a funny thing happened on my prima transatlantic...

[Kinnialias]

I was on the JOY in January and had a creaky room when the sea rocked. As it turned out It was coming from the TV housing attached to the wall and desk.  It sounded like a tennis ball bouncing inside the wall. Couldn't sleep from it.  It took several persistent calls to an assistant manager and eventually they "found" a room when they initially said they didn't have any of my type of room. The new room exactly the same size only one deck up and on the other side of the ship.  They also gave a complimentary specialty dining to any restaurant for the inconvenience.  They also had a bellhop type guy move the bulk of our stuff.      They do mark in their system notes about rooms that have had complaints the assistant manager told me; as he said someone had complained about sounds from the kids gaming room nearby, but I never heard anything in the new room. It took a couple days to get this settled.   We were grateful.  a 15 day cruise, it would have been maddening to deal with that thumping for over 2 weeks. 

[EPTCB]

3 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Yikes.  I gave up about halfway through.  I book steerage, pack ear plugs and fully utilize the beverage package.  I always sleep like a baby and wake up READY TO GO.😎

You were able to make it through 95% more than I could!

[smillerholmes]

Wow - just wow!

 

I cannot lie, I love a good play by play and that was one of the best I've read.   Let me start by saying I truly hope you end up enjoying your cruise and I'll be interested and following along.  I am also a CAS customer, and now that Prima is an option I have been reading the reviews.

 

Based upon your review and a few others NCL has violated two of my most cherished aspects of cruising.

 

1A.  Unpack once!

1B.  I have bouts of insomnia (but not on a ship) you mess with my sleep on a ship and oh my I can honestly say I would become an extremely unpleasant individual.

 

I consider myself a pretty tolerant person considering I do have one more major gripe: THE COFFEE. I realize that's a subjective one and I try to work around that by bringing along my favorite creamer or in the most recent case simply switching to tea because it was so bad; but making me move my own things AFTER 3.5 days of reporting a concern and gaslighting me once you actually attempt a half-hearted effort to make it right - ummm yeah...that's not going to go down so well.

 

Don't sacrifice anymore precious cruise time (unless you really want to) we can wait until you get back for the synopsis.

 

 

 

[UKstages]

6 hours ago, Wulfwyn said:

What deck were you on

 

 

for privacy reasons (my own), i won't reveal that until the end of the cruise.

 

but it's a club balcony room, which narrows the field considerably.

[ColeThornton]

That might be the longest rant I've ever read on this forum.  I stopped reading but I got the gist of it.  lol

 

 

[SakeDad]

As former crew (I was a Stage Manager and Officer) on several lines I can sympathize with you 100%! While I had great friends that worked GS I can also tell you many were CLUELESS and their "leaders" were anything but! Also a huge problem on all ships is there is a massive disconnect between ships and shoreside.....sometimes not communicating for days! I don't say this to excuse anything you experienced, but to say I am not surprised by any of it....and that is the saddest part of it all. I much prefer to be a guest now, but when challenges arise I try to deal with crew as if I was still crew....but it shouldn't be that way.

[UKstages]

8 hours ago, SeaShark said:

Of the seven latitude levels, Platinum is right in the middle...three levels above and three levels below. If latitude levels were grades, Platinum would be a "C"...right in the middle...average.

 

JMHO, but Ambassador "yes", Diamond "maybe", but I don't think NCL would consider a mid-level latitude level to be "elite".

 

 thanks so much for your observation.

 

but you’re using fuzzy math, at best. platinum is the middle level, for sure, but this isn’t about levels, it’s about points. the points and where you fall in the range tell a different story. i myself have repeatedly posted about the large number of new platinum members due to double and triple points promos. but please understand, i'm not saying platinum is an elite level... NCL is. they position it as an elite level with enhanced benefits.

 

also, if you’re going to quote me, it may be fairer to quote the entire sentence, in which i also refer to my ruby CAS status.  ruby status is achieved by running $175,000 through slot machines or $350,000 through video poker machines, which is what i most often play. CAS ruby is an elite level that trumps latitudes platinum any day of the week. or at least it should, if NCL recognized the value of its casino guests outside the casino and they synched latitudes status with the casino rewards program, which they don't. (in fact, one of the latitudes levels shares a name with one of the CAS levels, but they have no shared benefits or coordination. how dumb is that?)

