Second person flies free with NCL

[smtr467]

I was just wondering what experiences any of you have had taking the offer for flying through NCL?  Too many problems...or good?

[CruiserBruce]

Is this a new promotion? If so, as NCL is not currently sailing, nobody could have any experience with the promotion yet.

[Host Kat]

8 hours ago, smtr467 said:

I was just wondering what experiences any of you have had taking the offer for flying through NCL?  Too many problems...or good?

 

@smtr467

 

Howdy from a fellow Texan and welcome back to the boards!!  I see it has been awhile since you have posted.

 

Thank you for your new thread on the Ask a Cruise Question forum. 👍  It is the forum for general questions regarding cruising. However, your thread was off-topic there since your topic concerns a specific cruise line. 

 

To help you out, I have moved your thread to the Norwegian Cruise Line forum where it will be on topic. The majority of your fellow Cruise Critic members that have sailed NCL frequent this forum and provide feedback here. Browse through the thread titles on this forum and l👀k for titles of interest. You will probably find your fellow Cruise Critic members have already posted questions and received answers that will be of interest to you.

 

I sincerely hope this will be helpful and glad to have you back aboard Cruise Critic! 

 

Happy sails,

 

Host Kat  

[Oakman58]

We only used NCL once for our flight.  We flew out of St. Louis on the day of the ship's departure and were met at the Miami airport by a NCL rep who put us on their bus to the port.  Everything was easy peasy.

For our return we were given a time to disembark the ship and we boarded their bus back to the airport.  The only negative was the flight they assigned us for our return was early evening so we spent most of the day in the airport.  For a fee we could have gotten a better return flight.

 

We just booked a Mexican Riviera cruise on the Bliss and we will be using NCL for our flights again.

[Sailing12Away]

We've done it a number of times, generally speaking it has always worked out well for us. 

 

They will put you on an early flight in, and a late flight home. As someone mentioned above, that may mean sitting at the airport for several hours. If that's the case, there's always the option to add on a post cruise excursion with airport transfers to kill some of the time - but you will still get to the airport stupid early.

 

Price check flights on your own for a ballpark idea of what it would cost. If you're only saving a couple of dollars, it might be better to book on your own. In our case, we generally saved ~$500+ by using their airfare so that's a good chunk of change. 

 

I've got a 2023 trip booked with the air promo for Iceland. Obviously I don't know real prices yet for the flights, but using similar dates for 2021 it would cost us $750/pp to fly from JFK - Iceland, then back home from Heathrow on our own. NCL is charging us $400/pp - so we're going with them and using the money saved to get a nice hotel pre-cruise.

[hallux]

10 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Is this a new promotion? If so, as NCL is not currently sailing, nobody could have any experience with the promotion yet.

Second person flies free is a new spin on the "free/reduced airfare" promotion that's been running since I sailed on NCL in 2019.  Nobody has taken a trip with this exact promotion.

 

@smtr467there are several threads over the last month or so in the NCL forum section related to this promotion.  It works in the same way as the previous free/reduced airfare - accept the promotion at the time of booking or prior to final payment (if you don't take it initially it may result in a re-fare of your cruise).  You need to notify in advance if you want to deviate your flights 1-2 days before and/or after the cruise.  Airport transfers are usually added automatically, if you don't want them be sure to ask to have them removed as early as possible.  At some point between final payment and approximately 30 days prior to the cruise NCL will notify you of the final flight schedule and give you confirmation numbers.

 

You DO NOT get to pick the flights yourself so you could end up with a 6AM flight to the port city and/or a red-eye from the port city to home (ask how I know lol).  Once the flights are ticketed you can not change them.  You CAN register on the airline website and select seats, pay for a cabin upgrade (NCL books cattle-class) and pre-pay for luggage.

 

Oh yeah - most or ALL of this is laid out in the terms of the promotion - https://www.ncl.com/termsandconditions/promotions

[vacationut]

We flew through NCL in March 2020. We done a 2 days early deviation for an extra $50. I don't recall having any issue with the flights there or back. I do recall the price for two was less than what it would have been booking for one if we booked ourselves. 

 

One thing to note, you will probably NOT get direct flights even if there are several flights from your airport to the airport near the port.  

[Sailing12Away]

Regarding direct flight - it depends on the airport you're using and where you're headed. I'm going out of JFK, so I guess I was lucky that every flight of ours (except Hawaii) was direct. Hawaii we flew into San Francisco first, then hopped one gate next door for the next leg to Honolulu.

