Received UDP and UBP before service charges included

[Moby0215]

Why not? If I want to buy a drink for someone, that is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Anyway, this is really off-topic and it's not a huge issue, as you suggested. In fact several people have reported that when they have had the UBP and tried to buy drinks for other people, they ended up getting everything for free, so if anything I guess it is NCL's problem, not ours.

 

 

Yes I suppose if you wanted to buy a drink for someone then you would supposed to be charged however that's one of the reasons they are supposed to limit you to one drink per card. Of course that doesn't stop someone from ordering one drink, signing for it and then coming right back and ordering another free one and giving it away. I do see your point and the system is definitely not setup to do what you suggest of buying drinks for people. But I don't think that is much of the norm. And I think you are right that more times than not they probably wind up being free if the bartender rang it all through on a card associated with the UBP. My experience on the breakaway this past September was that they would only do a max of 2 drinks per card transaction. We did find some cool bartenders whom we were ripping well that would get us more than the 2 drinks at a time but they still rang it up only 2 drinks at a time. So we just signed twice.

 

 

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[welove2cruise2014]

I just read some of the reviews and the drink service seemed very poor.

 

We are looking at NCL Dawn out of NOLA as well. We have been on CCL & RC before and drink service is usually very good. Sometimes a long wait at the pool bars on sea days but I would expect that.

 

So can someone convince me to pull the trigger on Star or Dawn? Prices seem very good. We do have two kids (13 & 11) so has to be stuff for them to do.

 

Pull the trigger on the Dawn. Do it! We were on a couple of weeks ago and I am already looking forward to booking the next one(s).

 

A couple of observations regarding drink service/bars. At a couple of the bars (Pearly Kings inside and Topsiders especially), there were definitely the couple handfuls of "regulars" sitting AT the bars themselves, and that slowed service *somewhat*, if for no other reason that it was sometimes hard to wedge up to the bar for service.

 

We found that if we slid to the bar that's to the LEFT as you're looking at Topsiders, we were able to quickly get a bartender's attention, and got drinks fairly quickly.

 

With regard to servers around the pool - never had a hard time getting drink service. I would say that you've simply got to have some common sense and exercise a bit of patience. Those guys and gals HUSTLE and are sometimes taking up to a half dozen peoples' orders at once, which they then have to go to the bar, get those drinks, run everyone's cards, etc. I am always happy to add in another $1 or $2 on the slip, and I'm sure that didn't hurt either.

 

Not to mention, on at least 2 of the sea days, there was a guy walking around offering fresh fruit skewers to people as well.

 

Wow. I didn't mean for this to turn into such a long "cheerleading" entry. I hope it helps. Dawn is a beautiful ship, well run, and I know it doesn't appeal to everyone as it's not a mega ship but should definitely be worth considering for a solid, relaxing vacation at sea. :)

[rvsullivan]

I just read some of the reviews and the drink service seemed very poor.

 

We are looking at NCL Dawn out of NOLA as well. We have been on CCL & RC before and drink service is usually very good. Sometimes a long wait at the pool bars on sea days but I would expect that.

 

So can someone convince me to pull the trigger on Star or Dawn? Prices seem very good. We do have two kids (13 & 11) so has to be stuff for them to do.

 

Trying to convince someone to book a cruise they are not sold on is kind of a losing proposition. Not knowing you or your family I could never make a guess. However, when there are thousands on each cruise and folks find posts from a few that are unhappy, I would never make a decision based on that info. We have cruised Dawn a few times and have two more booked, Star one time and in all of those cases service has been nothing but the best. My time that I find acceptable for waiting for a drink and someone else are two completely different things. Both ships have been great and I've seen nothing to indicate it is any different now. Folks should remember that with the tens of thousands that sail every week on NCL, the few/couple of dozen that post on here are nothing more than a very vocal minority. The thousands of others just get off the ship and go home, mostly as "happy campers"!

[numberguy]

In the interest of full disclosure, I understand that if you order a drink in a port that has sales tax, you WILL be charged the sales tax and that will NOT be wiped out by the UDP. So if you get a glass of champagne in port to toast your sailaway, be aware that you might (depending on the port) be charged the sales tax, and that will be on your bill at the end of the cruise. Might be chump-change, but just wanted to let you know.

 

--Michael