NCL Freestyle not so Free.

[Zeno]

Sometimes you also know the reviewer is flat out lying. When you were on the same cruise and they say something like "lobster isn't served in the main dining rooms" and you know it was served twice that week in the main dining rooms.

 

Exactly - posts like that just set my teeth on edge.

[dtracker]

Newmexico - don't want to sound "picky", but the baby shrimp in the Venetian looked like pink worms! Couldn't eat them, never mind look at them!! It was ridiculous.

 

Yum! I like pink worms!!

 

DT

[dtracker]

if you think there are cheerleaders here, try Princess and Celebrity..Just say one negative like breakfast was cold a couple of mornings and see what you get??? NCL boards are very mellow...

 

Nita

 

I try to stay off those boards with negative comments! :D

 

DT

[Ralph413]

WOW,I can't believe what I started. I was only stating mine and my wife's opinion. I never said don't go on NCL. I said I won't be using NCL again. There were many good things about our cruise. (Still beats getting up at 5:30am for work). By reading the boards I got the number to the re-accommodations desk and called the Monday before the cruise and got bumped up from o/v cabin to balcony for only $100 pp. everyone on the ship was pleasant and the seas were smooth for the entire cruise. I understand loyalty, I gave RCCL 17 cruises before trying other lines (RCCL started getting too expensive). I hope the title of this post wasn't too offensive I just felt like I was being nickel and dime'd a lot. I know freestyle means free to whatever not free drinks ect. All said I did enjoy my vacation; I would pick better ports in the future (Not NCL's Fault) and study the layout of the ship better. Let's not bicker with each other we all have the same thing in common, we love to cruise!

In the famous words of Ringo Starr "Peace and Love, Peace and Love" ;)

[njhorseman]

I hope the title of this post wasn't too offensive I just felt like I was being nickel and dime'd a lot.

 

 

I have little doubt that the title of your post is as least as responsible for people's reactions as the actual content of the post.

 

It just puts people who like NCL in a fighting mood before they even read the content.

[Ralph413]

I have little doubt that the title of your post is as least as responsible for people's reactions as the actual content of the post.

 

It just puts people who like NCL in a fighting mood before they even read the content.

 

Good point. I guess I should have been a little more compassionate. Got to admit though it did make for some interesting reading (although I never intended it that way).

[njhorseman]

Good point. I guess I should have been a little more compassionate. Got to admit though it did make for some interesting reading (although I never intended it that way).

 

I don't know if compassion is required in the title, just something more neutral, like "Review of our Nowegian XYZ Cruise of mm/dd."

[DMH15]

My last 3 cruises on NCL and I have never felt nickled and dimed. I can easily say NO or IGNORE. I love that I have options that I can choose what I want to pay for.

 

My dad taught me that old saying... Fool me once... Etc. So are you done with NCL?

[CruisnGram]

WOW,I can't believe what I started. I was only stating mine and my wife's opinion. I never said don't go on NCL. I said I won't be using NCL again. There were many good things about our cruise. (Still beats getting up at 5:30am for work). By reading the boards I got the number to the re-accommodations desk and called the Monday before the cruise and got bumped up from o/v cabin to balcony for only $100 pp. everyone on the ship was pleasant and the seas were smooth for the entire cruise. I understand loyalty, I gave RCCL 17 cruises before trying other lines (RCCL started getting too expensive). I hope the title of this post wasn't too offensive I just felt like I was being nickel and dime'd a lot. I know freestyle means free to whatever not free drinks ect. All said I did enjoy my vacation; I would pick better ports in the future (Not NCL's Fault) and study the layout of the ship better. Let's not bicker with each other we all have the same thing in common, we love to cruise!

In the famous words of Ringo Starr "Peace and Love, Peace and Love" ;)

 

I'd like to thank you Ralph for coming back and posting again. I admire you for that as it's not easy when you have a lot of people criticizing what you wrote. Many times after people see the responses that they receive, they are never heard from again. I also admire you for keeping your cool and not coming back with snarky rebuttals. Again, that tells a lot about the type of person you are in my opinion. I mean that in a good way. :)

 

Soooooooooooooo (you knew that was coming didn't you? :)) since you have come back and seem to be willing to respond to posts, I have some questions for you and a couple things I'd like to say concerning the issues you stated in your original post. So here goes.