 

speaking of which, i’ll be latitudes sapphire in a few days at the conclusion of this first leg of my B2B. i do very much look forward to your recalculating the math and somehow minimizing my sapphire status.

 

`thanks in advance!

[ontheweb]

8 hours ago, UKstages said:

a couple of addenda before i go on my sleep derived, marginally merry way…

 

when i went to get the key to the new room, the guest services agent was unsure of what to do and how to process the request. he saw all the notes, he knew he was supposed to give me a card, but he didn’t know how to go about it. he went in the back, then came out, then went in the back again. and then he said, OK, here is your new card. and he gave me a new blank card with no imprint. and he wrote the room number down on a piece of paper.

 

i went to the room, a balcony cabin one deck below my first room, and it was fine. i did note that there was excessive fan noise in the bathroom, so i was hoping that i wouldn’t have to sleep there… but other than that, the room was fine.

 

the next day, there are loud and insistent knocks on my door (despite it having the ”do not disturb” indicator lit). i answer the door and am greeted by six people, including two security officers. they don’t identify themselves, but immediately hit me with a barrage of questions: “why are you in this room? who gave you a key to this room? when did you get that key? when did you move to this room? where did you come from? is anyone traveling with you? what was your prior room? have you been here the whole time?”

 

apparently, the guest services agent who gave me the key didn’t process the key properly. and the gang of six descended upon me to find out what was going on and, geez, i dunno, just a guess, extricate me from the cabin and send me to the naughty room?

 

i have no freaking idea.

 

at this point, let me just pause to say: how can one company be so incompetent and so clueless and cause so much discomfort and inconvenience at nearly every customer touch point?

 

(i have lots more examples of incompetence and lack of attention to details onboard the prima, including one that happened that same day with the excursions team. i’ll tell you more about that when i gather my thoughts, and write another post about the good the bad and the indifferent with this ship, but – for now - let me just say that the excursions team will look you straight in the face and lie, lie lie till they are blue in the face and then deny that they are blue and say that they're actually yellow and suffering from jaundice… and then hand you reissued excursion tickets to make up for their mistake [which they won’t admit to]. what they neglect to point out is that those excursions have less preferred oddball times that require you to change all your dinner reservations and make you miss featured entertainment.)

 

the next day, a certificate for crossing the arctic circle arrived to the new room, with somebody else’s name on it. correct room, wrong guy. how does THAT happen? was there somebody in my room earlier in the cruise? did they assign a random name to this cabin because their “system” requires a passenger name be assigned to a cabin so that six people don’t barge in and interrogate you?

 

my money is on the latter. and rather than fix the system, they provide a stopgap patch that will get them through the next few days, but that will guarantee that this will happen again to another passenger.

 

that’s really the problem… there’s a lot of flying by the seat of your pants onboard NCL ships… and they never solve the underlying problem. they just fix whatever is wrong in the moment. there is something to be said for that… but it won’t ensure the long-term viability of the company.

So, basically the right hand did not know what the left hand had done.

[UKstages]

19 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

So, basically the right hand did not know what the left hand had done.

 

yes.

 

but the right hand essentially denied there had ever been a left hand.

[SyracuseOrange]

I read the whole thing...and honestly I find $500 fair to generous.

 

I get how much you've gambled in the casino. I'm a gambler too and haven't "paid" for a cruise in years, on NCL and several other lines.

 

People act like lost sleep is worth thousands upon thousands of dollars. It's simply not. If NCL started caving to everyone who demands a high level of compensation for "lost sleep" caused by one reason or another, they'd go bust. I know you had additional struggles with how things were handled and the overall communication of it, but they aren't goin to compensate you for that. If you don't like the way NCL handles customer service and related issues, go to a more upscale line.

 

Sorry, but I think you've taken this too far and the problem is bigger in your head and you're wasting a lot of time and energy on it which makes you think the problem is bigger than it actually is.. Move on with your life.

