Any new luggage handling programs?

[Justmekaren918]

I'm supposed to be on Escape in the Haven in September! I'm wondering if NCL has adopted Royal's luggage program of paying a fee & they get your luggage to the airport? I'm Flying in/out NYC/NJ. 

 

I'm going to be 4months recovered from hip revision surgery & by myself! Any insight would be helpful, TY! 

[BirdTravels]

No Luggage Valet there. Send your bags down with the porters on the last night of the cruise, and use a porter in the luggage hall to help you with your bags out to a taxi or transfer

[fredflint]

get  a Wheelchair

[Justmekaren918]

25 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

No Luggage Valet there. Send your bags down with the porters on the last night of the cruise, and use a porter in the luggage hall to help you with your bags out to a taxi or transfer

TY 4 info!

[cruiseat50]

A friend told me about Luggage Forward and we looked into it and have decided to try it out on our upcoming cruise.  They will pick it up at our house and deliver to the ship and will pick it up from the ship and deliver to the house.  I will say it isn't cheap but the fact that we won't have to deal with going to baggage to/from and DH won't have to lift it is a plus.  Also, we don't have to pay for luggage on our flights so that take a bit of the sting out.  They said it worked wonderfully for them and we're hoping it does for us as well.

[Nilbog]

30 minutes ago, cruiseat50 said:

A friend told me about Luggage Forward and we looked into it and have decided to try it out on our upcoming cruise.  They will pick it up at our house and deliver to the ship and will pick it up from the ship and deliver to the house.  I will say it isn't cheap but the fact that we won't have to deal with going to baggage to/from and DH won't have to lift it is a plus.  Also, we don't have to pay for luggage on our flights so that take a bit of the sting out.  They said it worked wonderfully for them and we're hoping it does for us as well.

Do they offer this service if you're not in the local area?  I'm in Jacksonville, so not local to Canaveral, Tampa, or Miami.  Thx.

[cruiseat50]

3 hours ago, Nilbog said:

Do they offer this service if you're not in the local area?  I'm in Jacksonville, so not local to Canaveral, Tampa, or Miami.  Thx.

Yes, I live in Spring Hill, FL and it's going to NYC. 

[ExArkie]

Keep in mind that Luggage Valet and Luggage Forward are two different things.

 

With Luggage Valet, available on certain lines at certain ports, they pick up your luggage at the hotel or airport in the embarkation city and deliver it to the ship. I've never done it in either direction, but I understand it also works in reverse...take luggage from the ship to the airport/hotel in the disembarkation city.

 

Luggage Forward picks up your suitcase at your house a few days or a couple of weeks (your choice) before your cruise and delivers it to the ship. Also available in reverse, where they take your luggage at the terminal post-Customs and deliver it to your house. I believe this is available for any port and a wider number of lines, but maybe not all of them (??). I have done this for a westbound Cunard transatlantic where I had to be in the UK for some time beforehand and we did not want to lug our formal wear with us everywhere.

 

I recommend an Internet search for each of the two terms if you want more details.

Edited February 2, 2023 by ExArkie
corrected errors

[CDR Benson]

12 hours ago, cruiseat50 said:

A friend told me about Luggage Forward and we looked into it and have decided to try it out on our upcoming cruise.  They will pick it up at our house and deliver to the ship and will pick it up from the ship and deliver to the house.  I will say it isn't cheap but the fact that we won't have to deal with going to baggage to/from and DH won't have to lift it is a plus.  Also, we don't have to pay for luggage on our flights so that take a bit of the sting out.  They said it worked wonderfully for them and we're hoping it does for us as well.

 

We used Luggage Forward on our NCL cruise to Canada this past September.  We had absolutely no problems with pick-up from our house and delivery to the ship.  There was a snag, though, at the end of the cruise, in getting our bags from the ship and back to our house.  The problem lied in fouled communications, one of those things that, had I gotten word sooner, it would've worked perfectly.  That's why I'm posting this---in case it precludes the same thing happening to you.

 

Prior to our departure on the cruise, we received no instruction from Luggage Forward on what the procedure was for their pick-up from the ship at the end of the cruise (other than how to affix the necessary luggage tags).  By the last evening of the cruise, when we had to set the bags out in the hall, we had still received no word from Luggage Forward.  I figured the Haven concierge would know the procedure, but, somewhat incredibly, he'd never heard of luggage-delivery services.  To his credit, he did find out.

 

He reported back to me that we would recover our bags in the Manhattan port terminal and turn them over to a representative from Luggage Forward who would meet us in the terminal.  What if the rep doesn't show or isn't where we are, I asked.  Just ask any terminal employee, the concierge replied, they'll know.

 

His information was only partially right.  We got off the ship in the first wave, at 0730.  We'd recovered our bags by 0800 and, yep, you guessed it---no sign of a Luggage Forward rep.  And none of the terminal employees had any idea what a Luggage Forward rep was (although they had no problems sending us all over both decks of the terminal to find him).

 

We had a car picking us up at 0900 to take us to the airport.  So I called Luggage Forward.  To her credit, the young lady who took the call couldn't have been more helpful.  She put me on hold to make some calls, but checked back with me repeatedly so I'd know she hadn't forgotten us.  Eventually, she informed us that the rep was scheduled to be at the luggage pick-up point at 0830.  I told her that we were on the street at the entrance to the terminal and we were being picked up at 0900.  (It was 0845 at this point.)  He'll be right there, she assured me, you can't miss him.

