pisenor

CARP info really useful guys. Thank you.

No problem. Always glad to help when I can. If you are planning to stay with NCL going forward, the 3 year CARP membership is the best bang for the buck for getting the discount. Not that fees are high but every little bit counts. ;)

This is going to be our first cruise, we want to cruise ST Lawrence Seaway and coast line. Is it better to start in Quebec City or start in Boston? The ports are different. From Boston, you see Portland, Halifax , PEI,Gaspie, La Baie.

From Q City, you stop at Sydney, Halifax, St Johns, NB, and Bar Harbour.

Hello, I live on the East Coast of Canada just outside Halifax. If I had to choose between the two itineraries I personally would pick the north bound voyage. Simply because the ports of call interest me more than the southbound. Gaspe is a small, remote town on the northern tip of the Gaspe Peninsula where the St Lawrence meets the Gulf of St Lawrence. A very Beautiful area. Google Gaspe and you will see the beauty I am referencing and a lot more. But you may see merit in some the ports on the other sailing.

fyi...it is St John, NB and St John's, NFLD. Residents from both cities are sensitive to this common error. So if you choose the southbound itinerary, be careful...;):D

Is the CARP discount pretty much the same as the AARP discount?

Thanks very much.

Yes it is. It is the standard AARP discount but they extend the olive branch to us Canadians by honouring our CARP member ship as one in the same.

FYI....there is no age restriction to join CARP either

I am considering joining AARP if only for the travel savings. That is probably the only use I would get from joining as we live in New Zealand. The 5% we would get with NCL sounds too good to miss.

However would that saving be allowed with other NCL benefits. We are Platinum and invariably also get the extra points for booking more than 9 months out. Would it affect any Freestyle Choice benefits?

 

I would be grateful for any comments, both positive and negative.

 

Thanks

 

Mike

Hi Mike,

Being a Canadian I have a CARP membership. I assume the same booking rules apply for AARP so the simple answer would be yes. When I book my cruises using my CARP card I always receive the current promos plus my discount. I always book through my PCC and she always makes sure all the promos are intact with my discount. However I am not sure if that experience varies for an on line booking so you may want to watch that if you do your booking on line.

Hope this helps.....

Let me start by saying welcome to CC. I have never sailed Hawaii either but I may be able to point you in the right direction. A good place to start would be the NCL faq's found HERE

You might also want to join your roll call for your sailing found HERE

The roll call is a group of CC members on the same sailing the may be planning a meet and greet among other things as well. Such as discussing activities/excursions in each port. Check it out.

Have a great trip!

The following is a snippet from the Terms and Conditions found

Here!

Specialty Dining package:

Sail Length # of Dining Package Meals Guest Gratuities Per Person in USD

3-6 Nights 3 $10.62

7-9 Nights 4 $13.32

10-12 Nights 5 $16.02

13-16 Nights 6 $18.72

ALL my OBC was cancelled by NCL even though I had no problem buying it from them online or over the phone. I sail in a few days and wanted to double check and that's when I found out they CANCELLED ALL MY OBC. I only had $3000 in total purchased over 2 months on 4 separate transactions.

 

I was told the cap is $1000 per room and many people are having the OBC cancelled without notice for exceeding the limit.

 

PS: I started a thread on this .

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2291691

I saw your thread and am following the discussion there as well. Thanks!

could you tell me how many people were in your cabin and how long the cruise length? This doesn't sound promising. We are 4 people on a 12 day cruise so 20 bucks a day won't go very far!

We are 5 in our cabin and we will be on a 7 night itinerary. I have purchased $9000 worth between 3 of us. Hopefully it will remain in tact till we sail.

***OBC UPDATE***

I just logged into MyNCL and was able to purchase an additional $6000 OBC on-line line in $1000 increments with no cap or maximum. I am now understanding why my PCC hadn't heard of a hard cap for pre purchasing OBC. Everything worked fine for me today. Another in the long list of NCL websites glitches......hmmmm??? :confused:

In any case, I have been able to purchase more than I was before. Those that hit the $1000 cap before may want to try again. ;)

I'm not sure if things were different in our case or if it was because we had 4 people in our cabin but we purchased $3000 between 2 people. I took $1500 under my name and $1500 under my significant other's name. We didn't put any OBC under the kid's names.

I think that is just a new policy as my PCC said he never saw this before as well.

