NCL Prima - Observation Lounge closed for the entire cruise

[The Traveling Man]

1 hour ago, ngrund said:

of course, but the space is still going to be full of the displays that won't be taken down until the end of the sale/cruise.

On other ships, the crew will move all the art work, display stands, and accent lights in and out of the auction venues before and after each event.  They frequently hold the auction in one of the MDRs during the day when the restaurant is not open.  They have to completely clear out and rearrange everything in time for dinner service. 

[YVRteacher]

When tomorrow’s Freestyle Daily comes out, let’s see if “Naked Art Auction” is one of the activities…

[ChiefMateJRK]

20 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

On other ships, the crew will move all the art work, display stands, and accent lights in and out of the auction venues before and after each event.  They frequently hold the auction in one of the MDRs during the day when the restaurant is not open.  They have to completely clear out and rearrange everything in time for dinner service. 

Do we know for sure that this is an auction?

[The Traveling Man]

8 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Do we know for sure that this is an auction?

Auction, viewing, enrichment lecture, or whatever.  You can bet that whatever they're doing, the ultimate goal is to relieve as many passengers as possible of as much money as possible in exchange for what passes as art.

[luv2kroooz]

It is a Park West VIP event. My parents have been invited to these. Park West pays for their cruise and then hosts various VIP events. There are exclusive auctions on Sea Day AMs, and then in the evening they have cocktail hours and a VIP preview event where they will feature two or three artists. There are usually two or three artists on board to sign items purchased. This is totally different from the normal auctions listed in the Dailies. On the Breakaway, the morning events were held in Manhattan room and the evening events were held in what used to be Fat Cats now Syd's.

[ChiefMateJRK]

12 minutes ago, luv2kroooz said:

It is a Park West VIP event. My parents have been invited to these. Park West pays for their cruise and then hosts various VIP events. There are exclusive auctions on Sea Day AMs, and then in the evening they have cocktail hours and a VIP preview event where they will feature two or three artists. There are usually two or three artists on board to sign items purchased. This is totally different from the normal auctions listed in the Dailies. On the Breakaway, the morning events were held in Manhattan room and the evening events were held in what used to be Fat Cats now Syd's.

Thanks for that info.  This is certainly something different than the routine art auction.  Hopefully it will be miserable failure for the bottom line (it very well may be) and they'll never do something stupid like this again.

[Cassicruiser]

This is completely unacceptable!  I am not usually a complainer, but for this I would be at guest services  letting them know how we and others feel about this, as well as emailing corporate.  The OL is not an extra pay area, so the use of that space is part of your cruise fare.  Not ok!

If it was a one night thing, I could let it go, but the whole cruise?!  Sorry this happened to you, it's so disappointing 😞 

[luv2kroooz]

38 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Thanks for that info.  This is certainly something different than the routine art auction.  Hopefully it will be miserable failure for the bottom line (it very well may be) and they'll never do something stupid like this again.

No problem. They've been holding VIP events for at least 10 years that I know of. My parents also did one on Regal Princess way before Corona time. There may be other lines that participate, but I don't have knowledge of those. They also hold VIP events at land based resorts. Love em or hate em, I am afraid Park West may not be going away any time soon.

[ChiefMateJRK]

11 minutes ago, Cassicruiser said:

This is completely unacceptable!  I am not usually a complainer, but for this I would be at guest services  letting them know how we and others feel about this, as well as emailing corporate.  The OL is not an extra pay area, so the use of that space is part of your cruise fare.  Not ok!

Absolutely!  I have this itinerary booked in the future and may very well send stuff to NCL telling them how bad this incident sucked.  It is actually shocking that they have pulled such a stupid move.  Maybe the financial pressure is really that bad, but I suspect it is one high level manager or a single department that is on the bubble, not the entire corporation.  Let's not let them off the hook.

[ChiefMateJRK]

3 minutes ago, luv2kroooz said:

No problem. They've been holding VIP events for at least 10 years that I know of. My parents also did one on Regal Princess way before Corona time. There may be other lines that participate, but I don't have knowledge of those. They also hold VIP events at land based resorts. Love em or hate em, I am afraid Park West may not be going away any time soon.

I have no problem with their events, until they take over 2/3 of the best public area on the ship.  That is NOT acceptable.

[insidecabin]

 

The ship will have it hands tied.

 

Those on board need to get together and picket the VIP entrance.

 

big signs

      we want our lounge back, when do we want it     

NOW

[Ruislipspur]

They had better not do that on the Viva in September! 

 

We recently sailed on the Encore and spent a fair bit of time in the OL, we loved the peace and quiet there late afternoon 

 

If this area was closed off, my wife would kick up a storm and believe me, that is not something anybody wants to witness!

[BirdTravels]

7 hours ago, Cassicruiser said:

This is completely unacceptable!  I am not usually a complainer, but for this I would be at guest services  letting them know how we and others feel about this, as well as emailing corporate.  The OL is not an extra pay area, so the use of that space is part of your cruise fare.  Not ok!

If it was a one night thing, I could let it go, but the whole cruise?!  Sorry this happened to you, it's so disappointing 😞 

It is normal on every cruise line. A group can do a partial charter, in this case Park West is comping cruises for their customers plus adding people who booked the cruise on their own. We have been invited to comped auction cruise events and turn them down. 
 

A partial charter group can arrange for facilities, AV, food, support. 
 

We were on the Prima last year when a travel agent group held their annual convention on the ship and took over various Venus, including the observation lounge, for their events. It was not for the whole cruise because it moved around, OL, go kart track, Stadium. 
 

Last month, our paid activity got cut short  when we got bumped by a wedding that had reserved the space. 

