Cindy

I’m so glad you’re doing this…thanks!

I’d love to know about any improvements/upgrades that were made while the ship was out of service.

I know you’ll have lots to say about food, service, etc. Since I’m not sailing until October I’m sure things will change!

I spoke too soon. I was just able to purchase the discounted package. First I selected Offer Upgrades under Explore and Plan (on the website, not the app). Then I found Specialty Dining Plus under my included 2-meal plan. It went through with no problem on the website. On the app there wasn’t a way to select the passengers.

I’m trying to purchase that right now but it’s just spinning.

We’ve been trying to take our Pride of America cruise since April of 2020. We have quite a bit of money tied up in this trip, but we really want a cruise, not a refund! We’re trying one more time to take the cruise in October 1 of this year. The difference is this time I already have refundable back-up plans booked for the same dates we would be gone on the cruise. Cruise or no cruise, we plan to fly to Honolulu on September 27th.

21 hours ago, Cindy said:

I think we’re going to go with either the Hyatt Regency (breakfast buffet included😁) or the Halepuna Waikiki. Both have great rates for oceanfront rooms through Costco Travel. 
 

I’m busy now working on my Plan B. We have to move our air tickets by May 27, so we ARE flying to Honolulu on September 27! We’ll leave Honolulu for Kauai and Maui on October 1. The only thing that remains to be seen is if we island hop on the POA or by air! I’m hoping it’s on the ship, but we’ll make the best of it no matter what!

Things are falling into place. We booked directly at the Halepuna using a package that includes breakfast and resort credit. I decided I liked the smaller hotel with no resort fees. Plan B is in place with refundable hotel and car reservations for Kauai and Maui. I hope we don’t have to use them, but I’m ready if we do!

9 hours ago, NikiPinkston said:

We're kind of in the same boat. We were booked on the POA in March, 2020 and, after several re-bookings & cancellations, are now sailing this fall (fingers crossed). We had airfare we had to re-book by March 31 & we're hoping things are somewhat back to "normal" by then.  We're staying in Waikiki for a few days pre-cruise & were originally booked at the Moana Surfrider but, to make up a bit for the difference in the POA fare, I looked at just about every other hotel in Waikiki.  We're now booked at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani and, with our Marriott Bonvoy discount (we just recently joined) and the senior discount, I feel that the rate was quite reasonable for Waikiki.  All of the rooms have balconies & we got an ocean view room.  My second choice for a more reasonable but still pretty nice hotel would be the Waikiki Beachcomber.  Both are centrally located right on Kalakaua Avenue.  There are also a few hotel threads on the CC Hawaii board that I found very helpful.  Hope that helps if you decide to spend some time in Waikiki.

 

We’re in the same boat, so to speak.😂 We started out in April 2020 and we’re giving it one more try on October 1sr.

I had moved our Outrigger Reef reservation several times but since we’re adding a night and their prices have skyrocketed I’m looking around. I think the prices are reasonable at the Waikiki Beachcomber, but I think we’re going to go with either the Hyatt Regency (breakfast buffet included😁) or the Halepuna Waikiki. Both have great rates for oceanfront rooms through Costco Travel. 
 

I’m busy now working on my Plan B. We have to move our air tickets by May 27, so we ARE flying to Honolulu on September 27! We’ll leave Honolulu for Kauai and Maui on October 1. The only thing that remains to be seen is if we island hop on the POA or by air! I’m hoping it’s on the ship, but we’ll make the best of it no matter what!

We decided to kick the can down the road one last time. One way or another we are flying to Honolulu on September 27th!

We need to go to Hawaii! I looked yesterday, and my first deposit for this cruise was July 1, 2019.😱

I tried to plan land for the same dates in March/April as the cancelled cruise, and I was really having a hard time with availability. This time I will be ready with back-up (refundable) hotel reservations for both Kauai and Maui, and use my hotel reservations for Honolulu whether we cruise or not.
 

I think the last day we can make changes to our air is May 27, so we will have a decision to make towards the end of May. If the POA isn’t back in service by then I will probably request a refund and go with plan B.

35 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

The real problem is, if you have crew who are documented and trained, yet you can't fully staff the vessel, what do you do with that available crew?  Do you pay them to stay at home on standby, exacerbating the money drain on the company?  Or, do you let them sit at home and hope they don't find a better job in the meantime, and then you have to go through the whole training and documentation routine again.

