Suggestion: Move the free Behind the Scenes tour from Platinum to Sapphire Tier

[fstuff1]

Current great Platinum benefits: 2 specialty dinners, free laundry, wine tasting, lite version of the behind the scenes tour

Current great Sapphire benefits: None <In my opinion>

Current great Diamond benefit: One time cabin level upgrade (ie: OV to Balcony)

Current great Ambassador benefit: Free 7 day Caribbean cruise 

 

Moving the free tour would make the Sapphire Tier more appealing and not be the red headed step child of the upper tiers.

 

Also, on my last cruise, CruiseNext had to create multiple behind the scenes tours because there were so many Platinums.

And each group had like 20 people which made it hard to hear the ship employee speaking because you can't get near him when space is limited. (Kitchen, laundry room).

 

Note:

I don't consider dinner with a random officer (like the gift shop mgr) as a great benefit.

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

So I'm guessing you are Sapphire? 🤣

 

(jk) - We just turned Sapphire and will continue to skip the tours.  That said, I will happily accept the additional 5% off on Shorex.  That saves somewhere between $4 and $6 for every $100 we spend on Shorex! 😎

[FLAHAM]

I enjoy the dinner with officers.  I find they always have interesting stories to tell.

[IrieBajan54]

I only do the Behind the Scenes Tour once per ship. I don't see the enjoyment going a second or more times. I was on the Encore recently for the first time and took it. Pretty vanilla or been there, done that. I too like the Dinner With the Officers. On the Encore it was one of the engineers as I vaguely recall.

[JGmf]

Yes, the tours get crowded as the Platinum-eligible number of cruisers is expanding (too much buffet eating 😏).

 

How about waiving the pay-for-view costs for the movies for Sapphire and above? 

 

 

[itsnotjustme]

As I noted in another thread, when everyone becomes special, no one is special.

 

My last cruise had over 900 platinum or higher out of 1700 passengers.  We could not get onto the BTS tour.

 

I just turned sapphire and expect to have the dinner with ship's officer(s) on our next cruise.  We'll see what I think of it.  And I'll be happy to get another 5% off excursions.

[ChiefMateJRK]

19 minutes ago, itsnotjustme said:

My last cruise had over 900 platinum or higher out of 1700 passengers.  We could not get onto the BTS tour.

How do you know this?  That percentage is fantastically out of line with all other historical reports I've seen.

[julig22]

I'd personally prefer that they come up with a list of available perks for platinum and above.  Then you choose from the list - platinum gets 2 choices, sapphire gets 4 or something along those lines.

I have no interest at all in the wine tasting or strawberries (allergies to both), or the mixology experience (2 cruises to Diamond) - it was great when they were giving OBC because the wine tasting wasn't offered!  But I'd like to be able to substitute a couple of bottles of water for the strawberries, just as an example.  Give you a door hanger (like for room service) and you can put your choices.

But waiving fees for PPV or discounts on onboard activities would also be nice.

[ChiefMateJRK]

Just now, julig22 said:

I'd personally prefer that they come up with a list of available perks for platinum and above.  Then you choose from the list - platinum gets 2 choices, sapphire gets 4 or something along those lines.

I have no interest at all in the wine tasting or strawberries (allergies to both), or the mixology experience (2 cruises to Diamond) - it was great when they were giving OBC because the wine tasting wasn't offered!  But I'd like to be able to substitute a couple of bottles of water for the strawberries, just as an example.  Give you a door hanger (like for room service) and you can put your choices.

But waiving fees for PPV or discounts on onboard activities would also be nice.

Yeah, that would be nice.  I love the free laundry and also benefit significantly from the discounts on Shorex.  I wish I could just cancel the Strawberries and I have zero interest in BTS tours, dinners with royalty and most of the other stuff.

[BirdTravels]

Maybe a Diamond lounge and drinks like Royal?

[JennKach]

I was Platinum for the first time on my last cruise.  We did the tour and the wine tasting and won't bother doing them again.  Once the newness of Platinum wears off, I'm sure many people won't be crowding the tours.

[The Traveling Man]

3 hours ago, fstuff1 said:

Current great Platinum benefits: 2 specialty dinners, free laundry, wine tasting, lite version of the behind the scenes tour

Current great Sapphire benefits: None <In my opinion>

Current great Diamond benefit: One time cabin level upgrade (ie: OV to Balcony)

Current great Ambassador benefit: Free 7 day Caribbean cruise 

 

Moving the free tour would make the Sapphire Tier more appealing and not be the red headed step child of the upper tiers.

 

Also, on my last cruise, CruiseNext had to create multiple behind the scenes tours because there were so many Platinums.

