NCL Gem staff having trouble with mixed usage of dining package

[pokerpro5]

Here's the situation:

 

I am on the Gem right now.

 

We have four people (two adults, two kids, two rooms), and all four of us have a 3-day specialty restaurant package (SDP).

 

It is well known that, given the new "A la carte" menus, you have the choice whether to use your specialty dining credit or hold off and just pay a la carte pricing, saving it for another night when it you'll get better use of it.

 

So let's say you are only in the mood for a salad, or you want to order a cheap entree and have no appetizer. In these cases, it's not smart not to waste a SDP credit on such a cheap meal, and just pay the $11 or whatever it costs a la carte.

 

Following so far?

 

Good.

 

Now here's where the problem comes in...

 

When you make the reservation, they want to know if it's a "dining package" or "a la carte", which seems strange to me because that should be handled at the end.

 

Well, now I know why they are asking that.

 

They have a very hard time when only part of the party uses their SDP, while part pays a la carte.

 

They want either everyone to use it, or no one to use it.

 

Mind you, this isn't a rule. You ARE allowed to have certain people in the party "save" their SDP for later, while others use it now. However, this wreaks havoc upon their system, and nobody is trained to deal with this.

 

So what happens?

 

They end up counting your SDP by "reservation". So if one person in your party uses the SDP, then it is assumed they all did, and it's absolutely hell to get that reversed.

 

Or at least that's how it's working on the Gem with my personal experience.

 

Even more frustrating is the fact that you can't check if they are doing it correctly. I tried the front desk, the restaurants reservations desk, and the maitre d' a specialty, and all conceded that "the system won't let us check" how many SDP credits each of us have left from our original 3.

 

So they are just suggesting we assume it was done correctly, keep dining, and find out the bad news at the end of a future meal.

 

Right. Zero chance I'm doing that.

 

I want to say that everyone I've dealt with has been patient and gracious about it. They've tried to solve it, but they can't, which leads them to just giving me a wild guess and hoping I accept it and go away.

 

One maitre d' said she will look deeply into this and get an answer for me.

 

If she is unable to, I will go to the overall restaurant manager and hash this out with him/her.

 

Very frustrating. They're my dining credits, and I should be able to use them how I want (and easily find out how many are left), but apparently this is a herculean task for them.

Edited November 23, 2016 by pokerpro5

[pokerpro5]

I should add that the problem seems to involve two people in the same stateroom doing different things.

 

So if person #1 wants to use the SDP and goes with person #2 in the same stateroom who pays a la carte, that's where the issue comes up.

[hawkeyetlse]

I should add that the problem seems to involve two people in the same stateroom doing different things.

Thanks for clarifying, because I was going to say that we didn't have any issues (on a different ship) with 2 people using the SDP and 2 people using a Platinum voucher on the same reservation for 4. But it was always one cabin using the SDP and one cabin using the voucher.

 

I also found it annoying that there was no way to keep track of our SDP credits during the cruise. It would be nice if this info appeared on the ticket after each credit was used up, like when you use a gift card. I'm kind of surprised to learn that even the restaurant and front desk staff can't access this information. :(

[1025cruise]

If I were to take a lucky guess, I believe the assumption is that if you buy the package, you wouldn't be dining in the specialty restaurant to begin with if you didn't intend to use the credit.

[DirtyDawg]

WOW!

 

I didn't realize that NCL was a government operation.:eek:

Edited November 24, 2016 by DirtyDawg

[pokerpro5]

Maitre d' unable to solve it, though he was nice and tried hard.

 

I asked for the overall restaurant manager.

 

She confirmed that I found a flaw in their system.

 

She said it had never come up before, but indeed they have no way to let the second person use the SDP credit while the first person doesn't.

 

Always defaults to bill the first person on the room, which is incorrect.

 

I suggested they change it so each card is swiped to bill their own SDP, rather than doing it by cabin.

 

She said she agreed and would suggest this to Miami.

 

She said I should work for NCL. LOL

 

She said she would comp our remaining speciality meals once we run out, for all the trouble. Appreciated that.

[jaja]

 

She said she agreed and would suggest this to Miami.

 

She said I should work for NCL. LOL

 

She said she would comp our remaining speciality meals once we run out, for all the trouble. Appreciated that.