[EPTCB]

Responses will obviously vary person to person. Our response upon finding that the observation lounge was closed for the entirety of a cruise would be something along the lines of muttering "That's a bummer" and then wandering off to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

[Greener123]

20 minutes ago, EPTCB said:

Responses will obviously vary person to person. Our response upon finding that the observation lounge was closed for the entirety of a cruise would be something along the lines of muttering "That's a bummer" and then wandering off to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

I think it very much depends on the venue - if they turned around and said the sports court or the gym were closed I wouldn’t care 🤣

 

But a significant public lounge, with viewing space on a scenic cruise, that’s a bit different. 
 

happy to see they’ve opened 30% of it but it’s still a bit off to have it so shut off for something 95% of passengers aren’t interested in is a bit off 

[ontheweb]

6 hours ago, insidecabin said:

 

The ship will have it hands tied.

 

Those on board need to get together and picket the VIP entrance.

 

big signs

      we want our lounge back, when do we want it     

NOW

And don't forget to have a recording of Jim Morrison of the Doors singing that! 

[ontheweb]

I sure hope they do not do anything like that on our Prima cruise that includes Norwegian fjords. And especially for Park West, who frankly s*ck.

[robinium]

1 hour ago, EPTCB said:

Responses will obviously vary person to person. Our response upon finding that the observation lounge was closed for the entirety of a cruise would be something along the lines of muttering "That's a bummer" and then wandering off to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

You may become a little more agitated with it when you see that you can’t find a seat anywhere else where you can have a drink because the outdoor spaces are all closed / unusable due to gale force winds and there already wasn’t a huge deal of indoor space to begin with. 
 

Thankfully we’ve reached Bergen where they’re enjoying a bout of almost tropical weather and sunshine, so we can enjoy the outdoor spaces this afternoon. 

[Red-Sol]

On 6/7/2023 at 9:54 AM, vacation44 said:

We, too, would not be happy.  A few hours a few times is one thing, but for the whole cruise is a totally different thing.

[robinium]

After departing Bergen, it got very windy and cold again, so we popped into the Observation Lounge during the daytime. 
 

It is absolutely packed in here, lots of people standing around in crowds. However, the “Private Function” is currently ongoing, with seemingly only a few people inside.

 

The frustrating thing is that they’re broadcasting (loudly) microphone audio from the art function through the entire lounge; even the passenger portion. So we can’t enjoy a nice bit of light music or a peaceful departure from the port… we have to listen to a pretentious artist talk about the size of brush she uses, adding colour into subject matter and her inspirational path to painting. 

 

It is the most boring cr*p I’ve ever heard. 

[EPTCB]

1 hour ago, robinium said:

You may become a little more agitated with it when you see that you can’t find a seat anywhere else where you can have a drink because the outdoor spaces are all closed / unusable due to gale force winds and there already wasn’t a huge deal of indoor space to begin with.....

Never said there was only one acceptable response, just said what ours would be. In our case, next stop would be the heated loungers with a view in the thermal spa area.

[Red-Sol]

9 minutes ago, robinium said:

After departing Bergen, it got very windy and cold again, so we popped into the Observation Lounge during the daytime. 
 

It is absolutely packed in here, lots of people standing around in crowds. However, the “Private Function” is currently ongoing, with seemingly only a few people inside.

 

The frustrating thing is that they’re broadcasting (loudly) microphone audio from the art function through the entire lounge; even the passenger portion. So we can’t enjoy a nice bit of light music or a peaceful departure from the port… we have to listen to a pretentious artist talk about the size of brush she uses, adding colour into subject matter and her inspirational path to painting. 

 

It is the most boring cr*p I’ve ever heard. 

 

I am so sorry you are going through this on your cruise....It is NOT acceptable (no matter how a couple of cheerleaders want you to think it is) You and other cruisers with you need to complain loud and long in as many areas and emails to corporate as possible. Frankly the Prima already is not recieiving a lot of good reviews in comparison to the bad ones...and this situation will just make it worse.

[robinium]

10 minutes ago, Red-Sol said:

 

I am so sorry you are going through this on your cruise....It is NOT acceptable (no matter how a couple of cheerleaders want you to think it is) You and other cruisers with you need to complain loud and long in as many areas and emails to corporate as possible. Frankly the Prima already is not recieiving a lot of good reviews in comparison to the bad ones...and this situation will just make it worse.

Thank you for saying this, I appreciate those in the thread who’ve been supportive over this issue, as it really is a bit of an annoying downer on an otherwise great cruise so far. We paid quite a bit for this experience and it’s annoying that we weren’t able to enjoy the views sailing out of Zeebrugee and Amsterdam ports, and now, while we technically can use some

of the lounge to do this, it’s mostly standing and with art auction audio in the background. 

[insidecabin]

27 minutes ago, robinium said:

After departing Bergen, it got very windy and cold again, so we popped into the Observation Lounge during the daytime. 
 

It is absolutely packed in here, lots of people standing around in crowds. However, the “Private Function” is currently ongoing, with seemingly only a few people inside.

 

The frustrating thing is that they’re broadcasting (loudly) microphone audio from the art function through the entire lounge; even the passenger portion. So we can’t enjoy a nice bit of light music or a peaceful departure from the port… we have to listen to a pretentious artist talk about the size of brush she uses, adding colour into subject matter and her inspirational path to painting. 

 

It is the most boring cr*p I’ve ever heard. 

This is the rub

 

A venue that would normally have capacity of(let's just use an example) 300 but is only being used by 50 that's 250 that are taking up space elsewhere and on a busy cruise with outdoors compromised. 

 

If a private group book a space and use it  they only impact that space, if they don't then that has knock on everywhere else.

[RocketMan275]

This is one of the very few instances where I would consider reducing/eliminating the DSC. 

I would make it very clear why I was doing so.