jules528

FYI, the administrative fee is waived for Elite-level CAS players. But apply for other CAS sailings. You can apply credit you have with NCL to the administrative fee (not to taxes/port fees), we did on our recent CAS cruise.

Hi all,

My soon to be husband and I have booked a cruise on the Gem for our honeymoon in September. It's a Distinctive Voyages cruise, and we think the credit will be helpful because it's a one-way cruise (starts in NYC, ends in Canada), so we will HAVE to fly back.

My question is, our cruise ends in a smallish city (Quebec City) but is about two hours away from a major city (Montreal). Looking at flights, it seems like it would be much cheaper to fly out of Montreal, and we may as well play tourist and spend a night there.

Is it possible to use our air and hotel credit from NCL if it's not in the embarkation/disembarkation point? Furthermore, what's your general experience with using the air and hotel credit provided - is it worth it, or is it super restrictive?

Thanks!

There are usually events for 18-20 year olds on board in the Freestyle daily newsletter you get. I remember several on my cruise in January - but they aren't every day.

This is a great price. CAS on Bliss will be more $$ than some other ships because they don't comp as often/Bliss is very popular. Enjoy your cruise!

I've never heard of an NCL phone card. Do you have a link to that? Thanks!

This is a perk offered through the Distinctive Voyages cruises - you get some minutes on your room phone comped. You have to dial a specific number to use it (they give you the code for it) and then an operator tells you how many minutes you have left in your promo before connecting the call.

We loved having this comp - it ended up being the most valuable. You can never predict an emergency, but a pipe burst in our house three days into our 14 day cruise. Without the phone time, it would have been really tough to coordinate calls to family, the insurance company, etc. to get the emergency sorted out. We used almost all of the phone minutes.

Hi, I just sailed the BA and was in 14874, so I have a good sense of this :) There is not a ton of noise from the buffet, in my opinion, but there is a lot of noise from Spice H20 on party nights - and those parties go until midnight or so (even later depending on which night). That could definitely be a bother.

My first gambling cruise on NCL was April 2017 and I was surprised that I didn't get any mail offers. I didn't pursue it since I had plenty of other cruises with other lines booked. I did want to sail one more time before the end of March 2018 to hit the next level in the players club.

 

Looking in October 2017 for a March 2018 deal, there was a real soft spot where I could go on a 7 day Escape in a balcony for $649. I was willing to PAY that, but I called because there was a particular perk I wanted.

 

The host explained that NCL typically will not start making mail offers until three cruises are taken to get average play. However, when he saw my play for the one cruise, he put me in a Spa Mini Suite (which is what I paid for on my first cruise) gave me the beverage package, 3 specialty meals and OBC (don't remember how much. In fact it was a surprise since he didn't mention it.)

 

Well with just two cruises for rated play, I called recently and asked about one more trip before the end of March 2018. (Yes ... just one more!)

 

I am EXTREMELY HAPPY with the offer:

 

Comped in Haven Courtyard Penthouse with Balcony

Beverage Package

3 specialty restaurant dinners

250 min internet package

Wine

Shore excursion

$300 OBC

 

Hint: I spent A LOT of time in the casino!

 

But I mention this for two reasons.

 

First, if you play consistently, NCL rewards good play accordingly-- much better than my recent experiences this past year on Princess where I've sailed for three years; their bounce back offers have become insulting.

 

Second, if you play well, at first you may have to call and ask for something until you have a good "average" with them.

Thanks for all this info - also to everyone else in this thread! Yes, we figured that we have to create a track record for better offers to come. Luckily we were on the BA during some of the storm-craziness so we got credit to apply to a future cruise and did CruiseNext to get some more credit. So with CAS (as you mentioned, we plan on calling directly) and that combined, we are looking at doing two more cruises in 2018 so that for the future, NCL will have some stats to compare it to. The fact is, my fiance would be putting the $$ down in the casino regardless of where we were haha - so we may as well be getting some of the rewards :D

Hi all,

Just recently completed my first cruise with NCL, and my fiance is a fairly big gambler at the casino. We earned enough points that judging from what I've read on here, he will not have a problem getting a comp offer for a cruise. I know you can either wait for the mail offer or call CAS directly.

However, I'm not sure which itineraries tend to be comped. Is it mostly Bahamas/Bermuda itineraries? Does anyone have experience with getting non-Caribbean itineraries with CAS discount or comp? We are looking at doing a cruise out of Europe for our honeymoon, or maybe Alaska or something a little different and just wondering if we would have success applying our credit there.

I was on the Breakaway out of NYC on 1-5, and we had the same problem. Disembarkation was truly a nightmare. The cruise director was calling multiple colors at a time, too, so it continued to back up. We missed our bus back because it took two full hours to get off the ship and into the pier before customs. This was not a customs/luggage problem as we wheeled our luggage off and customs took less than 10 minutes.

