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Problem is, NCL does not sell watches or jewelry. The stores on the ship are a private company. They lease space from NCL. They are the ones you have to deal with.

I would disagree. True the stores are operated by an outside firm under some contract with NCL. However NCL is the organisations that is collecting the money from me when they settle the account at the end of the cruise. The transaction is between NCL as the seller and the passenger.

I could go along with NCL simply being the landlord (of whatever term you use when its not on land) if I was paying the store directly.

I saw the soda package is $7.50 a day ($6.50 + 15% grat) -- is this worth it?

 

How much do you get charged for a soda outside of the package, and what do they bring you? If you get a 'restaurant sized' fountain soda for an average restaurant price, it seems like it would be cheaper to just get the drinks separately; but if it's a $3 can, then the package quickly becomes a better value. Are there any free drinks on the ship other than water? Some people mentioned flavored waters and iced tea - are those free everywhere or just in the MDRs?

 

Also, does the package cover if you order room service and have a drink? (I know it doesn't include the minibar, but I'll be in a studio which doesn't have a minibar, so...) Does it include juices? I saw some newsletters posted that implied it doesn't (by posting a $2/day upcharge for juice) but the description on the website doesn't mention that being an option at all; it just says pepsi products and tonic and club soda).

 

I'm sure similar questions have been asked before but couldn't find anything addressing this stuff recently. Thanks in advance.

I am not a big soda drinker, so I don't remember the pricing.

The studio has a common lounge area. On the EPIC (and possibly on other new ships) there is also a vending machine that dispenses bottles of pop (billed to your room, I don't know the cost). The complementary staff in the lounge include a nice cappuccino machine, and orange juice during the morning.

The free stuff (ice tea, flavored water, coffee, tea, hot chocolate mix etc.) are in the buffet and dining rooms.

One the one cruise where I had a balcony, it would be going up to the buffet getting some cheese, those pretzel buns, bread, some grapes or other fruit. Then head back to the balcony with a nice glass on wine. Otherwise it is find a quite seat somewhere.

So what is NCL's return policy on products they sell that carry warranties.

One would assume that you should be able to return it back to the store where your purchased the defective product.

Sounds like the OP was told by the manufacture that the arrangement they have with the retailer is the retailer is responsible for accepting warranty claims and to be the middle man between us and you. If that is the arrangement then the OP should be calling up NCL and saying I want to make a warranty claim on my watch.

I don't know if NCL is setup to handle this properly, either in person on the ship or over the phone once off the ship. That said, did you try?

Are there any differences cruising with NCL in the Mediterranean over the Caribbean? We're looking at doing our first Mediterranean and first NCL cruise this summer. I've been on RCCL once and we've both been on carnival many times. Can we still take on wine, soda, etc. in Barcelona and is the dress code the same? I've visited Europe enough times to know they're more formal over there, so want to make sure I'll be ok showing up in the dining room with jeans and a nice shirt. Thanks :)

The official rules I think are the same between NCL in the Caribbean and Europe.

In Barcelona post security check (x-ray machines) there is a duty free shop before getting on the ship.

We're considering a cruise on the NCL Epic, but I know absolutely nothing about this cruise line. What can people tell me about it?

 

We've previously cruised on Princess, RCL and Carnival. Princess is probably our favorite but we enjoyed all of our cruises. I will be traveling with my 74 year old mother. We go on cruises mostly to relax, so we spend a lot of time on our balcony, but we enjoy a good show and also love to play the slot machines in the casino. We never pay to eat in specialty restaurants - in fact, we often just choose to eat in the buffet rather than spend several hours over dinner.

 

How does NCL compare to other cruise lines? Will there be more kids than other cruises? How is the entertainment? And the service?

 

The price for the Epic is similar to Carnival. Does that mean NCL is more like Carnival and less like RCL? Not that it matters, but it's nice to know.

 

Also, a few questions specific to the Epic: Is the buffet located at the front of the ship? We usually try to book a cabin in the back to have easy access to the food, but if the buffet is in the front we'll book a cabin in the front.

 

Also, does the ship feel crowded? We haven't been on a ship that big before.

 

Thanks!

NCL style is relaxed. The complementary places to eat include the buffet, two main dinning rooms (three course meals), a pub style restaurant (quick basic dishes). There is also a small mini-buffet in the H20 adult-only area at the rear of the ship. It is a fairly casual and relaxed ship.

Some of the shows are "name brand" shows. Blue Man Group, Second City (comedy), lots of music acts in multiple venues at the same time. The performance venues are small for the size of ship, they make up for that by having multiple venues and performances in parallel. You either like Blue Man Group or not.

