealth proctored tests over Wallgreen / CVS “free” antigen tests ? 
(

2 hours ago, ISLABONITA said:

I am working through a TA , my cruise is in 32 days, wanted to upgrade, cannot refare, with today's pricing it would only be about $300 , because NCL will not do  the refare my price is $533 for a balcony.... no other OBC or FCC mentioned. I am waiting to see what cabins are available, not using NCL airfare either. 

So, basically, you are willing to pay $300 which is the difference between the current balcony price and what you paid for a lower category but NCL denies. Is my understanding correct?

It’s not about risk or safety. NCL doesn’t expect to fill 2 ships in Baltic/Denmark/Sweden after pulling off SPB.

So they leave Gataway for May/mid June  and then replace it with Dawn.

4 hours ago, AppleDumpling said:

Any idea of what NCL will do? Will they offer to transfer bookings to similar cruises or just refund and say to start a new booking? 

Just wait couple of days.

Mostl likely they are working on improved itenireries and will replace the sea days with port days

Looks like they adjusted all Dawn itineraries and pulled off Gateway. I hope they are just adjusting itineraries and not cancelled.

 Nice. The website still shows “sea day” but I hope it will be updated soon.

AFAIK, the Best price guarantee refers to price offered by other vendors (i.e. agencies) on the same day or may be within 2 days. It doesn’t cover future price drops.

I just checked North Europe itineraries for this summer and so far there is no replacement for SPB. It just shows up as sea days.