 

If you're using the free flights promo, make sure you complete your online check-in ASAP and don't wait until the last minute. If they're missing any info they can't book you on your flights. My SIL took a similar Southern Caribbean trip to us leaving from San Juan and we flew direct, she didn't. She also waited to enter her passport info until a month before sailing and didn't stay on top of her edocs to get her record locator number. So our flight experiences were very different from hers, but I chalk that up to user error.

[smtr467]

13 hours ago, Oakman58 said:

We only used NCL once for our flight.  We flew out of St. Louis on the day of the ship's departure and were met at the Miami airport by a NCL rep who put us on their bus to the port.  Everything was easy peasy.

For our return we were given a time to disembark the ship and we boarded their bus back to the airport.  The only negative was the flight they assigned us for our return was early evening so we spent most of the day in the airport.  For a fee we could have gotten a better return flight.

 

We just booked a Mexican Riviera cruise on the Bliss and we will be using NCL for our flights again.

Thank you for the info.  We are thinking of booking a cruise out of Copenhagen and have several people in our group.  We are just worried we won't fly together.

[smtr467]

12 hours ago, vacationut said:

We flew through NCL in March 2020. We done a 2 days early deviation for an extra $50. I don't recall having any issue with the flights there or back. I do recall the price for two was less than what it would have been booking for one if we booked ourselves. 

 

One thing to note, you will probably NOT get direct flights even if there are several flights from your airport to the airport near the port.  

Thank you for the info.  Hopefully, we will be going from Texas to Copenhangen in 2022.  It's a long flight and we were worried that not all in our group will not be on the same plane.  Glad to hear your experience was a good one.

[hallux]

1 minute ago, smtr467 said:

We are just worried we won't fly together.

That situation is addressed in the terms I linked above.  Look for the "travel with guarantee" wording.  You DO need to be leaving from the same airport though...

[smtr467]

23 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Is this a new promotion? If so, as NCL is not currently sailing, nobody could have any experience with the promotion yet.

They have had this promotion since opening up their cruising again.  They have had this promotion in the past before the pandemic.  Excited just to cruise again.  Thanks

[smtr467]

Just now, hallux said:

That situation is addressed in the terms I linked above.  Look for the "travel with guarantee" wording.  You DO need to be leaving from the same airport though...

Thanks

[smtr467]

13 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

We've done it a number of times, generally speaking it has always worked out well for us. 

 

They will put you on an early flight in, and a late flight home. As someone mentioned above, that may mean sitting at the airport for several hours. If that's the case, there's always the option to add on a post cruise excursion with airport transfers to kill some of the time - but you will still get to the airport stupid early.

 

Price check flights on your own for a ballpark idea of what it would cost. If you're only saving a couple of dollars, it might be better to book on your own. In our case, we generally saved ~$500+ by using their airfare so that's a good chunk of change. 

 

I've got a 2023 trip booked with the air promo for Iceland. Obviously I don't know real prices yet for the flights, but using similar dates for 2021 it would cost us $750/pp to fly from JFK - Iceland, then back home from Heathrow on our own. NCL is charging us $400/pp - so we're going with them and using the money saved to get a nice hotel pre-cruise.

Thank you for the info.  We are planning our trip from Denmark to England in 2022 on the new ship, Prima. That is a good savings on your trip and hope to save some on ours.

[smtr467]

4 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

Regarding direct flight - it depends on the airport you're using and where you're headed. I'm going out of JFK, so I guess I was lucky that every flight of ours (except Hawaii) was direct. Hawaii we flew into San Francisco first, then hopped one gate next door for the next leg to Honolulu.

 

If you're using the free flights promo, make sure you complete your online check-in ASAP and don't wait until the last minute. If they're missing any info they can't book you on your flights. My SIL took a similar Southern Caribbean trip to us leaving from San Juan and we flew direct, she didn't. She also waited to enter her passport info until a month before sailing and didn't stay on top of her edocs to get her record locator number. So our flight experiences were very different from hers, but I chalk that up to user error.

Thanks.  I am a planner and do everything ASAP also.  That's why I'm checking everything over a year out from our cruise.  I am not much of a risk taker and want to be fairly sure of everything turning out right.   We fly out of DFW and the minium flight to Copenhagen seems to be over 14 hours (UGH), but worth it!!!

