Yesimapirate

You lost me after the main dining room steak was the best you ever had.

Sadly I think you will be proven wrong but not in a positive way. The cruise lines have plenty of money to spend. The reduction in costs at this point is a result of full cabins. If you can raise your prices, cut your costs and still have fill cabins, you have zero incentive to change. The changes will only come when bookings begin to drop Let's not forget that NCL holdings just spent billions on new ships. Money is available, they're just making a business decision on how they invest it. Quite honestly, it's the same false narrative the airlines used after 911, the 2008 recession and during covid. They got rid of meals, charged baggage fees and increased all kinds of other fees. It was forgiven because they "needed the revenue to survive". And now that they're having record revenues and profits, they simply increase their fees and change their frequent flier programs to generate more revenue. It's perfectly fine, they're a business and can do what they want. But please don't be mistaken that you need to be altruistic to them or accept lower standards.

It seems to me that there were some expectations that were unreasonable going into the cruise and now you're trying to find ways to justify your unhappiness. While some of your comments are certainly true, especially about the entertainment and activities, those were not one offs making this a bad cruise. Those are simply what O offes and it's pretty apparent when you take 5 minutes to research. Had you had a better knowledge base beforehand you'd see that you got exactly what O offers. You certainly don't have to like it but you wouldn't have been disappointed either. That's simply why there are multiple brands with different offerings. Find one that suits you best. Comments like "if it wasn't for the steak, lobster and sushi it would be the same " really take any credibility from a review for me. You're complaining it's the same while litterally stating the improvements and differences. I also don't think it's reasonable to expect musicians to take requests. A cruise has people from all over the world with different tastes and cultures. How could a musician possibly know enough to cover every genre and take most requests? You're setting them up to either look unprofessional because they feel pressured to perform something outside their range and then you complain how bad they are or to look rude when they don't take your request because they don't know it. I've been to quite a few concerts, Broadway shows, symphonies, etc and I don't recall them taking requests. I think you need to realize that while O may not fit your tastes, it also does not make it bad.

I'm going to go in a different direction. Of course I'm making some big assumptions but you say this is a bucket list trip and it's going from Rome to Istanbul. Those are two of the most incredible cities in the world. I would suggest the concierge room and take the savings and use it to do something amazing and memorable in Rome, Istanbul or one of the other ports. There's so much history, art, food and culture to explore.

Isn't the point of this site to share and learn so you can have the best cruise possible? Many would say paying less for the exact same cruise would enhance their experience and would like to hear the tips and tricks others use. As with anything on the internet, it's always possible to scroll by and not read or engage with something you don't like.

If they're filling ships why wouldn't you increase prices? They'll only drop when bookings drop.

Kinda hard for the fan boys to keep defending the cuts in service with their war cry of covid debt when there's such a spending spree on news ships.

I'm excited to see the other O and industry announcements this week during the Seatrade show.

I understand your perspective. But I'm personally ok with it as everything is more expensive and ships are full. I expect to pay more now. Im also ok with them trying to make a price increase more palpable but wrapping it in a marketing exercise. But I also get what other people aren't. What I'm not ok with is not providing something that's paid for. In addition to death and taxes, the only sure things in life are change and not being able to please everyone.

I'm what the long time Oceania loyalists would call "new". While I'm not young, let's just say my parents are regulars on O. Weve outgrown the NCL Haven (or maybe their cut backs forced us away???) and want to upgrade. I'm totally fine with Simply More. Is it the best thing ever? No but it's tolerable and I don't see a ton of difference between my upcoming Simply More and O Life bookings. Having said all of that, I'm be pretty annoyed if O canceled a port or excision I booked and I couldn't at least use it as non-refundable onboard credit. While I know I'd throw the money away on crap I don't really want it need, at least I'd be able to use it for something. Taking money from me and canceling through no fault of mine but keeping the money is morally wrong to me. If something like this was done at a land resort in the US, the Attorney General of that state go after them. If the rationale is O needs money, raise your fare by $100. No one would care or not book. This is just stupid. I personally don't think it's malicious, just incompetence from the corporate office and the shipboard crew have their hands tied. But I also think there have been enough cases of this happening that management should be aware and have a solution.

