Da-Painter

Guess Wall Street is not impressed with NCL's promotions & practices over the weekend, the stock is down sharply today, and down over 3 1/2 points since last week, at prices not seen since last November. Oops.:eek:

About now, the NCL fan club should arrive and tell you are all wrong, and NCL is great.

How about it fan club, where are you at?????

And Da-Painter - a bunch of us are sailing to Bermuda in Oct 2016. You should join us!

 

 

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Hi, will look into that one, we take off tomorrow for New Orleans, for 7 days in the Caribbean, its been too long since we've cruised, Julie says Hi. :)

They do have a mid ccruise bag special. I do not remember the exact price,because it may have changed since my last NCL cruise.

On the Spirit last month, they had a full bag for $28, was about mid cruise.

I am wondering what your opinion is of leaving 1/2 full containers of toothpaste/shampoo/other toiletries. I have always thought they could use these, but I always wondered if they just threw them out??

 

If we have an attentive steward we will give them additional cash.

What do you give people for X-mas presents?:eek:

Thanks. Madeira is the biggie as it could cost us $32 and we are spending the whole time off the ship. Good to know we can walk instead.

The whole town is walking-friendly. Lots of big, wide sidewalks.

And you can see the ships docked, from most of the town.

They will give you a city map/port guide for the ports with the Freestyle Daily the nite before arriving.

Great cruise!

We were on the Spirit a month ago, and compared to April 2013, the ship has been spruced up.

A lot of the windows with seals broken, were replaced, (moisture between the panes).

The carpeting throughout the ship looks good, I did not see any signs of delayed maintenance.

Our cabin had new carpet in it, but it was an Aft Suite.

Because it was built for Asia, it has an Asian theme about it, very nice, its our favorite ship.

We are looking to book another 12 day Grand Med cruise on it, we would not consider going on the Epic, for the 12 day, not interested in the floating hotels.

There was a comment about the Blue Lagoon, its one of our favorite places on the ship, never too full, could always get a table.

Whatever floats your boat! :cool:

Last month we were in a Suite on the Spirit, and while strolling through the atrium, I inquired at the desk for dinner reservations at Le Bistro a few nites ahead for 7PM. They told me they could not do 7PM, but could do 9PM.

We spoke to our concierge later that day, and were booked for 7PM.

The place was 50-75% full at 7PM, & never filled up. I do not know why they schedule like this, but have had this same thing occur before. Where they say they do not have availability, but they do.

Cagneys is always booked up for the last nite of any cruise, late in the week. So if you want Cagneys for the last nite, book it right away when you get on the ship.

Went to Shogun Asian Fusion, it was empty, there was only one other couple there.

In the future when a large portion of folks have the dining package, I guess, forget getting into the most popular specialty restaurants, as they do not hold a lot of people. As 'garycarla' mentioned, the laws of physics will come into play in the future for reservations.

So finally, there will no longer be any wait for the MDR's, everyone will be trying to get into the specialty restaurants. :eek:

We were there last month.

At Funchal/Maderia, from the cruise ship to the area in town, opposite the ship, its a nice 20 minute walk, at a leisurely pace. The town area is easy to walk around in, and close to the cable car. I do not know the cost of a taxi, but driving its about 3 minutes. The shuttle is 20 minutes with folks loading and unloading.

Can't help/remember the others, we hopped onto shore excursion buses, that were right outside the ships. :o

Thanks for posting all the detailed pictures, great job.

We were in a Forward Suite on the Star, quite a bit different cabin layout.

I agree with you, we have had that 'shin-buster' bench twice before, and finally just moved it away from the end of the bed. I think they should just remove them, they are pretty useless.

We hop on the Dawn in a week, aft, and again, the first thing we will do is move that bench out of the way. Maybe I should call the concierge desk and ask them to remove it from the cabin.

The other thing we do not bother using, is that silly bathroom scale. I do not need that to let me know what my edible-consumptions are while on a cruise.

We never touch the scale, just leave it as is. ;)

Wear whatever you want.

We do not dress up for it, whatever we are wearing is it.

And if you want to wear a suit & tie, feel free to, everyone wears every imaginative thing, and you would not look out of place in a suit & tie.

It part of Freestyle. :)

On the Spirit last month, about half way through the cruise pins were delivered to our cabin. We already had some, so just left them. Not much use to us.

I am very disappointed with NCL's policies on upgrading. During extensive planning, I spoke with an NCL agent, who told me that I could make any changes until the final payment date. When I expressed concern about adjustments after NCL had control of my money, she reassured me that they would still work with us. This turned out to be utterly false.

