Northern wanderlust

So far, I have not gotten it extended. I'm still waiting to see if my TA can get anywhere.

I decided to call NCL directly again and spoke with another agent who sees the credit and says they are still active. She is saying they expire Nov 2023 for book and sail and is checking to see if we can extend to a sail date next year.

Great. It never did. I can't even find an area on there for coupons and credits like the website says I should see.

I was in the same boat as you. We sailed on the Escape Oct 21 to Nov 1, 2022 and the price dropped $950 pp after final payment. My TA called and they offered a FCC for $1900 which was awesome. I never saw the FCC on my latitudes account but my TA said they had it there. After researching it here I was under the impression I had to have something booked by Nov 1st which is what the issue date should have been as that was when the cruise I got the FCC for disembarked. I called NCL today to try to use it and was told it expired in January. The agent I spoke with instructed me to fill out an online form to the customer expierience team and request an extension and said he had never seen one of those not go through. I just got an email back saying my request was denied. So apparently they can issue FCC that expire in 3 months? What good does that do anyone? I have called my TA to have him look into and am waiting for a call back from him. I did note in the email from the customer experience team denying my request that they were happy I wanted to cruise with NCL again. Guess what? If I am denied this I am pretty sure I won't be sailing with NCL ever again.

I never saw the FCC on my latitudes account, I think because we had booked through a travel agent. The crusie embarked Oct 21, 2022 and disembarked Nov 1. I was under the impression the FCC would be issued after disembarkation. Which was fine. And my travel agent is the one who told me we were getting a FCC. He never mentioned an expiration date, I assumed from research on here and NCL's website that you had to have something booked within a year of the expiration date, which I was under the impression was Nov 1, 2023. I called NCL today to find out how to use the credit and was told it expired in January. The agent I spoke with told me to fill out a form with the customer experience team and request an extension and said that he had never seen one of those not go through. I got an email back from the customer service team saying it would not be extended. I just put a call in to my travel agent to see if there was anything he could do on his end. Now I'm cranky. I just lost $1900. Why would a FCC expire 3 months after issuing? I don't get it.

We have a fairly substantial FCC due to a price drop from our cruise last year. I know we need to have something booked by November 1st to avoid losing it. If I book a cruise today and use my FCC then decide to cancel it later will I get my FCC back assuming I cancel it before November 1st? Also, will I be able to book it online directly or do I have to call my cruise consultant? TIA

I have to agree. Call me a snob if you will but we found the food in the MDR on Escape to be.....okay, I guess. The food in the buffet was not good. We sometimes had trouble finding anything we wanted to eat. The meals we had in the speciality venues were good. I think our favorites were Moderno and the tapas place, what is it Pincho's I think. Cagney's we didn't think was anything special and something I ate there did not agree with me. We also ate a lot off the ship.

Our cruise last fall was an 11 day and we saw exactly zero entertainment acts of any kind. It just really doesn't interest us. Granted, this was a very port intensive itinerary, we only had one sea day. If we had more time on the ship we may have been more interested in the entertainment offerings. Though we have less than no interest in the Mr. Sexy Legs contest or anything of that nature. Like I said, my past cruising experience is with Holland America and I enjoyed some of the offerings in conjunction with Lincoln Center and some of the history and culture lectures they had. The atrium on the HAL ships were impressive. I remember seeing the atrium on the Escape and just thought "that's it?" Also, the layout there was horrible. The casino was right there and allowed smoking and it got so bad in the atrium that most nights we would avoid walking through there. We also felt the food on HAL was much better. I think ultimately DH and I are not cruisers at heart. We view cruising as a relaxing mode of transportation to explore different places rather than a destination that happens to go to multiple places.

We are about to turn 40 with 3 kids at home but I think really we are 60 somethings trapped in 40 year old bodies lol. Most of my cruising experience has been on Holland America but I have my eye on Celebrity. We haven't been with Celebrity yet but I think that would fit our personalities much better. We knew that going into our cruise last fall but, as they say, itinerary is king and we booked that cruise for the itinerary. Celebrity seems like a smaller line with fewer itinerary choices. I also have my eye on a couple of Viking Ocean cruises but we may have to wait a few years before we can afford to do those on a semi regular basis....or until we win the lotto.

