NCL Cancelled Our 6 Night Epic Med Cruise :(

[MomTo3PrincessesInNJ]

I'm so sad about this. We specifically booked a cruise that began in Barcelona and ended in Marseille so that we would have extra time to spend in France after our cruise. We already have round trip flights booked from NY to Paris. We already calculated the cost of a train from Paris to Barcelona Into our budget, but now if we do what NCL wants -- which is to move our booking to a round trip Barcelona cruise, same departure day -- we have to pay for a train back to Paris AND we lose a day of touring.

 

All NCL is offering as compensation is a $50 on board credit, which won't cover half of the added train fare. I have my TA calling to see if we can disembark in Marseilles, understanding we are losing a day on the ship.

 

I know we still have lots of time to plan, but I'm very frustrated with this change.

[nealjr]

We received the below email from NCL yesterday. Anybody have a clue why they are doing this?

 

Dear Valued Guests & Travel Partners:

Norwegian Cruise Line has important information for you regarding Norwegian Epic's 7-Day Western Mediterranean sailing from Barcelona between April

23, 2017 and October 1, 2017. All guests booked on these sailings need to be aware of this change and travel professionals are asked to forward this

information to their clients.

In an effort to enhance the guest experience, the itinerary for the Norwegian Epic's 7-Day Western Mediterranean sailings departing between April 23, 2017

and October 1, 2017 has been adjusted. Norwegian Epic will now call on Palma Majorca, Spain on Saturday instead of Marseille, France.

Please review the revised itinerary information below.

Original Arrive Depart

Sun Barcelona, Spain 6:00 pm

Mon At Sea

Tue Naples/pompeii, Italy 7:00 am 7:00 pm

Wed Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy 6:00 am 7:00 pm

Thu Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy 7:00 am 7:00 pm

Fri Cannes, France 8:00 am 6:00 pm

Sat Marseille, France 7:00 am 4:00 pm

Sun Barcelona, Spain 5:00 am

Revised Arrive Depar

[MomTo3PrincessesInNJ]

My TA didn't forward me that email, she called and told me, and I didn't catch that Marseilles was completely off the itinerary. We'll that settles it, we're going to have to cancel. Looks like I'm off to plan a 12 day trip to France & Italy by train & car!

 

What makes me the most angry is that we did not buy plane tickets for our three children because we weren't able to have a room for 5 on the cruise (I refuse to buy two cabins for our family when all of our children are under 10 years) and the cruise was the center of the trip for us. Now we're not going on a cruise, and there's no way I'll ever find flights as cheap as I purchase them for (under $500 r/t).

 

What a bummer.

[BreeYark]

Palma Majorca was the original destination on that cruise until 2016, when they changed to Marseilles. Back in 2015, I received the same kind of email advising that the hours in Palma had been cut down from 7 hours to 5 hours (from 1pm-8pm to 2pm-7pm). With such a short time on shore, a lot of passengers ended up just staying on the ship that day. I guess they managed to work things out to make it a worthwhile stop once again...

[mscdivina2016]

My TA didn't forward me that email, she called and told me, and I didn't catch that Marseilles was completely off the itinerary. We'll that settles it, we're going to have to cancel. Looks like I'm off to plan a 12 day trip to France & Italy by train & car!

 

What makes me the most angry is that we did not buy plane tickets for our three children because we weren't able to have a room for 5 on the cruise (I refuse to buy two cabins for our family when all of our children are under 10 years) and the cruise was the center of the trip for us. Now we're not going on a cruise, and there's no way I'll ever find flights as cheap as I purchase them for (under $500 r/t).

 

What a bummer.

 

NCL is not covering yout flights? You we not taking the kids?

 

Steve

[hawkeyetlse]

Yikes, that is a huge change! I guess maybe not enough people were interested in Marseille as an embarkation/disembarkation port. Or they figured out (like many other international companies, sadly) that it is very difficult trying to do business in France…

 

Anyway, huge headache for people who already booked. As always… travel insurance (and not through NCL)!

[Alegeeter]

Before you give up and cancel, have your TA fight for you. They should call NCL and explain that you've already booked accommodations and flights around the original itinerary and $50 is not enough. They can either pay for flight change fees or pay to get you from one port to the other. They're not going to offer to do this for everyone off the bat but if you make a big enough fuss they'll give in eventually.

