Worst cruise of my life.

[SilentHill]

@RedCab Well thank god you wont be sailing with NCL any more. I don't ever want to be next to you on a cruise ship with the attitude and sense of entitlement you seem to have. Go be some other cruise lines problem.

[johnmpcny]

I am sitting back and trying to think what I and others can learn from this.

First I let nothing make my vacation hell, if it rains I dance in the rain, bad food send it back or eat something else.
Rules I do not like? I let someone know and move on having a good time and not effecting my mood or my family.

Before going on a trip I do research, like finding CC. If my son has a birthday I think I would have asked before every getting on the ship how the issue would have been handled. I recall at least 3 or 4 times during booking and getting on the ship I was asked if anyone in our family have a special occasion on the trip, did you never think about this issue before going or just expect them to do it the way you wanted??? was it a surprise your son was turning 13 on the trip to you?

NCL wants to be accommodating with things like this and it is YOUR irresponsibility to let them know about before and yes during if things go wrong on your trip. You failed to do your part before you left.

A simple reading of the FAQ or a call before going and your son's issue is taken care of. A post here and you would have gotten advice.

NCL has now even changed the way teens are grouped going forward. Next trip if you ever take one you face a new set of rules to ruin your trip. New Teen program; 10 to 12 years old; 13-14 years old; and 15-17 years old. So your kid next time will miss out on being with the cool 15-17's, like he was able to this trip and now is not- hope that does not set off another ruined trip.

YOU ruined your trip with how you let this effect you and your family. Shame on you, not for the issues or if NCL should have handled them better but on you for letting it spoil a family trip by the way you reacted and let it eat at you.

The only way I am having a ruined trip is if the boat sinks, whole ship gets sick or I miss the ship as it leaves.

Other than that I am on vacation and like the saying goes A bad day of fishin still beats a good day of work! When I get back home I will take the issues up with NCL.

[mjkacmom]

[quote name='ohioNCLcruiser']I stopped reading when you said your child turned 13 during the cruise and they still wouldn't allow them into the Teens club. The only time we broke that age rule WAS if they were celebrating a birthday onboard the cruise. If that was indeed the case, that was poor on NCLs part but if it wasnt the week or two after the cruise, they did what they were suppose to. I wouldn't want my kid or teen in a age club if other people older or younger then a few years was there also esp if I didn't know it.[/quote]

Actually, the rule is, you are allowed in the teen club on your birthday, but not the day before.

[mickeysgal]

So what's the thrill with the 13 year old teen club anyway? Why would any child be put out that they're not in that club? It's not like there was no club for his age bracket and they're left to wandering aimlessly alone while watching the big kids have their fun. Why would any parent allow a child to act anyway but grateful that they are even there...on a cruise? I'd leave the kid at home next time. If a kid can't appreciate the fact that they are being taken on an expensive trip, well then, time with a sitter sitting home with a list of chores a mile long is in order. I wouldn't and don't tolerate whinning and ungrateful behavior. Period.

You're peeved at not being given a take out container on a cruise? Where food is in extreme overabundance 24/7? This required a meeting with the Hotel Director?

You chewed up all that time with Hotel Director and got compensation after compensation yet you're still not happy?

Just a general question to everyone...why can't people cope anymore?

Since you're not cruising with NCL ever again...can I have your $300 certificate? I promise it will be put to good use.

[halos]

Op, I am sorry your cruise sucked...
I have to ask how the first cruise you ever took was the worst cruise of your life though...kinda bizarre statement. :confused:

If you cruise again, I hope you enjoy the next one better and if you do, then you can claim this one to be the worst cruise of your life and it will make more sense.

[Gngrasso]

My family and I were on that same cruise and my 14 year old had a blast, and she never set foot in the teen club. Wasn't new year's eve by the pool great?!

[quote name='Redcab'](ruining our vacation I might add because if you're kid isn't happy it sure is hard to enjoy yourself).
[/quote]

As the father of two teenagers and one post-teenager, I can tell you if are going to base your enjoyment on whether your kids are "happy" (a relative term) or not, you're in for a really depressing six years. ;)

[JP4GA]

I love how so many people feel entitled. Rules are rules for a reason. Owners and operators have the RIGHT to make rules that affect thier clients. They do NOT have to bend rules. I would not think of asking any cruise line to bend a rule for my children. Its just rude and says, "I'm entitled."

[mpk218]

LOL , Normally these self important poor me kind of post get me irritated , But this is so Stupid its laughable.
Welcome to the new world " I got mine where's your's".

It all started with those damn plastic bags didn't it ??

:rolleyes:

[mpk218]

[quote name='Gngrasso']My family and I were on that same cruise and my 14 year old had a blast, and she never set foot in the teen club. Wasn't new year's eve by the pool great?!