I will say there is sold out and then there is sold out. The capacity of the NCL Encore is listed at right around 4,000 passengers but that is if every cabin is at double occupancy. This is college spring break time so I'm guessing a lot of those cabins had more than 2 people in them. I tried to find what the maximum passenger capacity for that ship is but couldn't. Either way, that is a wide margin. That said, DH and I were on the Escape last fall and it was only at 50% capacity and thank god because I agree with your statement about the public areas being small. Full disclosure, we never tried to get a lounger by the pool or anything like that, we only walked through the pool area on the way to the buffet but the atrium and public areas like that all just seemed so small. It didn't feel overly crowded on this trip but I cannot imagine what it would have felt like if it was. To be fair, we are not NCL's target audience. We have no interest in anything like waterslides, go carts, tag, or even the entertainment options really. If the kids are with us it may be different but NCL is not the line for DH and I on an adult trip.

Fair enough. I won't bring any then. Thank you for the reply.

We will be on a Mediterranean cruise over Halloween. What sort of Halloween activities should we expect? Is trick or treating a thing on NCL ships? If I bring some candy to pass out to trick or treaters would that be OK or will I end up eating it all myself?

Heard back from my TA today. We are on the Escape out of Rome on the 21st. We are in a standard balcony cabin, which is exactly what we wanted. We didn't even bid for an upgrade. Nothing interests us this trip. Anyway, we booked about 2 1/2 years ago and paid about $2100 or so pp. It is now down to $1200 or so and my TA just told me we are getting a little over $1900 in FCC which is fantastic. We are thrilled.

The ability to refill my wine glass without having to put on clothes.

I have no tips to offer but I'm jealous and now off to NCL's website to check it out.

Could someone please confirm that? We are boarding in 2 weeks and I just cannot figure out for certain if we need to test beforehand or not. We are leaving from Italy and at one point I was under the impression that Greece was only requiring negative tests if you were embarking from Greece but not if you were simply visiting a port. But the letter I got from NCL the other day was unclearly worded on that particular topic.

We booked through our TA and were assigned our cabin. I don't know if the TA chose it for us or if they selected a guaranteed rate and that's what NCL gave us but we have a connecting cabin. We certainly didn't request it. But maybe that's why?

This may be totally stupid but if you are a pet owner you'll understand. My dog was with me for about 12 years before she passed. The vet offered cremation services but I told DH that I couldn't stand the idea of not bringing her home but the $250 or whatever it was for cremation with return of the ashes seemed absurd so we buried her in our yard. I went out there 2 or 3 times a day for over a month to visit her and only stopped because the snow got too deep to make the trek. We agreed it was probably a good thing we didn't have her cremated and the ashes put on the mantle for me to fuss over for the next 5 years. Now I'm terrified about what I'll do when DH or my parents pass. The idea of them being far off in the cemetary is depressing. Medication will likely be needed.

Full disclosure, my first NCL cruise is coming up in a couple of weeks and I have only been on RC once and it was nearly 20 years ago so things may have changed but my experience was that RC absolutely nickel and dimed also.

While browsing the list of current threads I wasn't paying the closest attention and though you were asking what NCL considered fully waxed and though "yikes!" Luckily, I looked closer. Fully vaxed is much less racy.

I agree. I was initially skeptical about this idea but the menu posted looks really good. With most options that interest me than I normally find on the regular rotating menus.

To use it as in the cruise you book with it has to be done in a year or you have to book something with it within a year?

Great. Thank you!!!

Where does it show up on your account?

My TA says I should be getting a FCC for the price drop on the Escape next month. Should be being the key phrase there. We haven't gotten it yet. He says it is waiting on approval and we should hear back. Who knows. I get how it works. If we don't get anything we'll be fine with that. If we do get something we will consider it a bonus.