 

1) You spoke about the extra charges for the spa, the movies and the newspapers that you don't pay on other cruiselines. I did some math and at $100 for the spa for a week, $90.65 for movies (watching one movie per day @ 12.95 per movie), and $27.65 for 7 newspapers (3.95 per day) thats a grand total of $218.30 total for the week. You mentioned yourself about how you have been loyal to RCL but chose NCL due to the price of their cruises. So isn't it true that you could buy all of the things I mentioned above and still save a lot of money over what RCL charges for just the cruise? I realize you can get good deals on all cruiselines at certain times, but in general I find that RCL cruises are ridiculous in price compared to NCL....wouldn't you agree?

 

2) You had a complaint about the service in Blue Lagoon. No excuse for bad service however, did you complain to anyone? The food and beverage manager wants to know about service issues that you have and had you contacted them, I'm sure the issue would have been taken care of.

 

3) You mentioned having problems understanding some of the staff as English isn't their first language. Is that different from RCL? I was under the impression that all ships with an international registry had an international crew, the majority of who do not speak perfect English and have a heavy native accent.

 

4) Food. I won't even go into food as that truly is a personal choice. What you may hate, I may love and vice versa. I do think in general that all food has declined in quality and assortment on all cruiselines recently.

 

5) Poor ship design: Again, that is a personal opinion. I happen to love the Dawn and loved the layout. I found her easy to learn my way around on and thought she was a beautiful ship.

 

6) The pool: Honestly, there's no other way to say this other then to say it outright. Were you not aware prior to sailing that there was no adult solarium and that there was no retractable roof over the pool? If not, I have to ask why if these things are important to you, why you didn't take a little bit of time prior to booking the cruise to find out about them? I can understand your disappointment, but that certainly isn't NCL's fault that you didn't make the effort to find out about the amenities on the ship before you booked it.

 

7) Noisy cabin: I still can't figure out exactly why this cabin was so noisy. Did anyone ever tell you? I do think though that it shows that they do indeed care about their passengers comfort since they did move you to another room. On a side note, I'd suggest that you go to "Cabin Selection Tips" board here on CC and let others no about the noise in this cabin. I know that people trying who are going to book rooms on the Dawn would appreciate knowing to avoid that cabin.

 

So there you have it. I hope you receive this post in the way it was intended. Not an attack but a different opinion and some honest questions. Again Ralph, thanks for coming back...I'm impressed! :D

 

CG

[sottovoce]

Gram, yours is a wonderfully thoughtful and incisive posting above. If that same thoughtfulness and consideration had been put into the first posting in this thread, we all would have been spared a lot of angst. People post without really thinking through just what it is they are saying and how regulars of the cruise line they are so harshly and carelessly speaking of are going to feel. It's like someone posting that your house is ugly, or your clothes are tacky, or your home town is a dump, or your hairdo is frightful, or the way you like your eggs is disgusting, and so on.

 

And when inflammatory phrases like "nickel and diming" are thrown in willy-nilly--and incorrectly in this case, as all mass-market cruise lines charge extra for just about all the same things--it just adds fuel to the fire. Sarcasm and hyperbole and insulting adjectives add nothing to the discourse here. All that having been said, I'll give Ralph credit for coming back and giving us all a kind of "oops" response.

[Bobbye]

Just a update -- Royal Caribbean now has none of the daily News Fax papers on board, they tell you to watch CNN in your cabin. They are doing a lot of cuts including no chocolate on the pillow at night. I miss the papers but the chocolate never got eaten anyway.

[maggiecatenjay]

It was an eye-catcher. For my first NCL cruise, if I had read a thread like this I would have understood how things worked better. As it was I thought it very odd that so many things were 'extra.' I guess I had Cary Grant and Debra Kerr in the back of my mind in those days...

I, personally skip over the reviews of ships other than the Spirit because there is so much here that pertains specifically to the Spirit and to issues I have particular questions about... JMHO (I learned that HERE!)

Kudos to provocative thread titles.

And kudos to Ralph for having the fortitude to persevere through this whole thing to respond in a reasonable manner.

And, while I'm at it, ditto to the comments regarding CruisGram's post. I LOVE reading your posts!

