Goodbye NCL and Possibly Cruising Altogether Rant One

[The Traveling Man]

13 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I'm curious about the "Goodbye NCL and maybe cruising forever" part.  OP willingly embarked on a transatlantic cruise in April.  Weather wasn't great, there were no "I sailed the Atlantic" t-shirts in the gift shop, food and passengers were slightly strange..... and because of that, he's swearing off cruising forever?

And yet @OrcaGirl seemed to have a great time on the same cruise, at least according to her posts on another thread.

[OrcaGirl]

1 hour ago, The Traveling Man said:

And yet @OrcaGirl seemed to have a great time on the same cruise, at least according to her posts on another thread.

 

It's true, I had a great time. Despite the long line at Port Canaveral (it was indeed really long), the weather (I got seasick, vomited all over the floor outside the Bliss Lounge), the missed port in Gibraltar (unfortunate, but it's not the first time a ship hasn't been able to make a port due to mechanical difficulties and it won't be the last), and tripping and hurting both feet really bad in Alicante (I'm still limping).

 

Until the OP comes back and continues his tale of woe, I can only assume I'm one of the 'slightly strange' or 'exotic' passengers he mentioned up front. "That blue-haired woman who threw up everywhere on the first sea day, was always taking photos of her drinks, and then sang Call Me Maybe so poorly on the last sea day?" Yep, that's me. 🤣

 

[Distinctive-Destinations]

3 hours ago, blackwing said:

I'm curious about the "Goodbye NCL and maybe cruising forever" part.  OP willingly embarked on a transatlantic cruise in April.  Weather wasn't great, there were no "I sailed the Atlantic" t-shirts in the gift shop, food and passengers were slightly strange..... and because of that, he's swearing off cruising forever?

 

I do sympathize about missing Gibraltar.  But missing a port can happen on any cruise. 

“I Crossed The Atlantic And Weirdly Complained About It Sort Of And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” 

[ontheweb]

4 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I know, isn't it terrible that I expect to get what I paid for? The horror.... 😉 

Are you ready to say you will not cruise again with a cruise line that does that to you? If so, will you follow through with the threat? 😉

 

I am once again being astute. 😊

[erisajd]

7 hours ago, Barb Nahoumi said:

Yeah, Tee shirts with the NCL LOGO, and the name of the ship, with a picture of the ocean and some fish.  That would be cool.  I'd buy one.

Seems like there are t shirt companies on Facebook that can have a custom shirt for every group.  Maybe NCL can contract with them for a couple hundred custom shirts for every cruise 

[JimR24]

16 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

I know, isn't it terrible that I expect to get what I paid for? The horror.... 😉 

I don't know.  If you have the FAS and you're not paying for your drinks, I think you're getting what you pay for.  I just prefer to act like Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber handing our cash while on vacation.  

 

Tell ya what, if we're ever on the same cruise.  You can sit near me and I'll hook you up with the tipping.  🤑

[Sailing12Away]

14 hours ago, OrcaGirl said:

 

It's true, I had a great time. Despite the long line at Port Canaveral (it was indeed really long), the weather (I got seasick, vomited all over the floor outside the Bliss Lounge), the missed port in Gibraltar (unfortunate, but it's not the first time a ship hasn't been able to make a port due to mechanical difficulties and it won't be the last), and tripping and hurting both feet really bad in Alicante (I'm still limping).

 

Until the OP comes back and continues his tale of woe, I can only assume I'm one of the 'slightly strange' or 'exotic' passengers he mentioned up front. "That blue-haired woman who threw up everywhere on the first sea day, was always taking photos of her drinks, and then sang Call Me Maybe so poorly on the last sea day?" Yep, that's me. 🤣

 

Own it and be proud. A cruise is 95% what you choose to make of it. Folks expecting everything to go according to plan, but only willing to pay a guarantee cabin rate price for that experience are setting themselves up for a lot of disappointment. 

 

Glad you were able to still find some joy and fun in your travel despite the ick.

[ctlyf]

On 4/23/2024 at 2:02 PM, The Traveling Man said:

Well, it seems that the OP has left the building and this thread already has been hijacked a dozen different ways, so here goes:

 

Your story concerns getting back to port in time for debarkation and travel to the airport for your trip home.  Not a bad story, lots of intrigue, dramatic plot twists and turns, I give it an eight. 

