Kimberlyr22

Excited for the rest of your review! Lancaster here too. Our next NCL cruise is in 38 days on the Gem!

 

 

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The onboard credit you get from NCL Mastercard and from your travel agent will simply be loaded on your account. No actual certificates to present to guest services, and since gifted OBC and purchased OBC are 2 separate entities, you can still buy up to $1,000 refundable OBC.

 

The OBC from my travel agent showed up like this, that's why I'm hoping the NCL Mastercard credit just gets loaded on my account.

 

I am new to this. Please someone help. I just got NCL M/C with an offer of 10K points. I now have a little over 11K points on it. When I go to Rewards tab, there is no option for OBC, only all kinds of gift cards and cash. When I calculate convert to cash option 11,000 points is converted to $89. NCL credit site shows 10,000 = $100. What am I not getting here? :confused:

 

It looks like you might be clicking the regular Bank of America redeem points button. Click on the NCL "ad" on the right side of the screen which will take you to the NCL options.

 

Again, it is NOT the same as the 12 pack you would get on Carnival. The $70 price quoted is for 24 LARGE bottles (liter or possibly 1.5 liter), much larger than the Carnival price you are quoting. And Carnival does not let you bring on your own bottled water, so that is why Carnival lowered their price. It was higher when they allowed people to bring bottled water onboard.

 

This is spot on. And if you price check 24 liter bottles on land it's going to be $30-ish bucks (at least). You can't compare this amount of water to the $3.99 special at the grocery store.

 

I purchased the 6-pack ($27-ish) on my last cruise because my brother-in-law threw a hissy fit because water wasn't included and was "so expensive" and he refused to drink the ship water (even though he knew all of this in advance and could have packed his own). I was NCL's captive audience and paid about $4.50 a bottle just to get him to stop whining. I wish I could have paid the hostess to let him wear his baseball cap in the dining room (he is not a good cruiser...complained about every thing). They had 3 bottles left over at the end of the cruise (it's a lot of water).

 

The $4.50 is cheaper per bottle than my local movie theater ($6 for the same water/size as NCL); another place that has a captive audience and thus can jack up the price.

While looking at my vacation summary, I see that NCL says you cannot purchase more than $1,000 in OBC Certificates per reservation. I received $500 OBC from my TA, which is in the form of 5 $100 OBC certificates. I'm also planning to turn my NCL Mastercard rewards points into $500 of OBC. Will that OBC also come in the form of OBC Certificates, or is that applied to your onboard account differently?

 

Ideally I'd like to buy $500 more and have $1500 OBC for the cruise, but not sure if this is allowed anymore. Anyone have any insight?

NCL's shore excursion number is: 1.866.625.1167.

 

We have the $50 port credit and good amount of OBC for our upcoming cruise. I reserved all of our shore excursions through this number and didn't have prepay.

 

 

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[quote name='jennas_mum']Sorry, don't believe it. It is a well known online site so they are not some fly by night company. Not sure how they are doing it, just know they are doing it. They are not going to take that much of a hit per room either. So, in my opinion your information is not true. We can disagree!!

Donna[/QUOTE]

I've learned in the past 48 hours that you are not allowed to disagree or have an alternate opinion of poster you quoted. He does not allow it.

[quote name='S.S.Oceanlover']any chance in the future you could quote the person you are responding to so we don't have to scroll back in the thread to try to follow along?

Bill[/QUOTE]

Crap...I can see him if someone quotes him (not the poster I'm quoting)!

By the way, person I'm ignoring, using quotes (" ") infers that I have said something. I never once, ever, used the world entitled (until now) in any communication about this subject; and I do not think I'm entitled to anything from a TA. Your use of "entitled" is how you are twisting my words, by implying that I used that word, which I didn't. Stop "trolling" me (see how quotes work -- you used trolling in a post and now i'm quoting you, because I don't really think you're trolling -- just really opinionated and unable to be okay with others having opinions).

The fact that two people who are very into cruising end up on the same sites does not = trolling. I run into the same folks on many cruise sites and am friendly with all. I was engaging in healthy debate on the other site, and you took to personal attacks; so I left that site as you were making cruising not fun. And after this post, I will avoid you like the plague because I love cruising and won't let someone ruin that for me. I have no plans to "troll you" as you and I are two very different people with two very different opinions. Which is okay in this amazing world we live in.

It is your prerogative to retain a healthy commission or share with your client. I'm very fortunate that my TA shares with me. That was the entire point of my side of the debate. Do I feel as though a TA needs to make a $1k+ commission on one booking? No. That's my opinion. And apparently my TA agrees as well.

Edit: I figured out how to ignore someone on CC..I'm sad I had to learn that. And apologies to all for this exchange.

