Pevil

Update to a post from 14 months ago. On the Princess website, the Princess Premium fare was listed for less than the Princess Standard fare for the Enchanted Princess for some April to June, 2024 cruises. The strange pricing was available on the Princess website for approx 6 hours back in February, 2023. We took advantage of the strange pricing and booked a 2 week cruise that we just returned from. Princess did honor the strange pricing. We paid $1,185.00 Canadian (approx $880 USD) per person for a 2 week Caribbean cruise on the Enchanted in an inside cabin. This price included Princess Premium and Princess also gave us $150 USD OBC per person at time of booking. With Premium, also included the Princess Prizes, and while on the cruise we won an additional $250 OBC and a free one day pass to the Enclave spa. We had a great cruise, so a big thank you to the OP, Linaka625, for the posting back in 2023.

OP back from the 14 day NCL "Antarctica & South America: Argentina & Chile". The main issue I had with NCL on this cruise was that NCL, 2 weeks before departure, cancelled 1 of 2 days of scenic cruising in the Antarctica and exchanged it for an additional sea day in the Atlantic. When I booked this cruise NCL's own description included: "Calling all penguin and nature enthusiasts-come aboard Norwegian Star for a once-in-a-lifetime cruise to Antarctica. Cruise through Paradise Bay in Antarctica and witness a pristine frozen wonderland of glacial mountains and azure icebergs that a colony of adorable Gentoo penguins call home." NCL cancelled Paradise Bay. The only reason given by NCL was to "to enhance the guest experience." This reason was confirmed by Guest Services while I was on board. No other reason or explanation was provided. NCL did not offer any goodwill compensation. Not sure if I was more disappointed in NCL in making the last minute itinerary change and not giving me what I paid for or NCL giving me a BS reason for the change. Bottom line, NCL terms and conditions allow NCL to make itinerary changes, and NCL did. NCL terms and conditions allow me to remove the DSC and I did. When removing the DSC at Guest Services, I was not asked for the reason I was deducting the DSC from my final account. If NCL wanted to enhance the guest experience I would have thought NCL would want to know the reason I was deducting the DSC, so that NCL could correct the issue on future cruises. The impression I was left was, NCL could not of cared less if I did or did not remove the DSC. There were other service issues on this cruise. The quality of this NCL cruise was significantly less than my pre-covid NCL cruises. The drop was so significant that I will not consider NCL for future cruises. My impression at the end of this cruise was NCL is prioritizing cost cutting regardless of the affect on the guest experience. I have completed 3 Princess cruises post-covid, and the quality of those Princess cruises were similar to pre-covid Princess cruises and exceeded by far the quality of this NCL cruise at a similar price point. Princess gave me what I paid for, so I had no issue paying Princess its DSC. Just reporting my experience on this NCL cruise and that if you are not happy with your NCL experience instead of just complaining there is (to use Mistertomatoe's description in post #25) the nuclear option of removing the DSC. For those who think I am punishing the crew by removing the DSC, then we are into the tipping discussions which already has 1,000's of posts on this site so no need to continue to beat that horse. I am OK with my decision. If you would have made a different decision, I am OK with that, too. To each their own.

OP here. I have read everyones comments and a great thing about this message board is everyone can express their opinion and you agree or not. I will be boarding this cruise tommorrow and will have a great 14 day cruise. I will check in with customer service and see if there is a better explanation for the itinerary change other than to enhance my cruise experience, which is the only explanaion ncl has provided to me to date. I am unplugging for the next 14 days but will post an update post cruise.

I am on the Feb 18th Antartica cruise, which ncl has removed an Antartica sailing day and added an extra sea day betwwen Falkland Island and Buenos Aires. To protest this change I am considering removing the DSC because: 1. The only communication I have received from ncl is that the change was made to enhance the guest expereince. As a guest there is no way this itinerary change can be considered an enhancement. Others have posted there is a go slow order but ncl has not provided that information to me as an affected guest. 2. The itinerary change will shorten the cruise total distance significantly and will allow the Star to cruise at a slower speed which will add up to major fuel cost savings. Instead of ncl making a goodwill gesture and passing these savings onto its guests in the form of an obc, ncl is pocketing the savings. 3. For the 2024-25 Star sailings for this itinerary, ncl website is showing the original itinerary, not our revised itinerary. So there will be no go slow order next year? We board the Star tommorrow. Maybe ncl will provide a better explanation for the itinerary change once on board. If not, a trip to guest services to remove the dsc may be the only way to protest the change.

If you are getting Princess Plus or Premium, if you book as one 14 day cruise, you will only get 2 casual restaurant credits (plus) or 2 specialty restaurants (premium). If book as B2B, will get 2 credits per week (or 4 total).

We did the 32 day Sydney to Vancouver cruise on the Grand this past April. We had a great time. The ship could use some cosmetic updating in some of the common areas but the lack of updates did not detract from our cruise experience. Staff/service was very good. We thought the restaurants/food were very good, but this can be a subjective opinion. We liked our cabin on the Aloha deck towards the aft. Easy access to the aft terrace pool and easy access to Lido deck and Lido buffet restaurant. Would book this cabin location again. Also, liked the wrap around promenade deck for walking, which is missing on the newer princess ships. There was an electrical issue on the Grand during our cruise. The ship lost power to the an aft section (1/7 of the ship) on all decks for a 5 day period. Major inconvenience for those who had a cabin in that section as they had to be moved to a different section/cabin. Was a relatively minor inconvenience for us as our cabin was not in this section. Princess did compensate all passengers with a future cruise credit of 50% of cruise fare paid for this cruise, which I thought was more than reasonable compensation (has covered 90% of the cruise fare, including Plus, for 2 additional cruises we booked for this upcoming winter). I would have no hesitation in booking the Grand again. Also, enjoyed the itinerary. Good combination of sea days and port days.

For Victoria, it actually is a Canadian government regulation that only one bar per deck is allowed in Canadian ports. So for Canada, it is the Canadian government not NCL. For other countries, not sure. We were on Princess last summer and there was full bar service in all Greece ports.