18 or 20 days -- I've never seen NCL do anything like this

[Turtles06]

We are booked on the Gem's 20-day Panama Canal cruise leaving New York on Jan. 4, 2020 and disembarking in San Francisco on January 24.  Since this cruise opened for booking a very long time ago, it's been this way, 20 days from NY to San Francisco.  But yesterday, long past final payment and only 72 days from sailing, NCL posted, alongside our 20-day cruise, a separately bookable 18-day itinerary on the Gem that is identical to ours but ends in Los Angeles.  (And NCL did the same for the Gem's 21-day return trip to NY leaving San Francisco on January 24; there's now a 19-day bookable cruise leaving from LA to NY.)  

 

I know that there are sailings in the Med where people can embark (and then disembark) in different ports, such as Barcelona and Civitavecchia, but, as far as I know, those cruises are sold that way from the outset and, I believe, are the same cruises, not shorter cruises broken out of a longer cruise, especially a few months from the sail date.  The other odd thing here is the pricing for the new "shorter" 18-day cruise broken out of our 20-day cruise: the prices are exactly the same as they are for the 20-night cruise across all cabin categories, and no promos are "currently" being offered at all.  Below is a screen shot of a comparison between the two cruises for non-suite cabins (it's the same for the suites as well).

 

Has anyone ever seen NCL do something like this, let alone so close to the sailing date?  There are a number of available cabins on our cruise, including suites.  Maybe they are trying to draw folks from Southern California, who perhaps care more about the convenience of getting off in LA (or boarding there), and aren't comparing the prices with the 20-night cruise?    Perhaps the shorter cruises were posted for booking without the prices being set correctly?   Perhaps there are already a bunch of folks from CA on the 20-night cruise who've asked for permission to disembark "early" in LA; would selling a separate itinerary disembarking in LA make it easier and/or less costly for NCL to give them permission to do so? 

 

Speculation is one of the things we do well here on CC, so speculate away as to what has prompted NCL to do this.  🤣  And it would be interesting to know if you've seen NCL do something similar in the past, and the circumstances in which it did so.

 

Edited October 25, 2019 by Turtles06

[schildiams]

You will all need to disembark and go through customs in Los Angeles now. This happened to us once on a round trip Bahamas from New York that stopped in Florida last instead of first - everyone on the entire ship was forced to get off and go through customs - even if you had no intention of taking an excursion that day. And it has to be by a certain time - like 10am. What they didn’t tell everyone is that it would take literally hours to get back on the ship. It was mayhem. If they would have better explained the situation to us, we would have made plans to get off and come back later in the day when things had settled. Be prepared!

Edited October 25, 2019 by schildiams

[shof515]

46 minutes ago, schildiams said:

You will all need to disembark and go through customs in Los Angeles now. This happened to us once on a round trip Bahamas from New York that stopped in Florida last instead of first - everyone on the entire ship was forced to get off and go through customs - even if you had no intention of taking an excursion that day.

 

Many many years i was on Florida/Bahamas cruises and the same thing happen to me with needing to clear customs in Florida. It can also happen on the Canada/New England cruises tooo 

 

Back to the topic,it looks like Norwegian is giving people an option of when to disembark the ship. If airfare back to their hometown is cheaper out of Los Angles then it might benefit a few people 

[mugtech]

Gotta wonder if the port fees will be less for those missing the last two ports.  On the Sun everyone had to do the customs shuffle when we hit LA after the canal on our way to Vancouver, so having people disembarking in LA does not change that.

[mugtech]

Wonder if disembarking in LA means you changed your cruise after final payment.  Will NCL charge extra for those originally scheduled to SF?

[Turtles06]

1 minute ago, mugtech said:

Gotta wonder if the port fees will be less for those missing the last two ports.  On the Sun everyone had to do the customs shuffle when we hit LA after the canal on our way to Vancouver, so having people disembarking in LA does not change that.

 

Thanks, I didn’t think it would. It’s the first U.S. port after all the foreign ports. 

[schildiams]

26 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

 

Thanks, I didn’t think it would. It’s the first U.S. port after all the foreign ports. 

Oh true - this was going to happen anyway. With my cruise it happened bc Florida was changed from first port after nyc to first port after Bahamas.

[EllieinNJ]

2 hours ago, schildiams said:

You will all need to disembark and go through customs in Los Angeles now. This happened to us once on a round trip Bahamas from New York that stopped in Florida last instead of first - everyone on the entire ship was forced to get off and go through customs - even if you had no intention of taking an excursion that day. And it has to be by a certain time - like 10am. What they didn’t tell everyone is that it would take literally hours to get back on the ship. It was mayhem. If they would have better explained the situation to us, we would have made plans to get off and come back later in the day when things had settled. Be prepared!

