clojacks

9 minutes ago, Bwana Tom said:

Usually Princess only classifies OBC as refundable if it comes from being a military vet and sometimes smaller amounts when they have to refund port fees due to missing a port on a cruise. I think you will likely find most if not all of your OBC will be non-refundable (spend or loose it). If however you do have some classed as refundable please be sure to get a final account statement to prove they owe it to you. I've been told if the refundable amount is $25 or less you can go the Customer Service Counter at the end of the cruise and they will pay it to you in cash. Otherwise they are suppose to pay anything over $25 by mail in the form of a check. 

Have a great cruise.

Now I’m curious. I know for a fact that NCL and Celebrity handle most OBC received by a passenger from a TA as REFUNDABLE OBC. Can anyone else confirm what Bwana Tom is saying.

We will be taking our first Princess cruise in a number of years this fall and have a pretty substantial amount of OBC from our TA....way more than we would choose to spend. I am assuming that TA OBC is almost always handled as refundable? At least I am basing that assumption on it being handled that way on Celebrity, who we sail with 90% of the time. You mention Princess cutting you a check? Doesn't Princess just refund your credit card on file the amount of the refundable unspent OBC?

For you regular followers of NCL, which I admittedly am not, but have recently decided to give them a few tries over the next few years after buying 6 CruiseNext certificates on our recent return to NCL after about 8 years with another line, I am wondering when I could expect to see the bulk of NCL's 2025 itineraries and sailings released. We are pretty committed to the rest of '23 and '24, but would like to look at what fits or interests beyond that.

4 minutes ago, John Bull said:

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrity normally berth at City Cruise Terminal (berth 101)

Princess at either Ocean Cruise Terminal (46)(just under a mile), or Mayflower (berth 105/6)(about the same), both walkable on level ground. But sometimes QE 11 Terminal (38/39) about 1.5 miles including dock road without sidewalk & you're strongly advised to take a taxi. 

Taxis available at all terminals but there's no restriction on walking.

https://goo.gl/maps/QtgdYJAaohrL1KES6

 

 

 

 

Start by posting back with your Terminals. 

 

JB 🙂

Thanks JB. We arrive back on Celebrity at Berth 101 of City Terminal and board Princess at Berth 46 of Ocean Terminal. keeping in mind we will have luggage for about 3-4 weeks of travel, walking/dragging isn't top on our list of things to do. On the other hand, I feel guilty asking a taxi/Uber to take us less than a mile. But considering I will be only 4 months post total knee surgery, that sounds like the best options?

On 2/15/2023 at 12:41 PM, clojacks said:

We are sailing into and out of Southampton on the same day, but on 2 different lines. Cruising into Southampton Celebrity, disembarking and then embarking on Princess. Any suggestions for getting from Terminal to Terminal?

I've noticed I didn't get any response on this in the past month so I thought I would bring it back up to a more recent point.

Does anyone have any experience at the Premier Inn Southampton City Center WestQuay?

Does anyone have any experience at the Premier Inn Southampton City Center WestQuay?

Does anyone have any experience at the Premier Inn Southampton City Center WestQuay?

So, does anyone have any suggestions for finding out what the Star is actually doing in the time period I mentioned? NCL can't/won't tell me? I can't find any dry dock/refurb schedules mentioning the Star in that time period? 

1 hour ago, dexddd said:

Per a third party site, refurb Q3 2023.

 

Not uncommon for trips before, and after refurb, to have issues from reports here.

 

We did one after and things still going on for over two weeks and spa, not our thing, down for a month.  Paint fumes near room.  We still had a great time though.

Appreciate the insight, except the sailing I mentioned is in Q4 2024, which wouldn’t explain Star missing in the period I’m looking.

13 hours ago, The Traveling Man said:

It's possible that it is scheduled to be out of service for refurbishment.  If that is the case, I would recommend not booking the last cruise before the refurb or the first cruise after.  We have seen them cut cruises short or start them late so they can get in a couple of more days of work.

Thank you for the insight. Definitely need to see where I can find more info on what is happening to the Star in the time frame I mentioned before I would book.

We are looking at a Star sailing of Ireland in Oct, 2024 that returns to Southampton on Oct. 20. I've been looking at cruise TA's sites and chatting with Norwegian CS agents, but nobody shows the Star after Oct. 20, 2024 until Nov. 12, 2024. We'd consider a B2B on the back end of the Oct. 10th one we are considering, but??? It seems like often times, sleuths in here have better access to what is happening with missing ships schedules. Anyone have an idea?