[Don Haynes]

Just a update -- Royal Caribbean now has none of the daily News Fax papers on board, they tell you to watch CNN in your cabin. They are doing a lot of cuts including no chocolate on the pillow at night. I miss the papers but the chocolate never got eaten anyway.

 

But that little chocolate is better than most of the items on the chocolate buffet. I looked forward to the little chocolate every night sitting on my pillow. Since its so little, I never worried about the calories.....

[daw]

CruisnGram, you have to be one of the most sane, sensible posters I've ever read....on any board. I always appreciate your insights.

[terrymtex01]

WOW,I can't believe what I started. I was only stating mine and my wife's opinion. I never said don't go on NCL. I said I won't be using NCL again. There were many good things about our cruise. (Still beats getting up at 5:30am for work). By reading the boards I got the number to the re-accommodations desk and called the Monday before the cruise and got bumped up from o/v cabin to balcony for only $100 pp. everyone on the ship was pleasant and the seas were smooth for the entire cruise. I understand loyalty, I gave RCCL 17 cruises before trying other lines (RCCL started getting too expensive). I hope the title of this post wasn't too offensive I just felt like I was being nickel and dime'd a lot. I know freestyle means free to whatever not free drinks ect. All said I did enjoy my vacation; I would pick better ports in the future (Not NCL's Fault) and study the layout of the ship better. Let's not bicker with each other we all have the same thing in common, we love to cruise!

In the famous words of Ringo Starr "Peace and Love, Peace and Love" ;)

 

Ralph... One thing I do want to thank you for is at least posting WHY you felt like you were nickeled and dimed to death. You are actually probably the first who actually gave specific examples of what you felt like you had to pay for on your NCL cruise that you did not have to pay for on other cruiselines. The spa, the newspaper, etc. For years I have asked people who posted things like that what they felt like they had to pay for on NCL that they did not have to pay for on other mainstream cruiselines and maybe once someone actually gave me something legit, and that was the spa. I did not ask them that question to challenge them, but just because I truely wanted to know. Having only sailed CCL and RCCL other than NCL, I did not know of any thing we had to pay for on NCL that we did not on the other lines. We don't use the spa and while on vacation we catch a few minutes of CNN, etc, rather than reading a newspaper, so those are things I would not have known the price of on other lines.

 

This is to those who claim us NCL cheerleaders have hidden agendas. You can come up with anything you want to as to why we post what we post. That we get paid from NCL, that we think we know it all, etc. You can try all you want to discredit anything we say that is in response to a stupid review just to make what we are posting seem to not have any merrit. It doesn't matter. We come here to CC because we love cruising. We come to the NCL boards because we love NCL. 99% of the time we NCL cheerleaders do not say anything bad about someone who has had a negative experience other than we are so sorry they did not enjoy their cruise. Speaking only for myself (as I do not have a right to speak for anyone else) it breaks my heart when I read where someone had a bad experience. But a bad experience is a lot different that out and out lies. You can call us anything you want to call us.. you can post and say anything you want to say about us. But we are not going anywhere and when we read someones posting and there are untruths in the posting, we will comment about them. A negative experience is not an untruth that we could know of. But saying the ship charges you 20% auto tip on all extra charges , that all the deck chairs were rusted and broken, that everyone always had to wait for an hour for dinner are lies, and we will continue to point those out. You can bash us all you want, call us any name you want, try to say we have hidden agendas for posting what we want... but guess what... we are not going anywhere. The funniest thing of all that I find in the postings of those of you who attack cheerleaders is .... when we say something about the lies we find in someone's review, we usually give examples of how we found it different when we sailed NCL. example... when we sailed NCL all of the deck chairs were very clean and in good repair. What do you guys post?? No examples of how the lie told might be right? NO.. you attack us for posting our experience. You attack us saying the posters of those lies should be able to post their lies and no one say anything about it. You are the ones with the hidden agendas and it kills you that we are not going to sit back and let people post any lie they want to.

[chapichapo]

I don't really agree (w/ CruisinGram) that you have to do research before booking a vacation or else don't complain. I don't think you have to and even if you do, there's allways something you may forget to see. And you are intitled to complain and warn others about what it was that you desliked.