[quote name='Into Cruising']Just where do you think the additional OBC or any other perk given by the TA comes from?



TA's can quote any price they wish, but they can not advertise anything other than the NCL stated price. All agencies get the same price from NCL, but they can get various levels of commission depending on their volume. I believe it is allowed to "rebate" back some of the commission in the way of OBC or other options. Booking through a TA, you still get the Perks offered by the Cruise line that are in effect at time of booking.



An agency may have a group set up on a sailing, and they can offer the group perks gotten through the GAP program or TC credit.



But in all cases Perks gotten in addition that are from the TA pocket. If they did not offer them it would be additional money in their pocket.



Had an interesting discussion yesterday (argument) Where a person justified asking for and receiving $500 in additional perks from an Agent by saying she did not deserve the $1400 commission that she got, as she only did about $200 worth of work on the booking. So she felt it was proper that the $1400 was divided $700 to the agency, $200 to the agent, and $500 to her. Also said that $200 was better than nothing, as she could have booked directly with NCL. I have seen so many people think they should get hundreds of dollars in OBC after booking a standard inside room, wher ethe agent is only getting $50 in commission.



What an agent makes in commission is of no concern to the client, as the agent supports the client for the cruiseline. The cruiseline pays the agent, not the client typically. The way I like to explain it is the agent supports the cruiseline's client, and gets paid for doing so.



Bottom line is accept it as a gift from the agent, who obviously likes you and wants your future business.[/QUOTE]


You're twisting my words on here too. Fantastic. I said that booking a Haven room allows a TA more ability to give their clients additional perks without eating into a good commission.

I didn't ask for perks. Didn't expect perks. And because of the perks I was offered (and didn't turn down bc who would do that) I gave the TA repeat business on another Haven booking.

In your eyes that makes me a bad person.

Of course you believe that TAs work for the cruise lines and not their clients which is the most insane thing I've heard all week. TAs stay in business because of their clients, not bc of a cruise line.



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On our first cruise the only sport on television for the entire 9-day trip was Cricket. I thought my husband was going to lose his mind. Instead he embraced it, got into it, learned all about it, and when we got home he ordered his new favorite team's hat. Now he gets slightly sad when we're on a cruise and there isn't Cricket on the tv. It's his cruise sport. It's much more fun to go with it than rally against it.

75 days. I can finally smell this cruise. We originally booked in Fall 2014. We're a once a year cruise family, so I spend all my time waiting to cruise. Although my sister has a group of friends who have been doing a short Fall cruise every year, and I've been tagging along without the husband and stepson...hoping this continues. I need a little cruise between Summer 2016 and October 2017.

For us, the conveniences offered and the private pool make the cost entirely worth it. I happily pay every time to deal with less people. The Escape pool area sounds like a mad house I wish to avoid.

 

This is why we feel the Haven price is worth it; if not for the Haven, we would rarely travel. My husband (who's a tad high-maintenance b/c he generally hates traveling) gets overly stressed out around large groups of people and his patience level is tiny; the Haven allows easy embark/debark, he doesn't have to worry about finding a lounger or battling the buffet crowds at breakfast & lunch, and we typically book the DOS on the Gem so he has his own hot tub and doesn't have to make small talk with strangers. He stresses enough at work -- any vacation he takes needs to be stress free (or he'd feel like it was work) -- and I'm so happy NCL offers the Haven. Otherwise, I'd be taking vacations alone.

 

We also only cruise once a year or once every other year...so the cost of one solid, no hassle vacation, without the "nickel & dime" feel that several complain about is totally worth it to us. We get all the perks, nice chunks of OBC from our TA and the NCL credit card we used to pay for the cruise, and we're in and out for pretty much one price unless I splurge on too many games of BINGO.

 

If my husband was a low-maintenance vacationer and loved to travel -- I probably wouldn't see the value in the Haven, because I'd rather take 4-5 cruises a year for the same price.

I've been constantly checking for the "exclusive" 10-night Eastern Canada & Quebec from New York on the Gem to be available to book; based on the press release it should be in the batch that was to be released this week. So far nothing on the NCL site, but I emailed my TA and she was able to put a hold on the cabin I wanted, but didn't send me pricing (and is now out of the office until this weekend). Weird.

Based on my experiences, you should have the "national" games. So Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, and the Saturday Night ABC college football game will be on in at least one bar and on the sports channel on the tv in your cabin. You'll also see a 1pm and a 4pm NFL Sunday game in at least one bar; game they show is based on the ship and typically relates to the port you sailed out of. Everything else is hit or miss.

I've seen about a trillion people on board ships who have easily consumed 79 bucks worth of liquor each day.

 

Yep. I've seen them too. My brother-in-law and his friend drank till they dropped -- granted it was a 3-day, they didn't do any excursions, and they felt like crap for a week after.

