Ken the cruiser

We’ll be on the Flora early next month and I’ll be doing one.

Looks like Holland America and Seabourn were added to the StockPerks app today.

Thanks! I just tried what you suggested and when I got to the payment screen, the coupon was automatically listed and the additional 10% discount from the base fare was applied. BTW I don’t know if this makes a difference with regards to getting a coupon, but we made platinum in Dec 2022.

Like some other folks, this coupon just showed up in my account as well. Since this is the first NCL coupon we have ever received, how do you apply it? For example, if I want to do a fake online booking of the referenced cruise, where would I enter the coupon's ID number? I might mention we also get the 10% military discount, so 20% off this particular Sep 28, 2024 Bliss cruise might be worth investigating.

If you enter “3 Guests” instead of “2 Guests”, you’ll see all of the other mini-suite cabins available. It’s probably just a programming glitch, but I’m sure your TA/CVP would be able to book one of those as well.

I can definitely appreciate your joy cruising around the Galapagos in your PH! I remember when we did our Galapagos cruise on the Xpedition back in Nov 2015. We were originally booked in an OV cabin. Then 3 weeks before the cruise, we got a call and were told they had a XS cabin available for an additional $150 pp. But for $325 pp, we could upgrade to the RS, which is across the hall from your PS. So for a total of $650, Royal Suite here we come! The view is definitely awesome from the balcony at the front of the ship! But it also feels like you're jumping on a diving board when the seas are rough, as was the case on the 2nd night of our cruise. Here's hoping for calm seas for your entire cruise!

We have found Princess also offers some unique 3-5 week itineraries that have caught our attention and $$$. But it's nice again to have two cruise lines to choose from with the longer itineraries and intriguing perks, especially since we're 4-star with HAL and just made Elite on PCL.

Born to be Wild is an awesome rock and roll show if you like music from the 60s and 70s, which we do. We also really enjoyed the Whitney Houston Tribute on our recent CB cruise. The Farewell Variety Show was also pretty good. But it's usually just one show around 9 pm on the same night you have to put your luggage out. Fantastic Journey looks pretty cool based on the YouTube video I just saw online. As far as Bravo goes, if you haven't seen it, you should go. However, for us it all depends on the guest soprano "opera" singer they have. We usually go to it, then leave after the Queen and James Bond music to get a good seat at the 8 pm game show, as we're really not soprano opera singer fans.

Correct! I thought that end result was a little low. I tell ya, it’s tough getting old! 😂

Sounds good. I guess NCL we remain status quo for the foreseeable future.

Sorry for the "squirrel" event. Now back to the Storm in the Atlantic updates! 🙂

Actually, it wasn't all that bad since you have no feeling in your eye. I guess I would say, after the fact, it was quite a memory to be able now to look back on, as I can still remember the details.

Again, this is only a guess from over here in the peanut gallery. But with regards to your above highlighted statements. If I send my info to NCL, they have to process it. Yes, I would imagine a variety NCL employees would have to perform the applicable daily functions, whatever they might be, to retrieve, evaluate, and then take the appropriate steps to approve or disapprove the SHB forms submitted in whatever format that is currently allowed, such as by email or possibly by fax or on rare occasion snail mail, before any SOBC is posted to an applicable booking. If I send my info to StockPerks, then StockPerks sends it to NCL, NCL still has to process it to award the OBC. Yes, but with certain checks already performed, some manual and some automated, before the SHB request was forwarded to the cruise line. For example, StockPerks would first verify the applicant owned at least 100 shares of NCLH stock and that the request was submitted within the allotted time frame; otherwise, the applicant's request would be rejected at that point. For example, NCL might only be accepting SHB requests for sailings on or before a certain date (e.g., July 31, 2024). StockPerks would then accumulate that verified data and then submit the requests in bulk format to the applicable cruise line, possibly at the end of each business day. Note: StockPerks actually informed us it would take 5 business days once our validated "request" was submitted to PCL before any SHB OBC would be posted to our account. Once the cruise line receives the listing of validated requests, it would only require one employee to post the appropriate SOBC to the applicable bookings. The only thing StockPerks can do is the submission, and it doesn't help me since I have to submit it one way or the other. True. But my guess from a big picture viewpoint is this third-party service might provide the cruise Companies (e.g., NCLH, Carnival, and possibly RCG) with a means to significantly reduce their overhead costs associated with handling the daily SHB request process associated with the applicable cruise lines under their control when compared to the compensation the third-party vendor is asking for. But as I said before, this is only my guess from over here in the peanut gallery.

Personally, I would wait until the next time you submit a future NCL SHB request, and NCL responds by suggesting you resubmit your request in some other fashion, such as by using the StockPerks online app, similar to what's currently going on with some of the Carnival Corp cruise lines, such as CCL and PCL and two of their other lines. The only reason I opened this thread was to see if NCL had started using this option. And from the responses I've received so far, the answer is no.