Thanks! We're really leaning towards giving up on the cruise and going to Hawaii in March. I know it's a no-win situation for them. Maybe this just wasn't meant to be.😩

Now that I've had myself a good cry I'm trying to figure out my options. Luckily we can push our air out again as long as we book by the end of May, and there's a cruise in October that would work for us.

Unfortunately that would be POA try #8 (we were cancelled once before Covid for drydock and we moved the cruise twice on our own after this mess started), and I'm just not sure how much longer I'm willing to let NCL hold on to thousands of my dollars. 😪

I'm about 50/50 right now to go ahead and go to Hawaii in March, stay 4/5 nights in Maui and 5 nights in Oahu, and be done with it. We've never been to Hawaii -- we're more New England/mountains/Europe travelers, but the cruise seemed like a good idea when we booked it 2.5 years ago! This was supposed to be our 60th birthdays trip. By the time we get there who knows how old we'll be!

Does anybody have any insight into how long the staffing problems might persist? I understand the constraints the POA operates under. I guess my fear is that in the current job market trying to staff the ship is going to be almost impossible. I don't want to put all my eggs in the October basket if it's just not going to happen.

18 hours ago, Brian V said:

Hey all - was just poking around on our reservation on the Joy (26 days out, can't wait!) trying to figure out what to book for specialty dining and came across this:

 

 

 

I don't know if it's just me (could be 🤪) but I thought that price came up at $29.00usd  previously?

I can select it, select a date and time and party size so guessing it is not closed due to the "c" word I will not mention but...?

 

Is this a change or am I just that unobservant???

 

 

I know on the February POA sailings that got cancelled, passengers had received notification that Teppanyaki and Moderno would not be open. I wonder if they have decided to close some specialties for now, especially Teppanyaki where there’s close contact with others outside your party?

Thank you so much for your great report and pictures! I’m (hopefully) on the Pride of America in March so I’m watching these first cruises carefully.

Based on comments from crew/staff families on another site, it looks like they are actively restaffing the ship and planning to resume cruises in January.

I’m getting discouraged and feeling less optimistic about our March 26 POA cruise. If it gets cancelled again I’m ready to admit defeat and ask for a refund.😢

20 hours ago, NikiPinkston said:

We're in the same boat, Cindy!  We were booked on the POA March 28, 2020 and have canceled & rescheduled 5 times, sailing now in February, 2022.  Hopefully, the world will be in a much better place by then.  Should it be cancelled, though, I don't think we'll never give up.😊

Our problem now is $$$ in airfare that has to be used!

This dry dock was scheduled for the end of April through May of 2020. We were originally booked for April 25 and had to move the cruise 2 weeks earlier when that sailing was cancelled. Little did we know that was just the first of 5 POA cancellations for us! We’re trying one more time next year, then if that one doesn’t go we’re giving up.

On 5/26/2021 at 6:45 PM, NikiPinkston said:

Our wonderful NCL PCC called me this afternoon as our October 2nd cruise was canceled (shout out to Andy Estel!), and he got us rescheduled for February, 2022.  He told me that the POA will start sailing out of Honolulu on November 6th of this year.

I moved our cruise today (voluntarily — no cancellation for a change!🙄) to save many, many dollars on airfare. My PCC told me the same. 

I just rebooked again for Hawaii in April of 2022, and I’ve actually gone so far as to pull out my old list and sketch out a plan for the trip. My husband said it was nice to see me doing what I do best...obsessing over a cruise that’s over a year away!🤣

We’ve scheduled this one cruise SIX times! The first cancellation was for Dry Dock, but the rest were COVID related. This is the first time since our April 11, 2020 sailing was cancelled I’ve really felt optimistic we’ll get to go.

I just went through the rebooking process (again) yesterday. In my case I had my original fully paid fare +25% FCC for my April 2020 cruise that was cancelled in March in the first wave of Covid cancellations. For my cruise on the Jade that was just cancelled, I received a 10% discount on the new booking.

The only problem I have is every time I have to rebook the value of my dollars and FCC is reduced because prices are up and the cruises that got cancelled had significant OBC attached. 

I spoke to my PCC yesterday because I had to rebook (again). He thinks the vaccine will be required at least when they start back up.