[COLOR=red]As the father of two teenagers and one post-teenager, I can tell you if are going to base your enjoyment on whether your kids are "happy" (a relative term) or not, you're in for a really depressing six years. ;)[/quot[/COLOR]e]



Hhahahaha , Aint that the truth :p

[newmexicoNita]

[quote name='Redcab']Ok, it was the first cruise of my life, but I remain VERY disappointed in NCL. I don't intend to ever give them another chance.

In a word, "ARROGANCE" pervades the cruise line.

We sailed on the Christmas 2011 to New Year's 2012 western carribean cruise out of Miami on the NCL Pearl.

Yes, my focus here are the negatives. Sure there were some good times, but the negatives put such a shadow on the week that I will avoid NCL at all costs in the future.

So you don't think I'm a bad person, first the positives:

-We ate mainly in the specialty restaurants, and they were generally quite good. We enjoyed LeBistro (French). Quite surprisingly the food at the "massive" Summer Palace was very tasty, particularly the lamb shank.

-Our rooms were adjoining balcony rooms on Deck10. Well decorated & maintained. The steward was super nice and very attentive. He earned the extra gratuity I placed in his hand.

- In general, the (mainly Filipino) staff was extraordinarily hard working and very nice. They tried very hard within the limits of the rules that they were bound to execute to.

Ok now the negatives, highlighting the arrogance...

Let me summarize it by saying that the real problem here is that the NCL management is so hung up on providing a consistent product (ie, the staff must only follow the rules to the letter) that they miss every opportunity to "make things right" and really thrill a customer. This is not the fault of the hard working staff. It is the arrogant management that isn't even on the boat. Every excellent hotel chain earns their stars by "doing the extra little things". No such thing happens on NCL.

Case in point:

Teenagers meet in the Teen lounge. They don't hang there, but they make friends on the first 2 days. My son turned 13 during the cruise but was barred from entering the Teen Lounge (minimum age 13). They checked his name and birthdate against the ship manifest! Yes, we took it up with the Youth Director, and then the Cruise Director and finally the Hotel Director. Everyone of them could not change the rules. Finally the Cruise Director contacted Headquarters in Miami (though delayed by xmas holiday) and my son was granted permission to enter the Teen Lounge, though by that time (4 days into the cruise) all the Teens had made their friends and not returned. It was sad because the very nice Hotel Director (a man with probably 35 years in the trade) was not given the authority to make a judgement call on my son's admission. The simple solution would have been "We'll give him a provisional admittance - if he cause one bit of trouble he is gone". Instead I got a bunch of legal b.s. about NCL not being able to accept liability for his presence in that teen room. Huh? Whatever liability contract that existed between us during that vacation is what it is...I don't see how being in that room affected it one way or another. I can't believe I wasted my special vacation time on this nonsense. One night I spent almost 2 hours with the hotel director to get this wrong righted.

Now for those of you who might point out that rules are rules and he technically wasn't 13 on the day he attempted admittance, let me say that all the best hotels satisfy their guest by using GOOD JUDGEMENT, not mindless rules.

Next case: My daughter and I were sitting in a nearly empty Japanese restaurant at the sushi bar for a late lunch. My son comes in. The hostess say he has to leave because "she needs the seat" for a reservation. He leaves, pissed off. In the next 30 minutes, the restaurant remains 10% full. Why didn't she just give us a "heads up" that she [U]may [/U]need the seat? Why didn't she offer an alternative, like moving to one of the twenty open tables? The hostess didn't know that this was a particularly sensitive situation because my son was already banned from the Teen Lounge, but she had no room to flexibly deal with situation. She kicked him out. How rude.

When I went to leave that same restaurant, I asked for a "to go" container for the extra food (since my son could not stay there was extra). I was told that food from the sushi bar could not leave the restaurant. That made sense to me, you know, raw food should be consumed promptly. Then I looked at my leftovers. All cooked food. I pointed this out. I got confused stares of recognition that the edict was being wrongly applied but "hey, I'm not going to risk my job over this" denial. Again, the NCL staff is not given any authority to use their brains and their judgement. Everyone is too scared of losing their jobs not to follow the letter of the rules set out before them. The management (off the boat) that sets these rules is arrogant and clearly has their heads in places the sun doesn't shine.

I discussed this (and other silly offenses that I won't mention here) constructively with the Hotel Director. He spiffed us 2 cheap bottles of wine and a plate of strawberries. I appreciated the thought and I'm sure he was doing what was allowed in the manual, but it rang pretty superficial. Another "gift" they gave us (to buy our love no doubt) was picking up our New Year's Eve dinner in the Italian restaurant. A nice touch worth $100 or so to our group. At the conclusion of the dinner I was presented with a bill for $6.95 for the single after dinner drink ordered. Now I don't mind paying $7, but it was the wrong punctuation on a meal that they comped for us. Don't they "get it"? Plain rude and arrogant in my mind.

