SleeStack1

Fair point! Perhaps we shall only demand $6 per person per day returned!😉 On a side note, fancy coffees would have been a nice inclusion, but gotta sell that FAS+!

Well, the 3 drinks would be free. They are merely charging gratuities on 6 of them. I'm not that dastardly😇 This is purely academic...I'm not asking for any DSC back...unless service were truly bad. I'm expecting it will be plenty fine.

I personally understand that free is never free with anything that requires a purchase. Still....for fun... We consume 3 drinks per day each on average. FAS upfront gratuities are based on 6-7 (roughly) drinks per day. Unused drink gratuities for us would amount to 3 * 14 * 20% = 8.40 drink gratuities per person per day. If we were sticklers about FREE drinks, we could go ask for $17 back per cruise day from the DSC at cruise end right? Our justification being we only want to tip 20% on drinks, not 40%. We won't do that as we realize the drinks aren't really free, but cost $6.66ea... including tip. Hidden general fare increase (if any) ignored....

We opted out of the 'half-off' US domestic flight for our cruise. Price savings was minimal (if anything at all) for us. I like choosing the exact time and airline, minimizing stops, ...and using points to pay for it. On the flip side, if itineraries change, its handy to have NCL handle those changes at no extra cost. If a significant delay happens, we'll be on the hook for the cost (and/or insurance) involved. Admittedly, this is how most cruises w/o flights attached to them work anyway.

I actually like the idea of limiting entertainment bookings. Why should some people get reservations for all shows and others none? Because they put a towel on a chair in the morning?

We have only been on (3) cruises...two on HA. We have one on NCL next week and then another HA cruise next December. We booked ClubOrange for the 12/2023 cruise. Its an 11 day southern Caribbean cruise on the Eurodam. We know there isn't a separate CO restaurant but are willing to trial run CO anyway. With our room upgrade cost factored in, the net cost of CO came to +$70 for the entire trip. I guess the daily mimosa may not be a thing anymore, bummer. I was hoping to at least have a couple. We don't do drink packages. I've read there haven't been special CO events lately. Has anyone experienced one recently? It seems that $70 will ultimately get us priority boarding (maybe), a bottle of sparkling wine, a tote bag, and the extra entree listing. I don't believe there's any tender ports, so no value there either. Maybe we overpaid for CO? 😆 One question...if there is a future fare drop...is it harder to get any compensation with a CO booking? We booked VE and upgraded to V.

I presume its general disdain for anyone trying to time the market which almost never works in the long run. I wouldn't take it as a personal attack...more a warning to newbies who might not be able to afford the strategy. To those that can afford to gamble and enjoy it, have at it!

Thanks for the info everyone! I went ahead and bought the OBC. Another thing I'd like to confirm... I read elsewhere that non-ref OBC is used first (on eligible purchases of course) before refundable OBC is debited. Is this true? We have $250 of non-ref OBC I want to make sure doesn't go to waste.

I read that you need to request it 1 day before disembarking. It it paid in cash? By check? Return to original payment method? I'm considering using an Amex $350 off $1000 offer to buy OBC and then recover most of that at the end of the cruise.

We currently have (1) AmEx offer that will be expiring in a couple days. Our cruise is already fully paid including DSC, activities, etc. We have a non-ref OBC of $250. It seems like I could go ahead and buy (2) $500 OBC with my AmEx card and then cash that OBC out at the end of the trip. Basically, it would end up being an extra $350 discount on the trip. Do they really hand you cash or do you get a check from GS when you do that? If it were cash, that would be the only negative as I wouldn't be excited to tote $1k back home.