What is happening with NCL?

[hamrag]

....Im looking to book a third cruise for next year and am noticing a sharp cut back of cruises offered by NCL. Whereas there is an abundance of Caribbean Cruises, there are little for the Baltic area or Northern Europe, and much less for Alaska and NONE for Antartica.

 

Of course the economy requires a lot of companies to cut back, but this is a sharp decline (I think) from 2009 and 2010's offerings.

 

Anyone else notice this?

 

I presume you mean a cut-back of cruising itineries, rather than cruises?

We have sailed NCL 3 of our 5 most recent cruises and plan on Gem for 14 nights late September in Eastern Med, but are looking elsewhere for 2011. The NCL itineries have become so dull and predictable. We were on the Black Sea itinery on Jade Sep/Oct 2009, which was a fantastic itinery....they binned it, and are not repeating it!!

 

Some of the other lines have far more interesting itineries e.g. Celebrity and HAL and we are looking there, but ultimately there will be, for us, a cost/itinery balance and NCL most of the time can be had at good value (Celebrity too at times, with a far superior cruise product & experience).

 

For us the Epic is not the answer as the ports it can access because of size are even more limited than the current newer ships! The better cruiselines are not building mega-ships and, for us, seem more able to provide interesting itineries rather than the same old ports both in Europe and the Caribbean.

[Cruise_More_Often]

Even the Canada/New England cruises are being cut back. Last year we did one of the Jewel's 10-day RT cruises out of NYC, sailing down the St. Lawrence to Quebec City. At the same time, the Spirit was doing 7-day one-way itineraries to Montreal (could have been Quebec City) and then a reverse 7-day back to NYC.

 

This year, no Spirit, and only two of the Jewel's three cruises are going to Quebec City.

 

Next year, no Quebec City, and the Jewel is doing only 7-day cruises.

 

We'd like to repeat our cruise of last year, but if we want to go back to Quebec City or perhaps to Montreal, we'll be forced to pick another cruise line. :o

[newmexicoNita]

While many have surmised the SA itinerary (Buenos Aires - Valparaiso or Valparaiso - Buenos Aires aboard the Sun) was cancelled due to lack of popularity resulting from high airfares - my experience is the opposite and the crew told me it ran mostly full. I would guess the biggest challenge is the fact that the casino is mostly closed on the Chilean half of the itnerary and that is a massive earning opportunity lost to NCL. Too bad - it was an amazing cruise.

 

I have heard it was an amazing cruise, heard it from clients, but the location was the number one reason we were told. Yes, it often went sold out (most cruises do) the problem was the price they had to sell it for to fill the ship. That is why there are so few that cruise So America.

 

nita

[newmexicoNita]

I presume you mean a cut-back of cruising itineries, rather than cruises?

We have sailed NCL 3 of our 5 most recent cruises and plan on Gem for 14 nights late September in Eastern Med, but are looking elsewhere for 2011. The NCL itineries have become so dull and predictable. We were on the Black Sea itinery on Jade Sep/Oct 2009, which was a fantastic itinery....they binned it, and are not repeating it!!

 

Some of the other lines have far more interesting itineries e.g. Celebrity and HAL and we are looking there, but ultimately there will be, for us, a cost/itinery balance and NCL most of the time can be had at good value (Celebrity too at times, with a far superior cruise product & experience).

 

For us the Epic is not the answer as the ports it can access because of size are even more limited than the current newer ships! The better cruiselines are not building mega-ships and, for us, seem more able to provide interesting itineries rather than the same old ports both in Europe and the Caribbean.

What do you mean by "better" cruiselines. Do you mean more upscale and luxury? If so, you are right, they are keeping the ships small and do offer better itineraries, but they often are completely out of the average cruisers pocketbook.

 

I agree bigger isn't alway better. We will most likely not cruise the Epic or any such ship. I would disagree as to the more interesting ports offered by Celebrity and HAL> they are really pretty much the same.

 

We do the same as you, cost and Itinerary are always our concerns, what we end up with depends on who we are cruising with and when. Right now we are looking at 2 cruises next year: one will most likely be the Spirit. It is a family cruise with 6 to 8 cabins being booked. Money is a huge issue for the younger cruisers. NOLA is closer to home for them, but the cruise is a little less expensive. Our second cruise will be Alaska with a group of Bridge players. This may very well be HAL or Princess. Money isn't as big an issue with them and they want the best itinerary I can find.

 

Nita

[hamrag]

What do you mean by "better" cruiselines. Do you mean more upscale and luxury? If so, you are right, they are keeping the ships small and do offer better itineraries, but they often are completely out of the average cruisers pocketbook.

 

I agree bigger isn't alway better. We will most likely not cruise the Epic or any such ship. I would disagree as to the more interesting ports offered by Celebrity and HAL> they are really pretty much the same.....

 

Nita

 

I was not meaning the upscale/luxury lines, rather Celebrity & HAL which I mentioned. We are looking at 2 fantastic itineries in the Caribbean for Feb 2011 on Celebrity Equinox (11 nights) and also the HAL Nieuw Amsterdam (14 nights B2B). We cruise inside cabins, enabling us to cruise 2 or 3 times annually. The cruise only pricing in UK for both these cruises is (untypically) lower than USA and for the Equinox equates to $1125 and the Nieuw Amsterdam $1250. The NCL Dawn and Pearl for 14 nights is approximately $1250 demonstrating that better lines and itineries can sometimes (not always) be found at similar or lower pricing than NCL.