1 hour ago, AK Dreaming said:

First and most important, you confused my comment with another person's comments.  I had an unpleasant room steward.  I did not remove my DSC and if fact left him an extra $20 tip.  Which is much less than I would have left if he had been nice or even brought me towels.  I have never removed my DSCs and cannot understand why somone would except in extreme instances but none come to mind.  In my mind the DSC is just part of the cruise cost and I tip cash for service I receive.  Everyone is different and I am not judging anyone else, but I just wanted to be clear that I would not and have not removed DSC.

You're 100% correct AK...I should have been clearer that I was using your experience as the basis for my hypothetical, not that you actually withheld any DSC. Kudo's for you for clarifying that. I should have mentioned I was more curious how someone who felt it was warranted would determine how much to withhold. 

We sailed the Joy through the Panama Canal the first week the changes were implemented and I think it had more of an impact on our steward than it did on us. We are extremely low maintenance and one of the reasons we don't bid on a Suite upgrade is because we wouldn't know what the hell to do with a Butler! Our Steward must have thought about these changes for a while to try to make it the least impactful, because he developed a reverse room order rotation for every other day. That way, no room was the last room done every day. 1 day he started at 1 end of his 22 rooms, and the next day he started at the opposite end. At the end of the day, when the daily's were available for distribution, rather than just stick them in the mail slot, he knocked on the doors to hand them to each room and see if anything was needed. I saw absolutely NOTHING that we couldn't manage by not having a second service. 

2 hours ago, AK Dreaming said:

I agree that it is ridiculous that they increase daily rate the same time they reduce services.  On my last cruise in September I had the worst cabin steward I've ever had.  They were still coming 2x a day but he was unpleasant most times and I was solo in a balcony cabin, which I feel I keep very neat.  I still had to call 2x on that cruise for extra towels so I could shower.  My point is, the cabin steward you get assigned will make the difference not so much the policy.  My only concern is since we have 3 in our cabin this time how and when will they take care of bedding.  Seems l like every experience is different.

I have a reasonable, I believe question. 

In this scenario, you feel you are justified in reducing or withdrawing the DSC? By how much? Am I mistaken that the DSC's are shared among multiple crew departments? So if your beverage service has been phenomenal, and steward has been noticeably below that "standard", but you withdraw the DSC, does that not affect the other departments that you may have been extremely satisfied with? Am just curious if you can withhold, JUST the portion that may be shared with your steward, or if there is a way to even find out what that amount is? I freely admit I don't know the answer, so I am seriously posing a question, not presenting a hypothetical argument.

2 hours ago, 2Cruise4Ever said:

 

 

Don't get me wrong.. I'm all for paying the service charges.. they deserve it!  And, in fact, we always tip in cash way more than what they would get with our service charges.  But, having the highest in the industry is eye-opening.

So, are you saying you cash tip more than $40 per day or more than what the Stewards share of the $40 DSC is. It the latter, how do know what portion of each cabins DSC goes to the stewards, as I believe the DSC is a shared amount isn't it?

We are doing a TP on the Jewel next spring from Japan to Alaska. We will have 4 sea days mid-cruise, and never having done a trans on NCL, we're wondering if they do any enrichment stuff on the ocean crossing sea days? 

32 minutes ago, disneylover89 said:

I don't think people are upset about service being cut from twice a day to once a day, they are upset because there was a $4 per day, per person price increase for the service that was now cut down to once a day. 

I'll ask again....what in the second cleaning is so important as to make it a "must have", even at a lower price.

5 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

For what it is worth, @clojacks, here is a description of the "can't-select-a-flight" on FBC problem that I posted on my affected roll call.  No response from anyone came of it.  I cannot find the thread that I started on the same subject when I posted it on the main Celebrity board.  Again, when I did, I got suggestions on how to fix it (that didn't work) but no one else could say that they had seen the problem.

 

 

What is strange, is that I'm at an appt right now and while I was waiting, I thought I'd check on my phone to see if the same thing happens. So, 20 miles from home, on a different device, and it did the same thing. I don't know if this is something unique to my account or to my sailing. I have used FBC before, when it was ChoiceAir, and they were a life saver when we got sent home from Dubai during the first cancellations of COVID.  I just don't get it? I'm not even sure if I should contact Celebrity IT or FBC customer service. Neither appears to be extremely competent.