I just wish I could buy more...:( We sail on Jan 17th so it was now time to start stockpiling obc as we too are locked at $1.11 for this cruise and our Jan 2017 cruise. I discovered a couple days ago that each person in the cabin can only buy $1000 obc. So I was only able to acquire $3000 of obc. I got $1000 for each my DW, DS (13 y/o), and myself. I purchased it on-line and I thought may be a max amount you could buy through the website. So I called my PCC and he said "no problem, I can get you obc.....oh wait a minute, it looks as though you already purchased your maximum. Let me try to override this.....oh that is odd, no matter how I try to get around this the system will not allow any more. I am so sorry." So I told him thanks for trying.

He is originally from Toronto so he knows the value of being able to take a few green backs home with you after a vacation. I never told him what all the obc was for but he being a transplanted Canadian was able to figure it out on his own. In fact he said he would do the same thing in my position. And that is why he tried to get the override for me.

I always put the hard butter under my thigh on the charm. Couple of minutes there and you have warm, soft, and easily spreadable butter.

I was lucky enough to get the exchange rate at Par last april, and I definitely took advantage by ordering lots of OBC.

 

To answer your questions

- It did take about 6 weeks for me to get my refund cheque

- The refund cheque was sent automatically. There was no special step I had to take

- To my satisfaction, the cheque was indeed in US dollars. If you bought 100 USD for $111.1 CAD, you will get a cheque for 100 USD, not 111.11 CAD.

Thanks, that's what I was thinking would happen but just wanted first hand info from someone who has been through the process. Now my big decision is whether I want to wait for up to 6 weeks for my refund to arrive or take the 3% hit to cash out in the casino.

Wow - thanks for all the info! I am booked on Dawn in March with my family in a 2bed suite. Had not expected all those perks! Was on a suite on Allure, and did not get those benefits! Or, maybe because we did not know about them, we did not ask and did not get them.

Is there a dedicated lounge for evening cocktails for suite guests only?

No, unfortunately the Dawn does not have such a bar. At least I never found one last January when we sailed in a suite on her.

My refund took ten days to arrive.

That is a good turn around time for your refund. In fact I may bypass the casino transaction to secure my refund in a timely manner. I do have a few questions that maybe you can help answer.

1. Was your refund was a cheque in USD?
   
2. Did you need to request the refund from guest services or was it sent automatically?
   
3. and lastly, was your refund based on the rate at which you bought your OBC or was it just a straight USD refund? ie my rate is $1.11...will the refund be calculated at the rate I purchased my OBC or is it refunded as a straight USD refund with no conversion back to the rate you bought the OBC?
   

Thanks for your answers

Haven't really thought through all possibilities as yet, but your post makes me think that if you were to purchase an excess amount of OBC then you would get back any unspent element in USD and then back to CAD at a favourable rate.:)

 

Is that the case, or is my thought process too fuzzy??

That is the exact case. I actually plan on cashing out my pre purchased OBC in the casino as I don't want to wait upwards of 6 weeks (as reported by others on here)for my refund to come to me in the mail. The casino charges a 3% fee to process the transaction. With my current rate at $1.11 plus the other 3% casino transaction fee I am still a long way ahead of the current exchange rate at $1.33.

From what I understand from reading another thread here regarding a revised method of completing a CAD booking. I read that NCL will discount the current rate by 10% then charge the cruise at the $1.33 rate. The cruise cost is still slightly better after the exchange conversion than what the posted fares are. By doing this all CAD booking no longer have such a nice incentive to do what I outlined above.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

Your rate is locked in right up until you set foot on the ship. Anything you purchase via MyNcl before sailing will remain at that wonderful rate. Anything you purchase on board will be billed to your cc at the going bank rate + all the foreign currency fees to boot. I also have the same rate for my 2016 and 2017 cruises. For this reason I am purchasing an adequate supply of OBC for each of these cruises to fund my on board expenditures. On the last day I do not plan on having any charges to my cc in US funds at all.

We have cruised in a suite on the Dawn 4 times and have never got gummies or m & m's. But my baby is 22, so maybe they save candy for families with younger children?

 

Sent from my SPH-L720T using Forums mobile app

Not sure if it makes a difference as I am unsure of what you may or may not requested to be arranged through the pre cruise concierge but I did request the items in advance. We also had a daily delivery of chocolate covered strawberries as well (which I did not ask for but we loved getting them). I do hope they maintain the list of preferences for suite guests as we would love the same this coming January.

Only flights left from Nashville land at 230. Can we make it to the ship in time?

