Alegeeter

I just called NCL to make a formal "complaint" and asked that it be documented and escalated. I wasn't rude but I was firm, bringing up everything in this thread. The representative said the more people who call, the better and that it has led to NCL making changes in decisions in the past. Not sure this will do anything but worth a shot.

In the meantime, I will not be rebooking anything.

If they transferred the crew from Joy to Bliss it's only fair to transfer the passengers too!

31 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

Word from my PCC is a 10% coupon as our only consolation for our canceled Joy sailing. I am waiting to hear back if it will be in addition to the ones we already have on our account or if they are keeping the 1 per account limit that they've had for all the canceled sailings over the past months. If it doesn't stack, then this is no different than the compensation they were offering for a normal COVID cancellation, which is NOT acceptable, since NCL made a conscious choice to cancel this sailing after having assured us these Return to Sail cruises would actually happen.

 

Edit: Just got a follow-up. It does not stack with our existing 10% coupons, so just a straight refund. As of right now, I think I am OUT.

Do you think it's worth writing a letter or speaking with someone with this argument? I think it's valid, but I also don't know if NCL will care.

3 minutes ago, BamaCruiser39 said:

Switch to one of the cruises on the Gem? Might as well take a cruise during the same time-frame if you've got the credit you have to burn

I’m not Jamie but I thought about this too.

The Gem prices are significantly more expensive, and while the itinerary is great, I’m not too psyched about the ship itself (have been on Gem 3x and I was looking forward to the Joy!). If NCL allowed me to transfer my booking at the price I paid I’d consider it though.

18 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

I am super curious what NCL is going to offer those of us who were canceled on the Joy. if they just offer us the straight refund, I am going to be so done with them. They billed this sailing as a return to cruising for those of us who had had multiple cruises cancelled. To pull the rug out from loyal customers would be pretty egregious. Especially now that we know they did it just to steal our crew away for the Bliss sailings. Unfortunately, I have a LOT of money tied up with NCL in CruiseNext, CruiseFirst, and a ton of FCC, so I am probably going to have to sail with them at least a couple more times in the next year or two, but once that credit is exhausted, if they really do nothing to compensate us beyond a refund, I am going to have to start cruising elsewhere. We are booked on the Majestic Princess for Alaska in September. So we'll at least get to try out another line and see how it goes.

I agree with you here but I have a feeling they’re just going to give us our 10% coupon and think that’s enough.

And this message says the August sailings are bookable online now but they’re not showing up for me.

This morning’s  updated Travel Alert warning on NCL.com. It looks like the ahoy from MBJ has been officially scrapped but other ships are a go. I still haven’t received any cancellation email. I’m hoping they’ll allow me to transfer my booking to another ship. This is disappointing .

Just now, BirdTravels said:

I just talked to my agent. He said that has of yesterday afternoon, they announced that they were pulling the Joy out of Jamaica. All reservations are frozen, so we have to wait for that to refund (I.e., can’t transfer to Bliss). But, final payment is still a few weeks off, so we can wait for refunds and promos before making final payment. 

Did he say what was happening to the Joy?

13 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Some people have made the claim that NCL is sailing at reduced capacity of 50% but, as is typical,  they can not supply any reference. Quite frankly, I won't believe that number until I see it in writing.

 

Here is a source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/cruises/2021/04/05/norwegian-cruise-line-require-full-vaccinations-passengers-crew/7089216002/

Staff have begun to join the Joy too! They have been onboarding in Aruba and are going to start getting vaccinated in the next couple weeks, if they aren't already.

We should also keep in mind that if NCL cancelled all of us already booked on Joy/Gem, they would only have 2 months to book the ships from scratch for the first sailings. To me, it seems like a better business decision to just move all of us already booked on the first few sailings to make sure they will near-capacity ships rather than risk having angry customers AND empty ships .

Just now, DCGuy64 said:

If we end up flying out of Miami, I may ask NCL to refund us the air promotion. Flying to the DR isn't cheap, but Miami is very cheap from DC. We paid $699 for the two of us to fly to Santo Domingo with NCL, but we can get nonstop flights from DC to MIA for $250 each quite easily. That's the other wrinkle about the potential change in port. And unlike the distance between SDQ airport and La Romana, the cruise port in Miami isn't far from the airport at all. No sense spending $150 on transfers. A (potential) change like this has all sorts of ramifications, I'm afraid.

I would hope that if we changed to Miami the price of the flight is changes. 2 for o1 airfare from JFK to Miami should be about $100, not the $300 we paid.

Just now, DCGuy64 said:

My only concern about that is that I don't see them doing the same itinerary from MIA in 7 days. I've never been on a 7-day cruise that went as far south as Barbados that didn't start in the Caribbean already, such as San Juan. MIA cruises typically do the Jamaica/Mexico/Grand Cayman route and I've done that a number of times already. I liked the Gem's itinerary a lot and I don't see it surviving a US-based sailing, which sucks. Yes, I know the cruise lines always have the prerogative to change itineraries, but I liked this one. Oh well, we must wait and see.

San Juan is a potential embarkation port too so perhaps the Gem will relocate there. NCL has sailings from San Juan during winter months so it's possible, especially if NCL doesn't return to Florida because of the vaccine mandate. It's all a guessing game for now!