 

We booked a cruise on NCL Epic on December 10 for disembarkation on March 15 for an inside cabin. We had a strange school schedule conflict pop-up, so we were forced to take the week before at the same prices, and wanted to take advantage of a triple - promotion, dining package, beverage package and $300 onboard. I had paid my full amount just 2 days earlier (December 30) (at the 75-day mark). They wanted to charge me $500 to rebook it the week before, not give me any promotions for upgrade, and they were reluctant to even do this. I got them to waive their $500, and change the cruise date, but they never wanted to allow me to upgrade at the new promotions. There would be a $900 upcharge on a $2400 original cruise price for a new total price around $3300. I called and spoke to several people. They eventually recommended I speak to the executive group. I spoke to several people there, who were all rude. When I asked to go to the next level, they all claimed that they are the highest level to the CEO. I asked for the CEO, and was rejected. Two of the women said that if they allow me to upgrade and take advantage of promotions, they’ll have to do it for everyone. So their policy is to help no one. I explained that we cruise for 1-week every year. This is not a way to encourage us to continue on NCL.

 

This would be a win-win for everyone. When I sent an email to the president, CEO and other executives, I received a call within hours from Katherine at the Executive group, who informed me that the Executives I sent this email to asked her to call and say that they are not going to do anything. She was just told that she had to call me. Not with any solutions, though. She was a little bit nicer, but WHAT AWFUL POLICIES. Generally the lower end rooms sell first, why wouldn’t they want to maximize their profit and be sure that they sell out the mini-suite?

 

I think from now on I’ll stick with Carnival! Their customer service is MUCH better. I would suggest waiting until closer to your desired cruise date, and using a reliable travel agent who will advocate for you. Every story I read about NCL being so helpful re: upgrades appears to have been more fantasy than reality.

Get real.

You should be embarrassed to post such a thread. :eek:

You have to carefully read the reviews, "read between the lines". With experience you will see the warning signs in a review.

On the NCL Shore Excursions Reviews, a bad review will not be shown, or will be edited out.

Its in the NCL "terms and conditions" for submitting a review. I have posted reviews of bad experiences on their excursions, and those are never shown.

So be aware of that.

:eek:

I thought Spirit came out of dry dock recently.

We were on it in April 2013, I noticed a lot of worn carpeting, and a lot of seals broken on the windows; moisture between the panes.

We just got off the Spirit in Dec 2014, and noticed these items repaired, we had new carpet in our cabin.

The ship looked a lot better. ;)

This may give you some info:

 

 

"Our exposure to market risk for changes in fuel prices relates to the forecasted purchases of fuel on our ships. Fuel expense, as a percentage of our total cruise operating expense, was 15.6% and 16.9% for the three months ended September 30, 2014 and 2013 and 16.6% and 18.2% for the nine months ended September 30, 2014 and 2013, respectively. From time to time, we use fuel derivative agreements to mitigate the financial impact of fluctuations in fuel prices. As of September 30, 2014, we had hedged approximately 91%, 59%, 50% and 10% of its remaining 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 projected metric tons of fuel purchases, respectively. We estimate that a 10% increase in our weighted-average fuel price would increase our anticipated 2014 fuel expense by $7.2 million. This increase would be partially offset by an increase in the fair value of our fuel swap agreements and fuel collars and options of $5.2 million. Fair value of our derivative contracts is derived using valuation models that utilize the income valuation approach. These valuation models take into account the contract terms such as maturity, as well as other inputs such as fuel types, fuel curves, creditworthiness of the counterparty and the Company, as well as other data points."

From EDGAR:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1513761/000157104914005621/t1402007_10q.htm

Very interesting, thanks for posting that. The folks in these industries are aware of when prices get cheap enough to buy, its like when stock prices get so cheap, you just buy and hold. It can represent a lot of money to their bottom lines.

I look at the commodity futures prices, as a barometer, I do not look at the prices for the exact product they purchase. I do not know what they buy, nor where the prices are quoted.

There can be great profit opportunities when prices collapse like they have for the oil products, the question is when is the time to buy. :eek:

There has been a lot of talk in the news about the drop in the price of oil and the effects it will have on various parts of the economy. Those businesses that use a lot of oil will see the most benefits. The most obvious candidates to benefit are airlines and cruise companies. Without anything official to go on, I have been doing a few back of the napkin calculations to see what these price changes might mean to NCL.

 

At a first guess, I think that on average the NCL ships probably use something like 150 tons of fuel per day per ship. At $635 (the 2014 price to NCL) a tonne, that costs around $95K per day. There are 14 ships in the fleet and taking those average figures it looks like the fuel bill for a day will be about £1.3m making an annual bill of around $475M. Like most of the cruise companies, NCL hedge their oil ahead and during 2014 they apparenly paid around £635 per tonne. The price has apparently dropped by upwards of 50% and allowing for some hedging, that could well mean an average cost this year of more like a bit over $350 per tonne giving an annual bill of about $268M, a saving of a bit over $200M.

 

Across the fleet, it looks like there are a little over 2M passengers a year and that $200M and that would mean an average reduction per passenger of around $100.

 

Last year, Kevin Sheehan apparently said that the company would use the small drop in oil prices last year (a bit less than 4% by all accounts let's say £10M) to pay for the Norwegian NEXT improvements and some marketing intiatives.

 

Clearly the above figures are little more than educated estimates, but I would doubt if they are far away from the truth (unless my maths has gone the way of my memory!)

