littlelulu01

According to the letter the whopping $25 applies to just the alternate choices?

I’m sorry but that amount and the restrictions are downright offensive.

$25 for your troubles screams we don’t care about you and your vacation plans.

But that’s the thing. Why would they refund your airfare when you can still use it? It still has monetary value. Just re-book your cruise or plan a different vacation. I’m assuming that just because a cruise was cancelled doesn’t mean that you still don’t want to go on vacation.

 

 

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From the sounds of what others have posted, passengers got a screaming deal with lots of perks on the original sailing. It made the vacation affordable.

Ncl decided to change the itinerary and create a new more expensive vacation. It’s either pay Ncl more money than originally agreed or use the airfare for something else. The alternative vacations are not affordable for many.

I can certainly see how an elderly person on a fixed budget would be unable to cough up the extra Ncl is requiring. She’s forced to pay the change fees and the new airfare pricing and likely can’t find anything else that was the screaming deal she bought from Ncl.

Sure she’s got a ticket worth something but if she has to pay $600 + for the original vacation, or the change fees for some other type of vacation that is also more $ than she can afford, the tickets will likely never be used.

Hopefully she can salvage something.

Have you tried calling the airline directly??? Even if the tickets are non-refundable, you may be able to get them to issue you a travel voucher. I had purchased 4 tickets from Chicago to LA and something came up and we couldn't go. They were able to issue travel vouchers instead. Without paying the change fee. You won't know unless you ask. Explain that the cruise was cancelled through no fault of yours, and throw your age in there too!! Work that age, you deserve some perks!!:)Be as nice as possible, and sound distressed. Tell them you'd be forever grateful.

 

If that fails, did you book those tickets using a credit card? If so, call your credit card company and appeal to them the same way. Good luck!

Agree. The airlines do make exceptions depending on the circumstances. I would think this is a situation worthy of an airline exception.

Last year I booked my daughter and her boyfriend a trip to Disney Aulani. I booked them a Room with my expiring Dvc points and airfare to Hawaii was non refundable on Alaska Airlines. Boyfriend in air force had deployment extended after we bombed Syria. Disney totally took care of them and squared them away in a beautiful room and Alaska Airlines also went above and beyond, no change fees, got them to Hawaii after he returned at the same low ticket prices I originally had (tickets last minute were way out of my budget) Pays to do business with top notch companies and be nice with a valid excuse.

I fly southwest and there are never any change fees. Just change the date and/or destination and presto a new trip is born.

 

 

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Definitely an option for certain markets. No $ back but full credit.

I feel bad for the op because she obviously tried to plan ahead. She insured her trip with cruise insurance through the cruise line, insured her flight.

Most consumers don’t even know that cruise lines cancel sailings if the corporation can make more $ selling your stateroom for a charter or different itinerary. We think about natural disasters, sickness, political unrest, ship breaking down at sea, missed flights...The average consumer has no idea cruise lines can and do cancel cruises simply to make more money and they are only obligated to give the customers a refund for the cruise.

We’re even more shocked to learn that there’s no insurance policy, at least in the United States, that will refund our airfare when this happens.

Another suggestion for the op to potentially avoid wading through paper work, keep the airfare you have and look into a land based vacation or a cruise on another line that fits your canceled cruise.

A travel agent might be helpful to find something in your date range. There’s a member warehouse website, think big box, that has an easy to use search tool.

I know folks are saying this cruise had great perks and pricing that they cannot find on an alternative sailing but something might pop up closer to sail date. Since you likely won’t be getting your $ back on the airfare from your Ncl Cruise insurance or airline insurance, it shouldn’t hurt to hang onto the tickets you already have for a while. At least long enough to see if you can still salvage the vacation.

Folks are always posting about mythical independent insurance plans that provide reimbursement for airfare if the cruise line canceled a cruise and you no longer can use the flight. There is no such plan. No independent insurance will give you the $ back on a flight because the cruise line canceled your cruise and you don’t want the flight anymore. Same holds true if the canceled 60 days in advance or 6 months in advance.

