roysmith99

Thank you everyone for your help with this, I have now spoken with NCL in the UK and understand the situation.

I was erroneously thinking I had been given free service charges as part of a promotion / amenity, when this is not the case. By paying the £600 upfront the service charges are added to the Amenity Invoice and if I remove them from the main invoice they would also be removed from that one too.

I did suggest that maybe the main invoice could be easier to understand for new cruisers booking directly if all amenities appear on the main invoice with a zero value, or a reference to the promotion that has been applied. It doesn't help when they also have a list of 'add-ons'. Actually calling it an amenity invoice with a separate reference number doesn't help much either.

Whilst some of my personal confusion is based on what I've experienced with other cruises lines and I'm still getting used to NCL, I am very grateful for all of the help from everyone in this forum. 

3 hours ago, KeithJenner said:

The £600 service charge listed is the DSC, and is different from the service charge on the beverage package.

 

I don’t know of any offers whereby this is included in the fare, but I don’t book suites.

 

Assuming it is not included in the fare it is either charged to your room daily or you can prepay it before the cruise. If you prepay it then it is payable along with final payment, so it should be included in the amount due.

 

My documents for upcoming cruises are the same. Prepaid service charge is showing as an amenity but it is also

showing on the amount owing.

 

If you do buy any extras (excursions, dining etc) then they will show on amenity invoices as well as the amount due. What you have paid to date (deposits, payments for excursions etc) will then be shown in payments made.

Thank you for your help, I've put a conclusion post below - your post helped it all make better sense.  

13 minutes ago, shof515 said:

amenity invoice shows all of the perks that comes with your booking aka the included add ins

 

the prepaid service charge in the included addon/amenity invoice includes the service charge. you can ignore the amount in your confirmation. you are not paying that and the invoice total should be the guest fare, gover taxes and the ground transfer 

thank you very much, this is what I was thinking but the total amount due does include the £600 and why NCL seem to be more confused that  me. I suppose I should have mentioned that in my original post. 

Hope this post is ok on here, but this is our first NCL cruise and the company are really confusing me and being unhelpful so far. I tried an online chat and was told ‘nothing wrong here’ also a phone call (routed to the USA) saying the same. The agents say that the Amenity Invoice is just a list of something we could buy if we want, that doesn’t sound right - based on my searches in this forum.
 

When I booked directly in the U.K. I believed I was getting Free At Sea Plus and this included Service Charges for the Suite (and for the Beverage package plus other items. These are all shown on my Amenity Invoice see below. And, on the cruise invoice they all show as Add-Ons (plus a transfer I booked separately). But the invoice still also shows Services Charges as owing within the final payment due?

I’m going to continue to pursue this somehow but would lie, to know what I’m looking at on each of the sections / invoices. Any thoughts, advice or guidance would be appreciated, thank you in advance.

I recently needed to change our YC booking from 18th March 2023 to one week earlier. I had booked directly with MSC so rang them and they made the change with no cost. The only thing that was needed was for their back office team to validate my request against my original booking. All done in a couple of days.

I check every couple of days, but do have nothing better to do. One things I am never sure of is if the price on RC website is before or after current deals / discounts are applied, I guess after.

Thank you to everyone for your information and ideas. Very grateful and will take your thoughts on board before making final decisions.

As always, the information available on Cruise Critic has been invaluable in planning our July / August 2020 trip from the U.K. to Alaska. Thank you everyone.

However, I’d love your thoughts on our itinerary and plans in case there is something missing. We have restrictions due to ability to walk too far or take off-road vehicles. So no hiking, flight-seeing, river rafting or glacier visits. Might make you wonder why we are going but we’re looking forward to it.

Cruise on Radiance of the Seas from Vancouver to Seward - will take some of the ships tours, but not decided on which yet.

2 nights in Seward (Hotel 360) with a short boat trip on day of arrival, and a longer, different one the next day. Sea life centre hopefully at some point.

Coach to Anchorage for three nights, Lakefront hotel near Airport.

Train to Whittier with 26 Glacier Cruise then the train back.

Hire a car with possible visits to Native Heritage Centre, Wildlife Centre and Indian Valley Mine. Thought about Aleyska but not a priority.

Sadly we couldn’t find any way our limitations would let us get to Talkeetna or Denali.

Fly to Seattle for 2 nights before heading home.

..... thanks

I have been a member since 2001 and we were able to do this until this new system was launched. Maybe the function is just hidden somewhere, as is the answer to where?

We are doing the same thing next week. However, after we pick up a rental car from Alamo we are driving out to the Space Coast and staying with friends. We thought about the big attractions but eventually settled on Cape Kennedy Visitor center instead. Then we will drive down A1A to Fort Lauderdale for an overnight stay, then drop the car at Alamo on Eller Drive, outside the gates to Port Everglades.

We got a great price for Alamo via ‘Flexible Autos /US car hire’ also known as General Rent a Car. About 20% less than direct with Alamo. The on,y thing we don’t get is the ability to bypass the checkin desk for the car, as it’s though a third party.

