Ashlynkat

Regarding costs of this cruise. My partner and I booked this fairly early (Jan 2023) and paid a little over $15,500 for a Club Balcony Suite. We always do our own airfare and adding that took us up to about $20,000 for the two of us.

Hey guys, sorry the internet (and CC) is being REALLY flakey! We’re off the coast of Mauritania and Western Sahara. Weirdly it would let me post a pic and hopefully this edit will work! To answer a few Q’s, the cruise has been going great despite the drama. I loved this “No Stress” pic from the beach in Senegal because it sums up the fact that we’re still on vacation so enjoy things! no I have not yet personally seen The Late 8 but they are all apparently here and someone on *site not to be named* saw them filming yet another interview.

No, we were in the capital city of São Tomé on the main island of São Tomé. Not sure why the main cruise port would be on the less populated Principe but if that was true, I guess that’s why we tendered in São Tomé as there really wasn’t a “dock” or much semblance of a port at all. We basically pulled up in the tender boat to some stone stairs and climbed onto the street. This is a picture I took around the dock area. I’m not sure but I kinda wonder if this boat was the “coast guard” ship as this looked more like the boats in the water after the tenders were raised and we were getting ready to leave. Again, never saw anything that looks like what a modern, Western country’s Coast Guard vessel.

This is incorrect. We weren’t in São Tomé “2 days earlier.” We were in Angola 2 days previous and March 27th was our one and only stop at São Tomé. In fact, according to our guide, our arrival on NCL Dawn was the first cruise ship visit of the year for the island with the last cruise ship being in early December. That unfortunate woman had a medical emergency THAT DAY and was apparently still being evaluated by medical personnel on the island long after the 3pm all aboard. Because her condition required longer care, she was medically disembarked.

Hmm not sure if the pic loaded. The Dawn doesn’t have Skylink and, with where we are in the world, you can imagine the internet isn’t the greatest. Trying again with a lower resolution but hopefully you can see the times and date and how they were telegraphing that there was likely going to be issues with Gambia as early as March 27th when we were in São Tomé

Yeah, they at first shifted the time to a later arrival and departure when it was hopeful that the tides would be more ideal. This was, ironically, posted on the day we were in São Tomé to give everyone the heads up that Gambia might have some issues.

We actually waited longer in San Tome. Last tender was 3pm but I saw from balcony a tender boat returning ~40 minutes afterwards and the ship didn’t leave for another 30-40 minutes after that.

Thought folks would like this update from the Dawn. All aboard here in Dakar, Senegal was 5:30pm. At 5:55pm we hear the overheard announcements for missing passengers to contact Guest Service. So of course everyone goes out on their balconies to watch. And sure enough at 6:06pm a car comes racing up the dock. When the folks got out, people started cheering with a few “GET ON THE DAMN BOAT” calls from the balcony.

Or take extra security precautions like NCL did and stay on schedule so the ship doesn’t stay in a high piracy zone any longer than it needs to?

For those interested, here’s a pic of the Gambian navy ship that met us yesterday off the coast to retrieve the arms we were carrying through the Gulf of Guinea.

Our next port of call after São Tomé was Abidjan, Ivory Coast after a sea day and it was not cancelled. Gambia was scheduled to be 3 days after Ivory Coast. Another point that has not been mentioned is that we were traveling through the Gulf of Guinea which, like the waters by Somalia, has significant piracy issues. We found out yesterday that the ship had been carrying extra security personnel and arms as safety precautions. The Gambian navy went out to meet us yesterday to retrieve the ammunition as we are now out of danger and there are apparently restrictions about cruise ships carrying these things. I don’t know how much the piracy risk played into the Captain’s decision back in São Tomé but it’s worth noting.