Sorry this happened to you op. Ncl typically will reimburse the flight change fees, up to $300 pp IF you rebook another sailing with them. What this typically looks like is you rebook the new cruise, then call the airline, rebook flights at the new fares, pay the change fee and submit to Ncl. It’s often less $ to just eat the cost of airfare and rebook a new plane fare.

The only work around I know of is booking with redeposit-abled miles such as with British Airways avios and pay the $50 redeposit fees or purchase fully refundable airfare.

Cruise lines can’t afford to cancel a sailing and let the ship sit for the week if sales aren’t going well. They’ll figure a way to fill the ship and sail. They want to make the most profit possible on each sailing so if a better opportunity for profit comes along they’ll take it. This might be a new and different itinerary, or a charter.

The Airlines are more regulated and must get you to your paid destination when you purchase a ticket. They cancel and change flights all the time but they are obligated to get you from point a to point b for agreed price once the ticket is purchased.

When a cruise line decides to sell your stateroom to someone else for more money they are only obligated to give your money back. Most passengers don’t realize this and go ahead with non refundable airfare, hotels and other plans. Some think purchase of an independent travel insurance policy will cover the airfare... Travel insurance doesn’t cover airfare if the cruise line charters your ship and cancels your vacation.

Most lines are not interested in further regulations and also wish to keep passengers, so when they sell your stateroom to someone else for more money they’ll often offer you price protection, airline change fees, extra obc on a similar sailing...

The Pearl pacific coast fall 2018 sailing was recently canceled for a charter.

due to low capacity numbers? I know the airlines will do this if the number of passengers is really low and they do not have to re-position the aircraft. Happened to me a couple of times with an airline based in ATL (hint, hint) when I lived in KS. Just wondering if anyone has heard of a cruise being cancelled in recent memory by any of the major lines due to low pre-sale.

Did they actually cancel you as in sorry we don’t do the flight you purchased any longer here’s your $ back? or did they say they have a schedule change and still get you to where you want to go? Pretty sure they cannot just tell you sorry here is your $ back.

How simple and how nice! thank you, and also for the "tip" tip....

 

How does one tip the night butler, since it's rotating? I don't know if we'd use him/her but just for general info....

I've never used the night butler but from what butlers have told me is that they rotate the duties every couple weeks. When they have night duty they don't get a lot of calls. I'd likely tip them upon receipt of service, just like I would tip room service at a hotel. I would think it would be for something fairly basic - likely not a full on dinner at 3 am but in case someone had terrible jet lag, was starving... you could likely get a sandwich or something along those lines. Also if you had a room problem. ie something broken in the room or above you banging around/not tied down preventing sleep. I just called guest services when this happened but had butler tell me next day to call the butler if the issue happened again because they wanted to make sure it was addressed immediately.

OP - sorry you got that kind of start to your vacation and I hope you talked to your butler and or concierge and got things straightened out.

We've had nothing but excellent service from the butlers on the Jade. There shouldn't be a language barrier if you are both using English. The butlers we've had all have advanced degrees and have worked their way up or have the job because of their proven work and communication skills.

I do think they have scaled back on the number of butlers on the Jade. In 2016 I think there were at least 4 or 5 plus a night shift butler. In 2017 our Haven butler also had the deck 9 & 10 forward haven and 'S' non haven suites same side of ship as the H suites he had. Despite likely having 14 suites, he was very accommodating with getting us anything we wanted, when we wanted it and it always arrived as requested.

It certainly isn't demanding to want room service. One of the big luxuries of sailing in a full suite on NCL is the ability to have a specialty dinner served to your room after a long day in port, a great breakfast on a sea day... These services are heavily advertised. Butlers on the Jade have told me to just to write down what we want for breakfast and time we want. I think they get off work at 9 pm so I've made sure to write down what I want for breakfast and get to them prior to them getting off for the night. If I want specialty dinners delivered after a long port day I'll tell him day of or make arrangements at the beginning of sailing to leave a note by the espresso machine (they tend to it daily), if I want something and when I want it.

re boarding. I think the concierge usually assigns available butlers and a few extra staff to assist with boarding. Sometimes this is an individual process and sometimes it's with a group depending on how many are boarding at the same time. Could have been a new crew helping with the boarding and even though you shouldn't have to ask for help with your bags, if you are in need of help best to ask if not offered instead of getting upset.