And each group had like 20 people which made it hard to hear the ship employee speaking because you can't get near him when space is limited. (Kitchen, laundry room).

 

Note:

I don't consider dinner with a random officer (like the gift shop mgr) as a great benefit.

 

Sapphire and above also get priority seating at shows and restaurants.  So let's suppose there still are a few seats left in the comedy club when they finally start seating some of the hundreds of folks who have been waiting an hour in the standby line.  A couple of Sapphire Latitudes members who don't have reservations walk past those in line, straight to the check in counter, show their Latitudes card, and are admitted ahead of those who have been waiting.  Does that sound like a benefit that you might enjoy?

 

You indicate that you don't consider dinner with a random officer to be a great benefit.  While it's true that sometimes dinner with officers includes senior officers while others are rather junior, there always are opportunities for having engaging conversations with them.  I understand that many Latitudes members can't see themselves enjoying, or even tolerating, spending time with a ship's officer.  Many of us, though, do look forward to this benefit and really enjoying getting to know new friends.  The list of ship's officers with whom we have shared dinner may not be typical, but we have shared dinner with 19 senior officers (three or four stripe), seven junior officers, and two non-officer contractors.  The conversation fell a bit flat during a couple of those dinners, but many of them were quite enjoyable and exhilarating.

 

You also did not mention the Sail and Sustain Mixology Experience as a Diamond level benefit.  Some of the cocktails offered are a bit unusual, while others are quite tasty.  The biggest attraction of this perk for us, though, is the opportunity to schmooze with other frequent NCL cruisers.  It's fun to compare notes, share stories of favorite places to visit, and learn new tips and techniques of ways to improve our cruise experience.

 

NCL has updated and modified the Latitudes program several times over the years, added new categories, tweaked the benefits, and changed the requirements for other perks.  It's reasonable that they may change them again in the future, so perhaps they may respond to your suggestions.

[ChiefMateJRK]

2 hours ago, JennKach said:

Once the newness of Platinum wears off, I'm sure many people won't be crowding the tours.

The "newness" of free laundry will NEVER wear off! 😎

[ChiefMateJRK]

1 minute ago, The Traveling Man said:

A couple of Sapphire Latitudes members who don't have reservations walk past those in line, straight to the check in counter, show their Latitudes card, and are admitted ahead of those who have been waiting.  Does that sound like a benefit that you might enjoy?

Does it really work this way?  Seriously.  We just turned Sapphire and I hope this is true.

1 minute ago, The Traveling Man said:

I understand that many Latitudes members can't see themselves enjoying, or even tolerating, spending time with a ship's officer.  Many of us, though, do look forward to this benefit and really enjoying getting to know new friends.

I would likely enjoy time with a ship's officer.  What I wouldn't sign up for is hearing my fellow passengers interact with said officers.  Let's just leave it at that.

[The Traveling Man]

5 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Does it really work this way?  Seriously.  We just turned Sapphire and I hope this is true.

We learned about this back when Sapphire was still known as Platinum Plus.  On our first cruise as P+ Latitudes members, we waited in the standby line for a comedy show.  When we got to the front, the host said "Oh, you didn't have to wait in line.  Next time just come to the front of the line and we'll let you in ahead of the others."  We have used this perk several times since then.

[The Traveling Man]

12 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I would likely enjoy time with a ship's officer.  What I wouldn't sign up for is hearing my fellow passengers interact with said officers.  Let's just leave it at that.

I enjoy the experience more when there are no more than a half dozen guests.  About half of our dinners have been like that, but recently NCL seems to prefer "the more the merrier" approach.  Several of them have been dinners for 12 or more, usually with two officers.  The problem with that is the physical distances and the ambient noise level make it difficult for everyone at the table to hear what's being said.  That leads to multiple conversations, the persons seated next to the officers dominating the discussions, and others feeling left out.  One of the advantages of getting to know the senior officers is that it increases your chances of dining with a senior officer in a smaller group.  It also increases the odds of being invited to Cagney's or Le Bistro instead of the MDR.

[Sand and Seas]

We agree with @The Traveling Man about the Sail & Sustain Mixology experience for Diamond & Ambassador.   This is an awesome perk that you can enjoy on each cruise.

 

We just returned a couple of weeks ago from a Joy cruise and had another extremely fun Mixology experience.  I believe they said there were 10 or 11 Diamond level on board and 7 of us showed up. (No Ambassadors, but one couple was close!)  So enjoyable to have a drink (or several) with a group of fellow Diamonds.  We talked about favorite cruises, ports & ships while enjoying some interesting drinks.  It was held at the outdoor Mojito bar.  A little too much to drink at mid-day, but hey....we were on vacation😎

[The Traveling Man]

37 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I would likely enjoy time with a ship's officer.  What I wouldn't sign up for is hearing my fellow passengers interact with said officers.  Let's just leave it at that.

