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KeithJenner

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Everything posted by KeithJenner

  1. Cruise First, which can be bought online are US only, but anyone can buy Cruise Next. However Cruise Next can only be bought from NCL onboard ship (they can be transferred so it is possible to buy them from other people although that market is probably smaller for GBP priced vouchers). If you are planning on booking more cruises I would strongly recommend buying some Cruise Next for the discount if nothing else. Just don’t get tricked into spending the discount onboard. The discount is applied against the cost of the vouchers. I book direct.
  2. Yes, there are differences between booking in Europe and the US (and other countries have their differences too). Your summary is fairly accurate. I believe that there are also differences within Europe as well. For example I’m in the UK and our final payment date is 70 days out. We had some luck with upgrading over the past few years when prices fell, but generally the reductions are smaller now due to the ships being fuller. Other than that post Covid period price reductions have never really been an issue for us as we book early and the prices almost always increase (sometimes very significantly) as the cruise gets nearer. For that reason I’ve never really worried about price reductions. If you book later than that then you may see the reductions that you are talking about, in such situations all you can really do is call NCL and see if they will offer anything. One bit of advice is to book using cruise next vouchers as your exposure is lower if you ever do need to cancel. I know that some Europeans book via the US to allow themselves to cancel or reprice.
  3. No, you won’t get upgraded on 74 points. When you refer to people getting the higher status early I assume you are referring to the grandfathering that happened when the tiers changed on 2017. Before that time you needed 76 points and it was increased to 80 points. Some people who were between 76 and 80 points found that they had been made platinum. I don’t think we ever worked out the exact rules for this. At first we thought it was because people had cruises booked that would take them over 76 points but then more people had it happen without being in that position so we thought that maybe it was anyone who was already a member, or above a certain number of points before the change. Anyway, 74 points wasn’t enough, and I’ve not heard of this happening lately so maybe they have stopped doing this anyway. It all happened automatically. I’m not aware of anyone ever successfully making a request.
  4. The soda package is very limited. It basically just includes fountain soda. However, in my experience, if the adults have the beverage package then it is quite rare to be charged for soft drinks for children anyway. We have always been very upfront about who the drinks were for and on only a few occasions were the drinks for our son not charged against our beverage package.
  5. Whilst Haven vouchers can be used against standard cabins there is no real benefit in doing so. The discount is the same per voucher (in money terms), so you have to put down double the deposit to get the same doscount. The Haven vouchers exist as they represent a full deposit on a Haven room. This can be a significant benefit to anyone booking a suite as those deposits can be high, but the discount is the same.
  6. OK, but there are no fees on the basic package internet anyway, so still no double charging to worry about.
  7. Exactly. The OP seems to be considering trying to do something impossible in order to avoid double paying a tax that isn’t charged.
  8. Depends on the shop. In some shops there is no facility for dealing in cash, the systems wouldn’t be able to reconcile the takings and the person serving you has no authority or incentive to override anything. It certainly can, and does happen, that people are unable to use cash in shops. In smaller owner operated shops you are less likely to have issues, but even then the person has to weigh up the inconvenience of dealing with the cash.
  9. They almost certainly won’t need to clear the ship in Barcelona. It is a requirement that happens in the US more than anywhere else, but also in Barcelona they are used to cruises where the whole ship doesn’t embark/disembark due to cruises with multiple embarkation ports. It would be a very rare ship that ever totally clears in Barcelona.
  10. Thanks for the comments. Looks like we need to be prepared for some possible issues on that sea day, but we will hope that they get the special permission. Good news about the tax though.
  11. If you are spending on shore then please get Euros. That is their currency.
  12. Thanks, Yes I meant to ask about the 1 bar per deck issue as well. I’m hoping that only applied when in port, and not whilst sailing down the river? I’d just trying to set expectations, and if there was tax and restrictions on the bars for the final two days of the cruise then it would be good to know in advance. I would have expected to have seen grumbling on these boards if there were issues, but you never know.
  13. We are on the Joy from New York to Quebec later this year, and I’m trying to work out which ports we will be charged tax on drinks, before I commit to the upgraded drinks package. I assume we will be charged in New York and Boston but what about the Canadian ports? Also when sailing down the St Lawrence? I’d appreciate any input from people who have done the cruise recently.
  14. This is one of these weird things. We have had many aft cabins over the years, on various ships, and not once have I ever seen any soot, or anything else like that, on our balcony. I'm not the most observant, so just asked my wife, who very much is, and she also said that she has never seen any. Others mention it as an issue, so I'm not doubting anyone, but it is not certain that you will see it.
  15. I'm not sure if I was clear, but what I'm saying is that when people talk about aft cabins they mean ones facing aft. There is no benefit that I can think of about being on a side cabin near the aft. You are either facing aft or you may as well be anywhere along the side,
  16. Aft balconies give you a view out of back of the ship: balconies towards the aft don’t have that. They are totally different. Of you are on the side you are on the side. It doesn’t matter to me whether it is towards the front, mid ship or aft.
  17. No, it is as you thought, only applies if buying the basic package, which hardly anyone does. Similar to the internet discount, it is of no benefit to most people.
  18. I think that they wrote what they meant. Even if a project is on budget at the 90% stage (used 90% of the budget), the remaining 10% of the project costs the same amount again and you end up way over budget. I don’t work in IT, but I do work in finance and have seen that happen many times,
  19. I have sailed in Suites a few times, and also had VIP privileges a couple more times, and I find the embarkation process annoying, to be honest. I get that the waiting area is quite nice, but we generally only wait off the ship for a short time. We only snack for lunch, so trying to avoid being frogmarched to the restaurant is a pain and I’d really rather avoid having to deal with the concierge (it’s much easier just to make my own bookings than add someone in the middle). I’d much rather just find my own way on to the ship (it is fairly easy to find), get our bearings if it’s a new ship and then choose a bar for ourselves. Each to their own of course.
  20. It certainly isn’t included in every days Freestyle Daily. I don’t recall ever seeing it mentioned on any Freestyle Daily that I have received (I just checked a sample and saw no mention of it). If it wasn’t for these discussions on Cruise Critic and a couple of dailies posted by others I would be totally unaware of any ban.
  21. We were on the Breakaway last September. Had a fantastic time. Food was great, service excellent (except one time in the MDR where it was good but slow). We didn’t do theatre shows so can’t comment on that, but never had any problem getting into Howl. The buffet was busy, but then they always are in my experience. We don’t spend much time on the pool deck, so not sure how busy that was, but Spice was not too crowded.
  22. We can’t stop NCL making it hard, but individuals can help themselves by trying to understand that this is really just a big one and get one free deal.
  23. Yeah, if you had to spend the OBC on other things then I wouldn’t be buying any more CruiseNext. As it is, NCL get the best of both worlds. They tie in people who want the discount by selling then CruiseNext and they also have the confused people spending the OBC on other things. I can’t see why they would change it.
  24. I didn’t get any choice of the cabins we were upgraded too, even though I did make a request (I did it by email). The first one was not long after they introduced the new levels (but later than yours), and I was happy with the cabin we got so just left that. My wife’s one was about 6 months ago and we got an upgrade from an ocean view to the lowest level balcony. By that time it was clear that people weren’t getting requested rooms so we again just accepted it. Even though it’s a hull balcony it’s still a decent upgrade over the ocean view.
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