 

You must have spoken with Loredana ...She is very nice and does try to make things right..I have met her a few times on the Gem...

[BirdTravels]

YOU and only you sign the bill at the end of the meal. If it shows an incorrect charge, don't sign it. Send it back. Don't sit there and play the victim, you have control whether your signature is on the bill. Each person's meal is rung up separately. And very one should get an individual bill. If not, send it back.

 

We do mixed charges all the time. And yes,,,, it is usually wrong the first go. And we send it back,,,, until it is correct. The correct items charged to the right people who are paying a la carte,,, etc.

[luvtheships]

My 2 cents....just go and get the full meal.

 

Go 3 times to specialties and then use the mdr. It's very nice btw.

 

None of the specialties are worth paying for anymore

 

Back in 2011 to 2013 absolutely worth it but not now

 

Of course new cruisers don't realize this

 

Op I know you arent a new cruiser btw

 

 

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[pokerpro5]

YOU and only you sign the bill at the end of the meal. If it shows an incorrect charge, don't sign it. Send it back. Don't sit there and play the victim, you have control whether your signature is on the bill. Each person's meal is rung up separately. And very one should get an individual bill. If not, send it back.

 

We do mixed charges all the time. And yes,,,, it is usually wrong the first go. And we send it back,,,, until it is correct. The correct items charged to the right people who are paying a la carte,,, etc.

 

Did you even read my post?

 

It is not possible to charge the SDP to second occupant of the room while not the first occupant.

 

This isn't a matter of me signing incorrect bills and "playing victim".

 

How about you seek to understand what you're reading before making snarky comments?

[hawkeyetlse]

I don't think everyone should get an individual bill to sign at the end of the meal. If that's what your party requires, they should be able to accommodate that, but for most parties, producing one ticket per cabin is perfectly sufficient (either because everyone is indeed paying for the meal in the same way, or because it's all being charged to the same account anyway).

 

One consequence of the way they do things is that the people in the cabin who have the SDP are kind of indistinguishable/interchangeable to them. What I suspect happens is that they start using up all of guest 1's SDP credits for everyone in the cabin, then guest 2's, etc.

 

In other words, I think they would have been able to let guest 1 use the SDP and let guest 2 pay à la carte, is that right? If so, you could have just done that, and then switched over after guest 1's SDP credits were used up. Even if what you ordered and ate was the other way around. In my experience, they don't seem to care that much who ordered what when it comes to ringing everything up. (Yes, this means that people not using the SDP sometimes end up getting their apps and desserts comped on someone else's SDP, and yes, that is the end of the world. :rolleyes:)

[pokerpro5]

I don't think everyone should get an individual bill to sign at the end of the meal. If that's what your party requires, they should be able to accommodate that, but for most parties, producing one ticket per cabin is perfectly sufficient (either because everyone is indeed paying for the meal in the same way, or because it's all being charged to the same account anyway).

 

One consequence of the way they do things is that the people in the cabin who have the SDP are kind of indistinguishable/interchangeable to them. What I suspect happens is that they start using up all of guest 1's SDP credits for everyone in the cabin, then guest 2's, etc.

 

In other words, I think they would have been able to let guest 1 use the SDP and let guest 2 pay à la carte, is that right? If so, you could have just done that, and then switched over after guest 1's SDP credits were used up. Even if what you ordered and ate was the other way around. In my experience, they don't seem to care that much who ordered what when it comes to ringing everything up. (Yes, this means that people not using the SDP sometimes end up getting their apps and desserts comped on someone else's SDP, and yes, that is the end of the world. :rolleyes:)

 

I thought about this, too.

 

I asked them if the SDPs are just combined and assigned to a cabin.

 

As you said, in that case it wouldn't matter to me, as it would break out the same.

 

However, they kept repeating that it was assigned to each individual, and that indeed I wouldn't be able to use mine once my three were used up, even if the other person in my cabin had some left.

 

While they could have been wrong about that (and just trying to avoid people knowing about this trick), I didn't want a mess at the end of a meal when I try to rightfully use my SDP and it gets rejected.

 

Maybe next time I will try this experiment, and see if it works.

[tel2]

So, on our last cruise, we had 3 of us in a suite. The first two of us had 5 night dining package, and we were both platinum, and the 3rd person had nothing. So, our plan was to each take the 3rd person as our guest on platinum, while the other of us would use sdp.