I would say NO! Sail away time is listed as 4pm and all guest are required to be on board 2 hours prior. Your flight would land at 2:30 and by the time you gather luggage, get the shuttle or cab and get to the pier will probably take at least an hour+ there is no way you could make it even if they allowed you a late boarding. IMHO

Easy fix if you are able, fly in the day before.

Hey everyone,

 

I am hoping that they only open up small percentage of pre-board bookings per venue and that we'll be able to reserve something once we are on the ship.

Exactly this! Only a portion of reservations are available for pre booking. There should reservations still available once you get on board.

This is our 1st suite (Owners Suite) on NCL. I've been reading about the suite perks on various post. We just received our Suite Luggage tags and Letter from Vivian for our cruise in January. But there wasn't a list of the selections for liquor, pillows, etc. Will that be emailed or do we have to specifically request a list? The letter did have a phone number and the concierge email. Just don't want to contact them if something is on the way. Thanks!

If you call the pre-cruise concierge office, they will know info you are looking for (pillows, liquor, etc). You can also ask for whatever you want for when you board. Last year I arranged for two buckets of beer to be in our room for our arrival (no UDP that trip or free booze in the room). This time we are in a DOS so we won't need any beer buckets this go around. I also let them know what type of snacks we preferred to have delivered in the afternoon. I guess the sky is the limit on what you can request before sailing. Keep in mind your requests may or may not fulfilled as turn around day is very hectic for the crew.

See you on board

Yes they are. Have a look here. Keep in mind this promo only last for two more days (ends Nov 30th).

Have you looked at the NCL online shop?

 

https://norwegiangiftshop.com/index.php?id_category=5&controller=category

Just looked-- shipping is a lot

 

YES! We would love to see more NCL / ship merchandise . So many times in the store, we think we missed the logo area. Lol

Safe sailing

You aren't kidding about the shipping! Back in February I booked a Getaway cruise for 2017. As a surprise for my son I was going to order one of the NCL Getaway lanyards to let him know what ship we would be sailing. Key word here.......WAS!

I added the $2.57 lanyard to my cart and proceeded to the check out. Much to my surprise my $2.57 lanyard was now $36.41. Really NCL? $33.84 to ship a lanyard from Miami to my home? Are they trying to make their on line store fail miserably? Because if they continue to charge that much for shipping such a small (could be sent as regular letter mail) item it is definitely headed in that direction...SMH. :rolleyes:

Thanks but no thanks NCL!

It's on Epic, October 2016.

Here is a

Have fun!

Sorry I'm talking truly authentic. Senior Frogs is at every cruise port. It's a chain.

I do realize it is a chain but you did say you were looking for something close to the port and it meets your location criteria. Sorry for trying to help...:(

You could try Senor Frog's. I have not eaten there myself but it is very close to the port. They serve mostly pub food but do have and Mexican section on the menu. Here is a snippet of the Mexican cuisine they offer. FYI...the prices are in Pesos not USD.

STARTERSSLURP SLURP & FROM OUR GARDENSANDWICHES, BURGER & WRAPSMEXICAN SPECIALITIESPASTA, PEEP PEEP & OYSTERSSPLASH SPLASH & DESSERTS

MEXICAN SPECIALITIES

CHIMICHANGA

Stuffed and fried flour tortilla covered in green sauce and sour cream, rice, with guacamole and pico de gallo.

• Chicken $140

• Beef $170

TACOS

Served on flour tortillas with guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream on the side and cheese chicken

• Chicken $140

• Beef $175

MEXICAN PLATTER

Grilled flank steak, green chicken enchilada, guacamole, refried beans and rice. $190

ENCHILADAS

Stuffed corn tortillas smothered in green ands red sauce, topped with cream, red onions and covered with melted Swiss cheese. Served with refried beans and rice on the side.

• Cheese $120

• Chicken $145

BURRITO

Flour tortilla filled with beans, smothered in green and red sauce, covered with melted cheese, chopped black olives,lettuce, and cream chicken.

• Chicken $145

• Beef $166

• Veggie $130

SABANA INVIERNO

Beef steak, topped with refried beans, green sauce, melted cheese, avocado strips and tortillas. $208

FAJITAS

Served with grilled onion and bell pepper, a side of rice, refried beans, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, and your choice of flour or corn tortillas.

• Chicken $165

• Beef $220

• Shrimp $233

• Veggie $107

• Mixed $200