I’ve purchased, “Welcome back rewards” coupons. They’re available a certain number of days, up to 45?, after sailing. I think the cost is $250, counts as full deposit excluding full suites and gives you $75 obc on the future sailing.

Here’s a link

https://ncl.secure.force.com/Wheretonext/

I have only seen the prices going up. The few times I see the prices going down is if a sailing is not doing well and when that happens the prices seem to be adjusted further in advance or worst case they cancel or sell the sailing to a full charter. It's harder to tell how the non suite sales are doing just because they only show 15 max in a category. When they offer up distinctive voyage, obc, take all five and lattitude bonus they are likely anticipating slow sales. Those perks seem to get removed as sales pick up.

The pattern I've seen in general when placing deposits November - mid January they generally offer up some pretty good perk packages and obc. As the year progresses the perks in general get reduced and prices go up. After final payment they reduce the prices back to around what they originally were but only for sail away rates. I think that's the model they would like to stick with but the occasional fire sales still happen.

Suites at some point either get sold or price is adjusted so that there isn't many available by final payment. Looks like they sell enough full suites to make their necessary profit and then the rest are high priced to either sell outright or go to an upgrade bid. Anytime the suites are reasonable to begin with they sell out pretty quickly, especially on the smaller ships.

I think the best deals are still had by booking way out and watching for price drops just in case ncl missed the mark.

Defenitely not the same thing.

 

If an airline cancel a flight just because they want to they will have to take care of the additional costs for their customers. (Or is that a European thing?)

 

If a flight is cancelled because of bad weather the airline don't have to give their customers more than what they have paid for their flight because it's not the airlines fault and they can't do anything about it.

 

My experiece is that airlines try to help their customers as much as they can but I'm sure that other might have another experience of that.

In Europe they have even greater consumer protections but in the USA we also have well known protections regarding the Airlines. New Mexico Nita’s analogy is inaccurate. Not sure why but she’s used it many times In The past.

We don’t have the same protections for the cruise lines as we do with the Airlines and so yes they actually can sell you a cruise and then decide that they can cancel the sale and make more $ by selling your stateroom to someone else. They only have to give you your $ back. Most lines prefer to make the canceled passengers happy by offering up a fair alternatives and compensation for your hassle.

It’s one of the only industry’s I can think of that can actually do this to consumers and definitely not something you’re likely to consider when planning your dream vacation.

Idk what the discouragement is about but my pcc wasn’t too keen on these either. I initially asked if I could book the hotel and he said try at about a year out. Someone on our roll call successfully booked hotel so I called back and booked. Was less than I would get on my own. Decent enough rate and no hassle way to get to the ship.

For hotel rates you’ll see, “rates from.” That is not necessarily the rates you are charged for days you want. Example for Rome pre cruise; “rates from $145”. The rate I booked for two people for one night pre cruise, breakfast and transfer to ship was $270 or $135pp. That’s total with the $100 credit.

Definitely no harm in calling and checking.

Don’t know much about the airfare except they’re highly restrictive group fares = potentially major hassle if something goes wrong with flights. The bonus is that if you cancel prior to payment penalty phase you’re not out the airfare. If Ncl canceled, you’re also not out the airfare. Idk of any independent trip insurance that would give you the airfare $ refund if Ncl canceled on you. People say there’s such a thing but I have never seen it.

You edited out the important part of the post you replied to. The bartender was correct.

 

As lulu stated in her post, canned soda is not part of the soda package, only fountain soda. The bartender was saying that she could not purchase a can of soda, the bartender was correctly saying that the can of soda could not be purchased with the package.

 

Lulu did not have to get her husband's card to buy the can of soda, she could have just purchased the can on her own card.