I am currently on this cruise and while I don’t know any detail about the 80 year old woman who apparently got injured on an NCL tour. From our balcony, I did see a few tenders running slightly past our 3:30pm all aboard time. (3pm was technically the last tender and it was ~15-20 minute journey from dock to ship) In hindsight, one was apparently carrying their passports and it was a little after 4pm (our scheduled departure time) before it seemed like they had all the tender boats reloaded with floating gangway and everything else put away. Didn’t see the coast guard vessel (or at least something I recognized as a coast guard vessel). I don’t remember the exact time we pulled away but it was definitely later than 4pm but not too much later. Maybe 4:15? Compared to Abidjan, Ivory Coast (our next port after São Tomé), traffic on São Tomé was a breeze so that wouldn’t have held them up. It’s a small island so getting to and from the port wasn’t that difficult. I think the theories about the tour operator operating on “island time” and not taking seriously the all aboard deadline is likely true. Unfortunately we just found out yesterday that our stop in Banjul, Gambia is canceled because of adverse tidal conditions at the port. So this group will need to find a way to Dakar, Senegal to meet back up. Dreadful situation and while many folks on this cruise have done private tours with no issues getting back to the ship, this definitely highlights the risks of booking those tours in new ports that aren’t use to cruise ship operations!

Love Moderno! The grilled pineapple is heavenly. Usually the Picanha sirlon is the star of the meats but I also like the bacon wrap chicken and pork belly. I've honestly never been that overwhelmed with Cagney's steak (the filet & foie gras in Le Bistro is better, IMO) but I ADORE the sides and soup. Winners for me are the French onion (better than Le Bistro) and lobster bisque with potato au gratin and sauteed garlic mushrooms. The OMG caramel cheesecake for dessert is also a must. For Le Bistro, I don't eat snails so the pan-seared scallops with cauliflower and truffles is my go-to starter. With the main, I actually prefer the braised lamb shank overall but as I noted above the filet & foie gras is probably the best steak on the ship. For dessert, they have a delicious fluffy vanilla & raspberry meringue with crème anglaise that is a winner. Not a fan of La Cucina at all. Pretty much substandard Olive Garden. I am thrilled they are phasing it out with Onda but it looks like the Epic is still stuck with La Cucina. Teppanyaki is not what it once was but the show is fun. The grilled shrimp is my favorite but the steak is ho-hum.

Honestly, I bet going complementary will increase their milkshake sales with more people dining and they probably make a healthy profit there. I suspect in the next round of refits this will be "reconcepted" into something else because it's always been just a slightly fancier version of The Local/O'Sheehans--even more so now with the scaled-back menu.

We’re surprisingly pretty full for a 21 day cruise in Oct/Nov. Don’t know exact numbers but I’ve heard around 3600 passenger. Not many kids at all. Maybe two dozen at best. Demo definitely skews Gen X to Boomer.

Hopefully this works! Pics of the officers.

I’m on the Encore and just got back from our Panama excursion (Two Oceans by Railroad) and while the port is a mess being under construction, there was absolutely no issue whatsoever with protests, traffic jams or any kind of unrest. The same with Costa Rica and Guatemala earlier this week. I did NCL excursions (San Jose Highlights and Guatemala Gastronomy w/ Antigua) and they all went off without a hitch. My wife and I felt very safe and enjoyed all the excursions immensely. Missing Acapulco was unfortunate but understandable. Hopefully the region will bounce back soon because tourism is such a vital industry for them. I was thrilled to trade an extra Mexican port (Manzanillo) for a new country on the itinerary Costa Rica. Unfortunately our early canal crossing appointment tomorrow (4am) meant the over night had to be cancel and means an early rising to catch things that will still be dark for a couple hours. But, hey, you deal with the good & the bad. Overall, this has been a great trip so I can’t quibble about things outside NCL’s control.

Honestly, if the price drops below your bid I would just book the upgrade outright to insure that you get it. You know you are already saving money compared to what you were willing to pay so why chance losing the room class you want?