 

If we include all manner of travails which might befall a cruise passenger, though, I'll put my Star story up for contention for "worst ever."  In December 2016, the NCL Star was less than halfway through a 270 day "around the world" voyage.  They really didn't sail around the globe, just from Denmark, through the Suez Canal, to China, down to Australia, and finally back to the Star's next home port of Athens.  Leaving Singapore, one of the two Azipod propulsion units gave up the ghost.  Travel for the next month was slowed to half speed, meaning lots of missed ports, shortened times in port, etc.  Lots and lots of unhappy campers posted frequently on CC about their woes.  It  took a month of limping along before the itinerary brought the Star back to Singapore, where an unplanned couple of extra days in port resulted in the Azipod being repaired.  YAY!  Back to normal speed and the originally published itinerary.

 

That lasted barely 24 hours before the OTHER Azipod broke down.  Back to slow speed and missed ports throughout Southeast Asia.  We were following along, voraciously reading every post on the several CC roll calls for the various segments of the cruise.  We were booked to join the Star in Sydney in early February 2017.  By that time, NCL already had all but given up all hope.  They offered anyone on our cruise and the ones following ours a full refund, without penalty, to anyone who chose to cancel up to and including the very day prior to their scheduled embarkation. 

 

Well, we decided to stick to our plans.  NCL was offering some FCC, so even missing a few ports, it seemed like the thing to do.  We departed Sydney on time, but were unable to get to Melbourne as scheduled.  NCL gave us an unscheduled overnight stop in Melbourne, and another whole day to tour the city before we departed early in the evening of 9 February 2017.  We limped out of Melbourne on one propeller, bound for New Zealand, where almost half of our port stops already had been cancelled due to our slow speed.  About 1:00 AM on 10 February, I was awakened by an eerie stillness.  Yep, now both propellers were out of service and we were adrift in the Tasman Sea.

 

It took a couple of days before the tugboats that came to our rescue were able to get us back into Melbourne, where we enjoyed a lovely extended vacation in Australia.  They finally did get both Azipods repaired, and by the evening of Valentine's Day we were underway at full speed for Auckland, missing all of our intermediate ports in New Zealand (eight stops were planned, as I recall), making it into Auckland just in time to disembark our passengers and take on the next group, bound for Singapore.  We were B2B, so we were able to spend a day in Auckland before rejoining our ship.

 

So, we missed all those ports in New Zealand, but we received a ton of FCC, enough to afford another B2B to Australia and New Zealand the following year.  At the time, though, we thought this was the epitome of ship happens.

I really wish CC would allow for more reaction emojis... you're story warrants a 🤯 at a minimum!

[Catchum]

1 hour ago, Sailing12Away said:

Own it and be proud. A cruise is 95% what you choose to make of it. Folks expecting everything to go according to plan, but only willing to pay a guarantee cabin rate price for that experience are setting themselves up for a lot of disappointment. 

 

Glad you were able to still find some joy and fun in your travel despite the ick.

When ever someone says "have a good trip" my response is always "if I don't it's my own fault".Having been on a covid cruise in 2020 where all ports were closed and the ship ran out of milk (Baileys in coffee is an acceptable alternative) and one where influenza swept through and mortuary vans lined up with the excursion coaches at ports I still haven't had a bad cruise.

[MajSteve]

This is the OP of the thread. I find it amazing that people are so mundanely satisfied with poor service. Horrible embarkation, passengers passing out from heat in the 2.5 hours in the sun with no water stations provided: no problem. Slow and lackluster service; no problem. Long lines for supposed reservation times: no problem. Poor NCL takes my money and pretends they are doing everything they can to improve the situation but don't, no problem. If you ain't Haven class, you ain't nobody; no problem. If you spent a couple of thousand dollars on anything else that had so many problems, you would be raising hell about it. But folks seem all too ready to forgive a cruise line for a shoddy product. And I am getting tired of being, "classed". From airlines and their "preferred" classes of boarding the plane to seats on the transfer busses. If you do not prefer Salsa dancing and rap music, don't bother to sit out by the pool.  And please: Will passengers begin to show some courtesy and consideration? From the electric scooter drivers who seem to think that the corridors and table seatings were created just for them and their beeping little horns to the pushy people cutting into the buffet lines to the drunks in the hot tubs and the 80 year old men trying to look like Hulk Hogan in their Speedos and muscle shirts to the elderly women wearing thong bathing suits to the "studs" wearing cowboy hats who have never set foot on a farm or ranch. No, you don't look cute; you look silly and out of place. Somewhat like Walmart on Friday night. From now on I am going to rent a nice cabin in a remote state park and relax on my own terms and my own schedule. Goodbye cruising.