 

I would never pay $79 for the beverage package, but I would definitely pay $14.22/day to not have to think about my bar tab for a cruise. That's just about what one of my favorite drinks on NCL costs. So it's like buy one drink a day, get the rest free! It's all about how you look at things -- so you you can take a positive outlook, like I do, or decide to have a negative outlook (they're making me pay for something that's free). When it comes to vacations, how can you not have a positive outlook?

Six.

 

 

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Under the vacation summary you should see all your perks and purchased items, located right under the itinerary. You may need to expand the box. Below that is any prepaid service charges. Within the perks and purchased items is a link to print booked items. This gives a detail of any excursions booked, dinners booked, perks, and purchases.

 

 

 

 

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It looks like when NCL does the avg price per person it doesn't take into account the $499 for the fifth person. If you do the booking for 2 people the cost is $8298. When you do the cost for four in that room it's $8298 (which confirms 3rd and 4th are free); but once you add the fifth it throws the cost of that fifth person ($499) into the final cost.

 

The average price is easily confusing. I remember being completely confused with how Carnival calculated avg price on a KSF deal. I've learned to not pay attention to the avg price detail.

That can be a big benefit of a TA. We booked a suite which gives us the 4 perks and the TA gave us $600 OBC. We only got $50 OBC from NCL.

 

Agree completely. I don't usually use a TA, but will use them going forward when booking Haven suites. For our upcoming cruise I originally booked directly with NCL, but after some conversation with frequent cruisers ended up transferring the reservation to a TA. For the same price as I would have paid NCL for the room and 4 perks (UBP, SDP, WiFi, ShoreEx) I got the same four perks, plus $500 OBC, plus they paid our DSC (~$600). So it was like getting six perks!

My experience has been that any national broadcast nfl games are broadcast on the sports channel in rooms and in the sports bar. Since all four games this weekend are national games they should all be available to watch. We'll be at the Seahawks game and will make sure to cheer extra for him! Go Hawks.

I once saw the suggestion for $10/ adult/day and $5/ child/day for the butler. We went with that on our first suite cruise and based on the butler's reaction' date=' I think he was happy. Given the concierge's service are similar regardless of the number of people in a suite, we gave less ($100/7 days iirc). Again, their reaction suggested this was a fair offering.

I seem to recall asking the concierge to make a reservation or two, and we had dinner in the suite twice.

I do wish NCL had clearer guidelines on tipping for concierge and butler, as I want it to be fair to all involved.

 

 

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I would love clearer guidelines as well. The tipping is the only thing I hate about cruising in the Haven. I never know what is right to tip so I try to be generous. My husband gets mad at me for the tips I leave because his logic is that we are already paying a ton extra for the extras (in room dining, etc) but then we have to tip more to use those perks. I see his point, but I don't want to insult the butler.

 

We have another cruise booked in June and I just transferred the reservation to a TA and I told her I wanted to prepay the DSC so all I have to worry about on the cruise is tipping the butler and concierge. She replied "the butler and concierge are included in the DSC" which is what every TA/NCL rep has told me. But that's clearly wrong and they don't back down when I tell them they're wrong :)

Most of the bars on the ship don't carry the ingredients to make mango meltdown. The same goes for many drinks at many bars. For instance, if I went to the pool bar and ordered the spicy passion mojito I wouldn't get it. Or if I wanted a Havanas 'n Bananas in the theater, I wouldn't get it. Same difference. Not every single bar has every single possible drink ingredient, and you can't expect them to.

 

True. But when you can get a Mango Meltdown at the atrium bar at 5:45pm, but the same bartender at the atrium bar tells you 20 minutes later that he's only making what's on the menu, it's a little annoying. We adjusted and ordered martini's, no harm no foul. We did get mango meltdowns at almost every bar we went to during the day.

We were on the Sky Nov 13-16 (very typical 3-day booze cruise). We anticipated busy bars and they were definitely crowded during peak times, but the bartenders were working their tails off.

 

The only thing I noticed that was a little annoying was around 6-7pm every night most bars would stop making any drink you requested and start sticking to the menu. We fell in love with the Mango Meltdown, but we were told no at most of the bars we frequented. You could get them at the pool bar, but that bar turned into a pseudo night club every evening and getting close to the bar was impossible. So we drank mango meltdowns during the day and martini's and shots of tequila at the atrium bar at night.

 

We were very impressed with the bar service in the dining room. We let our servers know immediately that we would be drinking, and they kept our wine glasses full.

I've been trying to prepay mine since I booked in April. I try about once every week or two online and always get the same error message result. Called NCL a few times to do it over the phone and every time I've called they couldn't apply it on their end either. We don't have an issue paying the increased price, so I've given up and will just pay it on-board.