1 hour ago, Bo1953 said:

Call them...

 

Have all the options you want checked ready to go...

 

bon voyage

I understand that, but part of the convenience of a travel search engine is NOT having to call and have someone read to you.

We recently got off of Celebrity Apex and NCL Joy in B2B cruises. Celebrity was still doing twice daily in-room service, but had dramatically cut back on the food service for our cruise. NCL went to single in-room service for our cruise, but their food service was fantastic. I'm curious how many people who are complaining about eliminating twice daily service, do it at home?? I'm curious why they feel it should be expected on a cruise, just because that has been the norm? What do you get out of the second service that you can't live without, or that you couldn't get with a phone call to your attendant? Our NCL attendant said they have recently gone from 15 rooms per attendant to 22 rooms. I'm not sure it is physically possible to do that many twice a day, and still have some time off to eat mid-day.

On 2/19/2023 at 1:27 AM, mahdnc said:

I had this exact problem for a 2020 sailing before Covid hit. I could see flight options, but I could not select. I tried different web browsers, I tried doing it through my wife’s Celebrity account, and I called Celebrity. I also posted this problem on this board. I tried to do it after waiting a week, two weeks, etc. It never got fixed. Eventually the cruise got cancelled. I never had this problem again with my later cruise reservations. 

I'm still having problems with FBC. I've cleared my cache, tried multiple devices ( other devices I tried...1 IPad, 1 Samsung phone) both returned "account locked" messages. As before, I can search and populate the outbound list, there is no way to check return flights, because I can't click select on any single originating flight. Any ideas of any other solutions that don't involve calling and having them walk me through every flight option and pricing would be helpful. The outbound flights give the appearance of being a few hundred less per ticket on an international flight, but I would like to see return options to know I am comparing apples to apples without having someone read me the flights and prices. That's what a search engine is supposed to do!

4 minutes ago, FLAHAM said:

FAS drinks package does include soda.

Or bottled water, or specialty coffee's...

18 minutes ago, CCJack said:

good post, I was wondering the same thing.   We just booked a 7 day on Joy for 2 of us and they added $170x2 for gratuities.  My wife does not drink alcohol, and I do only moderately.   Trying to do the math to see if it makes sense for us with her ordering only non alcohol drinks.   Does anyone know if you can cancel for 1 person and not the other?   I can understand why the cruiseline may not want to do that as one person could just get drinks for their partner - but that is not my intent.    

You can not do only 1 in a room on the package. 1 consideration on the drink package, is that NCL's is ONLY for alcohol drinks. Other lines include, soft drinks, waters, coffees, etc, but NCL's is just "drinks" (beers, liquor drinks, wines, etc). That for us made a difference too, as the other lines we sail include EVERYTHING.

Before our recent cruise, I think I roughly figured I would need to drink between 3 and 4 drinks a day in order for the gratuities on the drinks to offset paying for an individual drink when I wanted it. By no means am I a teetotaler, but I also don't need to drink 3 drinks a day. It's just my personal viewpoint. I'll sail NCL again, but IMHO they have the worst beverage packages on the high seas.

On 2/24/2023 at 1:17 PM, debenson0723 said:

Thursday - Ensenada 

Not much to report for today. This was a spring break town for me back in my past life so never get off the ship. It was also raining but cleared up enough for some to do their excursions. 

Lunch at the Local...both of us had the Cobb salad and Wrangler Burger. I really like that salad as it is not too large and makes me believe I am eating healthy. There was a cocktail on tap there, a passion fruit lemon limey thing with vodka that was refreshing.

Already posted above about my wonderful experience at Le Bistro. 

Made my last donation to the casino (should have stopped while I was ahead) but TC did well at poker and did stop.

Headed back to the cabin to pack and prepare for that jolt back to reality 5am alarm.

 

Now sitting at LAX waiting for my flight home. Will post about disembarkation once there so I can use my laptop. 

I hope you come back on to complete your comments about disembarkation. We recently had a horrible, terrible, disaster of a disembarkation at LA, to the point that after filling out my survey, i sent in a Guest Services comment email. Just curious if your experience mirrors ours. I would not sail into or out of LA again until I was convinced they addressed their terminal there, and Miami for that matter.

I did this on a recent NCL cruise as it wasn't cost effective with my wife not drinking. I do have a question though. If I want to restore it to my FAS perks on a currently booked cruise that we again removed it from, will I be charged the cost of a beverage package or only the cost of the gratuities?