I was on that ship (post-storm cruise January 5-19). I do think people are being a bit ridiculous, though some grumbles about it are fair. I'll post an abbreviated pros and cons:

Cons:

-9/10 days at sea is a LONG time out of 14 days. Even on a big ship it can get boring.

-Even though we could board Friday night before the ship left NYC a day late, because it was in the pier, we had to pay taxes on drinks even with a UBP. This adds up in a day and a half between soda and alcohol.

-I do think that NCL wasn't totally transparent on not being able to make it to Aruba. I think we could have sailed faster but that missing a sea day would have really hurt NCL's bottom line. Of course, they could not have predicted that the medivac happened and that we would be shut out of Aruba altogether, but if we had steamed faster there it could have been saved. Or they could have tried to replace the port with something else.

-There was a lot of misinformation by staff about when/whether the water slides, ropes course, and rock wall would be open.

-Both embarkation and disembarkation were absolutely terrible and took about half a day. We had to reschedule our bus home twice because the line took hours. I do think NCL could have helped with this - they were calling multiple colors at once and kept the line backing up.

Pros:

-I think the amount of credit they gave us was quite generous and the future cruise credit was as well. By the end we had amassed a ton of credit and for a 14 day vacation barely had to pay for anything! We are definitely cruising with NCL again as we will save a ton of money due to the future cruise credit.

-Every time we spoke to Guest Services they were informative and helpful.

-Staff was amazing and cheerful despite having to work harder during the storm/post-storm and deal with additional guest complaints. Staff on Norwegian was really what made it for us.

-There were always back-up plans for when weather went unexpected. Never did I feel like staff was unprepared when plans changed.

-The facilities were excellent given that some of them took a beating on the storm. Nothing was musty,wet, etc.

Of course, I have my general pros and cons about food, entertainment, and ports that has nothing to do with the storm but I will post that in a general review. I think people were majorly overdramatic about the storm and while it did put a damper on a few things - and I think embarkation and disembarkation are really the only things where NCL could have done stuff differently - the storm wouldn't affect my decision to cruise NCL again. We probably wouldn't do the same ship/itinerary but that has more to do with personal preference.

Hi Jules528,

 

Can you let me know more about the damage or reasons for those to be closed? Are they working to get them back open again soon?

 

I'll be on the ship in a few weeks and I'm really curious about what to expect. My daughter will be so dissappointed if the water slides are closed (that's pretty much the biggest thing she's looking forward to!)

 

Thanks Jules.

Yes, I can answer this. We have talked to several officers. After the winter storm that has been posted about here extensively, the outdoor decks (15/16) may have sustained some damage. For example, the LED big TV wall at Spice H2O is not working properly. When the ship docked in NYC, it was covered in ice and the crew had to act very quickly to turn it over. The immediate priority was assessing damage that would affect cruise safety and getting guests from the last cruise off.

There simply was not time for an engineer to board and confirm the slides and course would be safe. The officer told me that it could be examined in port while we are in the Caribbean but not to bet on it. They will definitely have time for examination when the ship gets back to NYC.

Some of you may have heard about the medivac on board the Breakaway. Our overnight in Aruba (7 AM-12 noon the next day) had already been shortened to 6 hours (7 AM-1 PM) because of the winter storm Grayson in NYC and all that it brought. Because of this second incident, Aruba was bagged entirely.

Folks had already been grumbling from the issues with the storm from the start of the trip and this was a big topic of conversation after the announcement because a 14 day cruise was now 9 sea days.

We have all received letters onboard, signed by the captain, in our staterooms saying that because Aruba has been skipped, they will offer up to 25% of the current cruise fare (for the Breakaway trip) on a future NCL cruise and of course port charges would be refunded.

I was pleasantly surprised by this update - it's a decent amount of credit for a future cruise and since we were first time NCL cruisers, we were kind of disappointed by some of the things we missed due to all the odd circumstances (the ropes course, water slides, etc. have not been open on the cruise because of the storm). However, it seems like they've really worked to try to make it right.

Just thought CC users would be interested in this!

Just want to say - I hear you! Cruising with my boyfriend, who has hinted several times he will ask the all-important question on the ship. Great! But... he's NOT a planner, and has told me to stop talking about the cruise until we get to NYC to embark :o

I have already checked us in and emailed him the cruise docs to print out at work, told him about daily service charges, all that. But I wish he were more invested in the planning portion, since there's so much to do on the ship. I want to make restaurant and show reservations now, but he's more laissez-faire. Sigh!

It is stressful but remember, you can't change them and enjoy the cruise your way, even if it ends up that you can't do everything together because they didn't plan. That's the way I'm looking at it.