The Traveling Man

Is a Greek word...

As others have said, you can leave your luggage with the curbside porters just as soon as they begin accepting bags. You do not need to hold onto your bags until the time scheduled for you to pass through security and check in. Although the ship may not be scheduled to leave port until late in the evening, the agents who actually perform the check-in may be scheduled to wrap up their day by 5:00 PM or so. You should have a few hours between the time you drop your bags and the last time you can check in.

Please add me to the "one and done" list. We were very fortunate last September on our Copenhagen to Southampton Prima cruise. We only encountered minor annoyances while on board, but they did seem to add up. We certainly did not not have the "stateroom from the Black Lagoon" that you did. When you add the all issues together, though, it tipped us over the "why should we ever return" point. With so many other ships, mostly with better pricing, we would rather sail elsewhere. We'll miss the Indulge Food Hall, to be sure, but not the undersized entertainment venues, poorly arranged atrium, lounge chairs covered in soot and grime from the exhaust, etc. There are far too many other fish in the sea to sink my hook into Prima again.

I always have managed to use them within a year or two at most.

I don't think that Bank of America Master Card World Points have expiration dates.

Agreed.

We took the same route 19 years ago. Our train also was delayed getting into Kamloops, but we did make it there by about 8:30 PM. There was a restaurant in our hotel. The dinner there was not at all on a par with the food served on the train, but it was filling. Looking at your photos, I started salivating just remembering the amazing meals on board.

Suppose you were a bit hungry and wanted a snack. You come across a coin operated vending machine. If you had some rare coins in your pocket which were worth hundreds of dollars each, would you drop then into the slot to satisfy your sweet tooth, or would you save them until you could exchange them somewhere for a better value? As I noted in posts #9 and #14, so long as you would otherwise have to pay full fare for a Balcony but could pay significantly less for an Inside or Ocean View and use points to upgrade to a Balcony, why not use the points for their highest and best value?

Thanks, but as I stated in post #9, the upgrade process only works well for passengers who prefer to travel in Inside, Ocean View, or Balcony staterooms. If they sail in Studios or Suites, or if their room is comped by Casinos at Sea, Park West, or someone else, the upgrade benefit really doesn't help. Unfortunately for them, the best rate of return they can get is 3%, or perhaps a bit more if they receive some form of matching funds. For those who can take advantage of the upgrades, though, much higher rates of return are available.

I agree. You can cash in 10,000 points for $100 OBC or statement credit. If you earned those points with purchases of NCL products or services, you had to spend $3333.33 to get $100 back. That's a 3% reward. If you used the card for non-NCL purchases, 10,000 points would require purchases of $10,000. That's only a 1% reward. If you use the card for cabin upgrades, though, the rate of return can be much, much more. Suppose the price difference between Ocean View and Balcony staterooms on your cruise is $1200 per person. It usually isn't that high, but if you're selective in picking your cruises, you can find a differential that high or even more. It takes 30,000 points for an upgrade, so that means $10,000 spent with NCL. Everyone in your stateroom gets the upgrade, though, not just the person with the MasterCard. If you are traveling with your spouse, for instance, that's a savings of $2400 on expenditures of $10,000. That's a 24% return. Sure beats the heck out of the 3% you get for taking OBC or statement credit.

MasterCard points upgrades work well for those who prefer a Balcony, but find an Inside or Ocean View acceptable. They don't do much good for single passengers who usually travel in Studio cabins or for those whose idea of a "standard" stateroom in one of the smaller Haven suites.

Really? I would have sworn that you are a force MULTIPLIER.

Great photos and commentary @TraderSam. I am hopeful that your next postings will include a ride on the Rocky Mountaineer train to Vancouver, then boarding your ship to Alaska. That's my idea of a great vacation in Canada and Alaska.

They can't really force you to get back on. If they see you leaving with your suitcases at an intermediate port, however, they likely will stop and question you. It happened to us on a Celebrity ship when we were carrying a duffel bag of soiled clothing to take to a self-serve laundry near the port. They thought we were jumping ship. It was easy enough to explain our plan to them, but they did question us. There are certain regions in the world where local regulations prohibit ships or planes which are registered in a foreign country from transporting passengers between cities within another country. As an example, Air France can't board passengers in LA and fly them to NYC. A foreign flagged ship can't board passengers in Miami and transport them to LA, unless they stop somewhere en route in a foreign country. So, if you board an NCL ship in Seattle and try to disembark somewhere in Alaska without having first stopped in another country, such as Canada, the cruise line will be facing a fairly stiff fine for violating the Passenger Vessel Service Act (PVSA). They, of course, would want to pass that fine on to the passenger. There are exceptions, of course, for medical emergencies and other possible reasons. There are comparable laws with similar fines in European countries, as well. So no, they probably could not prevent you from disembarking early, but they could assess a fee, and you might get caught up at the Passport control office in the terminal.

