Middle name required?

[decrepit old man]

I just booked a cruise with NCL. Reservation just has my first name and last name.

 

On my passport in the Given Names field, it has my first name and middle name. 

 

Will this be a problem boarding the ship?

 

So for example, my reservation shows Decrepit Man however my passport shows Decrepit Old Man

Edited January 9 by decrepit old man

[shof515]

not a problem, middle name is not needed for cruising

[NW Pacific]

In my experience No

[ChiefMateJRK]

I don't think it is needed, but why not just add it?  One phone call will do it.

[mugtech]

Simplify your life, be like Jack Reacher have no middle name.

[ChiefMateJRK]

13 minutes ago, mugtech said:

Simplify your life, be like Jack Reacher have no middle name.

I've actually seen that this has caused problems when a system of some sort "demands" a middle name.

[IAcruising]

1 hour ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I don't think it is needed, but why not just add it?  One phone call will do it.

 

There is no place to add it in your profile, so it's unlikely a call would do any better. I do seem to remember being able to add it when booking, but it never shows up anywhere after that.

 

[ChiefMateJRK]

4 minutes ago, IAcruising said:

 

There is no place to add it in your profile, so it's unlikely a call would do any better. I do seem to remember being able to add it when booking, but it never shows up anywhere after that.

 

An NCL agent once asked me if I wanted to add them when I was on the phone.  It has shown up consistently on all documents since that time.

[mugtech]

3 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I've actually seen that this has caused problems when a system of some sort "demands" a middle name.

My wife, following the tradition of the Philippines, has two middle names, her birth name and her maiden name, causes trouble sometimes.  The question remains, how can any name be called a middle name if you have 4 names?

[shof515]

6 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I don't think it is needed, but why not just add it?  One phone call will do it.

on my previous cruises i noticed they automatically add it when they scan your passport at the terminal. a few times i noticed my middle name was auto added to my booking onboard the ship

[ontheweb]

If you book BOGO flights in addition to the cruise, they will at some point ask for middle name for purposes of the flights. (At least they did with us.)

 

The funny thing is they gave the middle names to Air Canada for our flights to London, but did not give them to Iceland Air for our flights home from Reykjavik. This caused us to have to get in line to get our boarding passes as the kiosk would not recognize the names as matching the passports as there were middles names on the passports. (And oddly it was fine with me, but not DW to print boarding passes, something the attendant could not explain.)

[dobiemom]

10 hours ago, decrepit old man said:

I just booked a cruise with NCL. Reservation just has my first name and last name.

 

On my passport in the Given Names field, it has my first name and middle name. 

 

Will this be a problem boarding the ship?

 

So for example, my reservation shows Decrepit Man however my passport shows Decrepit Old Man

No problem boarding the ship but you may have a problem if you are flying (and NCL booked your flights). 

[RocketMan275]

9 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I've actually seen that this has caused problems when a system of some sort "demands" a middle name.

In the Army, we just  use NMN in place of a real middle name.  NMN is No Middle Name.

[herbanrenewal]

9 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I've actually seen that this has caused problems when a system of some sort "demands" a middle name.

Off original topic, but...

My passport just lists my first and last name, mostly because I wasn't sure what to use as my middle name. When you have a compound first name, like Mary Beth and a middle name, and a maiden name and one or two married names it can get to be tough to decide what name to use, and after a few years trying to remember which middle initial is mine legally I asked my lawyer if I could just use my first and last name on my passport. Since 2008 I just have first and last name on my passport. I have never had a situation where I was required to have a middle name, even though my social security uses my compound first name second part as my middle name and my driver license has maiden name as middle name (original license was before I married, and when I married they added new last name and issued it with first, maiden, and last name).

In short, the issue of legal name can be more complex for women who don't keep their birth name as their legal name. And you are not legally obligated to have a middle name.

[laudergayle]

A call to NCL and request to add middle name is the appropriate answer.  At certain times it will be important, especially if flying on NCL flight. Also beneficial to match the name on your credit card.  

[The Traveling Man]

10 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

I've actually seen that this has caused problems when a system of some sort "demands" a middle name.