Our first time was with one other couple plus the Captain and General Manager in Le Bistro. Another time it was just the Chief Engineer, my wife, and me in Cagney's.  On the Joy in Alaska in 2019, my wife and I shared a wonderful evening in Le Bistro with the GM and Cruise Next Director.  We had sailed with each of them previously, and each of them had greeted us by name on embarkation day.  Our most recent Le Bistro dinner with an officer was a bit different.  There were four couples plus four officers at a huge table in an alcove in Le Bistro.  Because we were in a separate room, though, there wasn't enough background noise to interfere with our conversation.  The table didn't break down into multiple smaller discussions.  It was a delightfully slow paced meal, giving everyone plenty of opportunity to contribute to the discussion.  We were joined by the GM, Chief Medical Officer, Cruise Next Manager, and GM's Secretary.  All but the secretary were senior officers. 

[FLAHAM]

9 hours ago, itsnotjustme said:

 

My last cruise had over 900 platinum or higher out of 1700 passengers.  We could not get onto the BTS tour.

My February cruise on the Prima (which was full) had 10 on the tour and 12 plus two officers at the dinner.

[dexddd]

How about leaving as is and adding Sapphire benefits?  Of course, our last trip they weren't or couldn't offer most Sapphire benefits. 

[vacation44]

9 hours ago, julig22 said:

I'd personally prefer that they come up with a list of available perks for platinum and above.  Then you choose from the list - platinum gets 2 choices, sapphire gets 4 or something along those lines.

I have no interest at all in the wine tasting or strawberries (allergies to both), or the mixology experience (2 cruises to Diamond) - it was great when they were giving OBC because the wine tasting wasn't offered!  But I'd like to be able to substitute a couple of bottles of water for the strawberries, just as an example.  Give you a door hanger (like for room service) and you can put your choices.

But waiving fees for PPV or discounts on onboard activities would also be nice.

I really like this suggestion.    The strawberries will be going to waste on the Jewel in August as we will not be cruising with our two young adult children this time.

[hawkeyetlse]

11 hours ago, fstuff1 said:

Current great Platinum benefits: 2 specialty dinners, free laundry, wine tasting, lite version of the behind the scenes tour

Current great Sapphire benefits: None <In my opinion>

Current great Diamond benefit: One time cabin level upgrade (ie: OV to Balcony)

Current great Ambassador benefit: Free 7 day Caribbean cruise

The Diamond and Ambassador benefits that you mention are great, once, but then I guess those tiers also go down to "None" until you die. Personally, I do value some of the other perks like dinner with officers, but I also have the impression that people get a lot of stuff at Platinum, which is a relatively easy tier to attain, whereas the higher tiers require significantly more cruising but don't come with many additional (published) benefits.

 

I'm pretty sure Ambassadors get special treatment in many unofficial ways, though.

[seemoreroyals]

It took us 10 cruises to reach Platinum so not really that easy.  They should add a few more things for higher tier levels and not take away from Platinum. 

 

In particular we really enjoy the free laundry and the two extra specialty dinners and bottle of wine.  

[cruiseny4life]

1 hour ago, seemoreroyals said:

It took us 10 cruises to reach Platinum so not really that easy.  They should add a few more things for higher tier levels and not take away from Platinum. 

 

In particular we really enjoy the free laundry and the two extra specialty dinners and bottle of wine.  

It seems to be a bit easier now, or perhaps because we cruise in the Haven. We've been on four cruises and, unless our next cruise is five nights, or less, we'll be Platinum when we disembark. 

[Sand and Seas]

13 hours ago, julig22 said:

I'd personally prefer that they come up with a list of available perks for platinum and above.  Then you choose from the list - platinum gets 2 choices, sapphire gets 4 or something along those lines.

I have no interest at all in the wine tasting or strawberries (allergies to both), or the mixology experience (2 cruises to Diamond) - it was great when they were giving OBC because the wine tasting wasn't offered!  But I'd like to be able to substitute a couple of bottles of water for the strawberries, just as an example.  Give you a door hanger (like for room service) and you can put your choices.

But waiving fees for PPV or discounts on onboard activities would also be nice.

Yes!  I would think they could let us check our preferences online.  Surely a computer system could allow this?   

If they want to reward their higher tiers, let us choose from a list of relatively inexpensive items that can be delivered to our room.  Extra cartons of water should be easy enough.  And, if they really want to make me happy, we would LOVE a 6pack of Diet Coke in our cabin🤞

    

Edited May 10, 2023 by Sand and Seas