By way of background info, that includes the ill-fated cruise on the Star in 2016-17, which sailed for more than two months at half speed, missing many ports and arriving late at others, because it was limping along on only one of its two Azipod propellers. I was on board the Star for part of that "around the world" cruise, also, although a different segment of it than @complawyer. I can honestly say that despite finding ourselves adrift in the Tasman Sea, it was one of the most fun cruises I've ever taken.

And some of us have bad knees that make climbing stairs very painful.. We can walk OK on level ground but stairs are for the birds.

Sounds reasonable. The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing.

In any event, if the cost of alternative transportation, housing, food, and entertainment for the number of days you would otherwise be on a cruise comes out to being more than the total cost you pay for a cruise, even if you jump ship and skip a day or more on board, then it's worth it to take the cruise. It really doesn't even matter if the cruise line offers a discount for departing early. If the cruise costs less than the alternative, then it's a bargain. And that's not even taking into account the added convenience of unpacking only once and not wasting time waiting for a taxi or spending daylight hours on a plane or train instead of exploring a new town.

Glad to hear that they straightened up that mess that we encountered nine months ago. We had anticipated that the UK agents would be in the terminal, and that there would be enough of them to handle the 3000 passengers in an efficient manner. Instead, they posted one agent on the ship. He checked everyone's papers before they were allowed off the ship. Picture a couple of thousand passengers standing in line for well over an hour, shuffling their feet at a snail's pace through the atrium and hallways, trying to get off the ship and meet their prearranged bus or shuttle service.

Glad to hear it worked out well for you. Didn't you post a question about this on CC a few weeks ago? OOPS. Sorry, I misread your post. Sorry they did not allow it.

We figured that if we got the cruise fare for less than the total cost of alternate transportation then we were getting a bargain. By staying on the ship, we got a day in Le Havre (we took a tour of Honfleur), a day in Zeebrugge (we took a tour of Bruges), plus we had a day in Southampton when we didn't have to worry about schlepping our bags. When we got to Amsterdam, we still had to get a hotel for one night, as our riverboat cruise did not depart until the following day. We have been to each of those cities before, some of them multiple times, so we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything. The biggest plus for us, however, was not having to pack, take a taxi, schlep our bags, get on a train, take a taxi across London, schlep our bags, get on the Chunnel train, take a taxi, check into a hotel for two nights, unpack, pack, take a taxi, schlep our bags, get on another train, take a taxi, and check into another hotel. Whew! Instead, we just walked back to our floating hotel, had dinner, took in a show, went to bed, then woke the next morning in a whole new world. Lather, rinse, repeat. Easy peasy. And BTW, that was $1000 pp cheaper than the full ten day fare.

I think the metrics NCL used were something like this: We were already booked on the Getaway for it's Transatlantic cruise which ended in Southampton. They had some available staterooms on the following cruise from Southampton to Copenhagen that they were still trying to fill. When I proposed the possibility of our sailing with them for just a part of that cruise, I also mentioned that we had the alternative of making our way from Southampton to Amsterdam by plane, train, or ferry. Traveling that way would also require an expense of three hotel nights, meals, any entertainment we might choose, plus the actual cost of transportation. I offered NCL my estimate of what I thought those alternate travel arrangements might cost. I guess the way I worded it came across to them as a challenge for them to meet or beat the price. They chose to offer me a fare which I found more acceptable than the alternatives, so I agreed. It was a win-win solution. We got to Amsterdam for a bit less money than we would have spent on another means of transport, and with a great deal less stress or inconvenience. We paid about $1000 less for the three nights on board than other passengers paid for similar staterooms for the entire ten day cruise. Even so, NCL received more revenue from the cruise than they would have if our cabin had remained vacant, even taking into account the food and beverages we consumed. YMMV.

For info on train schedules and fares, visit this website: https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html

I can attest to that! We were on the Prima last September. It took us more than 90 minutes to get off the ship, through the terminal, and to the taxi stand in Southampton.

NCL quoted us a special rate because we were only going to be on board for three days of a ten day cruise. It was about $1000 less than the average rate paid by others in similar staterooms who stayed on for the entire cruise.