The US military services used to require a middle name or middle initial.  Maybe they still do.  Middle names are much more common today than they were decades ago, so many men inducted during WWII had no middle name.  The recruiter would sometimes type "NONE" in the middle name field.  Sometimes they would type "NMI" or "NMN" for "no middle initial" or "no middle name".  Many, perhaps most, of the service men during WWII managed to acquire nicknames, usually given to them by their buddies.  My dad told me of one unfortunate fellow who lacked a middle name.  His papers listed his name as "NONE" .  His nickname, of course was "Nun" or sometimes "Sister."

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, dobiemom said:

No problem boarding the ship but you may have a problem if you are flying (and NCL booked your flights). 

Yes, see my post above yours to see what can happen with flights.

[TrumpyNor]

NCL seems to have both my husbands middle names (3!) and my middle name "on file" - as the booking confirmations always have only our first and last name, no middle names but on board they have "it all" (included on the ship cards, causing some strange names since there is not enough space on the card for all our names. Some times the name printed on the ship card just cuts the middle name when there is no more room, and sometimes (especially in my husbands case with a total of 5 names), The first name is listed on the card, then the middle names until there is no more room, and then NO last name.... 

[ChiefMateJRK]

4 hours ago, laudergayle said:

A call to NCL and request to add middle name is the appropriate answer.  At certain times it will be important, especially if flying on NCL flight. Also beneficial to match the name on your credit card.  

Which is another realm.  After I finally decided to fully force NCL and airline profiles to match my passport (i.e. with full middle name), I discovered that some credit cards only allow middle initial.  Oh well.....  We actually had reports here on the forum of on-line accounts not working because the credit cards on file didn't have middle name designations that matched NCL's system.  I think they've fixed that since we haven't seen any reports for quite a while.  Likely some software enhancement that somebody didn't really think through.  That's NCL for ya.

[zqvol]

26 minutes ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Which is another realm.  After I finally decided to fully force NCL and airline profiles to match my passport (i.e. with full middle name), I discovered that some credit cards only allow middle initial.  Oh well.....  We actually had reports here on the forum of on-line accounts not working because the credit cards on file didn't have middle name designations that matched NCL's system.  I think they've fixed that since we haven't seen any reports for quite a while.  Likely some software enhancement that somebody didn't really think through.  That's NCL for ya.

Do you ever have anything good to say about NCL

[ChiefMateJRK]

4 minutes ago, zqvol said:

Do you ever have anything good to say about NCL

Of course.  Just check my posting history.  It's publicly available.

 

That said, I've probably not said much good about their IT functions.

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, ChiefMateJRK said:

Of course.  Just check my posting history.  It's publicly available.

 

That said, I've probably not said much good about their IT functions.

If you look at other forums within cruisecritic, I think you will find negative comments about the IT functions on basically every cruise line's board. 😒

[Greenpea2]

21 hours ago, decrepit old man said:

I just booked a cruise with NCL. Reservation just has my first name and last name.

 

On my passport in the Given Names field, it has my first name and middle name. 

 

Will this be a problem boarding the ship?

 

So for example, my reservation shows Decrepit Man however my passport shows Decrepit Old Man

To be safe, I would have your name match what is on your passport. 

[slavetoabunny]

11 hours ago, ontheweb said:

If you book BOGO flights in addition to the cruise, they will at some point ask for middle name for purposes of the flights. (At least they did with us.)

 

The funny thing is they gave the middle names to Air Canada for our flights to London, but did not give them to Iceland Air for our flights home from Reykjavik. This caused us to have to get in line to get our boarding passes as the kiosk would not recognize the names as matching the passports as there were middles names on the passports. (And oddly it was fine with me, but not DW to print boarding passes, something the attendant could not explain.)

That's surprising about Reykjavik.  I flew in/out of Reykjavik last summer and my United reservation didn't have my middle name, which is on my passport.  No issues whatsoever.

[ontheweb]

11 hours ago, slavetoabunny said:

That's surprising about Reykjavik.  I flew in/out of Reykjavik last summer and my United reservation didn't have my middle name, which is on my passport.  No issues whatsoever.

Well what happened was even more surprising. We first did me in the kiosk and it worked. Then we did DW, and it did not. We called over an attendant and she immediately said the problem was her middle name was not there while it was on the passport. I then asked why it worked for me when my reservation also was lacking a middle name. She could not answer that.