 

[robcolem]

Has anyone ever been able to use the Fly Free/Reduced Airfare offer from a small town airport?  Closest airport for me on NCL's list is a drive and the hotel and parking aren't worth it even if the flight is reduced cost.

[ceilidh1]

I'm thinking of trying out NCL air for my Bliss sailing in December. It's a short flight from Vancouver to LAX but the pricing works out less than booking independently - plus, I don't want to run the risk of booking flights independently and having the cruise cancelled on me! I like to have control over flights (having to stop on a 3.5 hour flight isn't ideal) but figured I would give it a go with NCL! Their transfers seem a little steep, though - do folks that use the air usually keep those or make their own way to/from port?

[Redsky5292]

42 minutes ago, smtr467 said:

Thank you for the info.  Hopefully, we will be going from Texas to Copenhangen in 2022.  It's a long flight and we were worried that not all in our group will not be on the same plane.  Glad to hear your experience was a good one.

We flew from Boston to Copenhagen in 2019 and we had a direct flight both ways.  We flew Scandinavian Air and had a great experience.  We bought our air fare through NCL for that trip.  When we landed in Copenhagen we had arranged for transport from the airport to the port through NCL.  We ended up going on a two hour bus tour of the city with a guide.  It was really neat!

[saltsandknit]

You can cancel the transport fee if you want and get a taxi which will be about 50$ from airport to cruise port. Unless the taxi rates have increased. We just stick with the NCL transportation for ease. I have learned to love one and done booking

[classy_cruiser]

30 minutes ago, saltsandknit said:

You can cancel the transport fee if you want and get a taxi which will be about 50$ from airport to cruise port. Unless the taxi rates have increased. We just stick with the NCL transportation for ease. I have learned to love one and done booking

If we do the flight deviation and arrive 2 days earlier in Athens, Greece, does that automatically reduce the transfer fee? I spoke to someone on the phone who said we would get a $25 credit towards the booking for the requesting the deviation. Maybe this is because we would no longer need transport from the airport to the pier? Do we also need to request the transfer fee to be updated? Not sure how that works if we don't want the transfer on the way in but we do want it on the way out. Or should we just request for it to be removed completely and take the bus from the pier to the airport on the way back?

[saltsandknit]

When we did this in Miami the transport fee stayed the same and the bus came to the hotel. There are a lot of cruisers at the hotel. I have not done it out of the county and I booked the hotel from NCL. I would call NCL and see what your options are.  

[Jamesatgsu]

49 minutes ago, classy_cruiser said:

If we do the flight deviation and arrive 2 days earlier in Athens, Greece, does that automatically reduce the transfer fee? I spoke to someone on the phone who said we would get a $25 credit towards the booking for the requesting the deviation. Maybe this is because we would no longer need transport from the airport to the pier? Do we also need to request the transfer fee to be updated? Not sure how that works if we don't want the transfer on the way in but we do want it on the way out. Or should we just request for it to be removed completely and take the bus from the pier to the airport on the way back?

Yes, the reduced our transfer fee from $150 to $75 and gave us a $25 credit. All happened upon switching our flights to 2 days early. We just received our flight information last week for our July 25th cruise. We have 2 layovers on the way over (each just under 2 hours), and one on the way back.

[hallux]

3 hours ago, robcolem said:

Has anyone ever been able to use the Fly Free/Reduced Airfare offer from a small town airport?

I've used it from Albany, NY.  Maybe not as "small town" as you're thinking of, but hardly a bustling metropolis.  They put me on Delta and routed me through ATL to get to LAX.  Return from LAX was through PHL.

[classy_cruiser]

33 minutes ago, Jamesatgsu said:

Yes, the reduced our transfer fee from $150 to $75 and gave us a $25 credit. All happened upon switching our flights to 2 days early. We just received our flight information last week for our July 25th cruise. We have 2 layovers on the way over (each just under 2 hours), and one on the way back.

Thank you so much! I'm dreading the flight itinerary. The chance of missing the cruise with all those connections seems very high. 

[Jamesatgsu]

8 minutes ago, classy_cruiser said:

Thank you so much! I'm dreading the flight itinerary. The chance of missing the cruise with all those connections seems very high. 

Yeah, I definitely didn't want to fly in the day of the cruise like originally scheduled just in case.