Free at Sea: patience pays off

[cdnsteelman]

Since the 2017 Star schedule came out I've been looking at the 18-day Singapore-Dubai cruise for my 50th. Under the old Pick 1 (or get all four for a suite) promotion this sailing didn't qualify because it was longer than 16 days. I checked again when the new promo started on Jan 4th and my sailing still didn't qualify. When I checked today THERE IT WAS, no restriction under Free at Sea. We've booked a suite and get all four and, on top of that, the associated gratuities for the beverage package and dining package are also included and my TA tossed a $1200 obc in for the cherry on top.

 

Add that to the Steelers winning their 7th Superbowl ;) in a few weeks and I'm a happy camper... er cruiser.

 

happy cruising all

cSm

[hawkeyetlse]

Nice! They seem to have removed the upper limit of 16 days, but they have not updated the tables of service charges to include cruises over 16 days. This is a great deal for people who choose the UBP. Looks like the SDP is still limited to 6 meals, and the shorex credit is still limited to 4 ports, and 250 minutes of internet will not go far over 16+ days. But any of these are still better than what they were offering before for these extra-long and extra-expensive cruises, which was a big fat nothing.

[RobTheGob]

Yeah - I was a little miffed that we only got "Pick 2" (Black Friday deal) on the 10 day leg of our 21+10 day B2B cruise in the spring. But - due to TA group pricing, we essentially got the cruise for CAD at par and have a good rate locked for extras and OBC.

 

So, I didn't push it too hard when I saw the promo had changed...

[june123]

Good result enjoy your cruise x

[Nancybell]

cdnsteelman, would you please email me info on your TA. I'm having trouble finding a good Canadian one.

slappala@gmail.com

[cdnsteelman]

cdnsteelman, would you please email me info on your TA. I'm having trouble finding a good Canadian one.

slappala@gmail.com

 

I don't use a Canadian one. I find I'm more successful with a roster of discounters in the US and I just shop my business among them. They can only give you the NCL price but are able to compete in other areas like insurance / obc, etc.

 

I've yet to find a Canadian discounter.

 

csm

[RobTheGob]

I don't use a Canadian one. I find I'm more successful with a roster of discounters in the US and I just shop my business among them. They can only give you the NCL price but are able to compete in other areas like insurance / obc, etc.

 

I've yet to find a Canadian discounter.

 

csm

 

Our Canadian TA (I'm not sure if I can mention their name here?) had rates that were at least 25% cheaper (and in some cases 35% less) than any other source. On top of that - since we booked in CAD, our rates for DSC, OBC and other charges are all locked in at 19%. I think the cruise rate we received was related to group rate that was locked in quite a while ago. In our case - we booked in late November for $13.9K, most Canadian prices at that time were close to $18K. The current price on NCL.com is $14.1K USD ($19.9K CAD today!) I think we got the last booking on that group rate, so it pays to shop around.

 

But all the other Canadian TA's we talked to just quoted the same prices we saw online...

[cdnsteelman]

Our Canadian TA (I'm not sure if I can mention their name here?) had rates that were at least 25% cheaper (and in some cases 35% less) than any other source. On top of that - since we booked in CAD, our rates for DSC, OBC and other charges are all locked in at 19%. I think the cruise rate we received was related to group rate that was locked in quite a while ago. In our case - we booked in late November for $13.9K, most Canadian prices at that time were close to $18K. The current price on NCL.com is $14.1K USD ($19.9K CAD today!) I think we got the last booking on that group rate, so it pays to shop around.

 

But all the other Canadian TA's we talked to just quoted the same prices we saw online...

 

Indeed you can save big if you stumble across a group rate.