 

I don't think this is something you will need insurance for. You just need a voice and an advocate.

 

Good luck!

[MomTo3PrincessesInNJ]

We have travel insurance, but we aren't out any money. We're still going to France & Italy. I don't think we'd ever find flights to Europe as cheap as what we paid. It just sucks that we aren't cruising.

 

This us the 2nd time we've booked a cruise a year in advance and had the cruise cancelled (Disney did it to us in 2014). I think I should take the hint and stop booking cruises, lol.

[hawkeyetlse]

I mentioned travel insurance because they said they were cancelling the whole cruise, and it also sounded like this wasn't really the vacation they wanted in the first place (because they couldn't take the kids). Good travel insurance would allow them to cancel the entire trip (including airfare) and start all over with their vacation plans.

 

But on second thought, I agree that they should at least consider taking the cruise. Barcelona is very close to France. They get an extra day of cruising, some compensation (I agree they should try to negotiate for more), and they can still tour France after the cruise.

[jm485]

We have travel insurance, but we aren't out any money. We're still going to France & Italy. I don't think we'd ever find flights to Europe as cheap as what we paid. It just sucks that we aren't cruising.

 

This us the 2nd time we've booked a cruise a year in advance and had the cruise cancelled (Disney did it to us in 2014). I think I should take the hint and stop booking cruises, lol.

 

I'm a little confused.

 

Were you planning to not take your kids on this trip at all because you didn't want to book 2 staterooms? So now that the cruise part of the trip is off, you are upset because if there was no cruise, you would have planned to bring them but now you can't because the airfare is too expensive? Sorry for the questions, but I'm trying to understand the issue.

 

I'm also confused about the comment that the trip ended in Marseilles. It looks like the trip ended in Barcelona originally, so perhaps you were planning to leave a night early? If that's the case, why not disembark in Cannes and take the train from Cannes to Marseilles? It's about a 2 hour train ride and seems to run pretty regularly and costs about 25 Euro. There appears to be an option to leave luggage at the Cannes train station, so you could ditch your bags, spend the day in Cannes as planned and then take the train, spend one night in Marseilles and pick up your plans the next morning.

 

Yes -- it does mean you've got an additional night accommodation and train fare, but perhaps you could get some additional comp from NCL to cover them if you have specific details about the additional cost. You could also check with your travel insurance to see if it would do anything given the change in venue.

 

Alternatively, maybe another cruise line would work on your dates?

[hawkeyetlse]

I'm also confused about the comment that the trip ended in Marseilles. It looks like the trip ended in Barcelona originally, so perhaps you were planning to leave a night early? If that's the case, why not disembark in Cannes and take the train from Cannes to Marseilles?

They had scheduled two one-way cruises out of Barcelona on April 23 (3-day Barcelona to Civitavecchia, 6-day Barcelona to Marseille) in order to start the rolling embarkation with 7-day round trips out of 3 different ports. Now it looks like they have dropped Marseille and they go back to doing cruises out of Barcelona and Rome. I always thought it sounded like a nightmare to deal with 3 embarkation ports every week, but it's even more of a nightmare to change your mind about it after letting people book cruises for a year… :(

 

Anyway, they are being offered a 7-day cruise for the same price, plus some OBC. Getting off at Cannes would make it a 5-day cruise, and that seems like a big sacrifice just to be dropped off in France. I'd rather enjoy the whole cruise, get off in Barcelona, and take a train to Marseille or wherever (it's about 6 hours to Marseille, but there are lots of great places to stop off along the way).

[jm485]

Thanks -- that makes more sense.

 

I suppose the 3 day trip to Rome isn't an option, either. Another suggestion might be a river cruise in France, but not sure if that's the experience OP was looking for.

[b_cruise]

I know this is off topic a bit but I loved Mallorca. Way more than Marseilles so in my eyes take the cruise and train back to France... You will love it!! Go to valldemosa from Mallorca as it was one of my favorites.

 

I got the same letter for my June cruise 2017.. I have not booked my plane yet though so I am a happy cruiser as the change is a great one for me😄

[KeithJenner]

Yikes, that is a huge change! I guess maybe not enough people were interested in Marseille as an embarkation/disembarkation port. Or they figured out (like many other international companies, sadly) that it is very difficult trying to do business in France…

 

Anyway, huge headache for people who already booked. As always… travel insurance (and not through NCL)!