Well, the cruise was March 10th through 17th, so yep 2 weeks. As to what you believe or not, absolutely meaningless. I'll sleep well tonight whether a random stranger on the internet believes it or not. Sadly, you'll still be here telling people that things like this don't happen and denying anything bad. And now I'm going to stop wasting time on this.

2 weeks ago on the Epic our butler told us on the first day that he had too many rooms and we wouldn't see him all week. And we didn't until the night before disembarking when he came to ask for a tip. It's completely true that service varies. However, I don't really understand how you sell an upgraded service, charge significantly more for it and have so many people here defend that you may but maybe not have good service.

I don't think they're interested in improving the experience. They're interested in lowering their costs as low as they can without losing their psychological effects of increasing bookings. People keep thinking that loyalty programs are about being loyal to each other. Sadly they aren't two way streets. They're simply marketing programs to increase revenue generation. That's totally fine but you must understand the reasoning and if the program is important to you, learn the ins and outs to maximize your benefits. Loyalty programs change and evolve yo reflect the economy and bookings. Ships are filled now. They're going to cut their costs as there's simply no reason to spend more money to get the same return. When the economy turns and bookings drop, they'll increase benefits or have special promotions to fill the rooms. But please don't ever buy into the fallacy that they're giving you things just to say thank you.

So we're officially at the point where not only can NCL do no wrong for some but you can't even have empathy for people who have travel issues. We know that NCL air is nothing more than a travel agent booking the airfare and have no responsibility for flight issues. But we also live in a society where car batteries have warnings on them that ylu shouldn't lick them. I don't think it's wrong to suggest NCL could be a better job at the time of booking to clarify. And for those of you jumping on strangers who aren't even on this site about flying in the day of, realize that there was more than one day of bad weather. Airlines are flying close to capacity, especially to FL on spring break. It may take 2 or 3 days for someone on a canceled flight to reach their destination. Missing the ship doesn't make them stupid, inexperienced or anything else. It just means you don't know the whole story. Cut them a break. Missing a vacation ypu spent months or years saving for can be heart breaking. Let's try not to simply attack people and just understand how they feel. And as I've said before, a HUGE majority of the posts on the board are from the same handful of people. New comers post once or twice and then disappear. You aren't being helpful when you post things like many of the responses. In fact, you're killing the forum.

Realize there's some in this board who would tell the passengers on the Titanic they should be thankful they got to swim and saves calories by missing dessert for the rest of the trip. I don't think there's one person on here that would smile and be happy if they found a shower that appeared to be uncleaned upon embarkation. Further, I don't think any of the ships housekeeping supervisors would find it ok either. The kitchen staff is busy and over worked too. Would it be OK if they missed some areas of the kitchen and some one got sick from cross contamination? Or if the environmental officer was running late and they dumped raw sewage into the ocean? Is it just a sliding scale where the employees can choose not to follow the policies and procedures or just blind cheerleading? Ironically, the cheerleaders are cheering against NCL's own policies and procedures. Finally, let's stop this ridiculous attacks claiming people just want compensation whenever they have a complaint. It's lazy, intellectually dishonest and is just an excuse to avoid a solution. A dirty is a legitimate complaint. It doesn't mean you want money, it means you want a clean room!

Most people seem to think the "loyalty" in those programs is a two way street. It's not. It's simply to keep you loyal to them. Sadly, most people don't realize that until they've spent large sums of money and the benefits begin to get watered down or, like you said, sold to anyone.

I'm not quite sure why people would suggest a first time visitor to the UK skip London. Some of the best museums in the world are there. Westminster Abbey, Tower of London and the British Museum are not things to be missed. Additionally, I'd strongly recommend the Scottish Highlands. Some absolutely incredible scenery as well as unique history. If you like Scotch, you might want to stop in the Speyside and Islay areas as well.