See my point? The cruise line misses all the subtle cues that could have made it a "wow these guys really accommodated us!" but instead resulted in me posting this warning to all who will read it.

The final straw came after the cruise was over... I got a letter (not an email, but a letter in the snail mail several weeks after the cruise) from a customer service rep "Dustin" who gave another hollow apology and a $300 certificate to be used on a future NCL cruise. Well, no way am I going on another one of their cruise for a measly $300 discount! I spent about $10,000 on a week with them which the screwed up for my son and my wife & I who spent lots of time meeting with staff, trying to get things right and only ended up frustrated (ruining our vacation I might add because if you're kid isn't happy it sure is hard to enjoy yourself).

Dustin did not provide any email contact info, so I learned his email from our attentive "Cruise Consultant" Robert. I sent Dustin a reply by email a week ago and I have not heard even a peep of acknowledgement. Again, arrogance pervades this cruise line to its core.

To all those that have read this far, I recommend choosing an alternative to NCL....[/QUOTE]

Cruising is not for you. Nothing else needs to be said. You were lucky to get the 2 bottles of wine and the dinner in the Italian restaurant was worth $10 a person, not $10 for the entire group. I don't see one complaint that holds water at all. BTW, I am a retired hotel reservations manager from a leading and mid to upper priced chain. We would probably not have handled anything differently. You were lucky they made an exception and allowed your son to hang out with the older kids, most of the time the rule is, and I think you should have known this prior to your cruise: the birthday the day of the cruise is the age we all are during the entire cruise. I will repeat, cruising is probably not for you.

I am not sure if you would be considered part of the entitlement generation or is it the ME generation?

[camz]

I understand traveling with teens is not an easy task as they get bored easily. That being said, cruising is a great alternative as there are many activities for all ages. NCL has very strict guidelines in place for the age limits in their teen/kid club activities. As a parent, I have to trust that these guidelines are in place for good reason and have the childrens' best interest in place. Personally, I would not attempt to "bend the rules" for my child as I would feel that is a bad lesson to my child and all the other children that would be aware of it. However, if it was that important to you and your son, you should have contacted NCL prior to your cruise to work this situation out. Research is key! Make it a point to research your ship/ports and such prior to getting aboard. It can save you lots of stress later on. Good Luck to you on your next vacation whether you decide to cruise again or not.

[newmexicoNita]

[quote name='Vyhanek']I can understand your frustration.

I can also tell you that I have cruised NCL many, many times and the other major cruise lines as well. The other lines are not nearly as inflexible with the ages for the kids programs. I've had similar situations as you with my children and meeting cousins on cruises. My kids of course want to spend their time with their cousins they don't get to see but once a year. So asking for them to be in the same kids club groups should be understandable. On NCL it is absolutely forbidden. On Carnival they were flexible, on Princess they were flexible on Royal, again flexible. I completely agree with you about their inflexibility. I wouldn't call it arrogance but not customer focused when they need to be.

I can tell you, I have lied to NCL before to get my kids together in the kids club. It's been years but this is how you do it........When you call to make your initial reservation you give a different birthday for your child. So go one year older. This is how they track your child's age. When you check in at the port, the agents are so busy checking people in they don't check the exact birthdate of your kids. If they did check and notice then you act surprised as if you had made a mistake......Just as if there was a mis-spelling, you act surprised and then let them correct it. You won't get kicked off it it's in error,....like a misspelling.

So I did that a couple times and it worked. When your kids don't see their cousins but once a year on vacation it's sort of important to them to spend time with their cousins. If NCL can't be flexible like their competitors....That surely they must benchmark against, then you work around their silly rules.

I'm sorry for you. Try Royal, the product is so very similar and they are more flexible and customer focused about this.[/QUOTE]

What a wonderful way to teach your children honest!

[jdvmd]

Wow. This is so ridiculous. Welcome to Cruise Critic by the way.
$100 meal comped
Bottles of wine comped
Chocolate covered strawberries comped
$300 credit

I am not even going to read the other pages of comments.
Your kid was 12 when he went on the cruise. Your age on embarkation day is your age for the cruise. No ifs, ands or buts but you seemed to strong arm everyone into breaking the rules and getting your way.

[HppyCamper]

WOW! I signed up for the Cruise CRITIC forums not the Cruise CHEERLEADER forums.

I think people need to stop and look at what they are doing on this thread and many others. Anytime someone has a complaint about a cruise they have so many posters come out and tell them that they are wrong, or an idiot, or shouldn't cruise - REALLY!

I run a conference center that provides lodging, food, and activities to the guests. I understand customer service.

