cruisefamily217

Back to reality this morning after having spent last week on Epic.  Turned out to still be a fun cruise although we likely won't sail Epic again.  Not for the mech issues, but more due to the wonky layout.  We've been spoiled by the Breakaway class but that can be another thread for another time.  🙂

We were told before we sailed and also several times during our cruise that NCL would be refunding 50% of the this one and would also be offering a discount on a future cruise equal to half of of the cost of this one.  Has anyone here received their refund or been offered details about it?  We haven't seen an official written communication from NCL yet.

Fam and I are getting ready to leave for the airport but I just spoke to my agent at Priceline who said that NCL will be making an announcement at about 4:30p ET.

Great points, all!  As I go through Nola26's list and all the other responses, I'm convinced that the only material advantage of booking an excursion on our own is if we really want to do something in port that NCL doesn't offer.  But even then, I'll need to think about it.  For example, I was trying to convince the family to go fishing with me for a half day in Grand Cayman.  To be clear, my wife and daughters don't fish so it was a tough sell anyway.  But not being able to use ShorEx credit or our OBC made that half day pretty expensive.  Not to mention the "what-ifs" of getting a small fishing charter back in time.

I get the fact that booking our own excursions may be cheaper (assuming the excursions are apples to apples) and that the group sizes may be smaller, but we typically book our cruises through 3rd party cruise companies who offer OBC's as a means of discount so that's a really compelling argument for us.

Thanks so much for the info folks!!!   We're traveling as a family and I love the "insurance" an NCL booked excursion provides not to mention, the convenience of ticketing.  I think we'll book this round through NCL as the ports are new to us but we may try booking a half day on our own once we get back to "...that one particular harbor..."  🙂

Hi guys!

We're sailing on the Epic out of Port Canaveral in February which will mark our sixth cruise with NCL.  We've always booked excursions directly through NCL but, in our research, noticed that there are a number of excursions available in the ports we'll be visiting.  Any opinions on booking these "other" excursions?  We'll be visiting Falmouth, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel.

Steve