We're currently on the Epic and let's simply say we've had some service issues. Nothing major other than our room not cooling correctly and taking until day 5 (and dragging the hotel manager into the room) for them to actually solve the issue. For the smaller issues, it felt like a good portion of the crew, between a third and half, chose to argue and look for a way to say no instead of yes. Examples include: -we skipped a port and I inquired about a shore excursion being refused to the credit card I used to purchase it 4 months pre-cruise. I was told I booked it onboard and never used a credit card. They continued to argue that I didn't use a credit card even after I offered to show their manager the charge on my app. Then they switched to they don't have a manager. I guess the "assistant" on his name tag proves he doesn't report to anyone 🙄 -we went to the buffet for breakfast one morning at 930 AM because the Haven restaurant was closed already. Asked for fresh squeezed orange juice. I was told they were out and "the early bird gets the worm", should have come earlier. This was day 3 and we litterally just came from the behind the scenes tour and saw hundreds of cases of oranges. There were also stacks of oranges in 5 places on the buffet. -we met our butler on tbe 1st day. He told us his rooms were spread out and we wouldn't see him all week. And we basically haven't. He also ignored our basic requests for distilled water, not to bring sweet treats to the room as my wife is diabetic and claimed we never told him about the AC issue despite him giving me a 10 minute lecture (during our first day meeting) about how I'm using the AC wrong. There are probably a dozen more interactions that I felt could have been handled significantly better but I don't really want to spend all my time writing them all down. And yes, i know none of them other than the AC is a major issue but they are annoyances. The point is we felt the service among a good amount of the crew was poor and my wife and I discussed removing or reducing the DSC. However, the amazing crew were equally in number to the bad. And with such a quantity of bad crew, it's a management issue, not an employee issue. We decided it wasn't right to punish the good crew and would rather bad crew get something they don't deserve than good crew lose something they've earned when they work so hard. We will be keep the DSC and since the Butler isn't part of the pool, we will take half of what we were going to give him and distribute it (and more) to the crew that have gone out of their way for us.

My wife would suggest buying 9 more and be fabulous every night. She'd probably ask for a new purse and pair of shoes for each dress too.

It's like a call center. When you don't get what you want, politely thank them and ask someone else. IMHO it's better to nag everyone on the ship then book a cruise for a cheap hat 😜

Pretty stupid day to announce anything IMHO. What's the harm in announcing March 29th or April 2nd so some people don't get confused?

I believe we're on the same cruise. I'd be happy to splurge with you at the Dom dinner.

I'm not certain the NCL pass will work there 😜

Almost all medium haul flights west to east are either early morning or late at night. Otherwise they'd reach their destination in the middle of the night.

Well, since you said entitled.... You actually ARE entitled to get what you pay for. You ARE entitled to get what's advertised and listed as a benefit. If you're tired of hearing people's opinions then perhaps it's not they who are entitled and you can take a break from reading. Personally, what I'm tired of is paying more and having NCL announce I'll be getting less AFTER final payment. I'm also pretty tired of people knocking fair and balanced opinions because "that doesn't bother me". That's great. But it DID bother them and the whole point here is to share. If you loke musical theater and maybe you don't have access to Broadway or a quality regional theater, then getting rid of a show is going to bother you and is a VALID complaint. If you asked for Kaluha and rather than get another bottle or even tell you they're out but just pour something else, that's a valid complaint. If the concierge says they'll get you dining reservations, fails to do so and you can do it yourself, that's a valid complaint. When you're suddenly being charged for something that was included (and you've already paid for), that doesn't make you a pig. It's a valid complaint. Those are all examples of things you've attacked people for in the last few days. Maybe the problem isn't that people are entitled and constantly complain but that you blindly defend NCL, insult people who disagree with you and don't allow for an unbiased discussion.