I feel for you, I really do. But the thing is, you were alerted sooner. In fact, you were alerted the very day that you booked your cruise (however many weeks or months ago that was) when you got that cruise confirmation email that says that each passenger is required to ensure that they have proper travel documentation for their itinerary. This includes passports, visas and any vaccine requirements for the ports you are visiting. If you still got that email in your inbox, look it up and scroll down. You will see how long ago that you were alerted to that possibility of your companion being denied boarding if they didn't have the proper travel docs (which as others have noted is different than birth certificates which only verify identity & nationality--not whether or not you can travel. You do have a valid gripe that the check in process doesn't make that clear enough.). Again, I feel for you because it's an easy mistake to make. Let's face it, most all of us are guilty of glossing over those terms and conditions but it is unfortunately going to be a costly mistake as you likely won't have any recourse with your credit card company or NCL because of those terms and conditions that you agreed to way back when you booked your cruise.

"Assessing additional income" is likely not the KPI they're looking at--which was the point of my post. If it was purely about just "additional income," then NCL would not have a maximum bid threshold at all since why cap the amount of "additional income" you get? Instead, as I noted, the KPIs that they're looking at are far more likely to be TOTAL revenue per cabin with some weighted combination of operating costs per cabin and the likelihood of reselling the cabin class upgraded. Obviously there are more factors at play but unless someone from NCL or the 3rd party firm they partner with leaks some details, none of us can actually say for sure. But with the many, many, many examples of people bidding Max and not being upgraded, you can be certain that it's about more than just "assessing additional income."

If NCL has the same $100 bids from multiple guests, they're not going to flip a coin to see who gets it. There are going to be some business decisions involved and it likely will be driven by what accounting line NCL values more. Revenue per cabin? Then, yes, that will absolutely take into account what was paid before. When on board, there is no way to know who is going to spend money on the casino, shopping, excursions, etc. (Though I'm sure they have plenty of predictive models). So if this number is a KPI, you want to make sure it is as high as it can be before sailing. But another KPI that NCL could value highly is the margin of Operating Costs per cabin. There is a known fixed cost to running the ship (fuel, staff, supplies, port fees, etc) that you can divide across the number of cabins sold for each cruise. So here they may value more highly who is currently in a cabin class that they can resale more easily to have a fuller ship. Of course, NCL wants to maximize both numbers (get the highest revenue they can per cabin while also selling the highest number of cabins they can) but they probably do have one number "weighted" more highly in their algorithm than the other--as well as perhaps other numbers that we aren't even aware of it. And it honestly may be something that changes with each different cruise sailings. But I think the only thing we can be certain of is that NCL is a business and they're not doing upgrades out of the goodness of their hearts.

It's unfortunate but far from rare with there probably being at least one last-minute cancellation for nearly every single cruise sailing. Life events pop up all the time (such as illness or other home emergencies) that can cause a last-minute change in holiday plans. You are completely right that it usually ends up in forfeited fares. But NCL doesn't care and that's why travel insurance exists.

There is always the possibility that someone may cancel their reservation for one of the sold-out categories--which NCL can then fill with one of the folks who bid on it.

This was a pretty early notification to be upgraded. The last time we won an upgrade bid (for a Baltic Cruise on the Breakway), it was about 2 weeks before the cruise that we found out. I think it is going to vary cruise by cruise. NCL clearly wants to make the most money and sell out the ship and I'm sure they've got all kinds of different algorithms they follow to decide when to upgrade or not. In my case, we were in a Club Balcony Suite which had been sold out for a while on our cruise while there were over a dozen Haven rooms available. Upgrading us now with more than 60 days till the cruise, freed up a room that probably won't have any trouble selling at full fare before sailing. And if they don't, they can accept an upgrade bid for someone from another class closer to the cruise date. We did a mix of "excellent" and "strong" green zones to yellow zone "Fair" bids depending on how much savings it was based on paying for the upgrade directly. We followed the prices and room availability on Costco's website (which is easier to navigate in our opinion) and adjusted our bids a few times up and down. For the 2 Bedroom Haven we got the upgrade for, we went into the excellent range but are still quite happy with the savings we had versus if we bought the upgrade outright.

We did go into the green very good level but it was still a bit cheaper than buying the upgrade outright.