 

Having already seen cost increases this and next year at more than 30% in some cases. is there any chance that some "marketting initiatives" will result in more realistic costs coming through in the next months as the fuel savings cut in, or will they go into shareholder's pockets?;)

We do not know how far out they hedge the oil prices, for the next 6 months, 1-2-3-4-5 years, or one can hedge all the way out to 2023. We do not know if they hedged 100% of their anticipated demand, or 10%. And what price levels they locked into for what time periods. All of this is a factor in what they are paying for fuel.

Current prices for Crude Oil WTI today closed at $48.70.

If you hedge out for Jan 2016, the price you would lock into today is $55.66.

If you hedge out for Jan 2017, the price you would lock into today is $60.79.

If you hedge out for Dec 2023, the price you would lock into today is $67.38.

The longer out in the future out you hedge/lock into a price, the higher the price.

So, we do not know if NCL locked into prices in the $600/tonnes range, and for what time period.

So it would be tough to guess how the drop in oil prices are effecting their financials today.

And like the airlines, and other industries, all of their hedges are going to be kept confidential. They do not want to let the other cruise lines know what they are doing, etc.

Or did they see the drop coming in oil prices, and close out their hedges, benefiting from the drop in oil prices.

Its fun to speculate that they are, or may not be benefitting, and how much, from the current drop in oil prices.

Its a lot more complicated then what appears to be obvious, thanks for bringing up the issue, I wonder just like everyone else.

Like the folks who ask today: "Should I book a cruise at todays prices, or wait".

NCL is pondering, should they lock in oil prices today, or wait, they may be lower next week/month......or the low may be today, and the prices start moving back up.

What would you do if you were in NCL position today? :confused:

These are always low priced and the last to get booked.

Could be good for folks with little ones.

The perks are good, but we need that balcony, find the peace and quiet away from everyone a necessity. DW would not settle for them.

So "what ever floats your boat". :)

I made my issues fairly clear.

 

Today is January 6th. The article was posted on the 5th. The incident happened on the 1st, plus I would assume it was at least the 2nd until they got home. With a weekend in there.

 

That means in 3 days they decided the best approach was to go to the press, in affect appealing for public sympathy. That's a fair approach to take when you have taken reasonable effort to resolve with the company. They took 1 business day, which is nowhere near enough time for Disney even to respond to an email forget do something like check with the staff on the ship.

 

It's entirely possible Disney did not handle parts of this properly. Relying on port agents is always a mistake in my book, I have always thought that cruise lines should keep one of their own staff in frequently visited ports to deal with issues, but that's a larger discussion.

 

By effectively calling them out in public, the family severely damaged their chance at an equitable resolution and honestly their credibility a little. Disney now cannot respond in any way that leaves them open to future issues like this, where if it was handled quietly, they could. I've dealt with Disney on a significant issue before, and they went above and beyond, on the condition we never discussed the specifics so that other people didn't have the same expectations of resolution.

Thanks for the thoughtful explanation.

For those wishing to speculate and come up with answers, based upon an article without all there facts, there are a few airline crashes I am sure you have an explanation for as well.

The taxi fare from the hotel, or downtown to the port is $7 per person.

Its a set price.

As mentioned, if you book now, your credit card is charged now.

If there is a popular excursion you do not want to miss out on, that may be the way to go.

They can be cancelled 48 hours before arriving at the port.

Since we usually have a lot of OBC, I go directly to the shore excursion desk when I get on the ship and leave my request for the excursions I want. They deliver the tickets to your cabin.

If you wait til later in the cruise to book, they may be full, and the options left may not appeal to you.

The excursion desk is usually not open on port days, as they are processing all the excursions. You can book them the day/nite before.

There have been times when we had an excursion cancelled at the last minute, and they have booked us onto another excursion at the port.

Be sure to read the reviews' on the excursion pages. According to NCL policies, a bad review for an excursion may not appear, as they can edit, and do not have to post all reviews submitted. I have posted bad reviews' and they have not been posted. Be sure to read the 'pros' and 'cons' of the reviews closely, to determine if it is a worthwhile excursion.

Good luck.

We did the 10 day cruise Dec 6-16th, it was cool in Malaga, about 50's, Casablanca was about 60's, but mostly in the 60's.

It is not beach weather in December, consider the Caribbean for December. :cool:

Thanks for the interesting review of a solo on a newer ship.

I wondered how these ships are going to handle all the folks trying to eat in the specialty restaurants. Some of them have very limited seating, with the promotion of unlimited dining coming up, there is going to be a problem.

Seating you in the hallway, and then leaving you there when more seats open up, that is pretty bad.

We were on the 10 day Canary Island cruise in Dec, there were a few nites when folks would dress up for pictures on the 7th deck atrium with the Captain, and had various backdrops.

Do not recall which day(s) these were on, we did not participate.

There is an active Roll Call going for the 18 January cruise. The Meet and Greet is 11 A.M. on Monday the 19th in Star Bar, if you would like to join us.

Thanks, just responded to add us to the Roll Call. :)