What would you have done?

[wishfulone]

Last year in May we booked a starboard midship balcony cabin on the Norwegian Star sailing from Singapore to Venice via the Suez Canal. The itinerary was spectacular. So many ports and so many promises of an exceptional cruise. Our early booking bonuses for this B2B cruise included a free all inclusive beverage package, free gratuities and a great internet allowance.

 

Deposit paid we started to plan and prepurchased some very expensive shore excursions in wonderful ports with access to Kerala, Goa, Mumbai, Petra, Luxor, Valley fo the Kings, Jerusalem, and more.

 

In September we accidentally discovered that a staff member at NCL Sydney had switched our excellent prebooked cabin to a lesser one and onsold our cabin to people in Dubai.

 

Despite our protests and those of our Travel Agent (from the biggest travel organisation in Australia) the new management of NCL Sydney refused to reinstate our cabin. They admitted the error but weren't interested in finding a satisfactory solution. Instead they offered us lesser and/or guaranteed cabins expecting us to be grateful that they'd found us a place on the ship.

 

A direct appeal to Vivien Ewart, the Manager of Customer Services in Miami got us a dismissive response from a lesser employee.

 

We were devastated at the turn of events and felt we were left with no option but to cancel. What would you have done?

[sanger727]

If I was excited about this cruise as you say you were, I wouldn't cancel over a cabin selection. I would be upset and push for a higher level cabin or a partial refund/extra OBC. But I cruise for the itinerary moreso than anything else and it sounds like you were really excited about this one. Hopefully you found something comparable on another line.

 

 

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[BLACKBURNROVERS]

 

We were devastated at the turn of events and felt we were left with no option but to cancel. What would you have done?

Why had you no option but to cancel? You could have carried on with the booking. Did you lose your deposit? Probably not

[Freckles_51]

I agree with sanger727, would not have given up. You did not say what kind of cabin you were moved to, location on the ship, nor if you were given credit for the lesser cabin.

[reedy8]

Boy I would have been cheesed off too, perhaps I would have done the 'Current Affair' thing, they are always asking for good stories, and with Aust wide media attention maybe NCL would be embarassed into fixing the situation. One the other hand, it would appear from the current problem with the Norwegian Star that in the long run that the decision to cancel was a good one. Its had problems since December and apparently the nearest port that can do proper repairs is Singas and that probably would have delayed your cruise by a number of days and you would have missed out on lots of the ports that made the cruise so appealing in the first place.

[macandlucy]

Wow, that sucks. I don't even understand how a preselected/deposit paid cabin could be reassigned, unless they discovered there was something wrong with it, and needed to take it out of service for a bit. How would it even show up in the inventory as available?

 

Does that mean one must pay in full to reserve a particular cabin? Would that provide any sort of guarantee that your cabin isn't reassigned to someone else? Anyone know how this type of thing happens?

 

As others have said, perhaps it turned out to be a blessing, given the recent problems with that ship. Still, very disappointing.

[FreestyleNovice]

How much less can or could be a midship balcony in the same cat. on the Star? They are all on deck 9, no obstructions, no angled balconies and all mid ship so the only thing I can think of is distance to the staircase? Just wondering OP.

[rjrpar]

I think there is more to this story

 

 

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[traveler2100]

Vivien Ewart has a boss. And that boss has a boss. I would not have given up until I reached the highest ranking person in authority possible.

You may have given up too soon

[DinaS]

What do you consider a "lesser" one? Is it still a balcony cabin on the same deck? Is it a different category?

[sanger727]

Wow, that sucks. I don't even understand how a preselected/deposit paid cabin could be reassigned, unless they discovered there was something wrong with it, and needed to take it out of service for a bit. How would it even show up in the inventory as available?

 

 

 

.

 

From what OP said it sounds like they may have done a large group booking for someone (probably arranged through a TA) where they wanted a specific area of the ship or specific cabins and therefore bumped OP. NCL has certainly shown a willingness to bump individual customers in favor of high paying groups lately so that doesn't surprise me. They recently changed a European itinerary around so it ended in a different port and that was reported to be to accommodate a charter sailing; and someone else reported that le bistro was taken over by a kosher group every night for their sailing. So being bumped certainly sounds plausible.

 

 

 

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[NMLady]

If I was excited about this cruise as you say you were, I wouldn't cancel over a cabin selection. I would be upset and push for a higher level cabin or a partial refund/extra OBC. ....

 

That is what I would have done as well. Higher level cabin or a lesser level cabin with plenty of OBC

[triptolemus]

I think there is more to this story

 

Definitely.

 

How does OP know the people who got their cabin are from Dubai?

[js]

I, too, would have been very annoyed but your whole post was more about the wonderful ports you were visiting so, to me, that sounds like what you were most looking forward to for your trip.

 

While it does stink, you did have other options other than cancel. I would have found the next best cabin and moved on with my planning and tried to get more compensated, especially if you say your using a very big TA. But it sounds like that particular cabin was more important to you, which is fine since its your money and holiday.

 

 

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[Loonbeam]

Cannot tell you what I would have done because of three things I don't know..

 

1> Did your TA book your specific cabin direct or did they (as some larger TAs do) purchase a block of rooms for later assignment and held yours. If they purchased a block, NCL can reassign the rooms until contract lock.

 

2> You said NCL admitted the error. What exactly did they say? If they admitted the booking was changed inappropriately, then you have an avenue for a legal complaint with an admission of guilt (note that if the replacement category is of a higher class or higher price, they are allowed to do that without notice under the CoC)

 

3> Per #3 when you say Lesser do you mean Lesser in opinion or per #2 a lower category....

[Barb Nahoumi]

I would have been very angry about the change in cabin as well, but no I would not have canceled.

 

The opportunity to visit these wonderful ports, on a B2B, would far outweigh a cabin. How much time do you spend in the cabin anyway? If the new cabin was of a lesser category, will you be reimbursed the difference?

[casofilia]

That is what I would have done as well. Higher level cabin or a lesser level cabin with plenty of OBC

 

I agree that that would have been the way to go especially if you have paperwork that shows that you had booked the specific cabin and had paid the full deposit on it.

[BirdTravels]

You chose to book through a TA. Task the TA to bring this to a satisfactory resolution. Get on the TA and escalate within the TA daily.

[wishfulone]

Thanks for all the interesting replies. To answer the main question, we like to choose our cabin at the time of booking. Some people don't mind having a guaranteed category cabin but we really like to know exactly where we'll be on the ship. It adds to our enjoyment, particularly on longer cruises. This one was a 35 day cruise.Our mid ship balcony was definitely mid ship, starboard, the ideal side for this sailing.

 

NCL found us a mid forward cabin on the port side for one half of the cruise and said they'd allocate the cabin for the second half 2 weeks before sailing. About now in fact. The six month wait and worry would have been far too stressful for us.

 

As others said it's probably worked out for the best with the Star's current problems but at the time it was very upsetting for us.