[The Traveling Man]

2 hours ago, Catchum said:

When ever someone says "have a good trip" my response is always "if I don't it's my own fault".Having been on a covid cruise in 2020 where all ports were closed and the ship ran out of milk (Baileys in coffee is an acceptable alternative) and one where influenza swept through and mortuary vans lined up with the excursion coaches at ports I still haven't had a bad cruise.

How about being on a cruise on the NCL Star in the Med where almost half the passengers were from Ireland, Scotland, or England and the ship's bars ran out of Guinness beer on the fourth day of an 11 day cruise.  And that was two days before "Guinness Day", an annual celebration honoring the creation of that golden elixir.

[yakcruiser]

41 minutes ago, MajSteve said:

From now on I am going to rent a nice cabin in a remote state park and relax on my own terms and my own schedule. Goodbye cruising.

Can't wait to read the review on the State Park website complaining about the bears and raccoons stealing your food and disturbing your solitude.

[ColeThornton]

45 minutes ago, MajSteve said:

This is the OP of the thread. I find it amazing that people are so mundanely satisfied with poor service. Horrible embarkation, passengers passing out from heat in the 2.5 hours in the sun with no water stations provided: no problem. Slow and lackluster service; no problem. Long lines for supposed reservation times: no problem. Poor NCL takes my money and pretends they are doing everything they can to improve the situation but don't, no problem. If you ain't Haven class, you ain't nobody; no problem. If you spent a couple of thousand dollars on anything else that had so many problems, you would be raising hell about it. But folks seem all too ready to forgive a cruise line for a shoddy product. And I am getting tired of being, "classed". From airlines and their "preferred" classes of boarding the plane to seats on the transfer busses. If you do not prefer Salsa dancing and rap music, don't bother to sit out by the pool.  And please: Will passengers begin to show some courtesy and consideration? From the electric scooter drivers who seem to think that the corridors and table seatings were created just for them and their beeping little horns to the pushy people cutting into the buffet lines to the drunks in the hot tubs and the 80 year old men trying to look like Hulk Hogan in their Speedos and muscle shirts to the elderly women wearing thong bathing suits to the "studs" wearing cowboy hats who have never set foot on a farm or ranch. No, you don't look cute; you look silly and out of place. Somewhat like Walmart on Friday night. From now on I am going to rent a nice cabin in a remote state park and relax on my own terms and my own schedule. Goodbye cruising.

 

 

[MajSteve]

Cole Thornton? There's only three men I know with that kind of speed. One's dead, One's me, and the other is Cole Thornton.

[Asawi]

48 minutes ago, MajSteve said:

No, you don't look cute; you look silly and out of place. Somewhat like Walmart on Friday night. From now on I am going to rent a nice cabin in a remote state park and relax on my own terms and my own schedule. Goodbye cruising.

Yeah, definitely sounds like vacationing with other people is not for you. And I would prefer to not have judgemnetal people like you around me. Part of what I like about cruising the diversity of people and the acceptance of differencies. But hey, it's obviously not for everyone. Bye bye!

[MajSteve]

14 minutes ago, yakcruiser said:

Can't wait to read the review on the State Park website complaining about the bears and raccoons stealing your food and disturbing your solitude.

At least they won't be wearing thongs and driving electric scooters...

[MajSteve]

1 minute ago, Asawi said:

Yeah, definitely sounds like vacationing with other people is not for you. And I would prefer to not have judgemnetal people like you around me. Part of what I like about cruising the diversity of people and the acceptance of differencies. But hey, it's obviously not for everyone. Bye bye!

Diversity is one thing...Ignorant behavior is another

[Catchum]

29 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

How about being on a cruise on the NCL Star in the Med where almost half the passengers were from Ireland, Scotland, or England and the ship's bars ran out of Guinness beer on the fourth day of an 11 day cruise.  And that was two days before "Guinness Day", an annual celebration honoring the creation of that golden elixir.

Have been on multiple cruises where my wine of choice was unavailable after a while. Guinness is good (for you)  but other beverages are available. If Guinness is your priority a week in Dublin - it tastes much better there - is a more sensible choice than a Mediterranean Cruise. Also if your Guinness is golden I would definitely be asking for a refund.

