Don’t travel with NCL for Itinerary

[Seas2mountains]

Here is the other one. This one is at 132 days before final payment. It's probably not as big of an impact to those sailing from the New York area but a bigger deal for those who have been wanting to go to St. Lucia.

 

One port dropped and a sea day added. All six remaining ports have time changes which may be no big deal or may require coordination with a private tour provider. 

Dates for two of the ports are changed which will mean all excursions at these two ports with date changes plus the canceled port will get canceled by NCL with refunds issued. Passengers will have to watch NCL app or website to wait patiently for a few weeks to see if they will add excursions or not.

If you are booked on the Escape out of New York this Spring, do you wonder if your itinerary might also get changed? Hmmm. I don't bet in the casino but I might be a winner on this one if I did based on recent patterns.

 

Edited 3 hours ago by Seas2mountains

[Seas2mountains]

Check this out. From the St. Lucia cruise schedule (not Cruise Mapper or other websites that might not get updated as often).

 

https://www.slaspa.com/index.php/seaports/more-seaports/cruise

 

When you click on the cruise schedule, it says on the link that it is as of Oct. 8th. I made the mistake of reading the date in the upper right corner of the document thinking 08/10/24 was August 10th but I forgot it is in European date format with Day/Month/Year.

 

https://www.slaspa.com/media/attachments/2024/10/10/updated-cruise-schedule-2024-2025-as-of-8-oct-2024pdf.

The Escape was supposed to be in St. Lucia on March 1st. See the space is blank. Someone on  CC will blame it on St. Lucia not having availability because they think there is no way that NCL would cancel their port so close to final payment date.

Cruise mapper does show Escape in St. Lucia on March 1st.

 

[mking8288]

33 minutes ago, Seas2mountains said:

Here is the other one. This one is at 132 days before final payment ... a bigger deal for those who have been wanting to go to St. Lucia.
... do you wonder if your itinerary might also get changed? Hmmm. Idon't bet in the casino but I might be a winner on this one if I did based on recent patterns.

 

 

Classic and an established m.o. (modus operandi) on NCL's part - what was annoying is that, we didn't get notified at 130+ days or 120 days upon final payment, not at 90 days but rather, delivered into all the staterooms onboard the ship during the evening ... what a surprise, to see a "welcome" letter with the captain's digitized signatory name on the stationary.   This was on our 15 Days Caribbean "Getaway" and of course, we're wondering about the DR stop and which dock/pier ... 

 

I

 

Sure, unforeseen circumstances - except the drivers, tours and everyone on the other island knew about it, prepared for and expecting our ship to dock there - not going to Saint Lucia.  

 

I supposed NCL operations expert recalculated using the latest tidal tables for arrival and sailaway time, to sail and sustain and optimize for minimal fuel used, for our convenience ... NOT.  

 

We booked the next winter Caribbean getaway with the other line, very simple - arrival is 8 AM and 6 PM departing, thus all abroad 30 minutes prior.  

Edited 3 hours ago by mking8288

[Seas2mountains]

1 minute ago, mking8288 said:

 

 

Classic and an established m.o. (modus operandi) on NCL's part - what was annoying is that, we didn't get notified at 130+ days or 120 days upon final payment, not at 90 days but rather, delivered into all the staterooms onboard the ship during the evening ... what a surprise, to see a "welcome" letter with the captain's digitized signatory name on the stationary.   This was on our 15 Days Caribbean "Getaway" and of course, we're wondering about the DR stop and which dock/pier ... 

 

I

 

Sure, unforeseen circumstances - except the drivers, tours and everyone on the other island knew about it, prepared for and expecting our ship to dock there - not going to Saint Lucia.  

 

I supposed NCL operations expert recalculated using the latest tidal tables for arrival and sailaway time, to sail and sustain and optimize for minimal fuel used, for our convenience ... NOT.  

 

We booked the next winter Caribbean getaway with the other line, very simple - arrival is 8 AM and 6 PM departing, thus all abroad 30 minutes prior.  

Yes, that is it exactly. The passengers are the last to know. We had a change like this on the Escape in May 2023 where they changed the dates for two ports and notified us at embarkation. 

 

We love NCL for so many reasons but this is getting too frustrating to be treated like this. 

[Travelling2Some]

13 hours ago, thistimeplease said:

Depends on who you ask.  I would be very disappointed to miss Bermuda and get an extra day in NY.  

Well, I guess I could go home and water my plants a day early, HaHa.  But seriously, I think it is likely that everyone who is local to NYC was disappointed while an evening in New York is a no-brainer compared to nightlife in Bermuda if you don't live in or close to NY.

 

We had a Bermuda stop cancelled in the waning days of the pandemic.  The change was welcomed by most as we were on a TA rather than having Bermuda as our chief objective.  At the time, the Bermuda government was still bent on having everyone jump through hoops to visit and it seemed most on our sailing just wanted to get to Europe and were happy the port was dropped.

 

I would guess that most cruisers who live in NY have been to Bermuda many times so this would very much depend on where you live and if you have been to Bermuda (which is lovely) previously.  In short, you are correct to say "It depends on who you ask".

[Travelling2Some]

53 minutes ago, mking8288 said:

Sure, unforeseen circumstances - except the drivers, tours and everyone on the other island knew about it, prepared for and expecting our ship to dock there - not going to Saint Lucia.  

We had the same happen on the Dawn in Finland this year.  The passengers are seemingly always the last to know.  We woke up in the "wrong" port one morning and people who had booked private excursions likely lost their money since they were not able to give their tour companies the required notice.  When we went ashore it was obvious that the locals had been expecting our ship for many days.

[mking8288]

DW will go with the flow, if we come across a last minute NCL sailing at fire sale price with relatively low port taxes, charges & fees - where we don't care about the destinations and port of calls.  

 

St. Lucia was a tender port last January for the Getaway sailing, I'm not sure whether it was a tender or docking stop for the Escape.  Our local taxi-tour guide said to us, one of the reasons that NCL doesn't like their bigger ships to visit .... drum roll ...

 

NCL management does not want to run their tenders plus it's not fun for ships sailed above double occupancy, with children & teens, and others with access/mobility challenges; and, all rather go ashore.   This has been proven but ... think about the extra fuel and personnel needed to shuttle 3,000 pax & crew, plus support, not as simple as docking at St. Juan, or Amber Cove.  This urban legend is just one of the theories behind repeated cancellations of St. Lucia, and our winter cruise wasn't the only one.