Hopefully, Iain is able to have his surgery soon and all goes smoothly. I had cataract surgery a couple of years ago. It took a couple of days to recover, but then all was fine AND it really makes a difference with seeing clearly again!! The fun part is you’re able to watch the entire procedure as you have to keep your eyes open while they do it. 😂 It’s funny, except for the upcoming Galapagos cruise, we’ve pretty much moved on from Celebrity, at least for the next few years, and made Princess our new default go-to cruise line for most of our 3-5 week itineraries, especially since we just made elite. 😁 HAL and NCL are our #2 and #3. But for us to book with either of them, the itinerary has to be unique. We currently have 5 booked with NCL (to include a B3B to see the pyramids and Ancient Greece, and a B2B to Northern Europe going to Longyearbyen twice), and a B2B Panama Canal cruise with HAL in early 2025. We just can’t get past the 20% increased fare penalty for booking a Celebrity cruise with a refundable deposit, along with they’re cookie cutter itineraries they’re now offering. But that’s cool as we were due for a change anyway. One thing about getting older and being cruiseaholics, variety is definitely the way to go for us!

I have to say we’re pretty excited about our cruises we have lined up over the next 6 months. We have a 10-day Galapagos cruise coming up in early December on the Flora, followed by a 30-day Antarctica B2B on the Sapphire Princess roundtrip out of Santiago starting in late January. Then, as if we didn’t get enough of a wildlife fix on those 2 cruises, we have a 21-day Alaska B3B booked on the Grand Princess starting in late April.

On our Galapagos cruise in early December, we had a full day after returning back to Quito to plan something, as our flight doesn’t leave until right before midnight. So we just booked this private tour today, as it sounded pretty cool. If this tour guide isn’t available on that day you’re looking to do a tour, another TBL guide named Santiago also offers a similar one to this. I have to say, the potential for seeing the speckled bear they described definitely caught our attention. 😁 https://www.toursbylocals.com/antisanaprivatetour

I know. I learned about Windy from following one of your Live From threads! It came in quite handy on our Eclipse TP this past spring as well as more recently on our Caribbean Princess cruise last month from Quebec City to Ft Lauderdale. 😁

Actually, I don’t really care. All I can say is that Carnival Corp is moving towards using this option is a big way with regards to directing applicable guests to use the StockPerks app to request SHB OBC. For us, we’re good with using it as long as I only have to provide my name and email address to register and use the “Alinea” option to manually upload the page of our brokerage statement that has our CC and NCLH share information. If NCLH chooses to continue to allocate their manpower to process SOBC requests received via email, that’s cool too. We’re good either way.

Another cool weather website is windy.com, which I use all the time on my iPad when we’re cruising in various parts of the world. It’s pretty cool.

Like I said, I have no clue. But on the outside chance NCLH decides to proceed with this online SHB submission option like Carnival Corp seems to be heading, you can now say you’ve heard about it. 😁

Yup!

You’re correct. I just checked and NCL has 17 ships. If the average booking was 7 days in length, that would equate to 50 cruises per year per ship x 17 x an average of 1500 double occupancy-filled cabins on each cruise equating to roughly 1,275,000 bookings per year. Divide that by 2000 business days a year, that equals to an average of roughly 637 NCL bookings per day or around 3000 per week. Now, as far as how many of those staterooms currently have at least one occupant that has seized the opportunity to purchase 100 shares of NCLH stock at its super cheap rate right now, I have no idea. But I am sure NCLH notices an upward trend. But on top of that, there are also 7 Oceania and 6 Regent ships in the NCLH fleet, of which I would imagine most of their repeat cruisers have now purchased 100 shares of the much cheaper $13 a share NCLH stock. But again, this is only a guess as I really have no clue.

That’s cool. And as we discovered after creating our StockPerks account using lessons learned from others provided on the PCL forum thread, there were a few twists and turns we needed to avoid before proceeding with the PCL SHB submission “process”. The first one being most of the personal information requested during the initial StockPerks registration process is optional, except for your name and email address. Then once my account was created, I decided to log off and then back on as an existing user just to make sure all was good. The second one, and this is crucial from our perspective. If you just want to manually upload proof you own 100 shares of CCL, NCLH, and/or RC stock, Do Not use the default PLAID option if you have no desire to have the StockPerks app verify your stock ownership by accessing your brokerage account. If you accidentally chose the default PLAID option, you will be subsequently asked to identify and subsequently log onto your brokerage account, which we immediately backed out of. That was a huge showstopper for us until we learned about the ALIVEA option, which was a much less stressful process. But that’s just the current process. It will be interesting to see what changes will be made to the App if the cruise companies decide to push forward with this online SHB submission option, as CCL seems to be doing. Anyway, again, that’s my unofficial opinion from over here in the peanut gallery. 😁

As I noted, it’s only an unofficial guess. But when you consider the number of itineraries offered by NCL, Oceania and Regent, I would be inclined to imagine it would be a significant daily amount. I mean for $1300 for a one time purchase of 100 shares of NCLH stock to be guaranteed $50-250 OBC per booking for as long as you desire to cruise with any of NCLH’s cruise lines, combined with the latent buildup demand for cruising after the pandemic, seems like a nobrainer to me.