Only 4 days until we leave :D

Trying to find transportation from the Alamo Car Rental Airport Drop-off (Terminal Dr) to Port Everglades Cruise Terminal 18. The location says they don't offer a shuttle which is really inconvenient. Would we be able to get a taxi? How much would a taxi charge?

We have not done this yet, but have booked our Alamo drop-off at the Port Everglades location. They do have a shuttle to the port terminals (they say). Maybe you could change location. I understand, from various review sites that Port Everglades are often glad of drop-offs on a busy port day.

Just had a look at my Royal Caribbean account. It works, almost. Should say seems ok and has our C&A points.

Managed to get it working on my iPad with Chrome, but had to orientate the device in landscape mode, otherwise half the screen was obscured by a solid dark box. Which happens to be the same problem I get with Celebrity on my iPad and PC.

Time will tell if it’s an improvement.

I have been researching tickets, passes and tokens for our upcoming Bermuda stop in April.

It seems that there are three Visitor Information Centres in the Dockyard / Kings Wharf. Each of these sells bus/ferry passes and tokens using cash or credit cards, but not ticket books.

A one day pass is $19.

See this link for details.

https://www.bermuda-attractions.com/bermuda_000091.htm

Our first TA in April 2014 was one of our favourite cruises. It was with RCL and the time changed at 12noon every time it was needed. Got confusing for some things but not a problem.

The weather was excellent until after the Azores, and we got tipped out of bed one night by a roque wave. The biggest loss that evening was most of the liquor in the Crown bar and store room. Oh, and a few broken widows and doors.

Whilst I don’t try to monitor exchange rates I always compare Celebrity direct UK pricing against our Miami based agents whom we have used for several years.

For our most recent booking the £ price was £1120 each includ8ng all fees etc. The US agent price was $1141 for the same cabin.

Needless to say I quickly booked and paid, using my excellent UK credit card (in $) which offered near perfect exchange rates and no fees. I got a final rate of $1.35 to the £.

No idea why prices differ but quite happy with what we paid. Shame the prices dropped after final payment though, but that’s life.

The following cabins are available on Siloutte aft deck 12:

2146 corner; 2148; 2153; 2151 corner.

 

I read cabin reviews and the sticky and really came up with nothing on these. Maybe it is because I spelled it incorrectly.

I had a similar question and using the sticky, opened the spreadsheet from which you can find data much more easily.

Check out this link. The cruise port is shown as Zayed Port, bottom of the map just left of centre.

http://eng.bigbustours.com/UploadedFiles/Abu_Dhabi_Map_Aug_15_201508045920.pdf

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We love both classes but would choose. radiance class for a TA - main reason is that they are newer and have Azipods rather than propellers. I always find the Azipods driven ships are smoother.

Of course the recent Anthem excitement may contradict this.

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Hello fellow cruisers!

 

I've just started writing a trip report of my recent cruise around United Arab Emirates and Oman. I sailed on MSC Musica and visited Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Khor al Fakkan (Fujairah), Muscat and Khasab.

 

If interested in reading it, please click on the link in my signature or on the following link:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2312622

 

It might give you some ideas on what you can do/see in these ports.

 

Regards,

TeDaKi

Thank you for a great review, given me lots of ideas and help for our upcoming cruise.

Splendor ots is docking in kassab until 6pm.

What to do? We don't like boat or beach excursions.

We did not find any city tour or similar tours.

Any suggestions?

We faced the same problem, Splendour in March. In the end we have booked one of the ship's half day tours.

We both really love trivia. We had a really good team on our cruise before last.

You will love a Transatlantic cruise, slow sea days with plenty of time to relax and take part in the trivia and other things that might interest you. Our first, and only so far (but more to come) was Florida to Copenhagen in 2014 - a wonderful cruise with some rough weather, but overall a great experience.

And to add to the fun we won the ten-day progressive trivia.

Have fun.

Oman is not part of the UAE as I am sure you know, it seems the hotel concierge is offering a helpful service, as others have said to speed up your boarder crossing, have a great tirp.

We have just returned from a cruise from Venice. We would not hesitate in suggesting and recommending an excellent family run hotel / b&b called Cai De Polo - it was, for us, just fabulous. It's near Piazzale Roma, a few minutes walk. Close to restaurants and an easy (sorry, no walking in Venice is easy) walk into the Rialto Bridge and San Marco.

Check out Tripadvisor for the reviews...

I have re-read my posts and realised that I actually forgot to apologise for my poorly constructed original post.

So - I am very sorry that my original post was poorly constructed - CityView offered a poor service and Old Town a very good one.

I sincerely hope that everyone who has contributed to this thread finds a trolley bus company with which they are satisfied.

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I agree not to let anything you see in here cause stress. You do need the set sail pass and your passport or relevant ID based on the country you sail from.

When you hand your bags over the porter can put labels on your bags. Just tell them your cabin (show them, your set sail pass).

Even if you checkin online you can add or change credit card details at checkin if necessary.

I like to print own labels as souvenirs. They do help me spot my bags when I leave the ship as well, as I leave them on, unless you have really colourful or bright luggage straps - we have those too. :cool:

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