clojacks

1 hour ago, UKstages said:

well, again, i don’t think the problem is determining if it’s a canceled cruise or a new itinerary or an itinerary change… it’s the justification for making the change. NCL insists that it’s due to ireland prohibiting tenders or some such… and that may be true. it also may not be. nobody, it seems, has been able to find any publicly available information supporting that.

Exactly….I never gave any kind of “inconvenience” compensation or anything like that a second thought. I’m 100x more interested in if I’m being BS’ed to by NCL to move a cruise for some financial reason. If they are, and that’s what I feel right now as no one seems to be able to find this “Irish government tender rule”, than I am going to think long and hard about whether I want to use my 6 cruisenext certificates.

As of this morning, I still can't find any information supporting NCL's "claim" of recently imposed tender restrictions. I'm not saying they don't exist in some obscure legal document...I'm saying I can't find any info with a simple google search.

Also, as of this morning, NCL's website is showing the changed itinerary.... 

1 minute ago, JIMESOPUS said:

@clojacks Thanks, from the article " The notification email references “recently imposed restrictions” on seasonal tendering operations in Ireland, stating that tendering is not allowed from October through April. The reasoning behind this is unknown at this time, but could be related to severe winter weather and the safety of small boats at that time, or as part of seasonal environmental protection measures. "

 

So is safe for 2023 and not for 2024, love the unknown at this time part.

 

Jim

I've searched and can't find any info on "recently imposed restrictions"...nor can I find anything that says these restrictions are going in place in 2024...only that my cruise is in 2024, and I received an email. So, I don't know if it is impacting this years sailings or not.

3 minutes ago, JIMESOPUS said:

OK, new rules for Ireland but ( did anybody find the new rules? ) it's for 10/24. I'm sailing on 10/3/23 and it's OK, safe for us to tender?

As of 5 minutes ago, NCL is still selling this cruise with the original itinerary around Ireland.

 

Typical NCL communications out of Miami

Just found this article...

https://www.cruisehive.com/norwegian-cruise-line-completely-changes-ship-itinerary/105445

2 minutes ago, Panhandle Couple said:

Some good questions:

Has any other cruise line changed their Oct 24 Ireland schedules?  If they did, how so? Is NCL the first or the last to do this?

 

Since this is 16 months out, what is the OP really out of?  NCL will probably refund FCC's for a cancelation.  Hotels and airlines don't schedule 16 months out.  Did the OP already start reserving tours 16 months out?  Probably not.

 

The Star is one of the smallest ships, and 16 months out is probably only 1/3 booked.   So maybe 800 rooms at most involved in the change? (note: on any given week, NCL is supplying 24,000 to 30,000 rooms fleetwide)

 

Is the alternate itinerary offered a good value?  Is this a bargain that the OP should consider? 

 

If you had read the posts, you would have seen the OP (ME) wasn't out anything, or expecting anything. I was merely posting this thread to show the info we received from NCL as to what they consider an "itinerary change" and to let people give their opinion on it.

I'm the OP. I have no need or interest in any compensation, since all we have into this is our CruiseNext deposits, as long as NCL and my TA don't nick me with a cancellation penalty. My only reason to start this was the strange letter that made it sound like a reasonable swap, with the embarkation and disembarkation ports being the only things similar. I guess my other question would be, what would the normal market price of the new cruise be, as the all Ireland one was reasonably pricey and I have seen no reference to a lower cost.

21 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

Yeah! They are screwing their customers by abiding by government regulations. Go figure. 
 

Personally, I like the new itinerary. It is “safe” from the perspective that it does not require most passengers to get any visas or any other documentation. And they tried to pick well known ports. 

Couldn’t we have picked a “safe” itinerary on our own if that was a concern of ours? It appears like you totally missed the point.

2 minutes ago, CruiseMH said:

Well..as there is not a single port left from the original itinerary i would say,yes,this is a change.

A very big one.

In this case you must have the right to cancel it without rebooking onto another cruise.

 

There was absolutely zero mention in the email of options if this "itinerary change" wasn't satisfactory...not a word about waiving penalties or compensation.

3 minutes ago, UKstages said:

wowza.

