New Platinum member on NCL

[stp108]

Question for those of you who are platinum, do you make your reservations as the specialty restaurant and tell them you are platinum so you can get the free meal?  I see two of the perks are dinner at Cagney's or Le Bistro and dinner at Moderna or La Cucina.  We're booked on a western Carib out of Miami in December and this will be my first cruise as a platinum member.  I discovered I should have gotten a discount on spa services on my most recent trip as a gold member, but they didn't give me the discount and I didn't realize I was due for one.  That would have taken a nice chunk off of that spa bill!

 

[complawyer]

you will find a card in you cabin advising  you of the  2 free meals, take the card with  you. dont forget you also get 2 free meals if  you took the dining package.

 

in any event. have a great time and enjoy your meal. we prefer cagneys

[The Traveling Man]

10 minutes ago, stp108 said:

Question for those of you who are platinum, do you make your reservations as the specialty restaurant and tell them you are platinum so you can get the free meal?  I see two of the perks are dinner at Cagney's or Le Bistro and dinner at Moderna or La Cucina.  We're booked on a western Carib out of Miami in December and this will be my first cruise as a platinum member.  I discovered I should have gotten a discount on spa services on my most recent trip as a gold member, but they didn't give me the discount and I didn't realize I was due for one.  That would have taken a nice chunk off of that spa bill!

 

Make your reservations as usual, then tell the hostess as you enter the restaurant that you want to use your Platinum benefit.  They will take care of the billing, but be sure to confirm with your server what the restrictions and limits are for Latitudes free dinner in that restaurant.  Sometimes they are a bit different from the Free at Sea dining package limitations.

[KeithJenner]

Just be careful when booking your meals that you make the bookings in the correct order. Book ones with a cover charge (Teppanyaki and Moderno) first to avoid being charged when booking, regardless of how you intend too pay or the order that the meals will actually be in during the cruise.

 

There is a link to a guide to this in my signature.

[ggTexasGal]

3 hours ago, stp108 said:

I discovered I should have gotten a discount on spa services on my most recent trip as a gold member, but they didn't give me the discount and I didn't realize I was due for one.  That would have taken a nice chunk off of that spa bill!

If your spa service(s) were part of a package deal, or already discounted, your Latitudes status wouldn't matter.

[Yinster]

3 hours ago, The Traveling Man said:

Sometimes they are a bit different from the Free at Sea dining package limitations.

In what way? 

 

We are the same. Finally made it to Platinum. Very grateful for all the advice given

[KeithJenner]

4 minutes ago, Yinster said:

In what way? 

 

We are the same. Finally made it to Platinum. Very grateful for all the advice given

The latitudes meal is restricted to one appetiser, one entree and one dessert (although how the rules are interpreted can vary). There is also a $35 limit for entree items with the platinum meal.

 

The details of the platinum meals are on the NCL website.

[BirdTravels]

5 hours ago, stp108 said:

Question for those of you who are platinum, do you make your reservations as the specialty restaurant and tell them you are platinum so you can get the free meal?  I see two of the perks are dinner at Cagney's or Le Bistro and dinner at Moderna or La Cucina.  We're booked on a western Carib out of Miami in December and this will be my first cruise as a platinum member.  I discovered I should have gotten a discount on spa services on my most recent trip as a gold member, but they didn't give me the discount and I didn't realize I was due for one.  That would have taken a nice chunk off of that spa bill!

 

Welcome to the Platinum Level. 

 

You will get a card in your room with a welcome message, a list of your onboard benefits (including Spa discounts), and vouchers for your two dinners and bag of laundry. If you have a second platinum member in the room, all you need to do is write PLATINUM across the payment section on your laundry inventory form. 

 

So far, they have not been doing the behind the scenes tours due to COVID restrictions. If they were available, you would need to sign up on embarkation day at the Cruise Next desk. First-come-first-serve on the tours. 

 

If you want to pay for dinner with your platinum benefit, present your voucher at the hostess podium when you arrive. At Cagney's/Le Bistro, the hostess will also provide you with the "free wine list" for your dinner. 

 

Note: Platinum dinners are more restrictive than the Specialty Dining Package. You are limited to 1 appetizer, 1 entrée and 1 dessert. The entrée is limited to $35 (you pay the difference above $35). 

 

[The Traveling Man]

19 hours ago, Yinster said:

In what way? 