No misunderstanding. I was very clear and so was the bartender. He told me I could get a can of soda if I went to my room and got one out of the mini bar. He said he was not allowed to sell a can of soda to someone who has a soda card. Went rounds and rounds with him. Said it made no sense because if I’m allowed to have a soda charge on my account from mini bar why can’t I have a soda can charge from the bar? He said he knows it sounds stupid but he could not sell me a can on a card that has soda package printed on it. He was happy to sell me a can with my husband’s card, his other suggestion, which imo seems more rule breaking. I honestly would have gone back to room for the cans but I had drained the mini bar the day before and wasn’t sure if it had been restocked yet. Didn’t want to waste all that time to come up empty. If it was anywhere except Iceland, and the fact we were going on a long day drive to parts unknown, I’d have purchased once off the ship. I did actually find it available at around $8/can somewhere along the way. Bottom line though is that I’d love for the people making up these beverage packages and rules to actually have to vacation with them. The non drinking passengers should be adddressed. Imo it’s an untapped extra source of income for Ncl.

Sounds like you're looking for one of these:

 

https://www.royalcaribbean.com/experience/beverage-packages

Yes. But I want it on an Ncl ship and I’d happily pay more than rci charges for their package.

I don’t have an issue with the gratuity charges on the ubp - if you drink the minimum alcoholic beverages it’s worth it. I do take issue with some of the really difficult ins and outs of the perks and packages.

Last sailing we could have taken the free ultimate beverage package because we were in a suite. Don’t drink so gratuity was more than a soda pkg. Zero discount on the soda pkg (absurd imo) so I paid full price for it. I was aware that canned soda isn’t included in the soda pkg but sometimes I want a can of Diet Pepsi. We were in Iceland where a.) Diet Pepsi is difficult to find and b.) the cost of soda and water was actually a bargain onboard and c.) I just wanted to purchase a couple cans to take with me in rental car. So as we were headed off to see about a Geyser I stopped by my friendly bartender in the garden cafe. He could not sell me a can of soda because I had a soda package. Thankfully I hadn’t purchased husband a soda pkg. I had to go back to table, get his key card, go wait in line again and purchase the cans of soda with husbands key card.

When paying the very high prices for suites and getting all these free perks, yet not getting one single “free” beverage or even a discount on a trade out for a soda pkg and no ability to purchase a soda can if you make a mistake by purchase of a soda pkg - we’ll it’s just plain maddening. Especially from a non drinker’s standpoint which I know there’s pleanty of.

I Really wish they would come out with a non alcoholic beverage replacement package that included things like canned soda, Pellegrino, water, coffees. They could easily charge as much as the ubp so it would be a money maker. It’s offensive to pay suite prices and be “given” a free beverage package that has zero benefit.

Something I'm curious about, are Jewel and the Pearl on the Alaska itinerary with the dead roll calls sailing with decent occupancy? I guess there's no way of telling. We choose late in the season hoping for smaller crowds.

Pretty sure the ships always sail full. The bonus of sailing after kids are back in school is less quad occupancy so less overall passengers onboard. If they are having issues filling ship they will offer groups a discount. Not typically a negative. More like a group invite for Park West art auction or casino or a bank...

Idk what gates jet blue uses. They don’t have the presence of Alaska Airlines but the chairs in Alaska Airlines terminals don’t have arm rests so they are conducive to sleeping. I would likely sleep in the airport too with a 5 hour layover there. Sometimes security is a breeze and you are through in no time. Sometimes it is disastrous. Seattle has a terrible employment issue as in not enough employees willing to work for minimum wages which are $15/hour. Tsa agents obviously make more than minimum wages and tsa recently approved an increase of wages to attract enough employees but they still need to hire and train them which won’t be done till mid summer IF they can actually get enough hired.

I called my pcc and had hotel added for Rome. Ncl website says, “pricing from”. That’s the lowest per person price and not necessarily the rates you will get.

Ncl Rates for Europe hotels include breakfast, luggage handling/tips, taxes and transfer from hotel to port. I think rate, with dv credit, is about the same as independent booking but the transfer and breakfast is included with Ncl dv booking.

I’d consider it an easy option, not necessarily the least expensive.