 

i’d like to see more of the email explaining this… “ireland” is no longer allowing tenders? too many questions to know what to make of that.
 

also, if they haven’t already, i imagine NCL will be offering as much as 50% FCC for this itinerary or the choice of a full refund, even though they - technically - don’t have to. was there no offer or special accommodation mentioned in the email?
 

but this would be like flying to hawaii, but when you get there, you discover it’s not hawaii, it’s bali. nothing wrong with bali, but it is not where you were planning to go,

Here you go.....

Dear Valued Guests and Travel Partners,


Thank you for your loyalty and for making us your vacation of choice.

We have important information regarding Norwegian Star's sailing on October 10, 2024. We ask Travel Partners to share this information with impacted guests.

We pride ourselves on delivering incredible experiences, both aboard our ships and by taking our guests to some of the most sought-out destinations around the world. While we try to maintain original itineraries as much as possible, at times modifications are made to optimize the itinerary or to accommodate certain circumstances. As such, due to recently imposed restrictions in Ireland, which do not allow tendering operations from October through April, we have revised the original itinerary as shown below. The updated itinerary will now include calls to France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the culture of Northern Europe.

Just got an email from NCL that due to Ireland recently disallowing tendering from October to April, our Ireland cruise for Oct '24 has an "itinerary change". 

Looks like a bit more than an itinerary change to me. I'd be more inclined to call it a cancelled cruise, with the exception of the same ship being used..

So, not having sailed Princess in probably 10 years , AND loving getting good coffees at Cafe Al Bacio on Celebrity, where do we get our good speciality coffees on the Island this fall when we cruise her around the British Isles?

8 minutes ago, Mommapadraig said:

It’s only been NCL. Princess customers reported they were able to get alcohol in UK ports during the same time period.,

Thats a relief!! 🍺

We are booked on both a Princess and NCL cruise in the next couple of years that visit UK ports. On the NCL board, there is lots of discussion about not being able to get drinks on board while in UK ports. Has anyone read or heard anything about this from the Princess boards? some have said it is an NCL rule, others have said UK rule.

Curious if anyone has done this and if so was there a side that was optimum? Looks like it kind of skirts the Philippines on both sides before heading to Vietnam. What's weird is that this isn't until 2025 and 1 whole side of the ship appears "unavailable". 

26 minutes ago, pmarrsouth said:

Won’t matter either way as the answer to the original Q is unknown 

33 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Remind us please which cruise?

I was referring in general to the block of fall of 23 and spring of 24 Japan cruises that were affected by the overbooking fiasco. I was wondering if there had been any other information following the May 1st deadline.

Just curious if everything has shaken out with this cruise as we are still showing good to go on our booking?

18 hours ago, SSFrance69 said:

We were recently shopping for cruises. The price for a 7 night on Oceania's brand new ship Vista was the same as an 8 night Aqua cabin on Eclipse. We booked Oceania, as we were delighted with the food we had on Riviera in March. That was our first Oceania sailing, so we didn't have past to compare it to, however it blew Celebrity's food (7 years ago food when it apparently was better) out of the water (no pun intended). We have our first Aqua sailing this July on Summit, so it will be interesting to compare.

Can I ask if you were comparing Celebrity's All Included fare to Oceania's O Plus fare? We have considered Oceania in the past, but aside from there fares being quite a bit higher in our research, there is an awful lot that is included with Celebrity's All Included fare that IS NOT included with Oceania's O Plus fare. 

3 hours ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

 

 

If it's clearly stated this is a limited offer, that's all X would have had to do.

You mean kind of like how they did with saying May 1st was a deadline for accepting their offer for this fiasco? How did that work out??

And with that, I think I'm done reading this topic....

3 hours ago, Judy Arthur said:

 

I understand your general point, but my own “first hand” knowledge is the “fact” that our innocent booking was accepted in January 2023.   Would X really have perpetuated the problem if they were fully aware then?    If I’m allowed to “think”, it’s as previously stated:   Volunteers should’ve been sought and encouraged to alleviate some of the turmoil.   At least, it would’ve seemed like X was working “with” us loyal passengers, not against.

 

But IF in fact, X has now completed resolving the issue in their own mysterious way, perhaps this thread is no longer relevant, as you suggest.