I’m totally confused and I guess I’m going to have to call my PCC to start to figure this out. My April 2020 POA cruise was cancelled in the first wave last year, and I received a 25% FCC. We rescheduled for October 2020, moved it again to March 2021, and finally decided things were looking bleak for Hawaii so switched to the Jade in Europe for October 2021 — the cruise that was just cancelled.
 

Our 25% FCC for Hawaii was substantial because we were in a suite. We hadn’t applied all of it to our October cruise because the cruise was less expensive, so we were going to use the remainder for things like excursions and pre-cruise hotels. I assume that money is still in my account and now I have another 10%? When they sent the letter on Monday I thought the number looked funny, so maybe that’s the cost of the Jade cruise + 10%? Or is the 10% a discount off a new cruise?
 

I need to get out from under this huge chunk of money & FCC! I wish I had a crystal ball a year ago and I would have made a different decision about accepting the FCC instead of a refund, but here I am. I just want to be able to go someplace nice while my many thousands of dollars in airline credit is still valid!

My Jade sailing for October just got cancelled. I was expecting it, but I hate the thought of starting all over again. This was cancellation #4.😢
 

Funnily enough, I started looking around late last week.

I am also losing hope for 2021, and trying to decide when to pull the plug and reschedule yet again. Unfortunately I took the credit and 25% FCC a year ago, so now my only option is to keep rescheduling. I’ve switched from Hawaii to Europe, and am now thinking about switching back to Hawaii because things in most of Europe look pretty bleak right now.
 

I’d love some definitive guidance on when/where to reschedule, but unfortunately nobody knows. If I had any idea a year ago how long this was going to last I would have made different decisions!

I had two refund experiences with NCL companies, and both were negative.

In February I booked an Oceania cruise and cancelled it the next day. According to the contract I should have had my deposit ($1,500) refunded immediately, but they decided that even though I booked and cancelled 3+weeks before the shut-down I would have to wait 90 days. Numerous phone calls got me nowhere, and I thought the people I was communicating with there were rude and condescending. At 91 days I filed with my credit card company who reversed the charge. The refund was finally posted on my cc at the end of June, so the credit card company took their credit back (as they should have).

My other problem was again a deposit, and if I had it to do over again I would NEVER make the same decisions. Our POA cruise was originally scheduled for April and we were in the first round of cancellations. On May 31 we decided Hawaii was off the table for the foreseeable future, and we moved our FCC (paid POA cruise + 25%) to a Europe sailing next October. Even though I had a ton of credit, I had to pay an additional $1,500 deposit to secure the additional 20% off promo they were running for cancelled cruises — something about how they handle FCCs. I was promised that deposit would be refunded in 3-4 days. Of course, that didn’t happen. My communication with them got more strongly worded around Labor Day, and the refund finally showed up on my credit card today, 114 days after I paid the deposit.

Live and learn. I wish I had just requested a refund in the first place, but like others we never dreamed this stoppage would be so long-term. Since we really don’t know what cruising will look like in the next year or two I hate that I’m in a “use it or lose it” situation for a lot of money.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Sadly, at least in the start-up phase we have no interest in cruising. The deal breaker for me is only being allowed off the ship if you’re on a cruise-line excursion. I’m going to pray things go well and some of the restrictions are relaxed before our next cruise (Europe October ‘21). Going to Europe and only seeing what the cruise line deems “safe” isn’t appealing to us at all. I like to get off the beaten path and experience the culture of a country, not just visit the popular tourist spots. 
 

if the restrictions are long-term, we will become land travelers.😢

 

Yes, the SN and SM suites all used to be the SFs, the only difference being that the ones on Deck 10 (now the SMs) have larger (deeper) balconies.  They've routinely been viewed here on CC as more desirable for that reason, and NCL is giving them their own category.   The analysis that I did in my earlier thread (linked in post 6 above) based on a number of mock bookings showed that NCL is charging higher prices for the SMs than the SNs.  Big surprise!

 

Taking a screen shot of the cabin info is always a good idea!  

 

We've sailed in those Deck 10 aft-facing suites, and have enjoyed them.  We had one booked for the Jade's TA in October out of Civitavecchia, but have canceled that cruise for obvious reasons.   ☹️

Thanks! I read your linked thread and that was exactly what I found when I made my reservation.

The price difference between the SM and SN cabins was only $100/person for the 12-night cruise, or about $8.50/person/day. I assumed that was just for the bigger balcony, but now thanks to Cruise Critic I’m finding out otherwise!

Sent from my iPad using Forums