Purchase Cruise & Airfare with NCL?

[Mekkar]

I'd appreciate any comments and experience from cruisers who have purchased airfare with their cruise from Norwegian cruise Line, particularly on long distance international flights requiring transfers.  What is the experience, any problems, any recommendations. Did you try to upgrade, do you get seating together, etc. 

[Fouremco]

While you may get some replies here, you would do better to post the same enquiry on the NCL forum. There are undoubtedly many threads on that forum already addressing the issue that you might want to read.

[Middleager]

20 hours ago, Mekkar said:

I'd appreciate any comments and experience from cruisers who have purchased airfare with their cruise from Norwegian cruise Line, particularly on long distance international flights requiring transfers.  What is the experience, any problems, any recommendations. Did you try to upgrade, do you get seating together, etc. 

Every few days someone would ask a question like this, even though there are already tons of threads with lots of answers.

 

We bought airfare with NCL before, worked out fine, much cheaper.  You'll get the cheapest fare, sometimes no luggage included. One time we got red-eye flight coming back from San Diego to Toronto.  Seats together -- you can pay if you want that, just like with any other airline tickets you buy these days.  Upgrades, if you have status and/or want to pay, and if the fare class allows.

 

We never take ship transfers.  We always arrange our own, often uber, much cheaper and just your group at your own time.  No need to wait for a big bus to fill up, and may go around to many terminals (e.g. LAX has 9 terminals).

[gnome12]

23 minutes ago, Middleager said:

Seats together -- you can pay if you want that, just like with any other airline tickets you buy these days.

You can't necessarily pay to select seats in advance. I am off on vacation soon (not a cruise) but using a group airfare. I can't do anything with it until it is time to check in.

[Middleager]

17 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

You can't necessarily pay to select seats in advance. I am off on vacation soon (not a cruise) but using a group airfare. I can't do anything with it until it is time to check in.

True, for some of the fares.  For the fares we've bought through NCL, with several airlines, we've always been able to pay to select seats in advance.  Maybe we were lucky and haven't gotten fares where they don't allowing selecting seats even if you want to pay.

[Mekkar]

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Keata]

I have used NCL air 3 times in the last year. Ottawa - New York roundtrip on Air Canada andWestjet. Next cruise Ottawa-Lisbon then Rio to Ottawa; all Air Canda great flights that I would have picked myself and paid way more. And finally in less than 2 weeks Ottawa- New York Air Canada direct; returning Barcelona to Ottawa on Air Canada (cost of this roundtrip $400 CDN).  On all these flights I was able to get my seats and also got all frequent flyer benefits and miles. I have had great success with them at a fraction of the price I would have to pay myself.

[Mekkar]

Thanks, Keata

[KR1994]

Absolutely do not use NCL to book your flights.  We had a disastrous itinerary back in March that ended up causing us much grief and extra costs.  NCL left us high and dry and the insurance will barely make a dent in our out of pocket costs.  Book your own flights with LOTS of space in the connections!  We learned many lessons on this trip.  

[Fouremco]

In your post on the Cruise/Travel Insurance forum, you provide a great amount of detail, but leave unanswered a few critical pieces of information. For example, on your outbound flight that was scheduled to arrive in Athens on embarkation day, did you make any attempt to have NCL change the flight to the previous day? Did you even request arrival the previous day when you first booked with NCL. By the sounds of it, you simply decided quite belatedly that the flight time was too tight (agreed), but instead of dealing with NCL to make a change, you went off on your own to book different flights. If NCL couldn't/wouldn't accommodate your preference to arrive the day before, criticism may well be warranted, but there is no indication in your post that you made such a request and were denied.

 

For your return trip, once the initial flight departure was delayed and you missed your connection in Heathrow, did you contact NCL to make the necessary arrangements for new flights? Based on your post, it sounds like you again took matters into your own hands and made some costly decisions without asking NCL for assistance. Maybe you did contact them and they couldn't/wouldn't help you, but if so, you don't reflect that in your post.

 

I wish you the best of luck in trying to recover some of your losses, but based on the information that you have provided to date, I'm not sure that advising CC members to "Absolutely do not use NCL to book your flights" is warranted.

[truckswain]

I think it is important to note that are two types of Air that can be booked with NCL - Promo Air or Flights

 

Promo Air (usually 2nd guess flies free) allows for no changes, upgrades etc.  The cheapest group airfare is purchased.  You can request up to 2 days deviation meaning arriving up to two days before cruise and post cruise stay.  This must be done at time of booking.  I have used this for short flights (Toronto to New York) and no issues.  Mainly because they pretty much have to be direct flights.  I tried this on a cruise to Miami and ended up cancelling the air with penalty and booked my own as the flights they assigned were ridiculous.

 

Booking flights with NCL and working with them you can choose flights etc and you may find they are cheaper than booking direct with airline.  I always compare air booked with the cruise line vs the airline and choose the cheapest comparing apples to apples.