 

Also, I understand that beeing provocative and having a catchy title is a lot what movie makers and writers try to do if they want to stand out and have some attention from us to the message they're trying to pass. So, why would we want to be neutral and have a boring title and why should writing the same review over and over again be a positive think or a think to aspire to? :cool:

[Ladder55]

This is to those who claim us NCL cheerleaders have hidden agendas. You can come up with anything you want to as to why we post what we post. That we get paid from NCL, that we think we know it all, etc. You can try all you want to discredit anything we say that is in response to a stupid review just to make what we are posting seem to not have any merrit. It doesn't matter. We come here to CC because we love cruising. We come to the NCL boards because we love NCL. 99% of the time we NCL cheerleaders do not say anything bad about someone who has had a negative experience other than we are so sorry they did not enjoy their cruise. Speaking only for myself (as I do not have a right to speak for anyone else) it breaks my heart when I read where someone had a bad experience. But a bad experience is a lot different that out and out lies. You can call us anything you want to call us.. you can post and say anything you want to say about us. But we are not going anywhere and when we read someones posting and there are untruths in the posting, we will comment about them. A negative experience is not an untruth that we could know of. But saying the ship charges you 20% auto tip on all extra charges , that all the deck chairs were rusted and broken, that everyone always had to wait for an hour for dinner are lies, and we will continue to point those out. You can bash us all you want, call us any name you want, try to say we have hidden agendas for posting what we want... but guess what... we are not going anywhere. The funniest thing of all that I find in the postings of those of you who attack cheerleaders is .... when we say something about the lies we find in someone's review, we usually give examples of how we found it different when we sailed NCL. example... when we sailed NCL all of the deck chairs were very clean and in good repair. What do you guys post?? No examples of how the lie told might be right? NO.. you attack us for posting our experience. You attack us saying the posters of those lies should be able to post their lies and no one say anything about it. You are the ones with the hidden agendas and it kills you that we are not going to sit back and let people post any lie they want to.

 

I do not agree with this at all,the cheerleaders are constantly bashing any negative remark about NCL,,,,,, just last week someone that wrote a less than perfect review about NCL was called a racist.

[noreddye]

I don't really agree (w/ CruisinGram) that you have to do research before booking a vacation or else don't complain.

 

I completely agree with CruisinGram. I believe you missed her entire point which was: if having a retractable roof over the pool and an adult only solarium was a priority, then the OP should have done some research to see if the ship he selected met the criteria that he wanted.

[njhorseman]

I do not agree with this at all,the cheerleaders are constantly bashing any negative remark about NCL,,,,,, just last week someone that wrote a less than perfect review about NCL was called a racist.

 

They were called racist because they made an insensitive (at best) remark about foreign born crew members. It had nothing to do with anything else in their review.

[Ladder55]

They were called racist because they made an insensitive (at best) remark about foreign born crew members. It had nothing to do with anything else in their review.

 

Ahhh

honestly whether it had anything to do with the review or not, it was still wrong. imo

[CruisnGram]

And, while I'm at it, ditto to the comments regarding CruisGram's post. I LOVE reading your posts!

 

CruisnGram, you have to be one of the most sane, sensible posters I've ever read....on any board. I always appreciate your insights.

 

Thank you both for your kind comments. I really appreciate it. Believe me, I've gotten into my share of trouble here on CC and it's a learning process for me....to post my thoughts without stepping on toes. It's not easy but I'm getting there! :)

 

I don't really agree (w/ CruisinGram) that you have to do research before booking a vacation or else don't complain. :cool:

 

I think you misunderstood what I said. I never said that Ralph didn't have the right to tell others about there not being a solarium or a pool with a retractable roof. I simply said that if those things were important to him, he should have checked them out prior to booking his trip.

 

For example. I've sailed on NCL 3 times and none of the ships have had a solarium nor a retractable pool roof. And I've never mentioned these things in my reviews. Why? Because honesty, I don't care about those things and whether they even had them or not never even crossed my mind. However, I love the casino's and I wouldn't be happy on a ship that didn't have one. So, you best believe before I book any ship, I verify first that there is indeed a casino. Bottom line is that everyone needs to check out what the ship does and doesn't have prior to booking their trip to be sure that the things that are important to them are there. Wouldn't you agree?

[CruisnGram]

You are the ones with the hidden agendas and it kills you that we are not going to sit back and let people post any lie they want to.