For dinner you can make reservations ahead of time if there is a specific time you want to eat or see a show. For the shows they usually open it up to anyone who did not make a reservation 15 minutes before start time.

The ship has a lot of choices

Noticed that you have been on the Epic and we are taking a 25 day cruise on the Epic in October. Do you know if they had bridge games on the ship? (My husband is hoping they have ACBL sanctioned bridge games). Thanks.

 

Wendy

As I don't play Bridge, I actually don't know. On the other NCL ships there is usually a reasonable size library and a board games room next door. I remember the Epic had a library area, with I believe some board games. For the biggest ship in the fleet it feels like it has the smallest library and board games area in the fleet.

Get ready to be doubly disappointed as Star Bar is likely going away on all the Dawn and Jewel class ships. As Moderno is moving to Deck 13 across from Cagney's, most of us are thinking Star Bar isn't long for this world.

So what is going into the old Moderno location?

All of that said, I am not surprised. The Star Bar is hidden away up their and probably does not get much use.

you clear customs after you get your bags, and considering all you do is hand them a card, it's never taken me more than 60 seconds.

 

Immigration is cleared before you get to the luggage carousels and can take 0-30 minutes (you never really know), but normally by the time you've cleared immigration, your bags are already waiting

 

All that being said, if there's any delays in your schedule, you're in trouble. Always best to fly in the day before.

I find in Vancouver it can be variable.

Canadian nationals get routed into automated machines that scan the passport and declaration card so it makes it quick.

If you arrive at a time that has a large number of overseas flights arriving it takes a bit of time, otherwise you sail through. During the late morning until just after noon there are a large number of flights coming in from Asia. There is also another bank of flights late at night.

The Cathey Pacific flight is a flight that routes JFK - Vancouver - Hong Kong with Cathey having the rights to sell JFK - Vancouver on its own. So you get the same level of service you would have on an overseas flight. It is also on either a 747 or 777.

You used to get lounge access if you were at least a *Gold if you were on an international flight at your gateway city. Has that changed?

One of the weird things is if you are *Gold with any member airline (except United or US) you have lounges access even if flying on a domestic US star flight.

I have some miles on Jetblue only. I have a flight to Vancouver and back on Air Canada this May. Thanks for all advice!

For your trip to Vancouver you can have your miles go to either the Air Canada (aeroplan program), the United Airlines Program or one of the other Star Alliance airlines. I would try to pick one airline in the alliance and collect all your points in that one program.

I think you need to more clearly define customer service. I don't think free upgrades is either good or bad customer service.

Good customer service comes down to delivering on what you promise. Treating your customer with respect and in a friendly way. When things go wrong making them right.

I have cruised NCL and I actually think they do well on this front. The other cruise lines that are still in business likely do the same.

The crew are friendly. They appear to be generally interested and concerned about my welling being as a passenger. Some examples:

- The cruise critic meet and greet session, a fair number of officers turn up for the meeting and hand out cards with their names and their direct numbers. They then state if you have any problem, instead of posting it when you get home just give us a call and we might be able to resolve it on the spot.

- When you go to the main dinning room and say "I would like this dish, but can you do this variation" and the response is we can do that.

- When you are waking down the hall and cabin steward noticed you are heading to your cabin, he drops what is doing to open the door for you.

- When a supervisor notices a long line at customer service and comes out of his office and walks over to the passengers in line and sees if he can help resolve some of the issues.

- When an officer or crew member comes up to you asks if you are enjoying the curse and how they can make things better.

- When they make a mistake on a bill, saying I am sorry and will fix that immediately.

Getting a cabin upgrade, a free drink, or OBC credit is nice and I would not discourage a cruise line from doing that, but honestly that tends to be more common of an organization that does poor customer service trying to make up for it.

On some ships (perhaps all) there are also vending machines that sell bottled water and pop. If I remember correctly on the EPIC vending machines are in the Studio lounge and the exercise machine area. I don't remember the relative cost of the vending machines to the other venues.

On a side note, I would love to be the owner of one of those companies that filters tap water and sells it as bottled water.

When NCL brought this rule out, they were very vocal on why this put this in place. They put it in place because of passenger complaints. They did not state anything about "safety".

I don't smoke and I think it is a good idea discourage people from smoking in bed.

However the wording is quite clear "Smoking inside your stateroom will result in a $250 cleaning charge added to your onboard account."