 

We are the same. Finally made it to Platinum. Very grateful for all the advice given

Free at sea can get you multiple appetizers, while Platinum coupon is allowed only one.  The surcharge on some main dishes in Cagney’s and Le Bistro is $10 with the dining package.  The a la carte price of lobster in Le Bistro, for example, is $39, but the surcharge with the package is $10.  With the Latitudes dining credit, you can order any main dish up to $35, with anything over that costing more.  So lobster with Latitudes costs $4 plus gratuity, while it costs $10 plus gratuity with the dining package.  There probably are other differences depending on the a la carte price, the surcharge, and who knows what else.  Interestingly enough, the price of Dover sole in Le Bistro is also $39 a la carte, but there is no surcharge when using the dining package.  If you use your Latitudes coupon, though, you would be charged $4 plus gratuity because the $39 is above the $35 limit on the Latitudes coupon.  It seems like they either are intentionally trying to make it difficult or they really are trying to price gouge non-Platinum folks on the cost of lobster, while simultaneously trying to gouge Platinum cruisers on the Dover sole.  Go figure.

[The Traveling Man]

We just got back on board in Barcelona.  We did not book a tour, but just walked off the ship, caught a taxi into town, and walked around on our own.  We kept our masks on most of the time, but the majority of folks were maskless.  We had lunch in our favorite tapas bar, wandered the shops and open air markets, and rambled down La Rambla.  We caught another cab back to the ship.  All the while no one asked us for vaccination cards, the Spanish Locator Form that the Epic crew insisted that we spend some of our precious internet time to fill out while on board the day before Barcelona, or any other documentation.  Except for masks when indoors, the experience was identical to our pre-COVID visits to Spain.

[jfbbarry]

Usually the Spa discount is only when "in port"

[Turtles06]

On 10/23/2021 at 2:52 PM, KeithJenner said:

The latitudes meal is restricted to one appetiser, one entree and one dessert (although how the rules are interpreted can vary). There is also a $35 limit for entree items with the platinum meal.

 

The details of the platinum meals are on the NCL website.

We ate one of our Platinum+ dinners at Cagney’s on the Breakaway last night. Before we ordered, the server listed the rules, and said we could only order one side each.  That has never been the case before for those dinners, nor is that restriction listed by NCL in the Latitudes benefits.  I politely told him that I thought he was mistaken. He said he wasn’t, but that he would give us each an additional side if we wanted. 
 

Has anyone else encountered this? 

[ocdb8r]

On 10/26/2021 at 10:56 PM, jfbbarry said:

Usually the Spa discount is only when "in port"

....and only on those items listed as "Signature Services".

[The Traveling Man]

2 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

We ate one of our Platinum+ dinners at Cagney’s on the Breakaway last night. Before we ordered, the server listed the rules, and said we could only order one side each.  That has never been the case before for those dinners, nor is that restriction listed by NCL in the Latitudes benefits.  I politely told him that I thought he was mistaken. He said he wasn’t, but that he would give us each an additional side if we wanted. 
 

Has anyone else encountered this? 

It seems like making this announcement a standard part of the welcome is a new addition since the restart.  The rules haven't changed, though.  They are the same now as they were before the shutdown.  The waiters usually did not spell them out for you, however, unless you asked.

[Turtles06]

1 hour ago, The Traveling Man said:

It seems like making this announcement a standard part of the welcome is a new addition since the restart.  The rules haven't changed, though.  They are the same now as they were before the shutdown.  The waiters usually did not spell them out for you, however, unless you asked.

I don’t mind the server spelling out the rules, but a limit of one side in Cagney’s isn’t one of them. 

[stp108]

On 10/28/2021 at 6:44 AM, ocdb8r said:

....and only on those items listed as "Signature Services".

Maybe mine didn't qualify.  It's too late to do anything about it, but I did get a mani and pedi which I believe are signature services.  Those should have been discounted at the gold discount level as it was a port day.

[stp108]

Thanks everyone for your responses.  Now I have an idea of what to expect.  

 

[psac]

One more example, I saw a recent review for La Cucina on the Breakaway enforce the one app to mean just the one selection from the appetizer list, but the pasta course was only available as the full size as your entre selection or would be an out of pocket charge. With the dining package you can choose one app, one pasta, and an entree. 

By any chance does anyone know if the Santa Margerita Pinot Grigio is on the complementary wine list?  It’s on the premium drink package, but we always just get the standard. 

 

We also just hit Platinum so trying to figure this out for our next trip as well!

Edited October 29, 2021 by psac