 

I agree with you 100% on this one Terry. The majority of the posters that you are talking about have an agenda. NOTE: I said the majority, not all. Check their postings and you will see that the majority have one main thing in common. They hate NCL. Checking someone's posting history can tell you a lot. For example, the majority of their posts are on the Carnival board and on there they are light hearted, happy people. And their occasional post on the NCL board is insulting to either NCL or so called "cheerleaders". I don't know who they think they are fooling, as it's so obvious.

 

I don't want anyone to misunderstand my post. I am not talking about those who post a reveiw of their NCL sailing that contains negative comments. I'm talking about those who constantly post claiming that the NCL supporters here attack any review that has anything negative posted in it (not true) or post insulting things about regular posters here, or call the regulars cheerleaders, or claim over and over again that we have no right to post anything in return when a negative rant (not review) is posted.

 

I cannot and will not use names, but everyone who posts here often enough knows exactly who these few people are. And the next time you see one of those type postings from them, just click on their username and check out their previous postings. You will indeed see the pattern which I spoke about and their agenda will indeed be clear. They don't give a fat rats behind about what is actually posted, they simply take every advantage they can get to drive their agenda home.

 

CG

[rian90]

Everyone reviews the ships/cruise lines through a filter of their past experience. This experience did not match the one the OP had on previous cruises so therefore, they see it as a bad experience.

 

Not all of us have the same expectations. We did not use the pool at all on the Navigator...kids did but we are not really into crowded pools. We tried the adult pool just to use the chairs but they were either all taken or all covered with 'stuff'. So we gave up. The private adult pool was wasted on us and I could complain in a review, but since we didn't care all that much, I didn't see the point.

 

We had lots of movie channels but of course, they start at specific times and I never did figure out when...but no biggie since were never in our room long enough to watch a movie. We did try to get one for our kids one night but they had their own room and couldn't charge. We never did figure out how to make it work and gave up. No biggie since the kids really didn't need to watch a movie.

 

$3.95 seems a huge mark-up for a paper although I have no idea how much the NYT cost in the states. I read it online. I can understand while the OP might resent the price though.

 

We had to go up stairs and down to get to certain areas of the Navigator as well so this is not ship specific.

 

I absolutely agree with the wait for food..I would be peeved at that one too since I hate waiting, especially when there is so much to do. I don't want to waste my time sitting at a table when there are so few people in there. I would have left after 20 minutes, to be honest. But maybe there were no other options.

 

Too bad about the noise..I suppose that may be a one time occurrence, or maybe not. I know I researched our cabin before booking to make sure there were no complaints.

 

The OP had some good points though and I think its fine for them to post, as long as we realize that their view will be biased toward their own personal needs, expectations and past experiences...as it is for every one of us.

[Ladder55]

 

I don't want anyone to misunderstand my post. I am not talking about those who post a reveiw of their NCL sailing that contains negative comments. I'm talking about those who constantly post claiming that the NCL supporters here attack any review that has anything negative posted in it (not true) or post insulting things about regular posters here, or call the regulars cheerleaders, or claim over and over again that we have no right to post anything in return when a negative rant (not review) is posted.

 

I cannot and will not use names, but everyone who posts here often enough knows exactly who these few people are. And the next time you see one of those type postings from them, just click on their username and check out their previous postings. You will indeed see the pattern which I spoke about and their agenda will indeed be clear. They don't give a fat rats behind about what is actually posted, they simply take every advantage they can get to drive their agenda home.

 

CG

 

I agree there are some that have an agenda but=

is ralph one of them?I read his past history and it looks like he was going on another ncl cruise, he had no foul comments,,,,this was his review, Ralph told his review from his perspective and look at the comments he got

my point=

it happens to people with no agenda, this whole thread is an example

[Mooder]

It is interesting to me that this particular thread took this direction. The original review actually received support right off the bat and even praise from some of us cheerleaders. The first snarky comment was made by someone who expected the cheerleaders to chime in with criticism. I firmly believe that negative and positive comments are equally useful, but that doesn't mean that every comment should not be countered. I guess the emotions have built up to such a degree that they get hashed out even on threads that don't follow the pattern.

 

Ladder, you make a great point about the difference between fact and opinion. I wish Evilmille would have responded to my post about that very thing, then the post you are agreeing with - which was aimed at me - would have more credibility.