 

Guess for itinery it depends where you have been, and what you want to be different. With the 3 options outlined above the NCL itineries have 2 or 3 ports that would be repeats for us whereas the Equinox has none and the Nieuw Amsterdam only 1. Would rather cruise to repeats though than not cruise at all any day!!

[insidecabin]

Agree, some HAL trips have been bargains with UK pricing.

 

It pays to keep an eye on all lines for deals, especialy when itinerary and dates are important or just looking for best deals.

 

It's nice not to fly sometimes so for UK cruisers 2011 thats NCL of the list.

[linnealee]

Same itinerary is why I am going on Princess this December instead of NCL & Dec '11 will probably try Celebrity in Dec '11. Maybe it might change then, but who knows.

[collegecruiser346]

I live in the Northeast, and cruising out of NYC or Boston is so convenient, that even if the ports aren't overly exciting, I go. Also, cruises out of the northeast don't have many tropical options because of the time it takes to get to the Caribbean. My first cruise was on NCL Spirit from NYC to the Bahamas and Florida. Since then I've done Eastern Caribbean twice, and Bermuda once. Bermuda was out of Boston, and the Eastern Caribbean was out of Fort Lauderdale and Port Canaveral. Once you add in the cost of airfare, and a pre cruise hotel stay, cruises from Florida are VERY expensive for people in the Northeast. I also think the Bahamas and Florida cruises appeal to families because it gives you a chance to go to Disney.

[Ms belp]

If you fly on Southwest Airlines you save a lot of money and hotel/motel deals can always be found in Ft. Lauderdale. Take transport to Miami and you are good to go.

[CruisinMaterial]

My graduation cruise will more than likely be back to Princess because I want to go some place exotic and NCL has really dumped a lot of their exotic options. Aside from taking a cruise directly to Antarctica NCL was the ONLY major North American line that offered a shore excursion with an Antarctica landing. I was very much interested in this and didn't care that it cost as much as the cruise. It would be a one-of-a-kind experience.

 

Now I have to relook at options now and see what I will do because NCL doesn't cruise the Orient or S. America. Star Cruises is not really geared to the North American market so that leaves me with going some where else. It's a real bummer because I like NCL's business dynamics and their gearing their onboard product towards my age group (or at least having a much better nightlife than Princess and Celebrity combined). :)

[weltek]

I believe there was a story on cruise critic earlier this year/last winter about many cruiselines decreasing the number of ships in Alaska due to high fees to do buisiness there.

 

I keep reading about bad weather for the Canada/NE cruises. I wonder if they were losing too much money having to reroute and refund money?

 

As for Europe and South America, I can't venture a guess. I know there were always really cheap deals for SA cruises. I presume that's because airfare is so expensive to get there and people needed a cruise deal to lure them.

 

NCL must make a lot of money doing the short FL/Bahamas cruises, because they are seemingly increasing in popularity.

[fungirl76]

I can't not say what is happening to NCL as I have never cruised with them before. However I can say that I have had major issues with them with an upcoming cruise that I had booked. I called to make a payment towards my trip for a specific amount and they took almost 3x that much out of my bank account causing me to be negative and accumlate overdraft fees. I did not get my money refunded for 3 days and it has been an ongoing battle to attempt to get all of my fees returned to me.

[KrewesFanatic]

Are you saying NCL is the only cruise line making changes? I think I remember some other cruise lines pulling out of S. America, and announcing ship and itinerary changes in Europe - or is NCL the only cruise line making changes? I did see that NCL changed their Baltic cruise to a 9Nt, I didn't see anything about them not offering the Baltic cruises moving forward. And, unless I'm missing something, don't the cruise lines (NCL included) re-deploy their ships to other itineraries, or do they just leave them tied up in some port somewhere (which doesn't make any sense, so I'm guessing they re-deploy them). Maybe I'll check out the Venice itineraries.

[insidecabin]

NCL must make a lot of money doing the short FL/Bahamas cruises, because they are seemingly increasing in popularity.

 

NCL needs onboard spends to make a profit(The cruise fares run at a loss), short cruise people tend to spend more on average per day.

 

The Sun in the Baltic has moved from Dover(12n) to Copenhagen(9n) cutting out 2 sea days and Copenhagen as a port

 

Copenhagen as a base may be more attractive for pre/post cruise, the early Dover cruises this year had big discounts.

[tkportersat]

Sucks....almost everyone has abandoned Galveston and I have always been on a full ship; there was plenty of demand and they left anyways. Carnival is the only one there full time, RC from Dec-April only now. Princess and Norwegian completely bailed.

 

So, driving an extra 3 hours to New Orleans for something different this time. Never been on Norwegian and most of the Galveston cruises are still Jamaica/GC/Cozumel.

 

All the cruiselines redeploy ships where the customer need is.

 

RCCL has moved alot of their fleet to Europe. At least 8 of their ships will be over there. RCCL will have their largest ships doing the same Caribbean Itinerary weekly. 12,000 people/week doing either eastern or western caribbean.