CruiseMH

You can be sure that the financial authorities in the EU will collect every single cent which a cruise line owes them. 😉

They just charge you the local taxes. Same like when consuming in US ports. Usually this doesn`t matter cause the ship leaves the port in the evening and so is already in international waters when most of the drinks are consumed. But if they are in port overnight this is nothing unusual that local taxes will be on top. The only interesting question is whether this was communicated directly with your booking confirmation. I guess not.

It simply depends on how much is the cruise fare. 😉 For a cruise which they sell for extremely low rates to fill the ship the percentage is much higher than for a very expensive cruise.And i guess it also depends on the itinerary. Northern Europe is way more expensive regarding port fees than e.g. the caribbean. But you are right,70 % was way too high. 20-30% is more realistic. But anyway, you won`t get a free cruise voucher from your casino which might be worth 3000 USD if you visited this casino only once and spent 150 USD. 😉

Cruise next certificates have nothing to do with the casino stuff. 😉 I know that you can save some money with these certificates.

thats exactly what i mean. 😉 I don`t want to ruin anybody`s fun. If you have fun with playing in the casino...all fine.

the cruise fare is covered. Port fees and service is not and that makes 70% of the total cruise price. You can believe whatever you want but they will not give you anything for free. It might be that there is a situation where you save more than you actually lost before in the casino, but in average the savings of a "free" cruise a way lower than the losses you made before in the casino. To believe anything else is simply naive.

I do a lot for entertainment and i spend quite some money on entertainment and for sure i spend money on things that other people find crazy or useless. But thats not the point. The point is that the statement "free cruises given by casinos are a bargain" is simply not true.

Based on all the stuff i read in the past months and years about NCL on CC, i wouldn`t even trust a written confirmation by NCL on this.

Free cruises given by casinos are never a bargain cause it only means that the casino collected so much money from you that the can give you these vouchers. If you wood book a cruise for regular fare without playing in the casino before you would for sure have saved a lot of money.

I know it at least from three different cruise lines that they do get their stuff shipped to their base port and all loading is done at their base port. They don`t buy the stuff in each country/port and so far i never had any issue with this in Europe, on 6 different cruise lines. So this can`t be the reason.

As long as the ship is in national waters-yes. As soon as it is in international waters they can do whatever they want.

Is there any info whats included in this tour? I made one about 10 years ago on the german based cruise line AIDA. It was 85 Euros, but it included a cocktail,sparkling wine,some snacks, a behind the scenes DVD(19 Euros if bought regularly) and a photo with the captain on the bridge. But if the NCL tour only includes the tour itself für the 129 USD then it is definitely too expensive.

If i were in line,they wouldn`t have made it to their table with the pizza. they would have unhappily stumbled over my foot and spread the pizza over the buffet floor.

I flew to Trieste approx. two years ago,but from Frankfurt ,so within Europe. Trieste Airport is approx. twice the size of an average McDonalds restaurant with roughly 10 daily flights to the most important european capitals. I would be surprised if there would be any direct flight to Trieste from outside of Europe. So it will be Venice.

Taxis are reliable in Barcelona.There are always enough taxis available.Only if 5-6 other ships are in port there might be a waiting of 10 minutes or so. Private transfers are in 95% of the cases not faster.

there is for sure such a fee if you cancel a berth too short in advance at the ports. And i am sure that NCL (and other cruise lines) do cancel the berths well in advance to avoid such fees. But that doesn`t necessarily mean that they inform their customers well in advance. 😉

I don`t know how NCL does it but i know from other cruise lines that it was the way i described it. The port did know about the changes much later than the shipping line actually decided it. YOu are right,the most important thing is to secure a berth at the planned port. But you can secure a berth at a port without cancelling the other port. SO the cruise line still has both options. If you then look at the website of port authority A you will find the vessel X still listed there for a specific day although the cruise line tells you something different. I just want to point out that this CAN be the case and sometimes also IS the case. If i have to decide between trusting the port authorities or trusting the shipping line i would make it 75% port and 25 % shipping line.

The problem in such cases is that you never know at which time NCL informs the port about their plans. If NCL decides to change the itinerary but hasn`t officially cancelled their call (due to whatever reasons) then the port authority still shows the vessel X is berthing at day X although NCL already knows that they will not berth on that day. So the itinerary shown on the NCL website might be more accurate then the schedules of the official port websites.

Seems to be a UK Problem. Just tried it out at the german site and get same results for Jade and prima as Sailing12Awa does

To me it seems that the Epic is more or less the workhorse from NCL. It runs almost the same itinerary in Europe in the summer since..10 years or so. The investment in her shape/condition seem to be minimal, the investment on new itineraries for her as well. At least when booking in germany the prices for cruises on the epic are the lowest of all NCL ships. So it seems NCL doesn`t want to invest any huge amount of money into the epic anymore and are selling the cruises for low prices to still fill the ship.

yes, we can get a discount. Regarding the cancellation it depends on how big the changes are. If the original itinerary e.g. was the eastern caribbean and now it is the western then you can cancel, even after booking. If there is only a change/cancellation of one port - even if the cruise line itself marks it as highlight of the cruise - then a discount is more likely.The exact height of the discount is usually agreed between cruise line and the guests individually. But if the cruise line refuses you can start a lawsuit and always get at least a discount. If these protections do have driven up the cruise prices...i don`t really know,because the protection is valid for all kinds of vacation.(e.g. hotels or roundtrips through south america or asia) and not only cruises.

the problem is that there are not endless first time cruisers available. A first time cruiser is usually not a loyal cruiser. They book NCL this time and another cruise line next time.And if they like the service on the other cruise line better they will stay with them. So this is a very risky strategy of NCL. Nevertheteless i agree with you that NCL takes much more care about getting newbies than taking care of loyal long time NCL customers.

Just a short additional note.For flights from outside the EU into the EU it is only applicable for EU-based airlines. From the EU to a non-EU country it is valid for all airlines.

Only a few. I`ve been on the epic in the med and as far as i remember they had hardly any local TV stations available. And even if they have it might be that these specific stations don`t broadcast the Eurovision song contest.

Maybe i`m a little bit more relaxed in these regards cause in germany we are quite good protected by law in regards of such changes.(not only itineraries on cruises but also for "regular" round trips by bus or any other vehicle) .If the itinerary changes are so big that they do "change the character of the journey"(original text of the law) we do have the right to cancel the trip in advance or(if itinerary changed while on board) get a refund of a part of the cruise fare afterwards. It is not clear what " changing the character of the journey" exactly means but in worst case it has to be decided by the judges in a lawsuit.