Once it’s booked it shows up in “my Ncl”

A few things my pcc told me; you can add the dv hotel as long as they have rooms available. They only have a certain # blocked off at that rate. You can’t take away nights without potentially losing the credit. Example if you book 4 pre cruise with dv credit and decide you only need one night, pcc said you need to cancel all nights and then if dv rate is available you can rebook the one dv night. Something to consider if booking hotel prior to airfare.

Dv hotel can be canceled no penalty up till final payment. After final payment there’s a penalty schedule.

I booked one night pre cruise at the crown plaza Rome. Total dv rate for two was $135pp. So $270 including breakfast and transfer. That’s pricing with the dv $100 credit.

This year I'm sure the Bliss has something to do with it. You know new ship and everyone wants to be on it. If I had to make a guess about the age demographic's on my last Alaska cruise, I'd put it late 40's as the average. Yeah they seem dead, but I'm not as concerned about the roll call issues as I am on what the heck am I going to do in Seattle with a 6 hour layover on the way to Anchorage.

That’s a VERY long layover. Alaska Airlines has flights about every half hour/hour pretty much all day/all night. I’d pay a change fee and get on an earlier connection. Tsa can be a nightmare at SeaTac so not worth leaving security. A couple weeks ago they were taking all day for security due to lack of employees. Airlines are also pretty strict about passengers boarding airplanes from/to anchorage intoxicated so be careful about spending too much time in an airport bar. I’ve seen many passengers kicked off this particular route for being drunk. They don’t want to divert the flights due to disorderly conduct because there isn’t many options from here to there to divert to and they run a tight schedule with so many flights back and forth.

Also don’t plan on any upgrades with Airlines. It’s a joke how many mvp golds and above are on this route. It’s a big mileage accrual route and many passengers are on that route a couple days a week.

I think many passengers are just not into cc that sail Alaska. The demographic on sailings we’ve been on are a lot of families and multigenerational. Also many from the area. First time i sailed the Pearl with daughter she ran into several friends from her hs, sailing with Mom/Dad, grandparents, cousins...East coast has tons more cruises available and a lot more people so likely more folks repeat customers compared to west coast. The more often you cruise the more likely you’ll find out about cc and roll calls.

Alaska ports are either in the USA or Canada so very easy to diy = less need to organize groups on roll calls. Since many passengers are already “home” when they board, they likely feel comfortable doing activities on their own. Despite the lack of advanced age passengers, it’s not the party atmosphere I’ve seen on Caribbean sailings. Passengers seem content to be out hiking, kayaking... all day and then getting a good nights sleep. Nature is the big draw for Alaska. Not necessarily the ship. The Bliss is likely different and is drawing passengers more excited about the big new ship itself than the ports visited.

Some Europe roll calls are very active with many group excursions planned.

We’ve done b2b in Europe before and didn’t need to get off the ship at any certain time. A letter was delivered to stateroom. They had a meeting we didn’t attend but it was a question and answer and verbal explanation of what was outlined in the letter.

Letter instructed us to go to guest services and pick up our new stateroom keycards last day of first leg. They kept one running tab so no need to settle it. We were given in transit stickers to wear when getting back onboard so no need to wait in line with the rest of passengers embarking. Slick and easy process. treated turnaround day as a port day.

of course it does or my opinion is it does. I am not getting into politics either but don't like what has happened in the past few weeks. I do think the market, certainly the cruise stocks will be just fine in the long run. People posting these scare posts are not helping anyone.

A carnival poop cruise or something similar would have an effect, but in the stock trading of nclh, a corporation that’s trading mainly with just a few big fellas, the stock prices have nothing to do with a few speculative postings on a travel website.

Most of nclh stock is institutionally held. Apollo selling off shares may have impact, but I doubt that even Andy Stewart or Frank Del Rio buying or selling off thousands of shares on a given day has an impact on the stock prices.

Nclh stocks don’t follow oil prices. I’m sure they hedge oil so perhaps it follows their hedges. Anymore it’s anyone’s guess what stocks in general will do on any given day. Crazy times for sure. Their prices also don’t follow usd. The usd isn’t particularly strong right now compared to recent years.

I'm so glad some of you found a decent replacement and saved your vacation.