rodndonna

100,0000,0000% we ALWAYS have medical insurance (in our case through our travel credit card). I was speaking of insurance covering costs relating to missing a cruise - like Cancel for any reason, trip interruption ... etc, as well as costs associated with hotels/meals to arrive early (protecting your cruise to a degree , another form of insurance to protect missing a cruise) Medical insurance - ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS .....

We Canadians are not eligible for those cruise credit cards 😥 Our travel credit card is covered by our bank if we keep a minimum balance which we do. It's pretty limited (e'g' 1.5K each Canadian for trip interuption) but the medical is strong. We will likely eye a separate annual plan in the coming years as we get older and our dog will inevitably make his way to the dog house in the sky..... when we then plan on doing more extensive (and expensive) holidays! 🙃

I remain optimistic - but willing to take the risk "generally". I say generally, and will take our upcoming (and only) booked NCL cruise. Worse case - flight get cancelled or delayed land we cannot make it to the cruise. It is a 7 day on the Viva booked very early. The potential loss to us assuming no credit from NCL and nothing from our credit card (although we have travel insurance card, worse case lets say we get declined) is less than $3K US. That also assumes we don't get anything refunded (prepaid crew grats?, port fees?, taxes?) Buying insurance to cover $3K is not something we would ever financially do. Flying in day before and hotel/meal costs are another form of insurance to mitigate that potential loss. Now if I wasn't so cheap and splurging on a suite or taking a grand voyage, then I would worry about protecting our cruise costs more. As a lowly insider, it just doesn't make financial sense and we will just have to see what happens when it happens. I do love insurance in our financial portfolio though!

Isn't that insurance I would purchase to protect me in the event I decide to cancel my trip? I guess it would cover me to cancel the day cruise if my flight is cancelled or delayed. Protecting myself against flights issues causing me to miss my cruise I would have thought to be more under "trip interruption" insurance (through NCL (Manulife), Credit Card or outside insurance) Carnival's air program Fly2Fun explicitly states that if flight issues make you miss your cruise, you will get cruise credits. I don't see other cruise programs make that explicit claim, but it seems reasonable to expect a similar good faith compensation (maybe I am just too optimistic!) and why I tend to believe the accounts of internet folks who claim they received a credit when their flights couldn't get them there.

NCL insurance is underwritten by Mnaulife . They don't explicitly say the coverage for trip interuption or cancellation is in credits , but it would be very misleading if that was the case. I can't speak from personal experience as I have never missed a cruise (yet!), but was just pointing out others "storries" as I see them, and getting a cruise credit if you flights are booked with the airline appears to be the norm (but again, only repeating what I read from stories) In the same thread a person claiming to be a TA stated " Did you happen to get trip insurance. If not, you’re probably stuck with the credit unfortunately. Sorry this happened to you." Is it true?? who knows ... I have no 1st hand experience. you can be sure if I have NCL booked flights and my flight is cancelled and I can't get flights to make it or catch up. with the cruise, I am going for a future cruise credit.

That's what we are thinking - either removing our bid or at least dropping them to absolute minimal. The only thing we really miss on an inside is not having a sofa to sit on (chair is just not the same!), but not sure if having an Ocean view with a sofa in a crappy location is any better than just having an inside cabin in a preferred location. As as this is our first time on the Viva and only our second NCL cruise in 15 years. it's all a crap shoot for us anyway 😃

Just another comment (as a person who has an NCL "day of" Canadian flight in January coming up) - I have found reddit a good source for "what happens if.." scenarios like this. Most commonly I have read, if you can't get arrangements to get you there - your cruise will be refunded as credit, although some say they have had luck with getting cash. I would just be happy with credit and replan a new holiday if I couldn't get a flight that would get us there.

As Julig says, within 72 hours NCL is no longer involved. That may sound bad, but in reality it is better that way. Working directly with the airline at that point is easier than working through a 3rd party. As an example, here in Canada I would typically fly Air Canada where the most common reason for cancellation is weather. On Air Canada's site (like many other major airlines) I can go on their website in the days leading up to my flight and look at their "outlook" status. If there us ANY chance of a delay or cancellation coming up in the next 3 days (usually iffy weather forecast), they allow you to rebook to other flights on-line without penatly. I really like that feature and any time I have had a flight show up as a candidate for disruption. I take advantage of the rebooking option and take an earlier flight (or maybe later one if it isn't to catch a cruise). Doing that through a 3rd party would be a pain. It's not actually happened to me (for a cruise), but I have read that if it is for a cruise you are supposed to inform the airline that you are working with NCL air, and are meeting a cruise. I guess that would put you on a higher priority for rebooking and potentially they would rebook you on another line if required. Again, that is only what I read (as a person who does multiple flights a year in winter ... ugghh).

Younger people typically spend more on a cruise (especially those with kids) Younger people are a "longer-term" potential customer Younger people are more likely to be on social media (lots of free marketing) Younger people may not cruise as often, but if I can fill a ship with younger "once a year" or "twice a year" or "first ever" cruisers, it does not matter how often each of those cruisers sail.