 

 

As was mentioned earlier, the new itinerary appears to be the one which we were originally booked on this spring, before Palma was changed to Marseilles.

 

I've done this cruise four times now and I don't think that we've ever had the exact same itinerary twice. On two occasions the itinerary was changed around (the first time only a couple of months out).

 

They seem to change around Cannes, Marseilles and Palma a lot. I would recommend to anyone who books this cruise to be aware that these ports can (and do) change often. I would be very wary of booking it for one of those ports in particular

 

Having said all that, the fact that Marseilles was an embarkation port would have suggested that it was a safer bet this time. As someone else said, I assume they went selling many cruises from there.

Edited August 18, 2016 by KeithJenner

[MomTo3PrincessesInNJ]

Sorry if my posts were confusing. When we decided to go to Europe for our 10th wedding anniversary the plan was to bring our 3 girls. Once we decided what we wanted to see (Italy & France) we started looking at cruise options. The dates were set so that we would be IN Paris on our actual anniversary. When we found a cruise that worked for us (ports & dates) we used our neighbor, a brand new TA, to book for us. When she told us that there weren't any cabins that sleep 5 on the ship we decided that financially the kids couldn't come (taking 3 flights and an extra cabin into account). We booked our cruise and R/T flights in June. Since then our flights have more than doubled in price.

 

I know this is how cruising works, and of course we could have stayed on, got off in Spain, and took the train back to France, but then we would miss our stay at Disneyland Paris (that's how we were ending our trip).

 

We decided yesterday to cancel the cruise. We'll get our deposit back. We have designed our own itinerary to visit France and Italy over 11 days, and even purchased our flights to get back and forth from Paris to Rome on Air France.

 

I was really looking forward to cruising with my husband, hoping to sway him into taking the whole family on a cruise, but I guess we'll try again another time.

[jm485]

Sorry if my posts were confusing. When we decided to go to Europe for our 10th wedding anniversary the plan was to bring our 3 girls. Once we decided what we wanted to see (Italy & France) we started looking at cruise options. The dates were set so that we would be IN Paris on our actual anniversary. When we found a cruise that worked for us (ports & dates) we used our neighbor, a brand new TA, to book for us. When she told us that there weren't any cabins that sleep 5 on the ship we decided that financially the kids couldn't come (taking 3 flights and an extra cabin into account). We booked our cruise and R/T flights in June. Since then our flights have more than doubled in price.

 

I know this is how cruising works, and of course we could have stayed on, got off in Spain, and took the train back to France, but then we would miss our stay at Disneyland Paris (that's how we were ending our trip).

 

We decided yesterday to cancel the cruise. We'll get our deposit back. We have designed our own itinerary to visit France and Italy over 11 days, and even purchased our flights to get back and forth from Paris to Rome on Air France.

 

I was really looking forward to cruising with my husband, hoping to sway him into taking the whole family on a cruise, but I guess we'll try again another time.

 

Sounds like you'll have a lovely trip, even without the cruise.

 

If you don't mind two recommendations: -- the garden of the Rodin Museum in Paris is, IMO, just about THE most romantic spot in the world. The museum is -- of course -- interesting too, but the garden is something else. If you are in Paris at a time when roses are blooming and have some time that's not filled up, try to get there.

 

The other is a restaurant in Rome called Colline Emiliane. I've been twice, on visits that were about 5 years apart. Great food, although not an especially romantic atmosphere. If you're over by the Trevi Fountain or Villa Borghese area at lunchtime, it's worth a stop.

 

Have a wonderful trip!

[hawkeyetlse]

Disneyland without the kids! Will they ever forgive you? :p

 

For your future cruise plans, NCL's newest ships (Breakaway, Getaway, Escape) have Family Oceanviews (category O1) that can accommodate 5 people in one cabin. The Sun has insides, OVs and balconies that hold 5. (All of the ships have large suites, too, but those are outside of most people's price range.)

[Quilting_Cruiser]

MomTo3PrincessesInNJ, I'm sorry about the change and having to cancel your cruise! I was disappointed to get the email my itinerary has changed from Marseilles to Palma, but at least I still get to cruise! I'm glad you've been able to work out your trip -- you'll get him on a cruise eventually! :D If I were you, I'd sign up for airfare alerts on the travel site that's named for a boat (kind of like a canoe ;)) as sometimes you can get great deals. Maybe you'll be able to take the girls after all!