 

At 0900, our ride had arrived, but the Luggage Forward rep had not.  I called the customer service gal back and told her to cancel the return service, that I was tired of he'll-be-right-theres and you-can't-miss-hims, and we'd muscle our bags ourselves.  She was much nicer than I was at that point and apologised and immediately reimbursed us for the cost of returning our luggage home.

 

The capper to all of this is, while we were waiting in the airport, I discovered an e-mail from Luggage Forward sent at 11:30 p.m. the night before (after we had set our luggage out and gone to bed), informing us that the Luggage Forward rep would meet us in the terminal, at the pick-up point, at 0830.  Had we known this, we would not have left the ship as early as we had.

 

The point of all this blather is to let you know that Luggage Forward will send you an e-mail instructing you on the return procedure, but you'll probably receive it late on your last night aboard.  That will tell you when the Luggage Forward rep will meet you in the terminal and you can gauge your debarkation from the ship accordingly.  You cannot rely on any employee on board or in the terminal knowing anything about it.

 

I sent Luggage Forward a critique of the snafu, with a recommendation that it should notify its customers of the return procedure long before the last night of the cruise.  I got the impression that they were embarrassed over the foul-up, which was in keeping with the earnest service I'd received from Luggage Forward in setting up the pick-ups.  I do intend to use Luggage Forward again for our cruise in November.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by CDR Benson

[cruiseat50]

On 2/2/2023 at 10:14 AM, CDR Benson said:

 

We used Luggage Forward on our NCL cruise to Canada this past September.  We had absolutely no problems with pick-up from our house and delivery to the ship.  There was a snag, though, at the end of the cruise, in getting our bags from the ship and back to our house.  The problem lied in fouled communications, one of those things that, had I gotten word sooner, it would've worked perfectly.  That's why I'm posting this---in case it precludes the same thing happening to you.

 

Prior to our departure on the cruise, we received no instruction from Luggage Forward on what the procedure was for their pick-up from the ship at the end of the cruise (other than how to affix the necessary luggage tags).  By the last evening of the cruise, when we had to set the bags out in the hall, we had still received no word from Luggage Forward.  I figured the Haven concierge would know the procedure, but, somewhat incredibly, he'd never heard of luggage-delivery services.  To his credit, he did find out.

 

He reported back to me that we would recover our bags in the Manhattan port terminal and turn them over to a representative from Luggage Forward who would meet us in the terminal.  What if the rep doesn't show or isn't where we are, I asked.  Just ask any terminal employee, the concierge replied, they'll know.

 

His information was only partially right.  We got off the ship in the first wave, at 0730.  We'd recovered our bags by 0800 and, yep, you guessed it---no sign of a Luggage Forward rep.  And none of the terminal employees had any idea what a Luggage Forward rep was (although they had no problems sending us all over both decks of the terminal to find him).

 

We had a car picking us up at 0900 to take us to the airport.  So I called Luggage Forward.  To her credit, the young lady who took the call couldn't have been more helpful.  She put me on hold to make some calls, but checked back with me repeatedly so I'd know she hadn't forgotten us.  Eventually, she informed us that the rep was scheduled to be at the luggage pick-up point at 0830.  I told her that we were on the street at the entrance to the terminal and we were being picked up at 0900.  (It was 0845 at this point.)  He'll be right there, she assured me, you can't miss him.

 

At 0900, our ride had arrived, but the Luggage Forward rep had not.  I called the customer service gal back and told her to cancel the return service, that I was tired of he'll-be-right-theres and you-can't-miss-hims, and we'd muscle our bags ourselves.  She was much nicer than I was at that point and apologised and immediately reimbursed us for the cost of returning our luggage home.

 

The capper to all of this is, while we were waiting in the airport, I discovered an e-mail from Luggage Forward sent at 11:30 p.m. the night before (after we had set our luggage out and gone to bed), informing us that the Luggage Forward rep would meet us in the terminal, at the pick-up point, at 0830.  Had we known this, we would not have left the ship as early as we had.

 

The point of all this blather is to let you know that Luggage Forward will send you an e-mail instructing you on the return procedure, but you'll probably receive it late on your last night aboard.  That will tell you when the Luggage Forward rep will meet you in the terminal and you can gauge your debarkation from the ship accordingly.  You cannot rely on any employee on board or in the terminal knowing anything about it.

 

I sent Luggage Forward a critique of the snafu, with a recommendation that it should notify its customers of the return procedure long before the last night of the cruise.  I got the impression that they were embarrassed over the foul-up, which was in keeping with the earnest service I'd received from Luggage Forward in setting up the pick-ups.  I do intend to use Luggage Forward again for our cruise in November.

 

 

Thank you very much for the heads up on this!  I wonder why they don't just have a designated time set ahead of time since internet is so terrible on cruise ships.  I'm not sure I would have given them another chance you are more forgiving than me I guess. 😉

 

[CDR Benson]

On 2/4/2023 at 11:26 PM, cruiseat50 said:

Thank you very much for the heads up on this . . . I'm not sure I would have given them another chance you are more forgiving than me I guess. 😉

 

 

Ordinarily, I'm not that forgiving.  But the Luggage Forward folks with whom I dealt were especially proactive and indulgent and earnest in setting up the deliveries.   (I made a couple of modifications in setting the whole thing up.)  And the young lady who tried to sort out the problem at the end of our cruise was gracious, and she reimbursed us immediately without resistence.  That mollified me enough to be willing to give them another go.