I agree. Sowing seeds for the next generation of cruisers and hopefully additional marketing power from social media where that generation are more likely to be active.

I hope you are right as we are going to redo our bid based on our assigned room. I guess I can just keep checking and change bid if they reassign us to a location I don't like.

With regards to release of 2025 itineraries, there is another thread taking about recent layoffs and changes with CVP's and I wonder if maybe the delay in 2025 itineraries (compared to other lines) is to allow those changes to settle out before a rash of new bookings?

We have an NCL guarantee inside booked for late January on the Viva. Last week we received an email for bidding upgrades and we bid (fairly low) Just noticed yesterday that our inside cabin is now actually assigned. Now that I see our cabin location which we really like, I am thinking to reduce our bid for fear of paying for an upgraded room in a crappy location. Is it normal for NCL to assign a GTY cabin so far in advance? Is is something they do before the bidding process and we just didn't notice?

I wonder if that is to guard against a potential change in the exchange rate.

I think that is the flaw (just removing the tag or placing item in the bin with tag against the back so not visible). On Swoop where you pay for carry on, they are tagged and placed in the overhead bin with the tags facing out (usually on the handle) .. so is quite obvious that only approved (paid) bags are in the overhead bin.

I think this is great news but would have thought tagging the one bag eligible to be in the overhead bin would have been easier. Either way great to see them clamp down on the bin hogs!

Thanks. Our issue is not immediate as our cruise is Jan 2025 (lol). Just trying to resolve our outstanding OBC offer to rebook from an X cancelled cruise in July. We were told it might take a week or so. We have only had one sailing with X, so this is not giving me the most confidence )-:

I tried our CVP today (after getting nowhere with Chat) and her voicemail still indicates she works M-F and her hours. Maybe she has taken on additional clients and busier than normal if there were layoffs, and that is why we are getting no response on our emails. Trying to cut her some slack ... not sure why. I would still prefer we were just in a pool and have whoever is available when I call help me.

Also chasing missing OBC and a useless (unresponsive) PVP. Has anyone had any luck with the "chat" feature on Celebrity. Going to try it today, but expect it will just tell me togo to my PVP who is is ignoring our emails. Most frustrating part is we had a cruise booked online (no PVP) which was cancelled by X offering us $200OBC to rebook. We immediately received an email from a PVP which I reluctantly used assuming it way to ensure we got that extra OBC on the rebooked cruise. She said to wait a bit for it to show up, its now been months and she doesn't respond to our email.

I think it is a great idea! Maybe it could be a daily family meet-up event - make a plan to get together for a pre-dinner (or post dinner) drink at a different bar each night, and different family members pick the bar each time.

I'd be one of the musicians. I don't have the musical talent and along with the missing talent, I would need to be a few years younger ... I expect it's not always as much fun as it looks, but I think it could be a fun lifestyle for a while!

Are the prices crossed out the original price when it is was released? If it is, and I am seeing it right, then the reduction is in the order of 30% reduction in base fare. It's a good discount , but what many get with a Casino discount when you can book early, get upgraded HIA (possibly with grats), Mariner early bonus, it is then refundable, better choice in flights etc. For folks with a Casino discount, it really drives home booking early (at least for us lowly inside cabiners) is about as good as you can get. For non-Casino folks, I guess you have to weigh that discount against more limited (higher priced) airfare and higher priced HIA (when available) with lower HIA perks. They can be a great deal if you can get to the port cheaply and aren't interested in HIA perks though.

It's a matter of logistics. For Porter the basic fare allows no carry-on (and you pay for checked bags). If I want a carry-on, I have to pay more by buying a Standard Fare. The point is Porter, Flair and Swoop all successful price their fares and baggage such that there is no "free" carryon. For all those airlines, at the lowest fare, nothing other than a personal item is free.

Is there as much non-refundable OBC typically on a Carnival cruise though? We haven't sailed Carnival since Covid, but it seems with HAL we are typically ending up with much more non-refundable OBC than we ever did with Carnival (maybe just a post Covid thing?). I can see HAL wanting their generosity in OBC to be used up sooner rather than later and not allowing it to be gifted to others.

Although we have HAL booked for the Caribbean - I'd agree and admit HAL is not our first choice for the Caribbean. We cruise HAL for the Caribbean generally because we get such a good price (which includes Casino discount on the base fare which makes it hard to beat for us) and we are good with the "toned down" vibe for a price reduction. For fun I compared our 3 booked Caribbean cruises for 2024/2025 - all 7 day cruises. All are inside with equivalent of HIA and prepaid grats to compare the relative cruise costs. Celebrity (from Tampa) is 50% more NCL (from San Juan, new ship, and no sea days) is closer to 60% more. Those percentages are not as compelling when we add in cost of air tough which is a big part of our costs. When costs are comparable, I'd pick Celebrity, but for a discount, HAL still works well for us. NCL is booked to see for oursleves "what's it like on a big new ship with a go cart??" and I love sailing from San Juan.