[SeaShark]

42 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

but you’re using fuzzy math, at best. platinum is the middle level, for sure, but this isn’t about levels, it’s about points. the points and where you fall in the range tell a different story. i myself have repeatedly posted about the large number of new platinum members due to double and triple points promos. but please understand, i'm not saying platinum is an elite level... NCL is. they position it as an elite level with enhanced benefits.

 

 

But YOU specifically mention "platinum"...which is a level. You did NOT mention anything about points. Lets just leave the goal posts where they are.

 

People making levels due to double and triple points, IMHO, just tend to lessen that achievement, which again contradicts the idea that platinum is "elite".

 

And sorry, but I'm totally unaware of anything NCL is doing that "positions" platinum as "elite".

 

 

47 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

also, if you’re going to quote me, it may be fairer to quote the entire sentence, in which i also refer to my ruby CAS status.  

 

 

Which would be nothing but a pointless distraction. Your comment was specifically about latitude levels...NOT casino status. Yes, I was aware that you mentioned your casino status, but my comment was in response to your lattitude level observation which is separate from the casino.

 

47 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

speaking of which, i’ll be latitudes sapphire in a few days at the conclusion of this first leg of my B2B. i do very much look forward to your recalculating the math and somehow minimizing my sapphire status.

 

 

I'm not minimizin any status, I just don't agree with the idea that a mid-level status qualifies as "elite". But I suppose you'll find a twist that somehow makes sapphire (a third-level status) "elite" as well.

 

The problem with this, of course, is that if you think platinum/sapphire are "elite", then you have nothing left to use to categorize diamond or ambassador.

[justhappy]

As someone who lost sleep most nights of a 7 day cruise due to what sounded like a ball bearing constantly rolling back and forth across the ceiling in our interior stateroom 9 years ago I honestly understand your frustration and what a lack of sleep can do to you.

I was told after engineering came by my room that there was nothing they could do and no other room to put us in. 
No compensation and no one said so much as we are sorry.

This was on Disney Cruise Line which touts themselves as a premium line with excellent customer service.

I sincerely hope the rest of your cruise goes well.

[ontheweb]

32 minutes ago, UKstages said:

 

yes.

 

but the right hand essentially denied there had ever been a left hand.

OK.

 

BTW, I have enjoyed reading your posts and your story telling and look forward to more.

 

And as you I am sure can see from reading some of the responses, there are those who are not teady to read a novel. Some of us have more patience than others.

[SeaShark]

I just think of the Cruise Critic members who would have gone to the Meet & Greet and received the contact information for all of the senior hotel officers onboard. Then, if a problem like this occured, one could simply call the specific officer directly.

 

Using this readily available resource really can help when faced with the bureaucracy and red-tape of life.

[mugtech]

Thanks for the warning, never had intended to sail Prima anyway.

[mjkacmom]

I wonder if it’s a lifeboat issue having one person booked into two cabins, I know many have asked if folks could be double booked in suites/regular cabins to sleep one place but enjoy the amenities in another, and the answer has always been no. Maybe the computer system won’t allow it?

[DCGuy64]

My friend at work who got me into cruising gave me a piece of advice that I've never forgotten: NEVER sail on a new ship. I feel for the OP, who BTW is an incredible writer! You should do this for a living (maybe you already do). Also, and not necessarily interesting, but we never gamble. As in, never. Well, OK, there was one time on the Carnival Liberty 10 years ago that I spent $2 in nickel slots and won $8, so I guess I *am* a gambler, LOL. But yeah, we never stop in the casino, too dangerous. Over the years I've grown accustomed to creaking and noises, just like I'm used to the ship tossing back and forth, I don't even notice it anymore.

[dexddd]

3 hours ago, UKstages said:

 

for privacy reasons (my own), i won't reveal that until the end of the cruise.

 

but it's a club balcony room, which narrows the field considerably.

There are hundreds of rooms on a deck, no one is going to track you down on one deck if you give a deck number unless they listen for the creaky room.

 

We did the TA last fall and we noticed room creakiest we ever had but not to point of no sleep.