Let me offer one scenario that may make offering juiced up offers to volunteers unmanageable. Let’s say Celebrity offered 50% FCC to voluntarily give up your cabin in a particular category. But internally, they are going to only offer this to the first 100 cabins. How about if you’re the 101st volunteer and you got back to Celebrity on the second day after CELEBRITY representatives got back to you. Are you now pissed that Celebrity rejected your offer? Let’s say you have a TA handling your reservation and it takes them 4 days to get back to you and when you tell Celebrity you want to take their offer, they tell you you are too late. Now what? Asking for volunteers might not be the answer you think it is.

I was one of those who was booked on 1 of the affected cruise, but fortunately, we are safely not impacted. For the first 25 pages or so of this thread, I would say the majority  of posts were by people who were affected, and were offering factual ( well as factual as information obtained from Celebrity personal can be considered factual) information and experiences. There were the occasional “ I think” or “I’ll bet” type threads sprinkled in. But, for the most part we were getting first hand knowledge. Now, we are getting people who have decided that reading 35 pages is too much effort, but I’m going to offer a guess or an opinion anyway, even if it has been factually contradicted just a few pages earlier.

it might be time, if I’m a host or admin, to consider whether this thread has run it’s course or not.

3 minutes ago, Judy Arthur said:

I suspect January/February 2023 because that’s when very suddenly, ALL of the Japanese sailings were admittedly “red-flagged” and disappeared from the market.    We, and countless others, strongly suspected that the sailings were under cancellation consideration at the time.   Little did we know…

 

I realize that Celebrity asking for volunteers would’ve been an even bigger hassle for them.   But really, since it was entirely their fault, they should’ve handled it in this fairest, least destructive, way to the fullest extent possible.   They could’ve made voluntary cancellation attractive enough to generate results and saved a LOT of grief, hard feelings and bad press for the heavy-handed way they did go about it.   Just my opinion…

I mentioned back about 15 pages that we noticed our cruise in March '24 disappeared from the celebrity and TA sites long before January/February '23, and that I was told by Celebrity CS personnel that it was sold out.

14 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

I've heard their food is great yet I would imagine most upscale lines use higher quality and do not overcook things

They also have significantly fewer passengers.

51 minutes ago, iBeatle71 said:

I read a rumor on other social platform said: the bookings with TA been canceled, bookings directly with CL not affected or very few. Celebrity wants to keep TA's commission to them self.

Your rumor is 100% incorrect. Within this 35 pages of posts are story after story after story of reports from passengers in all kinds of cabins with all kinds of bookings at all levels of payments being cancelled. Rumors are a waste of time to report when you have 35 pages of people who have diligently been reporting what happened to them.

19 minutes ago, raananh said:

 

If each booking mismanagement costs $$$ instead of $ then, for sure, incidents will be fewer and no massive fiascos of 10 ships with 1000s of passengers, almost 15% of Celebrity customers just this year.
 

Do you mind if I ask where you are getting this "10 ships and 1000's of passengers, almost 15% just this year" info from?

If we were to assume that Celebrity's 13 full size ships were sailing with an average of approx 2500 per week, that is 32000 passengers. 15%, as you state, is approx 4500 passengers! 15% of what, per week? 1 ship? I'm not saying you are incorrect, just that I am curious where this info comes from and what you are talking about..

29 minutes ago, raananh said:

Totally agree with you, except "letter to the executive office". Celebrity and Corporations do not care about personal letters.

They only care when issues are exposed publicly on message boards, media, groups, etc.

Just here on CruiseCritic, I can see many people who said, including me, that they will not sail again with Celebrity = a lot of $$$$ of lost sales for Celebrity.

 

I want to agree that we could have an impact on Celebrity by showing our dissatisfaction by not booking anymore, but, in reality, think of the impact of this fiasco. Celebrity has 13 full size cruise ships sailing 52 weeks a year...give or take drydocks etc. That's 676 weeks of bookings. We are discussing approximately 15 weeks of bookings that affected maybe 10-20% of passengers? Many of whom will continue to book with Celebrity because they aren't privy to what has transpired because they either don't follow CC, FB, CruiseHive or any other manner of Social Media. In the grand scheme of things, my suspicion that the impact of a fiasco, to passengers, of this magnitude, is couch change in lost future bookings to Celebrity. Do I know this to be fact? Absolutely not, but the math tells me I might be right. Would I encourage anyone who feels that Celebrity no longer has their best interests at heart to peruse whatever means  gives them personal satisfaction? 10,000%! But I wouldn't fool myself into believing that this episode will impact their $$$ hardly at all.