Went to mock book the 8/7 Joy sailing (which I'm already booked on) and now receive this message:

25 minutes ago, DCGuy64 said:

Same here re: the flight offer. Cheapest I could find was ~ $450 pp and that was with no checked bags included. I understand NCL guarantees you at least one checked bag, and on many airlines that's $60 each way. Transfers seemed reasonable, too. Most I'd seen from Santo Domingo to La Romana were about $130 and up.

I thought the NCL booked you on a standard economy ticket, where seat selection was included but a checked bag was not. Can someone confirm this? It would be great if a checked bag was included, but I was planning on having to fork over $30 per person each way to check.

1 hour ago, Sinbadssailors said:

 

???

 

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/immunity-types.htm

 

Active immunity results when exposure to a disease organism triggers the immune system to produce antibodies to that disease. Exposure to the disease organism can occur through infection with the actual disease (resulting in natural immunity), or introduction of a killed or weakened form of the disease organism through vaccination (vaccine-induced immunity). Either way, if an immune person comes into contact with that disease in the future, their immune system will recognize it and immediately produce the antibodies needed to fight it.

 

 

Active immunity is long-lasting, and sometimes life-long.

 

 

Immune response is showing to be more robust in vaccines over natural infection.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.15.440089v2.full.pdf

Vaccine antibodies likely last longer than those from natural infection, not to mention the vaccine seems to be protective for several of the variants.

3 hours ago, cmh said:

Final payment for my 2022 cruise is 120 days.  I booked the cruise with free air for second person.

 

Oh. For my August ‘21 cruise is 60.

Final payment is now 60 days, not 90.

And many sub-70 obese people might enjoy a cruise, so I'm glad we all agree that cruise lines taking precautions is warranted.

An obese person may get COVID and die. 

Someone with COVID doesn't become obese and die, just like with any acute and chronic condition.

If someone is obese and has a heart attack and dies, what do you think is listed on their death certificate? It would like say "Heart attack" and a contributing COD may say obesity. This means yes obesity was a contributing factor of the death but if it were not for the heart attack the person would still be alive. COVID deaths are no different. Sure, obesity and hypertension put someone at risk for death, but without COVID that person would not have died at that time. COD "Complications due to COVID-19 secondary to obesity and hypertension."

3 hours ago, graphicguy said:

NONE have died solely BECAUSE of the COVID Vaccine.  Last stat I saw (USA Today?) stated 88 people in the U.S. have died shortly after receiving the COVID Vaccine.  What I couldn't find is whether it was after the 1st dose or the 2nd dose, nor what other contributing factors may have caused those mortalities.

 

Still holding at 94%-97% efficacy (depending on vaccine version) against COVID, which is remarkable.  Regardless of the stat, or where you look, the success of the COVID Vaccine thus far as been amazing.  And, is the major reason for the precipitous and dramatic drop in infections and death.

 

It's easy to understand NCL's requirements to have 100% of crew and passengers fully vaccinated.

We aren't saying people died because of the vaccine. We are talking about people who were vaccinated, still got COVID-19 and died. This is to be expected. But the numbers are certainly lower than they would be in an unvaccinated population and shows that the vaccine effort is working. The only way to get deaths down to 0 is to reach herd immunity so that there is no spread of the virus. Vaccination is much more of a community effort than an individual one.

- Your local epidemiologist.

There have been deaths due to complications of COVID-19 in those fully vaccinated. Though, in most those cases, it's because of vaccine failure - those  vaccinated but amounted no antibodies to the virus, likely due to the patient having an immunocompromising condition like cancer or autoimmune disease that prevents the body from doing so. This is why it's so important that we reach herd immunity, so that everyone can be protected and not just those who can be successful with the vaccine. 

I'm on the 8/7 sailing from MBJ and originally my flight had us going from JFK > CLT> MBJ. Others here said that it's just a placeholder. A few weeks later it changed to JFK>MBJ. We are still a few weeks out from getting exact flight details so who knows what flight we will end up on! What you're seeing very well could also just be a placeholder too.

Just spoke with NCL - though who knows how much the person I spoke with actually knows but she said that 30 days before sailing guests will receive an email about what is required to submit proof of vaccination *before* arriving to the pier. They're still working out the details, which is why we don't know anything yet.  I know I know, take this grain of salt.

But I think this is line with  GraphicGuy. NCL may want to verify the proof in various databases but that would take some time to do for all guests, which is why I think it makes sense to submit the proof online ahead of time. I can't imagine they would leave the arguably most important safety measure up to the folks checking in guests at the pier. 

1 minute ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

Thank you for sharing. Does your vaccine card have an official  seal of anykind? Also, do you just take a photo of your vaccine card and upload it? 

Unknown. There is so place to upload anything as of yet.

5 minutes ago, Heymarco said:

That just means they have to have their last shot two weeks before the cruise so it has time to kick in. 🤣. You are not considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after. I don’t think this has anything to do with the timing of showing the card before the cruise. 🤣

I am aware of what fully vaccinated means. I am a COVID-19 epidemiologist after all 🤪

The guest confirmation states in full: 

“All guests sailing aboard cruises with embarkation dates through October 31, 2021 are required to be fully vaccinated at least 2 weeks prior to departure in order to board. Each guest must submit proof they have completed the full cycle of required doses for the vaccine administered at least 2 weeks prior to their sail date. Guests who are not old enough to be vaccinated or otherwise not eligible to be vaccinated will not be allowed on these sailings.”

So yes, you are right that you need the vaccine course completed two weeks before sailing but you also need to SUBMIT the proof at least two weeks before sailing.