[schmoopie17]

@UKstagesI may have been one of the first "cantankerous curmudgeons" who  reported the creaking issue on the Prima. (We were in cabin 10770). The creaking was happening on the wall with the balcony door...and yes, it was quite loud. Loud enough to keep me awake most of our last night (and I sleep with ear plugs). My wife can sleep through anything.

 

As I said, luckily it started on our last night, but it was annoying enough that I mentioned it to Customer Service the last morning...and mentioned it in a follow-up e-mail to NCL following the cruise. It's obvious that we weren't alone...and that nothing has been done to resolve it.

Edited May 23, 2023 by schmoopie17

[hoops71]

We were on the Prima NY-Bermuda on the April 30th sailing in only an inside cabin.  I am also Sapphire, but alas only Pearl with CAS.  I thought for the most part the ship was beautiful, and that the great majority of the complaints I had read leading up to the cruise were either nonexistent or blown out of proportion.

 

That being said, the only major complaint I had was cabin noise on the two days at sea headed to Bermuda.  I almost went mad by the second night.  There was all the creaking, and somehow on deck five midship you could hear bass coming from a club till 3am on the second night.  (maybe the elevator shaft which we were near funneled the noise?)  Whatever it was it is a serious flaw to the ship.  One I somehow missed in the barrage of other complaints about the Prima posted online.

 

And I can truly empathize with the OP.  It definitely effected my enjoyment, mood and attitude those first couple of days.  My only solution was to self medicate in the casino until I thought I could sleep through a hurricane. (Not the healthiest option)  I can't imagine if that had gone on for two more days.  Therefore, I think the $500 is a bit cheap IMO.(especially considering it turns out there were other options the entire time)  But different people put a different value on sleep.

 

Does anyone think that it being a new ship creates this problem?  In other words, as the ship ages will the creaking work itself out, or only get worse?

[insidecabin]

2 hours ago, SeaShark said:

I just think of the Cruise Critic members who would have gone to the Meet & Greet and received the contact information for all of the senior hotel officers onboard. Then, if a problem like this occured, one could simply call the specific officer directly.

 

Using this readily available resource really can help when faced with the bureaucracy and red-tape of life.

They did not give them out on the Star but then they knew there were issues due to the drinks ban.

 

only HD turned up and did not hang around long, leaving just the CN manager.

 

After that seniors were all in hiding rest of the cruise.

[ontheweb]

53 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

My friend at work who got me into cruising gave me a piece of advice that I've never forgotten: NEVER sail on a new ship. I feel for the OP, who BTW is an incredible writer! You should do this for a living (maybe you already do). Also, and not necessarily interesting, but we never gamble. As in, never. Well, OK, there was one time on the Carnival Liberty 10 years ago that I spent $2 in nickel slots and won $8, so I guess I *am* a gambler, LOL. But yeah, we never stop in the casino, too dangerous. Over the years I've grown accustomed to creaking and noises, just like I'm used to the ship tossing back and forth, I don't even notice it anymore.

At one point do you consider a ship no longer a new ship?

 

The Prima is relatively new, but not brand smacking new.

[DCGuy64]

2 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

At one point do you consider a ship no longer a new ship?

 

The Prima is relatively new, but not brand smacking new.

At one point? Or do you mean "at what point?" Anyway, I'd say 1 year old is new. Prima was launched in 2022 so it's only a year old, that seems pretty new to me.

[ontheweb]

6 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

At one point? Or do you mean "at what point?" Anyway, I'd say 1 year old is new. Prima was launched in 2022 so it's only a year old, that seems pretty new to me.

Yes, at what point, I guess fingers and brain were not in sync when I typed that. 🤦‍♂️

 

Thanks for your prompt answer. I think of new as brand new, first few cruises.

 

We will be sailing on the Prima in August; I guess that is right on the border of you definition of new.

[DCGuy64]

2 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Yes, at what point, I guess fingers and brain were not in sync when I typed that. 🤦‍♂️

 

Thanks for your prompt answer. I think of new as brand new, first few cruises.

 

We will be sailing on the Prima in August; I guess that is right on the border of you definition of new.

Well I'm not the biggest expert, that's only my definition. 😊 We did an MSC cruise once on a ship that was only 10 months' old, so that to me was a new ship.