We are on the 21 day Panama Canal from NY to Seattle in April.  After Mexico our next stops are LA, Victoria then Seattle.  Will we have to do customs in LA too?  We were planning on taking an excursion at that port.

 

[mugtech]

1 minute ago, EllieinNJ said:

We are on the 21 day Panama Canal from NY to Seattle in April.  After Mexico our next stops are LA, Victoria then Seattle.  Will we have to do customs in LA too?  We were planning on taking an excursion at that port.

 

Yes you will.

[doghouse09]

Might be better purchasing one through NCL and hopefully this will speed things up.

[mking8288]

Maybe, just maybe, NCL facing a bit of headwind selling these cruises in filling those remaining unsold cabins ... playing with the gateway cities along the route.  And/or for folks who live and/or can leave/fly home from LAX, they don't need to travel to/from San Fran ?  

 

I seemed to recall NCL doing that on some of their Asia cruises, especially the one-ways ... 

 

As for getting off the ship or reporting to designated lounge/MDR onboard to clear CBP in US ports ... that can be a pain, even when it was done - and still repeated at the final/last port for disembarkation.  Happened to us this Spring on the Dawn's Canda/New England cruise, cleared by CBP on the ship with face-to-face passport checks, etc. - then Portland & Newport, still had to do CBP & customs again in NYC for the turnaround/disembark ... 

[Starry Eyes]

Well, it is nice that NCL has decided to offer the option.  There are, no doubt, a substantial number of people who wish to disembark in Southern CA for a variety of reasons (they live there or they wish to visit they or they need fly back home a couple days sooner, etc). Similar for embarkation for the other cruise...just a convenient option for some passengers.  I am surprised that the option is showing up so late and it hard to know the reason.  Still, late than never.  Personally, I understand pricing being the same, if the market will bare it.  After all, cabins will be empty for the extra couple days and the same crew will be on board those days, so passengers should pay the two days whether they wish to use them or not.  And anybody who have already asked for an exception has paid full fare, so they may not be demanding a partial refund if prices are the same.

[bonvoyagie]

I noticed the LA to NYC cruise tonight on Cruise Timetables - We are booked on the SF to NYC and have been for quite some time. I am not sure when it was added but I bet it is because the other two longer ones were not selling. As for the LA stop on the cruise leaving from NYC - that will be a royal pain to go through immigration in LA. I believe that on the opposite cruise we will not have any issues in LA - other than onboarding some new pax - maybe. I have also been on the Dawn in Bar Harbor where they do the immigration check onboard. Glad I was in a suite as we had a separate line and were through the process in a few minutes.

[Turtles06]

8 minutes ago, bonvoyagie said:

I noticed the LA to NYC cruise tonight on Cruise Timetables - We are booked on the SF to NYC and have been for quite some time. I am not sure when it was added but I bet it is because the other two longer ones were not selling.

 

The two shorter cruises were added yesterday, long past final payment and 72 days before the Jan. 4 cruise from NY to SF (the one before yours).   Since the prices for the shorter cruises are the same for the original cruises, and right now there are NO promos for the "shorter" cruises (making them even that much more expensive), it's hard to know how that would fill cabins, unless folks wanting to disembark or board in LA would pay a great deal more for that convenience.    

[kjquilts]

9 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

 

The two shorter cruises were added yesterday, long past final payment and 72 days before the Jan. 4 cruise from NY to SF (the one before yours).   Since the prices for the shorter cruises are the same for the original cruises, and right now there are NO promos for the "shorter" cruises (making them even that much more expensive), it's hard to know how that would fill cabins, unless folks wanting to disembark or board in LA would pay a great deal more for that convenience.    

 

Although NCL is not showing any promo perks for the "shorter" cruises if you pick a meta category and then a stateroom category you will see the usual promo perk offers.

 

 

[Turtles06]

6 minutes ago, kjquilts said:

 

Although NCL is not showing any promo perks for the "shorter" cruises if you pick a meta category and then a stateroom category you will see the usual promo perk offers.

 

 

 

Ah, silly me, I believed the NCL web site where it says, for each of the shorter cruises, "There are currently no deals for this cruise."  As you said, if you actually go thru a mock booking for a specific category, the perks show up.  (Thank you for pointing that out.) So it just makes the shorter cruises "merely" the same price as the two longer ones. 😊