It is not a fine. It is a cleaning charge to deal with the extra cost of cleaning a room that someone has smoked inside. I have seen the same kind of wording in many hotel room.

Do they have other wording (perhaps on the sign inside the door with the other safety rules that identify the room as a non-smoking area?).

Not a bad idea.

 

What if the next passenger has clothes worth $200 - should they split the difference?

 

And the next passenger that has clothes worth $600. Split the difference?

 

Or maybe just $75?

 

Gets messy.

I actually like NCL and think they do an excellent job the majority of the time.

At the same time NCL created a fair bit of the problem. Saying their policy is $50 OBC is also arbitrary. Why is the policy not $25 OBD or $100 OBC.

When you stuff the close in the bag is there is a disclaimer on the bag saying "NCL will only take responsibility for damaged close up to $50".

If the purser is not empowered to hand-over more the $50, what would have been better customer service on his/her part would be to say: "I can only give you up to $50, if you don't feel that is adequate I can write up a claim form that will need to be reviewed by our corporate office. They will be in contact with you to try and resolve this issue after the cruise.".

The even better customer service response would have been to ended it by say. "Finding a satisfactory resolution to this is important and I don't want your claim to get lost in the system. I am going to give you my e-mail address and if don't receive a response from our corporate office, drop me a note I will follow up and ensure they do respond.".

The over-the-top customer service would be to walk the customer down to the gift shop and try to pick-out equivalent replacements on the house.

Being handed a 1-800 number and forcing the guest to tell the story again to someone else is poor customer service.

I am sailing on the Westerdam April 11 from Fort Lauderdale and ending in Vancouver May 1 2015. I will fly into Fort Lauderdale a day or so early and stay in Vancouver a few more days. I know it is early, but I need help. Is this an open jaw or 2 ways? I prefer flying out of Hartford, but may be able to fly out of Boston. I might be able to swing Newark, but doubtful. I have never booked anything other than a round trip and want to do this correctly. When should I start looking? How do I start looking? Anything else I should know? I know Jetblue has ( at least at this time) 2 nonstops daily to Fort Lauderdale that are usually pretty reasonable. Thanks!

For overseas destinations there usually a cost advantage to booking roundtrip. Within North America in many cases it costs about the same to book two one way tickets.

I found that we can fly into Seattle on Southwest for a lot less plus no luggage fees (from STL, but Detroit is probably similar) then take Amtrak to Vancouver. I understand it's a beautiful trip. With air, rail, plus hotel in SEA it's still less than direct to Vancouver. We're also doing a night in Vancouver to be safe. But it sounds like a fun journey.

You may also want to search for fairs to Bellingham Airport. It is located on the US side, between Seattle and Vancouver. Much smaller airport, however sometimes it has cheaper flights. You should check the timing of Quick Shuttle bus service to Vancouver vrs your flight times. I believe with Quick Shuttle you do have to book ahead of time.

So is this saying , if you miss a cruise because your AC flight went mechanical they should fly you yo the first port of call? Would it be the same if you book directly through AC and not a travel agency? I think I read a thread about this happening to someone in Miami and they were flown to Nassau, and people were posting that AC should not have done this.

 

If so might sway me to book an AC over Westjet as my trip cancellation plan on my credit card does not cover mechanical delays. ::eek: Usually fly down 2 days early but that is not always possible.

Personally, I like going down the day before. That is their published policy, (regardless of how the ticket was booked). Their policy is to reroute you to the next port applies to cases that are their fault (i.e. Mechanical) but not when it is not their fault (i.e. security, snow storms etc.).

Love both Astoria and Victoria so that's an easy one for me.:D

 

Not many ships go to Astoira, even fewer spend more than 6 hours in Victoria.

 

I did NCL in 2013. At that time it was LA, San Francisco, Astoria, Victoria, Nanaimo and Vancouver.

San Francisco - I did Alcatraz. I was not expecting it be as interesting as it actually was. The park service boat to Alcatraz departs a block or two from where NCL docked. Tickets to the general public sell out ahead of time. The cruise line buys large blocks so I have no problem getting on board.

Astoria. - I was not expecting much but was very plesed we stopped here. There were actually two cruise ships in port. A smaller ship that could fit under the bridge. The ship we were on docked just before the bridge. This is place that has not been taken over by tourism. Makes for a very pleasant day.

Victoria - I live here now. It is a historic city.

Nanaimo - I lived here many years ago. Most passengers had little knowledge of the city and did not know what to expect. They do a nice job of running a shuttle between the ship and the city downtown.