Edited April 25 by Catchum

[The Traveling Man]

1 minute ago, Catchum said:

Have been on multiple cruises where my wine of choice was unavailable after a while. Guinness is good (for you)  but other beverages are available. If Guinness is your priority a week in Dublin - it tastes much better there - is a more sensible choice than a Mediterranean Cruise. 

I rarely drink Guinness myself, only a couple of times when we were in Ireland.  As they say, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."  My point was that almost 1000 persons on a 2000 passenger ship were ardent consumers of a particular brand of spirits.  Not only did the ship run out of their beverage of choice, they did so a day or two prior to the annual day set aside to celebrate the creation of their brew.  Now, if you've ever had a Guinness, you know that Coors Light doesn't even come close to taking its place.  Maybe a California Cabernet will do in a pinch when what you really wanted was an Argentinian Malbec, but those folks were royally P.O.ed about not having a Guinness beer on Guinness Day!

[julig22]

16 hours ago, erisajd said:

Seems like there are t shirt companies on Facebook that can have a custom shirt for every group.  Maybe NCL can contract with them for a couple hundred custom shirts for every cruise 

The gift shop isn't run by NCL - but yea, they could probably do a little better on their destination souvenirs.

On the other hand...I was all ready to go to Antarctica on the Star in February 2022 but it was cancelled maybe 6 weeks prior to sail date. So I rebooked for 2023. Fast forward to summer 2022, I was on the Star and the Antarctica t-shirts were in the "rummage" sale as it's been termed, so I bought one.  Why they didn't just keep them, I don't know - although there were rumors that they were changing vendors for the gift shop.

[Menocchio]

Was Guiness day something NCL was promoting, or is it a fake holiday Guiness made up that NCL was supposed to know about?

 

I mean, still bad form to run out of anything that early. But really bad form to run out of the star attraction of your own party. 

Edited April 25 by Menocchio

[Sailing12Away]

4 minutes ago, Menocchio said:

Was Guiness day something NCL was promoting, or is it a fake holiday Guiness made up that NCL was supposed to know about?

 

I mean, still bad form to run out of anything that early. But really bad form to run out of the star attraction of your own party. 

Do a quick google search on "Arthur's Day" for more info. I think it officially has been discontinued, but it wasn't an NCL thing, more of a local Irish passenger thing.

[Catchum]

17 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

I rarely drink Guinness myself, only a couple of times when we were in Ireland.  As they say, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."  My point was that almost 1000 persons on a 2000 passenger ship were ardent consumers of a particular brand of spirits.  Not only did the ship run out of their beverage of choice, they did so a day or two prior to the annual day set aside to celebrate the creation of their brew.  Now, if you've ever had a Guinness, you know that Coors Light doesn't even come close to taking its place.  Maybe a California Cabernet will do in a pinch when what you really wanted was an Argentinian Malbec, but those folks were royally P.O.ed about not having a Guinness beer on Guinness Day!

My point was that I choose to enjoy my experience. If other people don't enjoy their trip for whatever reason that does not invalidate my enjoyment. I'm sorry that the ship running out of a beverage you don't drink spoilt your Mediterranean Cruise.

[hallux]

1 hour ago, MajSteve said:

From the electric scooter drivers who seem to think that the corridors and table seatings were created just for them and their beeping little horns

My cruise this year was a 15-day Panama Canal cruise. I have NEVER seen so many walkers, canes or scooters in one place in my LIFE!  But they all seemed relatively aware of their effect on others.  Some were inconsiderate in other ways. 

 

One way in which they were NOT inconsiderate - their ability to be on time!  We for sure left two ports late, one we left early but had to return for a medical, but we definitely seemed to be leaving early or on time more than not.

[detroitlions]

It sounds like the OP was never really a big Cruiser. The folks on here are addicted to cruising for the most part and will argue every point.

I enjoy cruising but it is not my favorite vacation. I love our annual Hawaii vacation we have friends who live there but some folks I know do not like going there.

The port in Orlando is horrible last year we had a similar experience but its only a few hours out of your day then you are on a cruise so we just put up with it.

Now the food we all know it used to be better. But the majority of what we eat is good.

A TA cruise is not my thing because you will have crowded areas everywhere during popular times a day and no one is getting off the ship to explore.