My Port shopping story

Before the story let me say I should have known better to shop for jewelry on a cruise. I have read all of the warnings and advice on these threads but the excitement of vacation and other circumstances clouded my judgement.

We took this cruise for Spring break with our 15 year old son and 11 year old daughter. Earlier in the school year our son came home with a class ring order form and asked if we would buy one for him. Knowing that after he graduates he will have no interest in wearing a High School class ring my wife suggested that we purchase him something while on this cruise. (Mistake #1 was not visiting jewelry stores at home to see what he would like and what the cost is here.) While on board my wife went to the shopping presentations to find out the best place to purchase him a gold chain as that is what we all agreed would be the best option for him. She was told by the shopping consultant that "A Touch of Gold" in Cozumel would be the recommended store to purchase this for him. So after spending half the day at the Money Bar snorkeling, eating and the parents drinking we had the cab drop us off at the recommended store. They were very helpful letting him try on multiple different chains and going through the exercise of comparing cost to size to get in the range we were looking to spend. We finally agreed on one because the sales person said it was very durable so he could wear it all the time and it wouldn't get damaged as you would expect a 15 year old boy might do.

He was very excited with the purchase and we were excited for him to have it and as expected he wore it 24/7. Fast forward to about 5 weeks after being home. Our Son comes up to my wife and says "this fell out of my chain" holding up a tiny thread thin link. My wife had him take the chain off and put the chain and link in a bag to take to a local reputable jewelry store. She was told that this chain was a nice chain but we were miss-directed as to its durability and they could fix it, but it will likely happen again. They did validate though that what we paid was a reasonable price for this chain.

After the Jewelry store visit I contacted NCL telling them the story and requesting to take advantage of their 60 day guarantee when making a purchase from one of their preferred vendors. I was directed to a marketing company called the PPI Group and given a phone number to call. I contacted the PPI Group and was asked to fill out a claim form and submit that along with a copy of the receipt and a photo of the damaged chain. They were very professional and easy to work with during this process and within a day or two were requesting I send the damaged chain and a copy of all of the previously submitted paperwork to an address in Los Angles for an exchange. Not wanting the same thing to happen to the replacement chain I requested something more durable like a rope style chain in the note that I sent with the package.

I sent the package out USPS priority on a Friday and according to the tracking it was received the following Monday. I inquired to the PPI group a couple of days later and was told that they would let me know when the replacement was sent out. having not heard anything I inquired again the Monday after they had received it and was told it had shipped and was provided a tracking number. When I arrived home from work that day there was a box waiting for me on the table and a 15 year old anxiously eager to see the contents. Inside the box was a shiny gold rope chain as requested.

So the summary of the story is there is a benefit to using the stores that the ships recommend if you are planning on shopping while you are in ports. My recommendation however is to do your homework before leaving to make sure you are paying a fair price for your items and it is probably worth a little more in price to buy something local and have the piece of mind that you can visit the store in person if you have an issue with your purchase later.

Thank you for the detailed post! It sound like you were well taken care of by NCL and PPI. But, I agree, even with a positive outcome, it does seem to have been quite a hassle! I hope your son is happy with his new chain at least!

Thanks for posting, great information to know. Glad it worked out for you.

Good post and glad all worked as it was supposed to. Sounds like you got a fair deal

Great outcome. Thanks for sharing. So nice to know that the system worked.

Thanks for posting!

So glad it all worked out for you !!!

While I was reading I kept thinking it was leading up to a sorry ending...so glad it turned out!

Actually you probably did better this way. Depending on the jeweler a local store may or may not have been cooperative with a return or exchange.