 

And the first time we tried to explain that was what we were going to do, we had the same problem as pokerpro. On epic. Big pain. Tried to talk us into having the third person pay Al a carte, which I refused to do. We left without eating there, but The concierge came by as we were arguing with the maître d' and told us this was a problem they had encountered before but it only seemed to be a problem when the first and second person in the room were tied to the same credit card. Made no sense to me. Not sure if this is even right, but it worked for us. We went to guest services and changed the credit card on my account to just one just for me, my husband used original one we checked in with. The next night we tried again, and the maître d' told us it was going to be a problem, and then he tried to put it through and it was fine. There were no further problems using the second platinum in same manner.

[Moby0215]

We have always had separate checks for each person. This was done automatically, we did not ask for this. And each one of us had card swiped and signed individually. We have never been on the Gem but will be on her Dec 4, so will find out then.

 

 

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[sanger727]

Agree this needs to be fixed. I'm curious though what would happen if say, the second person in cabin one plus cabin 2 ate together without the first person in cabin one. Is that an issue or can they separate it out fine then? If say dad is feeling sick and mom wants to eat with just the kids.

 

 

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[pokerpro5]

So, on our last cruise, we had 3 of us in a suite. The first two of us had 5 night dining package, and we were both platinum, and the 3rd person had nothing. So, our plan was to each take the 3rd person as our guest on platinum, while the other of us would use sdp.

 

And the first time we tried to explain that was what we were going to do, we had the same problem as pokerpro. On epic. Big pain. Tried to talk us into having the third person pay Al a carte, which I refused to do. We left without eating there, but The concierge came by as we were arguing with the maître d' and told us this was a problem they had encountered before but it only seemed to be a problem when the first and second person in the room were tied to the same credit card. Made no sense to me. Not sure if this is even right, but it worked for us. We went to guest services and changed the credit card on my account to just one just for me, my husband used original one we checked in with. The next night we tried again, and the maître d' told us it was going to be a problem, and then he tried to put it through and it was fine. There were no further problems using the second platinum in same manner.

 

I believe this.

 

Presumably if you use two different credit cards in each cabin (one for each occupant), that will split the cabin into two separate accounts, thus preventing this problem.

 

However this solution would not work for me, as the 2nd person in my cabin is a minor.

[pokerpro5]

Agree this needs to be fixed. I'm curious though what would happen if say, the second person in cabin one plus cabin 2 ate together without the first person in cabin one. Is that an issue or can they separate it out fine then? If say dad is feeling sick and mom wants to eat with just the kids.

 

I believe you will run into the same issue I did. If the second person on the cabin goes to a speciality and the first one doesn't, I believe it will bill the first person's SDP anyway.

 

At the moment there is no way to specify whose gets billed, aside from that separate credit card trick described a few posts above.

[pokerpro5]

We have always had separate checks for each person. This was done automatically, we did not ask for this. And each one of us had card swiped and signed individually. We have never been on the Gem but will be on her Dec 4, so will find out then.

 

 

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Unfortunately I don't think this will help.

 

The issue is that you can't choose which occupant of the room gets billed, so separate checks will not solve this particular issue.

[Moby0215]

I believe you will run into the same issue I did. If the second person on the cabin goes to a speciality and the first one doesn't, I believe it will bill the first person's SDP anyway.

 

 

 

At the moment there is no way to specify whose gets billed, aside from that separate credit card trick described a few posts above.

 

 

 

Like I said in a previous post, my wife and my meals have always been billed and swiped separate. Same credit card, but never been on the Gem. Wonder what the difference is?

 

 

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[Sparkygirl]

I believe this.

 

 

 

Presumably if you use two different credit cards in each cabin (one for each occupant), that will split the cabin into two separate accounts, thus preventing this problem.

 

 

 

However this solution would not work for me, as the 2nd person in my cabin is a minor.

 

 

 

We have done this with minor children, we split the minor child off of the cabin credit card and open a cash account for the child. This child is also often the one who a la carte's at the specialty restaurants. We cruise with my stepchildren and their mom so it is easier accounting wise if each child has their own account and mom or dad are responsible for charges of the child while they were with the respective parent.

 

 

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