 

 

I know this is off topic a bit but I loved Mallorca. Way more than Marseilles so in my eyes take the cruise and train back to France... You will love it!! Go to valldemosa from Mallorca as it was one of my favorites.

 

I got the same letter for my June cruise 2017.. I have not booked my plane yet though so I am a happy cruiser as the change is a great one for me😄

 

I'm glad to hear that. I was really looking forward to the stop in Marseilles and my TA emailed me yesterday to tell me of the change. I was very disappointed. But, I figured I'd do a little research about Palma and see what it's like. The last time I changed travel plans, I spent a few extra days in Barcelona instead of my original plans (long story), and absolutely fell in love with it! I hadn't had a desire to see Barcelona, but once I started researching it, I was really looking forward to it! So, maybe Palma will be a pleasant surprise. :D

[denatravels]

I had a RT from Marseille which was obviously cancelled.

I had previously looked into departing in Cannes-- it's not allowed.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[amurray88]

Is this definite? I'm cruising early July 2017 on Epic and have received no information. When I search for the cruise on NCL website it still has Marseille? We are leaving and returning from Barcelona.

 

I'd have liked Marseille...does NCL give any compensation for the change?

 

Thanks for your help :-)

[KeithJenner]

MomTo3PrincessesInNJ, I'm sorry about the change and having to cancel your cruise! I was disappointed to get the email my itinerary has changed from Marseilles to Palma, but at least I still get to cruise! I'm glad you've been able to work out your trip -- you'll get him on a cruise eventually! :D If I were you, I'd sign up for airfare alerts on the travel site that's named for a boat (kind of like a canoe ;)) as sometimes you can get great deals. Maybe you'll be able to take the girls after all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm glad to hear that. I was really looking forward to the stop in Marseilles and my TA emailed me yesterday to tell me of the change. I was very disappointed. But, I figured I'd do a little research about Palma and see what it's like. The last time I changed travel plans, I spent a few extra days in Barcelona instead of my original plans (long story), and absolutely fell in love with it! I hadn't had a desire to see Barcelona, but once I started researching it, I was really looking forward to it! So, maybe Palma will be a pleasant surprise. :D

 

 

 

Palma has some big advantages over Marseilles.

 

For a start it is easier to get to. Marseilles is a pain if you aren't on a tour.

 

Generally, Palma gets better comments than Marseilles. When our cruise was changed the other way there were a lot of unhappy people. Personally I'm not fussed about either port, although my view of Marseilles isn't from experience, I've never actually bothered about messing around with the relatively long shuttle bus journey.

[hawkeyetlse]

I'd have liked Marseille...does NCL give any compensation for the change?

In cases like this, where one port is substituted for another, and customers are notified more than 8 months in advance, there is no compensation. You can always call to complain and they might cough up $25…

 

Technically there should be an adjustment in port fees, but I wouldn't count on it (and for all I know, Palma could be more expensive than Marseille, so it could go either way).

[amurray88]

Thank you all... is it just a straight swap then? No other ports times/days affected?

 

Thanks,

Anthony

[Quilting_Cruiser]

Palma has some big advantages over Marseilles.

 

For a start it is easier to get to. Marseilles is a pain if you aren't on a tour.

 

Generally, Palma gets better comments than Marseilles. When our cruise was changed the other way there were a lot of unhappy people. Personally I'm not fussed about either port, although my view of Marseilles isn't from experience, I've never actually bothered about messing around with the relatively long shuttle bus journey.

 

Thanks, Keith.I'll roll with it. I took French in high school and have never been to France other than layovers on a couple international flights. LOL. Cannes is still on the itinerary. :)

[Quilting_Cruiser]

 

I'd have liked Marseille...does NCL give any compensation for the change?

 

 

I highly doubt it. It's a simple itinerary change. As a PP said, you can call and throw a fit and maybe they'll give you a tiny bit...

 

Thank you all... is it just a straight swap then? No other ports times/days affected?

 

Yep. I didn't study what my TA sent, but as I recall the only change was substituting Palma for Marseilles.

 

 

My cruise is 403 days away, so I can't get too tied up in knots about it. I haven't even started planning yet, so not a big deal for me. I feel bad for people who were planning to embark in Marseilles. :(