If I were to do it again I would try to ensure Astria, San Francisco, Victoria and Nanaimo were stops en-route to Vancouver.

If you do decide to do the shorter cruise, you can also toss on an extra day after cruise and take the ferry over to Victoria. There are daily ships that connect Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle.

Is anyone able to advise me on the sort of price for litres of gin, brandy, drambuie or similar in the airport as I am trying to work out where to purchase my drink for home use during my next visit to USA I do not think I can purchase it in Fort Lauderdale as they would take it away from me on the ship and I am not sure these days if they return it.

i always found it cheaper in the US that at the airport duty free shop. If you are connecting onto an Air Canada international flight you also buy on board or pre-order to have it delivered to your seat. Details at: http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/onboard/dutyfree/

For this particular cruise too we would fly in and out of Seattle (not my preference, but really inexpensive for us), as we'd have enough freebie miles on Southwest to cover air for all three of us too. Air to Vancouver or Fairbanks is pricey and a long trip.

There are buses form the airport in Seattle to the port in Vancouver as well as rail service between downtown Seattle and Downtown Vancouver.

In Victoria it is a 15-20 minute walk from where the ship docks to the inner harbour.

I don't think the train in your case is a good option. Not only is it a long-ish walk from the train to the port, but the tracks for Civitavecchia are far away from the main part of Termini. And when you get to Civitavecchia, you may have to haul your bags down one set of stairs and up another since there is no elevator. If you're not all light packers, that could be an issue.

 

On top of that, if you have a person who can't do much walking, you will want to be centrally located in Rome, close to the Pantheon would be ideal. I would check Venere.com, and check the boxes that are Pantheon/Campo di Fiore/Piazza Navona area. That way you can stroll at your leisure and see most of the main sights easily. You might check Hotel Smeraldo or Hotel Navona. Hotels near the train station are going to be far away from the hub, and the area and restaurants are much nicer in the center.

 

For transport, by far the best option for you is to team up with other members of your roll call for a shared van to the port. We had lots of people setting that up on our last cruise, and we paid 25E/pp for transport from the port right to our hotel. More pricey than the train (which BTW is a great option if you don't have baggage) but worth it for the convenience.

i would agree. I have done the train once. Would do it again. However if I was traveling with someone who had issues walking long distances or carrying bags up or down stairs I would avoid the train.

I have stayed at several hotels in Rome. I am partial to the "Maison Giulia" it is a small hotel run but two brothers, very nice and centrally located close to may of the attractions in Rome. If you call or e-mail the hotel they may be able to arrange a car/van for your group. The last time I was on cruise out of Rome someone on the roll call had picked this hotel and arranged group transportation. More and more roll call members joined and by the time we were done I think we had 15 of us.

But, if you have a non-reroutable bulk ticket, you CAN'T "check in" for rerouting. Ditto with non-endorsable tickets.

The Air Canada guidelines for IROP apply to all flights books in all classes from all sources.

I agree the non-reroutable/non-endorsable restrictions apply before your ticket is under the control of the airport staff. In an IROP situation my experience is they just apply their IROP policy. It may be different on other carriers.

http://www.aircanada.com/en/drs/documents/irop.pdf

Also if interest is the IROP policy at Air Canada states they will route to the next port of call for the cruise ship when the delay is do to something other that weather....

"Your customers booked with a Cruise Line Company and affected by a flight delay or cancellation under Air Canada’s control (i.e. mechanical) which causes them to miss their cruise, are entitled to transportation to the next port-of-call without additional cost to the customer or cruise line. Call Air Canada Call to process."

Breakfast is my favorite meal. Where is the best place to have a big breakfast.

Garden Cafe Buffet for a Big Breakfast. I Love the omelets and smoked salmon.

Hello

We are planning for Alaska for early June 2015. This will be our first (and only) Alaskan cruise. It will be me, my husband and two boys who will be 13 and 11 and my mother. The problem I am having is that the only ship that meets our criteria for price and itinerary is Holland America ms Volendam. I have looked at some pictures and done some research. That ship is small and a little boring looking. I am concerned that my kids won't enjoy the cruise part because they will have nothing to do on days at sea and my husband doesn't understand that Alaska is about Alaska and not so much the ship. The ship is important to him.

 

Any suggestions?

 

the Pacific Princess looks nicer but it's very small! I don't think we would like that.

Have you looked at the Norwegian Sun. It has a 7 day Vancouver to Alask route.

The NCL Jade has a 7-day round trip from Seattle. Amtrack runs trains from Vancouver to Seattle. NCL has a very popular kids club.