NCL was wrong when they denied access to their son to the Teen Lounge. We do kids camps and their are age requirements. We realize that 13 is a transitional age and some kids feel more comfortable with younger kids at that age, some older. NCL should allow flexibility in this. By not doing so they created the negative situation.

Also the waitress in the Japanese restaurant handled that situation wrong. If this had been at my facility and I would have seen this take place, I would have corrected the waitress in front of the customers, and comped their meal.

I can see where the treatment of their child would really put a damper on their vacation. All of this could have been avoided by using a little common sense.

Now to give NCL a little credit here, they did try to make the situation right with the freebees. One of the things that is going on here is that NCL is such a large organization that it makes it really hard to NOT have inflexible rules. MUCH easier for management. However, I am sure that NCL realizes the cost of one bad experience like this in negative advertisement. They need a little retraining of managers.

[eeyoremum]

Wow if I spent 10,000 on a trip and my kid was "not happy" because he didn't get his own way that would be the LAST trip with the little snowflake. Next time leave the kid home.

[NengEuis]

All I can think about this morning after reading this again is how terribly sorry I feel for that poor staff that had to deal with you for a whole week.

Were they at the gangway throwing confetti when you left? Did they tell you there was a special neon green luggage tag that allowed you to disembark FIRST, at 3:00am, straight into the ocean?!?!

I'm with the "I hope you never cruise again" camp.

[Epic_Bear]

I so love reading these threads and seeing everyone get their knickers in a twist over a cruise review. The sanctimonious blowhards on this board just make me laugh.

Someone didn't like their cruise, big deal, it doesn't effect you. For all the talk about letting things not ruin your vacation, it seems hypocritical.

[dwjoe]

[quote name='Redcab']
[B]Worst cruise of my life.[/B]

Ok, it was the first cruise of my life[/quote]
Your first two sentences told me that the rest of your post should be ignored.

[Suzieanna]

10,000 dollars is actually less than I am paying for my 2 balconies? oh dear........ In sterling I am paying more than £7,500. I am hoping the OP's cruise was only a week long!

[swedish weave]

All cruisers make the crew happy ----- Some by coming ----Some by leaving !!!

[Partyatsea]

[IMG]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/images/icons/icon13.gif[/IMG] [B]Worst cruise of my life.[/B]
Ok, it was the first cruise of my life,


[SIZE=3][COLOR=blue]So it must also have been the best cruise of your life, yes?[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[cv322]

[quote name='Gngrasso']My family and I were on that same cruise and my 14 year old had a blast, and she never set foot in the teen club. Wasn't new year's eve by the pool great?!

[B][COLOR=Red]As the father of two teenagers and one post-teenager, I can tell you if are going to base your enjoyment on whether your kids are "happy" (a relative term) or not, you're in for a really depressing six years.[/COLOR][/B] ;)[/quote]

Gngrasso: This is priceless! And a truer statement was never spoken!

To the OP...probably because this was a first cruise for you, you're not experienced enough to know that you received extraordinary service. Kudos NCL.

[richs52]

From the OP "NCL management is so hung up on providing a consistent product"...

This is EXACTLY the reason I will continue to cruise with NCL.

[che5904]

[quote name='P&Lcruising'][IMG]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/images/icons/icon13.gif[/IMG] [B]Worst cruise of my life.[/B]
Ok, it was the first cruise of my life,


[SIZE=3][COLOR=blue][B]So it must also have been the best cruise of your life, yes?[/B][/COLOR][/SIZE][/quote]

OK I've tried to stay out of this thread because I didn't want to give the OP exactly what I feel they are looking for (a reaction) and of course the many pages this will turn into.

But this I just had to respond to. Where to heck is that "like" button

:D :D :D Way too funny

[sjbdtz]

[quote name='david30101'] Corporate morons for my company are several states away at the headquarters but we have to deal with there stupid rules on the "night shift" or i get fired. Im doing stupid admin crap that dosent even come close to what is related to be done with my job. (I repair vehicles).

..[/quote]

So 3 brakes are as good as four? I mean...it's almost 4. 4 wheel lug-nuts as good as 5? It's almost 5. 12 is almost 13. Close enough, right? The rest is just stupid rules and admin crap.

I totally get it. Please remind me not to take my car to your shop.



[quote name='HppyCamper']WOW! I signed up for the Cruise CRITIC forums not the Cruise CHEERLEADER forums.

I run a conference center that provides lodging, food, and activities to the guests. I understand customer service.

They need a little retraining of managers.[/quote]


So an exhibition is taking place in one of your halls. The exhibition sells-out. Another vendor wants a spot.

You open the adjacent hall for free (sitting for sushi but not ordering)? What do you tell the OTHER show that had that hall reserved? (the kid is more important than the people who had a reservation)


What they did was 100% in the right. No retraining required.



.